Friends, here’s some more fun Jonesiana, a video compiled some years ago by the FFFF Moving Pictures Division. Enjoy the HeeHaw, oxytoxins, coughs and croups – and control, control control, Dick Jones-style!
The other day FFFF did a post about the letter Travis Kiger received from Fullerton’s Interim PoChief, David Hinig, suggesting that at some point an FPD in-house institution called the “Professional Standards Bureau” might, some day, possibly, if they feel like it, get around to looking into his complaint about the behavior of Fullerton cops at the Joe Felz Memorial Crash Site in the early morning hours of November 9th, 2016. That’s when the former City Manager, after a night of election partying, jumped a Glenwood Avenue curb, ran over a tree, and tried to leave the scene of the accident.
Professional Standards Bureau. Okay, stop snickering.
I got to thinking about the long history of the FPD Culture of Corruption that happily existed right along side this supposed “Bureau,” and the recollection of all the embezzlers, thieves, pickpockets, perjurers, kidnappers, thugs, pill-poppers, scammers, liars, sex perverts and yes, killers, gave pause. But not for long, because you know, that’s all ancient history, right? The department was reformed by Danny Hughes, according to our lobbyist-councilwoman, Jennifer Fitzgerald.
But then something struck me. What was it? Think, Peabody.
Aha! A post from a just a few weeks ago.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC & Paid for by Fullerton Taxpayers
It was a ludicrous story dished out by the noisome “Behind the Badge,” all about the FPD’s hardworking crew that makes sure all the cops have got the right training, etc. Remember? The Professional Standards Bureau that takes its job so seriously! And do you remember who was the featured player in that stage production? Right. The adipose Andrew Goodrich, serial story-teller in the Kelly Thomas Affair, explainer of “excessive horning” tickets, etc.
Well, shit, howdy. And who was the Watch Commander on duty on the night of November 8th? The one who was in communication with his boss, Chief Danny Hughes, and who was therefore at the center of the Who Let Joe Go? controversy? That’s right! Goodrich.
So new Chiefie is promising that someday, maybe, the “bureau” run by Goodrich will get around to investigating…Goodrich. Well, isn’t that cute?
Sometimes the best Christmas presents are the ones you give yourself. In this case that would be Complaint #PSB16-0048.
See, when you submit a complaint to the FPD about an incident that involves their personnel’s abandonment of policy, they do respond in writing. Here’s the response to the complaint filed by Travis Kiger about the behavior of the FPD cops who dealt with the Joe Felz incident in the early hours of November 9, 2016 in which Felz jumped a Glenwood Avenue Tree, ran over a tree, and attempted to leave the scene of the accident; all we know is that the doughty minions of the law confronted him in some as yet unknown manner, smelled alcohol on his person, declined to give him a Breathalyzer test and drove him home. We also know that the watch commander, the egregious Andrew Goodrich, and the former police chief Danno Hughes were in communication, a fact that most certainly never would have happened had you or I been the motorist. In fact, Goodrich would no doubt have our pictures in the next morning’s early editions.
Now, as to the content of the letter, notice how now the FPD has now decided to do nothing until the DA figures out what to do. It’s hard to see how this is anything other than temporizing, given the need to at least pretend to some proactivity on the matter to show the public – in a “timely manner.”
Of course we were also promised some sort of “independent person” report too, by our estimable City Attorney, Dick Jones, that seems to have vanished into the late December air. But a civilian investigation is important too, given what might be an overly charitable adios to Mr. Felz by sympathetic council members.
FFFF has written about this particular scam before: the Fullerton cop union sends out a pleading request for donations to…itself. Now the supplicant is FPOA boss, Stewart Hamilton, and he writes to you just before Christmas – the Season of Giving!
The thing is so illogical, so dumb, and is really nothing more than pandering to the brainless, or maybe kids with access to their parent’s debit card.
Here’s the latest version of the plea for your hard-earned dough:
Notice first the emotional supplication from behind the Thin Blue Line: we’re there for you now we need you! Well, they want your money, that’s for sure, as will become evident by the end of the letter.
But no, it’s really not about money, see, it’s about family! “Knowing we are not alone” makes all the difference. Alone? They’ve got a over a hundred members plus a completely subservient city council majority.
The cheapest and dirtiest part of this greasy swindle is tying it to helping local charities and their good works. Except that there’s no details and no information about a charitable deduction. And what kind of gullible numbskull would make a charitable donation via the cop union? I’ll answer that: someone who shouldn’t have access to cash or credit.
The recipient is told that somehow his donation will “make a difference” to “fallen heroes” although this is not explained; possibly because Fullerton’s one and only “fallen hero” fell twenty-seven years ago.
But the union, that pours tens of thousands of dollars into each Fullerton politcal campaign to elect lackeys on the council like Flory, Chaffee and Fitzgerald, wants you to know how much they appreciate your generosity. Give a hundred bucks and get a lapel pin! Give $250 and you can add a “toy K9” to your bric-a-brac shelf! Double down on that and you will get a “custom” plaque you may hang on your den wall – right next to the plaque with the singing rubber bass.
For the guy with only fifty dollars to part with, you, sir, will get a decal for your car window, although Mr. Stewart assures us that it will not get you preferential treatment should you be unlucky enough to fall into the clutches of the FPD. Still you have to wonder if, maybe, former City Manager, Joe Felz wasn’t displaying a decal the nigh he jumped a Glenwood Avenue curb, ran over a tree, tried to get away and was subsequently driven home by grateful members of the FPOA.
Well, the short answer is that if they don’t get a call from the Chief of Police telling you to drive the dude home, they’ve got their man. And if they’re lucky they get to keep his impounded his car.
Ironic use of photo by Bill Alkofer, OC Register
Seriously, though, the virtually useless OC Register ran another one of its slanted, pro cop pieces yesterday about the evils of mary-j-wanna, and I wouldn’t even bother posting about it except that it featured the images and words of Fullerton’s expert dope detecting cops.
The extreme irony of Fullerton cops being set up as exemplars in the detection of impaired drivers seems to have escaped the writers and editors at the Register, given the department’s behavior in the case of the Missing Maniacal Motorist, former City Manager, Joe Felz, who was apprehended after jumping a Glenwood Avenue curb, uprooting a tree, and trying to drive off. Despite emitting an odor of alcohol strong enough to be detected by a cop on the scene, the boyz in blue gave Joe a pass and a ride home. I’m not sure, but he may have been tucked into bed, and gotten a glass of warm milk and a cookie, too.
An alert Friend sent in this image of a guy recognized as Orange County District Attorney investigator, Abraham Santos, at the scene of the Memorial Joe Felz Crash Site. Well, now we know that the DA is indeed involved in this mess. What sort of crime he might be investigating and how he is investigating it, are far from clear. No one was ever arrested, or charged. We aren’t even sure if anybody got a traffic citation for reckless driving. Could the DA be investigating the behavior of the Fullerton cops? For some reason that idea provides no consolation. But the sooner the deal is whitewashed, the sooner we can get the video recordings made by the cop cams.
Also please note that Sappy McTree has been removed.
We may have bid a fond adios to former City Manager, Joe Felz, but the mess he leaves behind still needs to be attended to.
The most timely issue is Fullerton Police Department personnel conduct in the Case of the Missing City Manager. The police on the scene of Joe’s Big Crash drove him home sans Breathalyzer test, and despite the fact that his vehicle had careened out of control and run over a parkway tree; and this after an evening of fun DTF libations and despite the fact that a cop on the scene smelled alcohol emanating from Joe. Did the cops follow their own rules? Or did they help their boss boss get away with a couple of crimes? From here, it looks pretty bad.
It’s been six weeks and nobody knows what’s being investigated. Or even if there’s any investigation at all.
What’s happening now? Certainly there’s no evidence of an internal investigation. Nothing more about the hiring of the mysterious “independent person.” And who really knows if anything got sent to the DA? Our city council (at least certain members) is in the dark, and so are we.
When the perps are about to get away, you gotta do what you gotta do. Filing a personnel complaint initiates an internal investigation, or at least a pretend investigation, into the events of election night, just in case one doesn’t already exist. So one of the Friends decided to do just that.
When the investigation is complete, this complaint entitles the filer to a letter from the Chief of Police indicating whether the finding was sustained or not sustained. That’s not much, but something is better than nothing.
I have a thought experiment for those of you who work in the private sector.
Let’s suppose you are accused of some misdeed by your employer. It could something minor like rudeness to a customer, or something potentially criminal such as embezzlement, assault or even potentially murder or manslaughter.
Hypothetically
Let’s further suppose your employer comes to you and asks you about certain accusations. What do you suppose would happen if you refused to answer any questions about that incident unless you had an attorney present? And if you did speak to speak to your employer what are the chances they would agree to not use your statement against you in a criminal action? Could you refuse a polygraph test under any circumstance? And could you insist your employer never disclose the results of their investigation upon pain of criminal prosecution?
The answer in the private sector is clear cut: while you have constitutional rights in criminal proceedings (including the right to have an attorney present and against self incrimination) if you refuse to cooperate with an employer you can be fired on the spot.
Not so for many of our public employees. Thanks to the Police Officer’s Bill of Rights (Government Code §3300-3311) many of the rights afforded to all of us in criminal prosecutions are also afforded to officers in administrative actions. For example, pursuant to Government Code §3303(f), statements made under duress, coercion “or threats of punitive action” are inadmissible in civil proceedings as well as criminal. Thanks to the decision in Lybarger v. City of Los Angeles (1985) 40 Cal.3d 822, an officer can be disciplined for refusing to answer questions in an administrative hearing, but only if they are first told that the statements cannot be used against him in any criminal matter. An officer also has a right to have council present during any administrative proceedings relating to their conduct. And if there is a violation of any of these or other rights, there is no requirement to exhaust administrative remedies first (like the rest of us have to); the officer can immediately sue in Superior Court.
The combination of the protections in POBAR and the Supreme Court decision in Copley Press, Inc. v. Superior Court (39 Cal.4th 1272) have combined to essentially make our public safety employees above the law. Copley guarantees that any complaints against officers that are handled through the police department will be investigated at the sole discretion of that department, since the public is typically not told how the department ruled or why. Or even whether they looked into the matter at all. Remember, Chief Dan Hughes once admitted that many complaints against officers were simply tossed into the wastepaper basket, since there was no ramification for the department for doing so.
“After careful deliberation, we have concluded that no evidence exists to warrant disciplinary action. At least, not anymore.”
This does not mean that there are no good officers in Fullerton, but it does mean that there are no meaningful external check on the conduct of officers that are a problem, so long as the conduct is not so shocking it winds up becoming a national story. And even then, the protections afforded by POBAR makes firing for even the most shocking crime difficult. See for example Kenton Hampton, who is still employed by the Fullerton Police Department (and pulling in $175,958.90 in total pay and benefits as of 2015, according to Transparent California) despite his involvement in the beating death of Kelly Thomas and the beating/ false imprisonment of Veth Mam (video here) and the fact that even Joseph Wolfe may actually be reinstated despite his role in Thomas’s death.
Since we cannot rely on transparency (state law prohibits it), and we cannot rely on officers within the department to come forward (don’t forget, Copley makes disclosure of internal personnel records a criminal offense, and as Paul Irish has recently learned, even mild, non-specific criticism of department policy can get you in more trouble with your employer than standing around doing nothing while your fellow officers beat a man to death), I concluded several years ago that an effective independent Civilian Oversight Commission was the best method of placing some check on our public employees. Rather than simply advocate for the civilian oversight, those of us who were advocating it decided to prepare their own proposed ordinance, which Matt Leslie has been hosting on his Fullerton Rag blog ever since (it can be found here, although the transfer does appear to have altered the subsections in a way that makes it a bit confusing).
The specifics of and the benefits of the proposed ordinance, and the means in which this City Council could implement it, will be discussed in Part 2.
Once again the Boys & Girls in Blue have decided to insult the residents of Fullerton with a poorly timed Press Release via the F.P.D. Facebook Page where they tell that we need to “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” and that they’ll be “stepping up enforcement” of impaired driving laws.
This Press Release is actually dated yesterday, 13 December 2016, the EXACT same day that it was announced at the Special City Council Meeting that the City Manager, Joe Felz, has left his position with the city. Weepy words from Jennifer Fitzgerald notwithstanding we know that Felz left owing to his own alleged D.U.I. Hit-&-Run that F.P.D. and the City Attorney are still attempting to cover up with boilerplate legal obfuscation and the myth of an ongoing investigation.
From the Press Release;
“We want to keep our roads safe for the holiday travelers, so we will have zero tolerance for drunk or drugged driving.”
F.P.D. will have zero tolerance. Zero! None I dare say.
Unless of course you’re part of the upper echelon of our City’s Bureaucratic Bureaucracy and can get the Police Chief on speed dial.
I figured the award for most clueless response to the Felz departure would go to Fitzgerald & Flory for their nonsense praise but this press release might take the cake. To be fair the F.P.D. probably didn’t know that Felz was on the way out when they wrote this little public service announcement but they certainly knew of their own culpability in the continuing culture of city corruption.
Word on the street is that City Hall is glad to be rid of Felz and now they’re just itching to get rid of his sycophantic entourage that continues to make city life miserable. Stay tuned as we might be able to help with some of that as time passes. If any intrepid City Employees want to help foster some more changes you know how to reach out to us here at F.F.F.F..
One of our well-placed sources in the City administration has informed us that on-leave City Manager, Joe Felz will be quitting permanently soon, even as conversations now spin around who will replace Felz. Is this true? It has the ring of truth to it.
Speaking of spinning, Felz spun off the Glenwood Avenue in the early morning hours of November 9th, ran over a tree and tried to drive away. The cops on hand smelled alcohol but for reasons that have not yet been revealed, administered no breathalyzer test and instead drove Felz home.
The City Attorney has been trying to protect Felz with illegal bogus claims of “personnel matters,” so that excuse would soon be gone if Felz flees the scene. Then there’s the matter of the rather bizarre “ongoing criminal investigation,” that some folks reasonably think is nothing but another dodge to avoid releasing incriminating video and audio records that were made when the cops arrived at the crash scene. No one has even bothered to explain to the public what possible crimes were committed, or who may have committed them. And of course our City Council members have not expressed any curiosity about that, either. Sooner or later our mush-mouth City Attorney is going to have to admit a big problem with his “criminal investigation” yarn, to wit: nobody was arrested that night. No evidence of drunk driving was collected. We don’t even know if a citation was issued.
When Felz goes, he will save the the taxpayers the cost of that so-called “independent person investigation” that the City Attorney thoughtfully cooked up to stall and obfuscate the matter. If so, it will be the one and only time Felz ever saved the taxpayers anything, and that going out the door.
Of course the open question is this: what sort of windfall will be offered by our ever-helpful council to grease the skids of Felz’s departure? If he quits he won’t get his guaranteed payola, but the circumstances of his Wild Ride may make that a moot point.
Whatever happens, rest assured, we will told as little as possible, as late as possible.