Category: Law N Disorder

Posted onBehind Closed Doors

Suicide in Fullerton Jail Should Raise Questions

by 232 Comments on 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.

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

Cicinelli LAPD Pension Safe; Too Bad Fullerton Wasn’t Safe From Cicinelli

by 118 Comments on Cicinelli LAPD Pension Safe; Too Bad Fullerton Wasn’t Safe From Cicinelli

The guy who pounded Kelly Thomas’ face to bloody jelly (right after he got done torturing him with multiple Taser shocks) won’t lose his disability pension from the LAPD. In fact, the board that oversees such things won’t even review the case. Marisa Gerber relates the story in the OC Weekly, here.

What case is that? It stems from Cicinelli’s getting all shot to hell a few weeks out of the chute back in the mid-90’s. Among other injuries, one of his eyes was shot out. At the time, the pension board granted him a lifetime disability, but of course that decision didn’t contemplate Cicinelli going back to work as a one-eyed cop, which he did in Fullerton a little while later. And apparently nobody from Fullerton bothered to inform anybody in LA of Cicinelli’s new employment status.

So Cicinelli was making $40K a year from LAPD and made about $90K from Fullerton on that hot, sultry night of July 5th, 2011. Equitable? You decide.

Speaking of getting two pensions, I now roll around to the main point of this post. Which is Pat McKinley, the double barreled pension grabber who, as chief of the Fullerton Police Department hired Cicinelli and deployed the one-eyed cop on the streets of Fullerton. It was a favor for an old LAPD crony. In so doing, he placed Cicinelli, the public, and the taxpaying citizenry at dire risk.

He also hired the rest of the FPD gallery of rogues that has made the news lately: the druggies, pickpockets, perjurers, thugs, sex offenders and killers.

McKinley still insists he is proud of all these people (except for “the two!”) and has nothing to apologize for.

See, in Pat’s weird world mistakes are never admitted, responsibility for failure is never taken, and of course, accountability is utterly absent. McKinley won’t acknowledge what everybody else already knows: during his tenure as the head of the Fullerton Police Department his leadership failure created an obvious Culture of Corruption that culminated with the death of Kelly Thomas and the subsequent attempt to hush it up.

Well, I guess since McKinley won’t man up to his own failures, we’re going to have to do it for him

 

 

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

How To Blow $17,000

by 237 Comments on 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.

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Posted on"Dick" Ackerman

“Dick” Ackerman Moral Weathervane of the Anti-recall Team. Part 3.

by 128 Comments on “Dick” Ackerman Moral Weathervane of the Anti-recall Team. Part 3.
Heh, heh. When nobody was looking the collection plate went missing.

When you are a moral vacuum like Dick Ackerman, you really don’t stand for much of anything except your own well-being. Public service? Hell, no! It’s all about personal service. Everything else is just platitudes and bull shit.

An indication of Mr. Ackerman’s future career path was clearly established with the creation of a fake charity by his wife that was simply a mechanism to get state legislators (one of whom was Mr. Ackerman) alone on Maui with lobbyists for big corporate interests who actually paid for the whole junket. Ackerman is hilariously quoted as saying how beneficial these get togethers were, as if being lobbied in Sacramento (instead of Hawaii by the same cast of characters) was somehow just so much more darned inefficient. FFFF posted all about the utterly phony Pacific Policy Research Foundation, here.

I don't even know how I got into the room...

That was just the start of Mr. Ackerman exploiting Mrs. Ackerman for family gain. And it wasn’t enough that The Dickster got the missus on the Metropolitan Water Board where she naturally supported huge water rate increases (true, that bar was already set really, really low).

In the summer of 2009, while The Dick was illegally lobbying the State Legislature in the sordid the OC Fair Swindle, his protege, 72nd  District Assemblyman Mike Duvall was caught bragging of nasty sexual accomplishments with a lobbyist; maybe the idea of nasty accomplishments with lobbyists ignited a fire in Dick’s political loins. By the end of September his wife, Linda Ackerwoman was running to replace the disgraced Duvall!

Now people endowed with a normal dose of shame would have simply receded into the background after the man they promoted was busted for moral turpitude. But the Ackermans are not so endowed. Dick’s immediate impulse was to promote the candidacy of the wife, a woman who had, apparently, never even held a job except as a “consultant” raiding her husband’s campaign accounts.

Well, okay. Lot’s of unqualified dimwits run for the Legislature. The real problem was that the Ackermans didn’t even live in the district. The Ackermans live in a top-secret gated community in Irvine! The State Constitution says you have to live in a district a year, but what the Hell, the State Constitution is for losers!

So Dick and Linda cooked up a fake address in the rumpus room of a Fullerton stooge. Well, technically they were carpetbaggers; but since nobody really believed they spent a night living in Fullerton a better word applies: fraud.

You mean they never really lived here. I guess I slept through that. Again.

As expected, Mrs. Ackerwoman got the endorsements of the Three Deteriorating Dinosaurs, all the statewide Redevelopment money, and the big corporate interest lobbyists. They ran one of the slimiest campaign anybody could remember. It hardly mattered. The Ackermans still lost to Chris Norby by a whopping 20 points in the Republican Primary. Within a few weeks they had reregistered to vote in the leafy precincts where their Irvine mini-McMansion is located. How’s that for a big F-you, Fullerton?

The point of the story is simple:  there is no basement so low that Dick Ackerman & Co. won’t crawl into it in order to pull a string or make a buck. And if you don’t recognize Dick as the moral barometer of the anti-recall campaign, you don’t know Dick.

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Posted on"Dick" Ackerman

The Moral Bankruptcy Of The Three Blind Mice

by 69 Comments on The Moral Bankruptcy Of The Three Blind Mice

Just in case you missed it (which is entirely understandable since almost nobody goes to this pathetic website) the anti-recallers are suddenly concerned about the rights of the cops that murdered Kelly Thomas. Previously these pustules have been crying crocodile tears over the exploitation of a schizophrenic homeless man. Not any more. Now it seems they are suddenly concerned about the rights of killer cops and are using this to defend their do-nothing Three Blind Mice.

Notice how these degenerates describe the cold-blooded murder as “The Kelly Thomas matter.” To them it’s just a “matter.” Well, to us it’s a murder.

They pretend that they are oh, so concerned about big settlements like the one payed out to the crooked George Jaramillo, but how come they aren’t concerned at all about Pat McKinley hiring murderers, thieves, drug addicts, pick-pockets, perjurers, thugs and perverts in the first place; or by Don Bankhead and Dick Jones looking the other way as a Culture of Corruption took root in the FPD, and  allowed McKinley’s personally selected goons to run roughshod over the rights of free citizens?

And how come these hypocritical cankers haven’t said a single word about the $350,000 settlement to victims of Albert Rincon, the sex pervert that Pat McKinley hired, and said he was proud of?

When McKinley said he was proud of the FPD except for “the two” (Ramos and Cicinelli, presumably), he really should have kept his big mouth shut.

Any more doubt that we need a recall?

Sign today!

 

 

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

FPD Releases Sketch

by 150 Comments on FPD Releases Sketch

On Thursday the Fullerton Police Department released a sketch of a sexual assault suspect, according to the Register, here.

The attack occurred on October 12th, on Berkeley, near FJC, one month earlier. A little late. Still, not bad for Andrew Goodrich, who inexplicably (or perfectly explicable if you believe in the FPD Culture of Corruption) remains the face of Fullerton on police matters.

Here's your man...
Oops, sorry. here he is.

Naturally some of the commenters on the ensuing thread wonder aloud when the Goodrich & Co. are going to release the image of former FPD cop Albert Rincon, who sexually assaulted women in the back seat of his patrol car, with the full knowledge of his superiors in the department.

Oh, that’s right. Former police chief, city councilman and current recall target Pat McKinley has explained all: “it’s just touching. Not a good thing, but not a dangerous thing.” So despite a $350,000 settlement (to date) Rincon is not really a danger to anybody.

Lookin' out for the ladies, oh yeah!

But if that sets the bar for behavior then it looks like their suspect falls well withing the bounds of propriety established by McKinley.

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

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

by 70 Comments on 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.

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Posted onLaw N Disorder

Cicinelli’s Disability Scam Starts to Unravel

by 243 Comments on Cicinelli’s Disability Scam Starts to Unravel

Uh oh! The LA Times discovered that one of the cops who beat Kelly Thomas to death is still getting a hefty disability pension from the LAPD, even though he was also pulling down a full salary to work here in Fullerton for the last 12 years.


The story is complete with an internal memo suggesting how unfortunate it would be if the public caught on to the scam. “We might get some unwanted attention if anybody notices that he will still be getting paid 70% of a P-II salary (tax-free) from LAFPP until we’re allowed to get the Board to address it?” says one government employee to another.

Too late. The truth is that the fully disabled Jay Cicinelli should have never been put back on patrol with only one eye, he should never have had the opportunity to pull that disability scam, and he definitely shouldn’t have been around to beat an innocent homeless man to death.

We won’t let you forget that Fullerton has Pat McKinley to thank for that chain of events.

I hired that guy.

Of course McKinley is still boldly maintaining he made all the right choices; that he’s being unfairly attacked for his well-tuned judge of character, his brilliant plan to stock Fullerton with LAPD rejects and his 17 years of coddling criminal behavior in what would become one of the world’s most renowned local police forces.

At least there’s something to be said for his persistence.

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Posted onAbout Us

A Friend Comments

by 102 Comments on A Friend Comments
Reality is I'm gonna split yer head open like a cantaloupe!

Once in a while we here at FFFF get a really good comment that we want to single out for its humor, insight or just all ’round pithiness. Here is a Friend called Dr. Ott Says, who deploys the good doctor’s analysis of the police perspective of the world.

He responds to the rather comical cop fixation on what constitutes “reality.” Here’s what Dr. Ott Says said:

Titan of Truth, the hallmark of the narcissistic personality is the confusion of his self-centered universe with “reality.” This is referred to in psychological and philosophical literature as solipsism, a condition in which only ones’ own mind is known to exist; taken to the extreme other individuals are actually denied substantive reality.

This is why a policeman like McKinley must utter the word “alien” when referring to a bad cop. He’s not referring to a little green man from Mars, but to some unimaginable creature outside the bounds of his fairly paltry weltanschauung.

The detrimental consequence of this sort of mindset is obvious as we have seen in the whole Kelly Thomas murder saga.

This is why Dr. Ott advises that such individuals may be useful for basic tasks like frontal assaults on the battlefield and valet car parking. Give them a uniform and some minor authority. But never, never cease to monitor and supervise their activities.

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