One of the most shocking things to emerge from the Preliminary Trial of Manny Ramos and Jay Cicinelli for the killing of Kelly Thomas are the statements made by Fullerton Fire Department personnel that the cops received attention to their miscellaneous scrapes as Thomas, whose face had just been bashed in, and who was suffocating in his own blood, lay ignored nearby.
For pure callousness, incomprehensible inhumanity, and well, evil, it’s pretty hard to beat this story. The images of minor scratches sustained by the Fullerton cops is comical, especially given the fact that were sustained committing a crime; juxtaposed to the image of Kelly Thomas’s shattered face they present ample evidence about the nature of the beat down delivered to the homeless man.
Hilariously, Manny Ramos was quoted as saying he’d been in “the fight of my life.” Given that he was seventy pounds overweight, notoriously lazy and obviously a coward, this may actually be a true statement. Certainly it will provide a good headline for Lou Ponsi. But Ramos’ injury received a bandaid and off he went. Kelly Thomas is dead. He was dying on the pavement, alone and unattended, as the cops that killed him got first aid.
And that is truly sickening.
After being postponed twice the Preliminary Hearing in the case against Fullerton cops Manny Ramos and jay Cicinelli for the killing of homeless schizophrenic Kelly Thomas last July. Ten months have elapsed since that hot, fateful night.
Ramos is charged with second degree murder; Cicinelli with manslaughter.
The purpose of the hearing is for a judge to view evidence presented by the District Attorney and decide whether the charged should be bound over for trial.
All sorts of questions will be answered in the next day or two: will the DAs original charges fold as some have predicted? Will a cop-cozy judge say Ramos and Cicinelli were just doing their jobs? On the political side, how will more media exposure effect the Recall of the Three Bald Tires, occurring as it will with the delivery of absentee ballots?
For those who can make it, the hearing will take place this morning at 8:30 in Courtroom C1 in the Superior Court building, in downtown Santa Ana.
It was posted here six months ago, but I still can’t help but ponder the creepiness of this old film every time I think of Pat McKinley.
How could a human being justify such bone-breaking violence against passive citizens? I suppose it would require a complete emotional callousness towards the condition of anyone unlucky enough to live outside of his law-enforcement bubble. Indeed, the then-LAPD captain Pat McKinley told the judge that these folks had a “unique ability to withstand pain” that required his officers to use extreme force.
What sort of warped mind could spin out such psychobabble as an excuse for extreme violence visited upon the citizens of the United States of America? Well, the kind of mind that said this.
It just makes no sense to me at all. For decades this man has been trusted to wield the force of government in the pursuit of justice, and instead he has chosen to use it against those who stand in the way of his convenience.
It’s time to get this sociopath as far away from public office as possible. Forever.
Ever since the FPD announcement that the oleaginous Andrew Goodrich was being replaced as PIO with a guy named Jeff Stuart, I’d been wondering why I seemed to remember that name.
Then it hit me. Back in March FFFF ran a post about some dude named Ernest Benefiel who apparently tried to commit suicide with booze and pills, and whose reveries were disrupted by an all-out assault by the Fullerton SWAT team; an assault that ended with Benefiel going to jail for years and years – while his conviction was overturned not once, but twice.
And who is listed on page 5 of the civil law suit as one of Pat McKinley’s gun-happy SWAT team members who turned a paramedic call into a neighborhood shoot-out? Jeff Stuart.
Welcome to the club.
According to The OC Register, here, the outside “independent” investigative company hired by the City to look into the actions of the cops that beat Kelly Thomas to death last July has delivered its report on the incident. Unfortunately, nobody gets to see the report authored by Mr. Michael Gennaco except Acting Chief Dan Hughes – because it relates to police personnel matters. And, as everybody knows, those matters are shrouded in a veil of impenetrable secrecy. Just the way the police unions like it.
So we are left to guess at the contents of the report and left to guess whether or not our elected officials will be able to see it. Speaking of guesses, my guess would be no, except for Pat McKinley, of course, who seems to get special privileges when it comes to sticking his nose into personnel matters regarding the dubious characters he hired as former Police Chief.
The issues here are particularly interesting given the fact of the impending trial of Mssrs. Cicinelli and Ramos for manslaughter and murder, respectively. Negative findings could have an impact on that case. If, as many anticipate, Mr. Gennaco tends to whitewash the case we can expect a comparatively speedy release of the report with some exculpitory headlines by Lou Ponsi. Gennaco’s undernourished first report was more interesting for what it left out than for what it said,
Also lurking in the back of the room is the potentially costly civil trial and possible Civil Rights charges by the Feds. So if the report indicates that the cops acted way outside policy and procedure look for a protracted release of minimal information, or no release at all.
This guy. That’s who.
That would be former Redevelopment Director and big Fullerton pension recipient Gary Chalupsky.
Some may remember Chalupsky for his long string of embarrassing boondoggles and Redevelopment expenditures of questionable legality – like building the Muckenthaler amphitheater which is not even in a Redevelopment project area.
Just type in “Redevelopment” in our search box and knock yourself out. From the Knowlwood fiasco and North Platform smash up to The City Lights debacle and the humiliating Poisoned Park disaster, Chalupsky was there every inept, unaccountable step of the way. For well over ten years. Plenty of time to get vested in CalPERS.
Gary Chalupsky was the guy who proved beyond all doubt that Fullerton was very much for sale. Ever wonder where the 100 East section of Whiting Avenue went? Ask Chalupsky.
Others may also remember this upstanding individual for his phony “retirement” and immediate double-dip that was countenanced by an incompetent council who seemed to think Chalupsky knew what he was doing.
Redevelopment is now thankfully dead. But it feathered a lot of nests along the way.
Perusing the latest yellowing Fullerton Observer I noticed how various candidates responded to the question “How Would You have Handled The Kelly Thomas Situation?”
First the Three Bald Tires, poster boys for utter leadership failure, were given the chance to reflect on their actions, or lack of same. They offered up the same old “we were told by our lawyer not to say anything” tripe. On his way out the saloon doors Doc Hee Haw managed to serve up this beaut: “I regret that some have acted to circumvent the constitutional laws of justice,” as if to reassure himself that the whole gol’dern commotion was the fault of some “lynch-type mob” and had nothing to do with his own incompetence and fat mouth.
The candidates were all pretty uniform in their responses with the glaring exception of Doug Chaffee, who spooned out this idiotic pabulum:
“I am a strong advocate of community oriented policing. In a community oriented policing system, police officers partner with neighborhoods to build trust and positive community relationships. The system generates mutual respect between residents and police. Being pro-active, the focus is on preventing crime, as opposed to merely reacting to it, and results in a safer City.”
What?
Not a single word about Kelly Thomas or his family, the brutal way in which he was killed, the conspiracy of silence in the aftermath, the disinformation peddled by Goodrich, the cops who were returned to duty, the disappearing police chief, the sick police chief, the pensioned-off police chief, or the charges of murder and manslaughter brought against the two cops by the DA. No explanation from Doug that Kelly was not committing a crime, and that the only criminals on the scene were members of the Fullerton Police Department.
Some have asked where Chaffee has been for these past nine months. I know. He’s been hiding from his own pale shadow.
It is apparent to me that this man is an empty suit, a coward and a damned fool. On the council he would be hardly better than McKinley himself. The last thing Fullerton needs is another superannuated do-nothing, say-nothing, stand-for-nothing yellow observer in office.
Did former Fullerton Police Chief Pat McKinley bring LAPD Chief Daryl Gates’ unique style of policing to Fullerton? This lady (Jean Thaxton), who worked for the LAPD under Gates and alongside his protege, Pat McKinley sure seems to think so. And we know that McKinley admires Gates as his friend and mentor.
Her son was shot in the back by a cop in Downey and she appeared at a Fullerton City Council meeting to support the family of Kelly Thomas – who was beaten to death by six cops of the FPD.
I liked the end bit where this woman admonishes the council to actually provide training for their cops rather than just turning lem loose with badges and guns. I’m sure they get some training; and I’m sure that some of them actually remember some of it. But police departments can’t teach ethics and humanity to a 20 year-old, even if they felt inclined to do so.
Ramos, Cicinelli, Wolfe, Hampton, Mejia, Major, Mater, Tong, Cross, Rincon, etc., etc., ad nauseam. McKinley: “I hired them all.”
No surprise punches from Pat McPension, as he disagrees with Bruce Whataker about what to do with the money that is taken from us via an illegal tax on water. Mr. McPension has become quite fond of this tax since it went to pay his own bloated salary and pension over the years.
McPension wants to keep our money in an “escrow account” so that if and when the “experts” properly educate him and the rest of the council, they can decide what to do with their ill-gotten gains; then, presumably, “they” will let us peons know. McKinley goes even farther claiming that he supports plowing the illegal tax back revenue back into water infrastructure without so much as wondering how the infrastructure got so neglected in the first place.
Well, here’s what I say: a person who has the opportunity to kill an illegal tax and doesn’t is no better than the person who supports an illegal tax in the first place.
Here’s McPension in action: