Those army boots look a little soiled. Let me at ’em!
“New centurions watching all our backs.”
Thus spake David Whiting of the OC Register in another of his breathtakingly sycophantic ride along reports, this time with some Anaheim cops the other night. He writes about their heroics, here.
Good Lord! Whiting dons body armor! Almost a Hero himself as he chronicles the travails of folks who now could be the targets of violent crime themselves.
Of course it’s easy to mock this “journalistic” rubbish for what it is. It’s especially fun given the history of the bootlick Whiting and the Culture of Corruption in the wake of the Kelly Thomas murder. Remember this? Or this? Or this? Or this? And of course, the worst bullshit of all, here.
The reference to the cops as Roman soldiers is just hilarious; but it’s more telling than a dated reference to a Joseph Wambaugh novel, as Whiting innocently supposes in his hermetically sealed, irony-free hyperbaric chamber.
The militarization of the cops is precisely the problem that created people like Chris Dorner and Jay Cicinelli and that puts us citizens at risk from violent cops each and every day.
And recalling the activities of the cops in Anaheim and Fullerton last summer I think a reference to The New Praetorian Guard is much more apt.
In any case, why-o-why can’t the people who run the Register get it? Being little else than a pro-cop propaganda outlet is no way to run a real newspaper.
In the wake of the Kelly Thomas murder at the hands of the FPD, two different yet eerily similar tactics emerged for deflecting responsibility away from the cops.
Fullerton’s antique liberal crowd quickly banded together so that society itself could be blamed, not the FPD: the problem was not murderous, corrupt or even incompetent cops. Oh, no. The problem was one of homelessness and the solution was to provide a homeless shelter! Why Kelly would probably even be alive today!
On the other hand, the anonymous cop-protectors keep insisting that the problem lay with poor parenting for Kelly’s death, as if a schizophrenic, 35 year-old man was somehow the responsibility of his parents, and as if that somehow exculpates the six cops who beat him to death and stood around laughing as he died in a pool of his own blood.
Of course both groups relied heavily upon a completely comical whitewash of the FPD Culture of Corruption by paid-for opinion of Michael Gennaco.
The County of Orange’s attempt to cram a permanent homeless shelter in east Fullerton across the street from single-family homes and an elementary school have taught us four things, so far.
First, it is very clear that no Fullerton elected representatives were told anything about this high-handed plan. Second, the County can do it with or without the City’s agreement. Third, nobody at the County gives a damn that they will be paying $3.15 million for a broken down old building that nobody knows the cost to make habitable. Four, the media will never report any of this.
As to the first point, here is a report about a meet and greet event by Fullerton Mayor Bruce Whitaker, who asked the County for a few weeks’ delay so that the City Council could learn just what the County has in store for us. Request denied.
And here is an e-mail we received from some local resident who says he has just started a petition to seek redress:
Subject:Homeless shelter
Hello!I’ve started the petition “Fullerton city council: Stop the County from opening a 24/7 homeless shelter at 301 S St College Bl” and need your help to get it off the ground.Will you take 30 seconds to sign it right now? Here’s the link:
This is a 29,000 square foot building that is located near an elementary school, park and houses. This homeless shelter will make Fullerton the dumping ground for homeless. Crime will increase and spread to the whole area. This deal is being done without much awareness from the public. A life long friend of County Supervisor Nelson stands to make nearly 100k from the deal. This is bad for North OC. This shelter will end up looking like skid row in downtown LA where crime and drug use is rampant. Fullerton is not LA.
You can sign my petition by clicking here.
Thanks!
Well, good luck with that! Apparently the County can do whatever it likes and your County Supervisor isn’t interested in your opinion.
Believe it or not, Acting Chief Dan Hughes, the alleged “reform” chief the Fullerton Police Department needs so desperately seems to the beneficiary of a campaign – to have himself appointed Chief permanently.
Check out this:
So who’s playing games? Is it our amiable Acting Chief who seems to have zero control over his badged and armed goons?
Or perhaps it is the greasy little mole Doug Chaffee who decided to agendize the issue of giving Hughes the job even though the council majority has stated that it wants to do a recruitment to get the best candidate for the job. Nice job politicizing a personnel appointment.
Now I don’t know about you, but I believe the appointment of Hughes to permanently take over the cesspool would be pretty bad. The Old Guard would dearly love the voters of Fullerton to think the Kelly Thomas murder was a weird one-off, something that can never happen again because Rusty Kennedy has taught the poor, unwitting Fullerton cops how to deal with the mentally ill homeless population.
They always cleaned up after me!
Um, not so fast, Mrs. Flory. Please explain the following personnel issues and embarrassing events that have occurred under the rancid regime of which Acting Chief Danny has been a lead player:
1) Erroneous raid on Robin Nordell’s home. No apology for a year.
2) Kelly Mejia steals iPad from Miami TSA checkpoint.
3) Todd Major rips off Explorers to feed pill habit.
4) Miguel Siliceo popped for sending wrong man to jail.
5) Kenton Hampton assaults and arrests and tries to convict innocent Veth Mam.
6) Ditto Frank Nguyen.
7) Cary Tong violates policy in arrest of Trevor Clark; City sued.
8) Albert Rincon sexually assaults as many as a dozen women in his custody; civil suit settled by two victims for $350,000.
9) Vince Mater charged by DA with destruction of evidence after the jailhouse suicide of Dean Gochenour.
10) April Baughman arrested for ripping off the FPD evidence room for a period of years. Where is the accomplice? Who was taking inventory? Such things are not for us to know.
11) City sued again – by Edward Quinonez who alleges he was accosted and falsely arrested by – Kenton Hampton. What a multi-tasker!
12) Phony “horning” tickets handed out by FPOA boss Barry Coffman to intimidate protesters; Hughes is seen sending out instructions.
13) DA charges Manuel Ramos, Joe Wolfe and Jay Cicinelli in the death of Kelly Thomas; Hughes lets them view video, re-write reports, pats all on back, handshakes all around and lets them stay on streets.
14) Danny says he’s watched video 400 times; says it will give public the real story (he is right).
15) Danny says those who perceive a Culture of Corruption are liars or ignorant.
15) Danny returns Craig, Hampton and Blatney to duty.
16) Permit Internal Affairs Sergeant Jason Sheen to bring a bong into the council chamber for demonstration in front of kiddie soccer players.
I don’t know about you, but I have seen as much of Acting Chief Danny as I care to. It’s obvious this man is a congenial glad-hander. But he is inextricably entangled in the Culture of Corruption with absolutely no interest in recognizing past FPD malfeasance, let alone atoning for it.
Just as bad, it is clear from recent events that he has absolutely no control, or no interest in controlling his employees.
The bloated Ramos. Hard to tell where the cop ends and the night begins.
UPDATE. From KNBC: “Sgt. Jeff Stuart, a Fullerton Police Department spokesman, did not return a call seeking comment.”
Now that’s not very good way to improve communication with the community, now is it?
– Mr. Peabody
Over at the OC Weekly, ace reporter R. Scott Moxley has written a post detailing an incident between Fullerton cop Manny Ramos and a 58 year old disabled guy named Mark Edwin Walker. It appears the gist of the thing is that last June 21, two weeks before he instigated the Kelly Thomas murder, Ramos, without provocation or cause, confronted Walker outside an Albertson’s in Fullerton, threw the man to the ground, stomped on him and tossed him in jail, charged with public intoxication, resisting arrest, or some other such nonsense.
Subsequently a judge threw the case out and Walker lawyered up. Of course this is all Walker’s story and it may be self-serving; but it also sounds a heckuva lot like the Veth Mam case. Who’s a jury going to believe now?
Acting Chief Dan Hughes has been trying real hard lately to peddle the notion that he is in charge of a new and improved Fullerton Police Department, even though when you get right down to it there really wasn’t all that much to fix – just some irritating communication problems.
Although the scribes at the OC Register have apparently bought into this malarky, others who have seen the veritable conga line of crime perpetrated by the boys and girls in FPD blue, are a long way from being convinced. After all, the first step toward recovery is admitting the problem right?
Which is all preliminary to the point of this post.
Our FPD deep cover source informs us that Hughes is pressing to have three of the cops who ganged up on Kelly Thomas, and who stood around as he gasped his last breaths in the gutter, return to active duty. That would be cops Hampton, Blatney, and Craig. Of course he needs the DAs assurance that these goons won’t be prosecuted for anything. Which is why he came out with all that BS about how he and his boys were part of the “prosecution team” and why Tony Rackaukas praised the FPD for all their hard work for the benefit of Lou Ponsi. Looks like that deal’s done. It’s all about damage control now, and surely the City’s highly paid lawyer Michael Gennaco chipped in to help exonerate the three accomplices though his double top-secret report.
We have also been informed that although he is formally being fired, a back room deal is in the works to reward Joe Wolfe, the thug who started the murderous beat down on Kelly Thomas, with a nice, fat disability claim if he goes quietly. Of course we’ve been told that Wolfie re-injured his shoulder in the “tussle”, most likely bashing Kelly’s face with his elbow. That ought to good for a hundred thou’ of our money, give or take. Nice.
Nope. It’s a reminder of how a one-eyed cop was hired by the City of Fullerton to patrol our streets with badge, gun, taser and who knows what else.
Here ya go sonny...
It is now pretty common knowledge that Jay Cicinelli was put on a disability pension by Bernard Parks, Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department following a horrific shooting of the six-week rookie cop. Smart move. Among other injuries, Cicinelli lost his left eye.
But Cicinelli’s dream of being a policeman was not to end so quickly. For he had an ally in the figure of Mike Hillman, a gung-ho cop’s cop – the type whose worldview divides people into two groups: cops and everybody else; and Hillman was determined to put the one-eyed cop back on the streets somewhere – anywhere.
Hillman’s thoughts turned to little Fullerton, California where his one-time boss in the LAPD, Pat McKinley, had been appointed police chief. And what followed was a decision so incompetent and self-serving that it eclipses all of McKinley’s other disastrous personnel decisions – and that’s saying a helluva lot.
Should be considered armed and dangerous...
McKinley hired Cicinelli, gave him a badge, fire arms, and the keys to a patrol car, a decision so reckless and with such blatant disregard for the safety of the public and his own policemen, that he should have been immediately fired.
But he wasn’t, of course, and nobody else seemed to care. And Cicinelli remained on the force, a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. And when it finally did, the result was a dead man and a series of huge civil payouts to the man’s family. The first payout was for $1,000,000. More are coming.
Meanwhile, the miscreant who hired Cicinelli and all the other thugs, goons. thieves, con men, pickpockets, kidnappers, perjurers, destroyers of evidence, and sex offenders is sitting on our city council, voting on the settlements his employees caused, that will have to be paid byus.
Smarmy and self-righteous only tells part of the story. Sycophatic, craven, and lazy tells the rest.
Whoring for the inept, sclerotic Establishment, that is.
Last fall Whiting was defending the cops that murdered Kelly Thomas and attacking the lynch-type mobs calling for justice.
Most recently he wrote a tribute to “both sides” that was nothing more than a wet love letter to the Three Bald Tires, defending their compassion and objecting to the use of the phrase “kingmaker” in reference to Tony “Bashula.” Brandon Ferguson of the OC Weekly writes about Whiting’s pabulum, here.
(Note: I refuse to link to the Register)
I find the then-and-now quotations remarkably self-serving. Maybe the Three Hollow Logs said something to Whiting in private, because I don’t remember those “before” statements at all. Whatever. What I do remember with crystal clarity these “before” comments:
Dr. HeeHaw (on local TV news): “…I’ve seen far worse injuries that were survivable. I don’t know what killed that man”
Patdown Pat McKinley: (on CNN): “I’ve had my eyes bloused a few times…facial injuries look terrible but they are not life threatening…they heal…”
Just to show you where Whiting’s true sympathies lay, here is Ferguson quoting Whiting’s cuddly description of killer cop Joe Wolfe:
Instead of referring to Officer Joe Wolfe as one of Kelly Thomas’s attackers, which the video clearly shows he is–he was first to strike Thomas with his baton–Whiting clumsily described him as “an uncharged officer and partner of one of those charged.”
Anybody who has ever owned a dog knows they have some nasty habits, including sniffing each other’s rear ends and ingesting their own vomit. But you have to give them credit for loyalty.
There’s always lots of talk in Orange County about freedom-loving him, or freedom-loving her, when the repuglicans start trumpeting some mediocre authoritarian hack or other for political office.
But then there’s the real deal – former OC Register writer and now occasional columnist, Steve Greenhut. Enjoy Steve’s opinion piece on the Kelly Thomas killing and the Fullerton Recall, here.
Greenhut is hitting on all cylinders. He gets it: there’s serial police abuse, secrecy and subsequent cover-ups by the politicians; there’s Redevelopment abuse, cronyism, and unaccountability; there’s an illegal tax on our water, 15 years-old, that has misdirected over $27,000,000 to pay for perks and pensions of the politicians and bureaucrats in City Hall.
The best part of Steve’s broadside is this part where he goes after the pusillanimous Register Editorial Board that has hypocritically succumbed to pressure applied by Dick Ackerman, Inc.:
Unfortunately, the Register Editorial Board didn’t fully support this heart-felt political revolt, as it argued, “The citizens who voted [the three councilmen] in and now are disgruntled should vote them out during a regular election cycle.” The Register had no such qualms about backing the recall in 2003 of Gov. Gray Davis, for similar lack-of-leadership reasons.
And finally Greenhut sums up with:
The release of the video reinforces the wisdom of the recall. A recent news article explained that “legal experts caution that the footage doesn’t tell the entire story,” but we don’t need experts to tell us the truth, now obvious to anyone who can access YouTube. And we don’t need experts to tell Fullerton voters what to do about three councilmen who acted in a craven and unconscionable way.
Oh, yes. We’ll let “the justice system unfold,” in the clumsy phraseology of our feckless Mayor, Sharon Quirk. In the meantime we’ll apply our our God-given commonsense to the facts that we are permitted to see by our political masters. And then we’ll recall the the bums.
