We Get Mail

Here’s a little message we got at FFFF Central Ops today. This seems to be the talking point of law enforcement trolls in the Kelly Thomas matter. Blame dear old Dad for neglect, and now for wanting to cash in. This writer actually tries (without success) to redeem his/her ignorance and appalling spelling and grammar by admitting that the cops who murdered Kelly should be punished (well Hell, that’s mighty big of ya).

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Subject: mr thomas’s alterior motives

so kelly thomas’s father threw kelly out of the house, put him on the street, and put him in an arm bar to force him onto a psych unit. hiis son was starving and homeless for years, but now all of a sudden mr thomas cares about him? he just wants millions out of this..yes the officiers should go to jail but mr thomas put his son out there in those volatiile condiitons simply because hiis son did not want to take his meds…if mr thomas cared about kelly’s wellbeing so much he would not put him on the streets you would think that that would be more dangerous for someone’s health than being off a drug

Of course we have been all over this ground before and if you believe that Kelly’s parents had the legal or practical ability to restrain their boy and force him to take medication you are a damned fool. In any case this simple, inescapable, unavoidable truth remains: if Ramos, Wolfe, Cicinelli, Blatney and Klein had not killed him, Kelly Thomas would be be alive today.

As far as a big payout is concerned, I’m wondering if advertising Ron Thomas’ greed is going to be the tact taken by the Three Recalled RINOs and their misbegotten backers, in an attempt to deflect criticism for their own dismal failures, before and after the murder.

So far the Three Tree Trunks have adamantly refused to even admit that there is a Culture of Corruption that runs through the police department – a culture created by McKinley’s incompetence (or worse) and nurtured by Jones and Bankhead’s sleepy and grumpy indifference. So why not cast about for a somebody else to blame?

Suicide in Fullerton Jail Should Raise Questions

He checked in, but he din't check out.

Last spring Dean Francis Gochenour, 52, was arrested in Fullerton for suspicion of drunk driving and was taken to the Fullerton jail. He never left. Not alive, anyway.

In the early morning hours of April 15, 2011  Gochenour was discovered in a holding cell, dead. Death by apparent “hanging” was passed out by the cops to the media, although what he was hanging from and by what means wasn’t elaborated. Here’s the brief news clip.

Almost immediately, however, stories began to emanate from the basement of the police HQ to the effect that Gochenour had been demeaned and taunted by the arresting officer; that he had been admonished by the cop to kill himself; that the cop’s behavior had been witnessed and or overheard by a jail employee and reported to his bosses; that a superior had confronted the officer in question, whereupon the latter tried to smash his DAR to destroy evidence; but that said evidence was retrieved.

He was not like you Rotarians. I mean he was not a credible witness. And now he's dead. I guess we could do another one of those "in-house" investigations we excel at.

It would not be entirely out of character for a Fullerton cop to urge an arrestee to commit suicide, given what we’ve seen of the thuggish behavior of our police lately. Is that what happened? Exactly how Gochenour died is not clear. In April it seemed a lot less suspicious than it does now, especially since FPD spokesmen have been shown to play fast and loose with the truth.

All of which begs the questions: who was the cop involved and what is his current employment status? In Fullerton, such things are shrouded behind a nearly impenetrable curtain.

We will try to pull it back and find out.

How To Blow $17,000

 

The good old days...

Item #3 on yesterday’s agenda was a request by Acting Chief-Until-Mike-Sellers-Pulls-His-Head-Out-and-Comes-Back-to-Work Hamilton to buy some spiffy raincoats for his lads. 200 to be precise, at a cost of $17,000. That’s $85 bucks a pop, and presumably Hamilton got a great discount for quantity.

These uber-raincoats meet some sort of Federal guideline for work in “federal-aid” highways right-of-ways (weren’t you losing sleep worrying about that?). And naturally the current coats are old and only “water resistant.” Typical. in government resource mismanagement is always used as an excuse for big, new, outlays.

But consider this: right now Fullerton’s entire police force numbers about 140 (give or take, depending on how many are on paid or unpaid administrative leave and can’t work on any highway, federal-aid or otherwise. Then there’s the fact that not all 140 are on duty at any one time. Then there’s the fact that only a fraction of the force will actually be on patrol when it’s actually raining and might be needed to stand around after a car crash. Finally there’s the obvious fact that these people really ought to  be able to share a few dozen of the same infrequently used garments.

Oh, it's raining all right.

Please note that because the money is from asset seizure and not General Fund, the requestor is unashamed to make such a profligate request.

So how did our esteemed city council vote? Apparently it passed on the Consent Calendar nod 5-0.

3 @ 50. What Does It Mean?

Jeez, retirement's going to be sweet...

Some of our loyal readers have asked about the 3 @ 50 pension formula that many, if not most “public safety” employees receive. It’s pretty simple. You get to retire at age 50. The 3 is a multiplier applied to the number of years you have been employed. The guy or gal who works for 30 years would get 90% of his or her highest salary as a pension. For life. Pretty sweet gig, eh?

Go ahead have three. Somebody will pay for them later...

Many public agencies also tack on other benefits as income, boosting pensions even higher. The worst scam of all is foisted on the public by the agencies that consider the taxpayer’s payment of the employees’ share of pension paycheck deductions as income counted toward their pensions. This charming little ripoff is known colloquially as “PERS on PERS,” PERS being an acronym for Public Employee Retirement System.

So, what is the tie in to Fullerton?

Well, let’s start with the Three Dyspeptic Dinosaurs, Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley. Back in 2001, at the behest of Andy Goodrich and his union, these two voted to give the 3 @50 formula for the Fullerton Police and Fire Departments. The decision was voluntary and wittingly done. If that weren’t bad enough, of course the benefit was applied retroactively, meaning that many cops and firemen who had worked for decades under the previous formula were suddenly handed a titanic bonanza of taxpayer confiscated wealth, with the single stroke of Mayor Don Bankhead’s pen. And that single stroke of glaring incompetence has contributed to a massive unfunded pension liability that Fullerton citizens will have to carry indefinitely.

Yep, that's me!

And who is one of the principle beneficiaries of this generosity with the public purse? You guessed it. Former police Chief and current councilman Pat McKinley, who has picked up the moniker “Pat McPension” for his $215,000 a year pension – far more than he ever made working.

They may be dumb but they sure are slow...

Now this profligate behavior with public funds is typically the sort of behavior attributed to liberal Democrats. In Fullerton the heist was perpetrated by allegedly “conservative” Republicans who believe wearing stupid lapel pins is what really matters. Well, they sold us out, folks.

Bankhead, Jones and McKinley.

 

Is Pat McPension Voting on Settlements to Cover Up His Poor Decisions as Police Chief?

Just give me a year or two. I'll come up with something...

Could be. These things are decided by the City Council behind closed doors in what is called “Closed Session.”

It would be a pretty neat and convenient trick to be able to sweep a whole lot of nasty crap under the carpet that might otherwise be more closely scrutinized during a public trial. And when that nasty crap reflects directly on your own incompetence, ignorance, and misfeasance, so much the better.

So it is with Fullerton City Council recall target and former Chief of Police, Pat McKinley. See, Pat is the guy who personally hired all the FPD goons, thieves, pickpockets, druggies, perjurers and killers who have been in the news lately. He says he is proud of all of them (but two – presumably the “aliens” Cicinelli and Ramos). And he apologizes for nothing

Consider this: as a City Councilman McKinley can get to decide how much money is paid out to the victims of those low-life hires he is so proud of. The conclusion that some of these payouts give off the stink of hush money is inescapable. A $350,000 payout was made just recently in the Albert Rincon sexual assault cases; and new plaintiffs are already forming a considerable conga line. What was McKinley’s role in this settlement? What will his role be in future FPD-caused civil suit settlements?

The most embarrassing issue of all (and potentially the most costly), will be the fact that then Chief McKinley knowingly hired and happily deployed to the streets of Fullerton a one-eyed cop whom the Chief of the LAPD wisely rejected as unfit for duty; and McKinley did it knowingly and happily as a favor to an old crony. Obviously no thought was given to the safety of the very public McKinley had sworn to protect.

This appears to me as a blatant conflict of interest and so, one hopes, it would also appear to McKinley. But unfortunately McKinley’s sense of ethics and sense of self-entitlement are a lot different than mine and yours.

Are you comfortable with McKinley having anything to do with settling a case that would shine a spotlight on his own corrupt misfeasance? The embarrassing details of the sexual predator Albert Rincon will never receive the public scrutiny of a public trial; nor will the fact that this was just another of the many miscreants hired and let loose on the public by McKinley.

Will McKinley recuse himself on the Quinonez and Veth Mam cases? Or the Kelly Thomas case? What about possible employee decisions with regard to Hampton, Wolfe, Blatney, Klein, Mejia, et al?  If not, he is putting his lack of ethics on display; if he does it begs the question of how he can serve on the Council at all. See where I’m going with this?

Maybe you would just feel more comfortable if he weren’t in office anymore, at all.

Fullerton Redevelopment Whores Line Up To Praise Redevelopment Pimps

Last Tuesday’s council meeting included a comical orchestration in which numerous recipients of taxpayer subsidies ambled up to the microphone to heap praise upon the Three Blind Mice. They have millions of reasons to do so, as you will see in the accompanying video clip to which I have thoughtfully added text explaining who these people are and how much they have to gain by backing the present corrupt and incompetent regime.

Well we say it’s way past time for a regime change!

Dithering Dinosaurs Dine Out; McPension Opens Mouth, Inserts Foot. Again.

Unfortunately, age did not confer wisdom...

The Old Boy Network of the Fullerton establishment held a fundraiser for their old boys at the Villa Del Sol the other night. We will be sharing our own video later if our boys in the White Van ever recover from their serial ingestion of raw opium poppies that admin now grows in his backyard.

Lookin' good in yellow! (Photo by Marisa Gerber OC Weekly)

In the meantime, here’s a story on the event from Marisa Gerber of the OC Weekly. She mordantly describes the anti-recall attendees:

a rather homogeneous crew of sexagenarians and older — gathered at a pricey fundraiser tonight to support three beleaguered city leaders.

As usual the best quote of the night come from high school graduate and architect of the Culture of Corruption in the Fullerton Police Department, Pat McKinley:

He can handle it, he said, adding that what frustrated him most was hearing people “who probably never graduated high school” bad-mouth the mayor, who used to be a doctor.

Oh, oh. The literary She Bear who gets $215,000 a year courtesy of the taxpayer for doing nothing is taking shots at the academic accomplishments of the recallers. Bad idea Chief. Some folks might start asking about the scholastic level of your police force!

Moxley Drop Kicks Whiting

My wife says I'm not a limp-wristed fascist...

Remember the useless OC Register tool David Whiting, who just couldn’t bend his moth ball size brain around the concept of a killer cop? And remember this pathetic load of road apples in which Whiting firmly attached his eagerly quivering lips to Doc HeeHaw’s withered undercarriage?

Now enjoy The OC Weekly’s Scott Moxley (a real reporter, by the way) as he tunes up the OC Register’s hackling, here. There seems to be a long tradition of pro-cop stoogery at the the rag, er, I mean the Reg, and Whiting is the latest wearer of the crown.

The central theme of Moxley’s piece is the notion that members of the Fourth Estate have a moral obligation to challenge those in authority, not lick their, um, boots. Poor Lou Ponsi is forced by his boss to write fluff pieces. Whiting has no such excuse; he seems perfectly content to pet and pamper those in authority, no matter how little he actually knows about what’s really going on.

If the Register can’t do its job a journalistic endeavor, I say it’s time to pull the plug. Who will join me in a boycott?

 

 

Never Forget

It’s been a year since the election of 2010. But let’s take a moment to reflect upon those who were endorsed by the public safety unions in Fullerton:

 

Right. Bankhead, McKinley and Roland Chi. What a crew!

Bankhead, the brain shift-slip octogenarian; McKinkley, the bad cop who littered the Fullerton Police Department with thugs, goons, pickpockets, pill-popping con men, sexual predators, perjurers, and of course murderers; and Roland Chi, the food poisoner from Garden Grove who only escaped prosecution by handing over his DNA to the DA.

Like the unionistas themselves, huge pension recipients Bankhead and McKinley could be safely counted on to curry favor with labor; and oh, they tried so hard after the brazen Kelly Thomas murder at the hands of six Fullerton cops to protect their campaign benefactors. Roland Chi was just a contemptible scofflaw who never should have come out from behind the rancid squid display in the first place.

And all three were safe bets to impose the annual and illegal 10% tax on your water, a tax that goes to pay their own pensions!

And folks this is why we need a recall!

Medical Leave? Um, So What Was the Problem, Again?

Suddenly the job lost its attraction...

I’m starting to get a little annoyed about a system that coddles public employees, especially those who are supposed to be providing “public” safety, yet who seem to creating more public danger than safety, especially when budget time rolls around.

Let’s take our current police chief, Michael Sellers, who is on some sort of indefinite sick leave. Is he really sick? His doctor says so and like our idiot mayor, I am willing to believe he somehow got hold of a medical degree and a license to be a doctor.

So what’s ailing Sellers? Initial reports said high blood pressure and stress. Hell, I give my cat medicine for its high blood pressure, so that’s a load of bullshit right there. Stress?!! Jeez, some tax payers rightfully conclude that workplace stress is one of the reasons people like Sellers are paid huge salaries of almost $20,000 a month. 

Maybe Sellers is just sick all of a sudden about being held accountable for something he was supposed to be in charge of.

And now that Sellers has disappeared to the friendly beach-side confines of San Clemente, he still pulls down that fabulous salary for doing nothing! At this point some cynical folks might assert that Sellers wasn’t doing anything anyway, so what’s the difference? Hard to argue against that. But Sellers has a boss – City Manager Joe Felz; and Joe Felz has five bosses – the city council. So who the Hell has been in charge of the Fullerton police the past two years? Nobody, apparently. It’s true that Pat McPension left Sellers a culture of corruption, but still, Sellers must have known what was going on.

Will he be back? The Three Mummified Miscreants don’t seem to think so, but their lawyer has told them they can’t talk about it.