One more time, to start the week-end off on the right note.
– JS
And sleep tight, Don. Your stipend check is in the mail.
Thus spaketh Lou Ponsi who seems to be doing his level best to avoid real news and even to parrot the nonsense peddled by the anti-recall crowd.
Ponsi seems really impressed with banners stating how much folks love Fullerton. Ponsi doesn’t seem interested that the operation is the brainchild of downtown businesses who have profited off of the City Council’s crazy wild west show; nor in the irony that these essentially anti-recall messages are hung on public property. No, that would take independence and intelligence, traits that Ponsi simply doesn’t possess.
Of course Ponsi echoes the notion that the one and only problem is the minor altercation last summer that left Kelly Thomas’ brains in a Transportation Center gutter, and of course he ignores the reality a phone call made by – a downtown business, that may very well have an I Love Fullerton banner in front of it.
Lou must have a short or self-serving memory if he can’t remember:
FPD cop Todd Major – convicted of fraud, 2011.
FPD cop Kelly Mejia – plead guilty to grand larceny, 2011
FPD cop Albert Rincon – accused of a dozen sexual batteries while in uniform causing a rebuke from a federal judge and a $350,000 settlement (so far), but actually “separated” for something else (jeez how bad could that have been), 2006-2011.
FPD cop Vincent Mater – “separated” after destroying evidence in a Fullerton jail suicide, identified as an untrustworthy “Brady cop” and suspected of a roll in the false identification in the Emanuel Martinez case. Charged by the District Attorney,2011.
FPD cop “Sonny” Saliceo who through laziness or malice, permitted or encouraged the mis-identification of Emanuel Martinez who subsequently spent five months in jail.
FPD employee April Baughman who was recently arrested on charges of theft from the FPD property room over a period of two years. 2012.
A lawsuit by Veth Mam against the police department and FPD cop Kenton Hampton for a laundry list of civil rights violations and false prosecution. 2011.
A lawsuit by Andrew Trevor Clarke against FPD cop Cary Tong and half the FPD for a laundry list of civil rights violations. 2012.
A lawsuit by Edward Miguel Quinonez against the FPD and Kenton Hampton for even more civil rights violations. 2011
And let’s not forget the eventual civil and civil rights suits against the balance of the FPD Six (including our old friends Kenton Hampton and Joe Wolfe). 2011.
Then in non-police matters there’s the little problem of the City Council giving away land worth millions for free to campaign contributors; and giving away huge subsidies to the bag man who runs the anti-recall campaign. 1996-2012.
And finally let us recall the biggest scam of all – the perpetuation of the illegal water tax for fifteen long years that went, in part, to pay the salaries and pensions of the very city council that looked the other way year after year. 1996-2012.
Hey, Lou? Any of this ring a bell? What a punk.
Here‘s an article in the Register about Fullerton Councilman Bruce Whitaker asking his fellow councilmembers to vote on whether to see the video of the Kelly Thomas killing at the hands of the FPD. He seems to be suffering from the delusion that Fullerton elected leaders should be intelligently informed.
It’s an interesting article for two reasons. First is the reaction of councilman Pat McKinley, former FPD Chief, and architect of the Culture of Corruption in the force. You would expect him to be opposed to letting anybody see the actions of goons he hired personally and let loose on the streets of Fullerton. But what’s that you say, Pat?:
Councilman Pat McKinley, Fullerton’s former police chief, said he is “violently opposed” to the release of the video.
“I think it’s completely off-base,” McKinley said. “It’s absolutely unprecedented, and it would be wrong to view that before the trial.”
Violently opposed? Now that doesn’t sound like a balanced man, does it? His reaction to a perfectly reasonable request says much about McPension the man. Is he about to go off the deep end?
Mcpension may not want the video released, but I assure you it has nothing to do with any trial, and everything to do with a recall election.
The other thing that struck me as odd is the City Attorney’s alleged request to the DA for permission to view the video and the imbecilic comments ascribed to DA spokesholetress Susan Kang Schroeder, who seems to be just making shit up. The council could watch this video as a closed session personnel issue and nobody else would have to see it. Also, the FPD is bound to have made copies so why ask the DA for permission at all – except to get that “no” answer you want? Acting Chief Hughes, who is neither investigating nor trying anybody, claims to have viewed the video 400 times! I’m starting to suspect everybody has seen this video – except some of the council and of course, the public.
And as a final thought, is there anybody in Fullerton who believed the serial prevaricator Pat McKinley when, after an awkward pause on CNN, he denied seeing the video himself?
UPDATE:
Sorry guys, I forgot to add this gem from the article:
In the weeks after the July incident, more trouble surfaced: an officer facing charges for stealing an iPad at a Miami airport; another facing termination after reports of sexual misconduct; police raiding the wrong house in search for a probationer.
This sentence sure makes it look like Ponsi is finally starting to lay the facts on the table, until you realize that we broke the Mejia story in June, before, the Thomas murder (Ponsi swiped that from FFFF without attribution); the raid on the wrong house occurred in 2010; Rincon’s debauchery started years and years ago and included the complicity of the entire department. And of course there is no mention at all of incidents that must have involved higher ups, like the Gochenour suicide and the beating, false arrest and phony prosecution of Veth Mam.
– Joe Sipowicz
When you’ve had some practice, it’s amazing how much you can write without saying anything. In fact, between the first sentence and the last, people adept at it can cram all sorts of empty stuff into their essays. The conclusion is always the same. Reading such drivel is like eating a bag of marshmallows.
Here is our old friend Lou Ponsi of the Register doing his usual gig. The story is all about Fullerton’s image in the wake of the Kelly Thomas murder by members of the Fullerton Police Department. To his credit Ponsi finally describes the DA’s version of the actions of Ramos and Cicinelli: a “rain of blows.” Everything else is fluffery designed to avoid the critical main crux of Fullerton’s present problems: that out of control rogue cops have been permitted to prey upon the citizens of and visitors to Fullerton, and the Kelly Thomas episode was not an isolated case at all.
Ponsi’s story includes the obligatory interview with a Chamber of Commerce booster-type – Davis Barber (who also pretends to be a real reporter, yet tips his hand rather badly) and some business owners defending the honor of Fullerton. Oh, and of course there’s the de riguer academic “expert,” who arrives upon the scene to compliment the City for bringing in Michael Gennaco.
As usual you can avoid getting the sort of responses you don’t want by asking all the wrong questions.
Did Ponsi ask Acting Chief Dan Hughes to explain the actions of Rincon, Mater, Power, Mejia, Tong, Hampton, Cross, Goodrich, et al? Has he yet asked anybody to explain the call that came in the night of July 5th; or why the cops involved were permitted to watch the video and coached to re-write their reports? Did he ask those interviewed if they knew about the serial transgressions of all these cops?
Bet not.
The strategy of the FPD and its apologistas now seems to be to make FPDs problems mostly about image and lack of communication with the public. The Kelly Thomas thing? Oh, yeah, mostly about two aliens who didn’t know how to deal with the mentally ill homeless.
Come on in and take the tour. Glad to see ya. Big hugs. Air kiss!
Reporting on the submission of signatures by Fullerton’s Recall proponents, OC Register employee Lou Ponsi demonstrates that despite numerous opportunities to actually start acting like a real reporter, he just hasn’t got it in him. Nope. Nada.
Almost inconceivably Ponsi is still regurgitating the same Andrew Goodrich garbage peddled in mid-July 2011:
“Thomas was suspected of burglarizing cars in the Fullerton Transportation Center on July 5 when approached by officers. A physical confrontation ensued, and Thomas died five days later.”
Suspected of burglarizing cars? Really? Say Lou, do you even understand that there has been no evidence of car burglaries?
A physical confrontation ensued? Damn, that’s got to be the understatement of the year! And there’s some sort of antiseptic connection between the massive bludgeoning by the cops and Kelly’s death.
Is Ponsi still acting like Goodrich’s water boy to curry favor with the FPD? Is he really that incurious about what happened on the night of July 5th, 2011? Does he believe his job is to post community events schedules and let it go at that?
Who knows? But I know one thing: if this assclown ever removes his head from his nether orifice it will be a modern-day miracle.
Over at his website called Fullerton Stories some poor fellow named Davis Barber has felt the need to unburden his soul of lots of weighty thoughts, n’ stuff. Most of the rather embarrassing dissertation is another lame defense of the Fullerton status quo, and the attack on “protesters,” including FFFF, that we have become all too familiar with from City Hall cronies pretending to be journalists.
But there is one part of this coughed-up pabulum that just has to be read, and re-read, to be believed.
• Blame the messenger/Fullerton Police Sergeant Andrew Goodrich lied about, well, everything: FullertonStories.com does not agree. While there may be reason to doubt statements from Sgt. Goodrich, calling him a liar is un-called for and wrong. It’s his job to tell “the people” what he knows.
Surely this guy must be joking. Can’t this genius see the problem with his own assessment? Why in the world is there ” reason to doubt statements from Sgt. Goodrich”? Because he made up stories that were not true and passed them to “the people” via complacent boobs like Davis Barber. That’s called lying. And people who lie are liars. Quod erat demonstrandum.
On the subject of liars in 2011, and changing gears somewhat, one thing I would like to know is how Mr. Barber came into contact with the so-called homeless jewelry peddler named Richard Fritschie; the guy who popped up almost on cue, claiming to be an eye-witness to the Thomas murder and who tried to exonerate the cops of any wrong-doing. That whole thing stank like a rotting corpse.
Of course the DA’s description of events from the audio and video record proved that Fritschie was a liar, but the question remains – why?
Lots of people have wondered who set up that con man with his mark.
Those fine folks at Reason made a nice little documentary on FFFF and our role in exposing corruption and brutality within the Fullerton Police Department while the conventional media went along with the cover-up. Here it is:
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?
A couple of months a go we related a pathetic pro-cop piece written by the OC Register’s David Whiting, who is used to writing about wild flowers and bike trails and who, if the Register weren’t sinking, would probably be forced to stick to those bucolic endeavors.
Here is this toady’s latest effort. He has coughed up just about the lamest propaganda for the Three Desiccated Dinosaurs imaginable. It’s all about their quiet, dignified “leadership.” He helpfully supplies thumbnail biographies of his new heroes: Jones Bankhead and McKinley.
For Whiting everything has to do with how these three handled the murder of Kelly Thomas. But he conveniently omits some shocking truths; thruths like the abandonment of civilian oversight of the FPD as it descended into criminal chaos under McKinley’s reign of error; of a conga line of law suits, criminal and civil rights accusations, arrests and convictions of cops for one crime after another, about false police reports and perjury. Theft. Sexual battery. Fraud. Assault. False arrest. You name it.
Shallow observers like Whiting want to think the recall is about Kelly Thomas as an isolated, unavoidable incident; it isn’t. It’s about a Culture of Corruption created and fostered by Jones, Bankhead, and McKinley and they essentially turned over the police department to their union supporters – going so far as to permit one of the union bosses to act as an official city spokesman, a position this individual has used, and grossly abused in trying to help his union brethren escape responsibility for their criminal behavior.
Then there are the other troubling issues that Whiting knows and cares nothing about: the use of Redevelopment by The Three Myopic Miscreants to reward their political supporters and campaign contributors; the serial boondoggles and wasted millions in pursuit of one cockeyed master plan after another. It’s about the cesspool these individuals have created in downtown Fullerton; it’s about creating a criminal praetorian guard to patrol the downtown sidewalks – those that haven’t yet been given away to campaign contributors.
And then there is the disgraceful 10% tax on the water users of Fullerton, a $2.5 million annual ripoff that goes to pay the massive pensions and perks enjoyed by Jones, Bankhead and McKinley. It’s been illegal to impose such a tax for years, but Bankhead and Jones have been cheerfully ripping us off for decades.
Enough is enough. Time to break out the municipal broom and sweep these malefactors out of City Hall. Lackeys like Whiting will never permit themselves to comprehend the truth we know, and that thanks to Kelly Thomas many more people now realize: Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley are not leaders, dignified or otherwise. Real leaders take responsibility for their actions and their inactions. They are accountable. These three are detached, self-serving, arrogant clowns pretending to be something thy are not. If they won’t leave voluntarily we will help them to the door.