At Saturday’s protest of the hapless Fullerton Police Department, some perceptive folks espied a character who immediately drew suspicion, sore thumb-like, as some sort of plant. Of course they challenged this individual, who, thoughtfully provided a business card.
FYI, an aardvark is a homely creature that roots through the dirt for bugs which seems aptly descriptive; the use of the name could also be a tactic just to get to the front of the phone book.
Our Friends discreetly followed Mr. Fury for several blocks down Commonwealth Avenue before he doubled back and wandered into – the FPD HQ! So what gives? Did the cops employ this clown to spy on peaceful protesters? If not why was he there?
Yes, we carry the full line of Pat McPension gear...
I note that on their website that Aardvark “featured partners” include Safariland, the company that McKinley worked with (on the taxpayers dime) developing his special vest that was later purchased by the Fullerton Police Department. Aardvark is an “authorized dealer” of Safariland equipment. Did McKinley and the anti-recall drones employ this guy to take pictures of scary members of Kelly’s Army? If not why was he there, and why the loop-de loop?
Aardvark explains himself
Aardvark pretends to leaveAardvark sneaks back into the station
I think somebody in authority (now who would that be?) needs to inform the police that the FPD facility is owned by the taxpayers (us) and that they had better stay out of politics on public time (ours) and in a publicly owned facility (ours).
The Fullerton School District had the summer off while our attention was diverted to more important matters. Under that cover and with the convenient assistance of closed session, the Board handed a ridiculous $35,000 cash settlement (our money, not theirs) to a previously fired six-figure employee who didn’t like getting terminated.
Lisa Reynoso is an ex-Director of Nutrition Services who presumably neglected her job duties so badly that the district took on the daunting task of actually terminating her employment and replacing her with someone better.
The board had been wanting to fire Ms. Reynoso for years, but the first attempt at some sort of action in 2007 was overturned by the Personnel Commission, a crazy union invention in which a dubious mix of unelected and unaccountable bad-employee sympathizers actually have power above and beyond the school board itself.
An unsettling agreement
So the lunch lady’s tenure was extended by a few years, which was more than enough for her to earn herself another termination by doing something else bad. We don’t know what she did this time, but anyone who’s tried the meatloaf knows that the bar is pretty low in a grade school cafeteria.
Did the board take charge and let her go this time? No. Our spineless representatives took the easy way out and gave her a parting settlement instead. At the taxpayers’ expense, of course.
It’s lost on these unprincipled, short-sighted administrators that handing cash to an ex-employee who doesn’t deserve it only encourages future bad apples to pursue the same jackpot. Shampoo, rinse, repeat, waste money, hope nobody notices.
What a mess.
The scam was ultimately abetted by the spineless “ayes” of board members Bev Berryman, Janny Meyer and Hilda Sugarman in closed session, with Chris Thompson dissenting.
Yes it’s been a long, long time. When he first climbed the steps to his throne and surveyed his Fullerton domain the year was 1988. Ronald Reagan was president.
Don Bankhead has been on the Fullerton City Council for 23 years. With a few weeks off for bad behavior – an unnecessary Utility Tax and subsequent recall in 1994 – this monument to sub-mediocrity has been demonstrating his dubious mental faculties every other Tuesday night since dirt was young.
I will always fondly remember when Dick Ackerman referred to him as Don Blankhead. Now how many times did Don hear that as his fellow Fullerton cops chuckled at the dunderhead behind his back?
So now let’s take a moment or two to review Mr. Bankhead’s singularly inept career in Fullerton.
Back in 1988 Bankhead tried to get the job of Fullerton Chief of Police. He failed when the council chose somebody else. Ironically, Dick Ackerman who was on the Council then, was well aware of Blankhead’s utter incompetence. And so, out of spite, he ran for the city council: Lo and Behold he won! On the city council he believed that no one would would laugh at him anymore. And he believed people would laugh with him instead of at him. He was wrong.
Bankhead also suddenly revealed what he never told anybody when he interviewed for the Chief job, or even when he ran for County Sheriff in 1990: that he was a virtual cripple from a series of earlier alleged mishaps that, if true, would have made Inspector Clouseau look like an Olympic gymnast. His scam made the news, but the nice people in Fullerton were too polite to say anything. But we all knew.
In the past ten years he has smiled that dim, senile smile as he turned downtown Fullerton into a booze-soaked battle field that costs the taxpayers of Fullerton $1.5 million every single year, all to the benefit his cynical and parasitical “supporters.” He had the effrontery to claim that without his interventionist Redevelopment Fullerton itself would be a ghost town! He tried to lie his way out of that idiocy. It didn’t work.
or to put it another way:
A darling of the cop union he voted for the bank-breaking 3@50 pension formula that has created a massive and permanent unfunded liability for the taxpayers of Fullerton; he continuously voted for the illegal 10% utility tax on the water ratepayers of Fullerton, money that has gone to pay his own bloated pension.
Of course Bankhead was propped up every step of the way by his “public safety” union allies for whom he performed such acts of generosity with our money.
What Bankhead doesn’t want anyone to know is that in the course of his political career he has pulled down hundreds of thousands of dollars snoozing through footling meetings of various agencies and commissions about which he knows absolutely nothing – but for which he applied the same rubber stamp he has wielded so disastrously in Fullerton.
Although Bankhead is a Republican, and supposed to be some sort of conservative, the inescapable fact is that he is big-government in a big way. And if big-government could help him or his developer buddies score big, so much the better. After all who was really watching? FFFF, that’s who. Here we busted Bankhead for blowing $1200 staying at a four star Long Beach Hotel, on our dime – a mere 25 miles from his house in Fullerton!
This year, finally, the extent to which Bankhead has aided and abetted an incompetent and criminal police department has finally surfaced, and the extent of the damage this simpleton has caused Fullerton has become crystal clear.
Will Bankhead become the first man in California history to be recalled from the same office? Let’s work for it!
Don Bankhead, this is your life: a sad, belabored death march of cognitive meltdown, incompetence, lackeydom, and buffoonery. Fortunately your quarter century misrule is coming to a merciful conclusion. Fullerton is finally waking up and finally deciding that it wants real leaders – not clownish cartoons – on its city council.
An alert Friend reminded us today of a story that came to light last fall and that has eerie overtones of the subsequent Veth Mam case we have previously reported. The story is told in the OC Register, here.
Wouldn't hurt a fly...
The facts are simple. Even though an eye-witness ID’d another guy in a line-up, the Fullerton police arrested Emmanuel Martinez who unluckily just happened to be in the vicinity. Of course Fullerton “Officer” Miguel Siliceo told a hearing judge that he had indeed got the right guy and Martinez was locked up in the County jail for five long months awaiting the inevitable railroad job.
Martinez’s luck changed for the better when he got a public defender, Denise Crawford, who bulldogged the case. When audio evidence surfaced that proved Siliceo was telling tall tales, the DA, mirabile dictu, dropped the bogus charges against Martinez.
So Emmanuel can thank his lucky stars that he didn’t actually go on trial like Veth Mam, and then end up in state prison. And “Officer” Siliceo is lucky, too. Lucky he never had to perjure himself in front of a jury, and lucky he works for a police department where incompetence, and worse – felonious behavior are just par for the course.
How about the truth, if it's not too much trouble?
Of course the story wouldn’t be complete without the bland statement by FPD spokesassclown Andrew Goodrich that the cops work “diligently” to arrest the right people and generously let ’em go if exculpatory evidence surfaces. Gee, thanks, Andy. Of course no mention is made by Goodrich of FPD hiding exculpatory evidence in the first place; nor is perjury; and of course there is no apology to the victim of FPD malfeasance. Wouldn’t want to undermine public confidence in our Heroes, now would we?
Uh, oh! Some semi-literate chucklehead is not happy with FFFF! We received an e-mail from an under-educated police apologist who wishes that we would turn our attention from the Fullerton Police Department record of bogus traffic tickets, theft, drug-abuse, credit card fraud, kidnapping, kidnapping and sexual battery, kidnapping, abetting suicide in the city jail, and, of course, the Kelly Thomas homicide; and instead focus on “what the fullerton police does (sic) for you to keep you and your fellow fullerton citizens safe.”
Safe, huh? Safe from what? The greatest threat to our “fellow Fullerton citizens” these days seems to come from the FPD itself.
Anyway, enjoy the amusing version of “The Truth” as penned by some poor, high school drop-out:
Trying harder to think just isn't going to help!
Privacy: You may publish this, but protect my identity
Subject: The Truth.
Dear Whatever bastard is running this blog, Whoever you are you have no idea what the fullerton police does for you to keep you and your fellow fullerton citizens safe. You and your and other sons of bitches have warped the Kelly Thomas “murder” into a wormhole of un-needed conflicts and issues. And then when i thought that you guys could not steep lower than that you verbally attack and threaten the officers and thier families, what nerve do you have. How would you like it if I threatened the safety and well-being of you and/or your family.
Just Remeber…….How Would You Like It?
Oh, yes we will “Remeber” the next time we and our and other sons of bitches “steep” even lower.
UPDATE: Here is a post from waaaay back in November, 2010 about how our police union leaders view the political process and their ability to manipulate it to their own advantage. Of course the egregious Andrew Goodrich figures prominently in our post. Be sure to read the last sentence!
Just in case you thought there was any doubt that public service might not be the number one priority of Fullerton’s boys in blue, take a look at the document below, a veritable “how-to” article on political influence written in 2003 by FPD PIO and union front-man, Andrew Goodrich.
See, it’s all about how to leverage your members dues to create a political machine and get what’s coming to you. Actually it’s about defining what’s coming to you and getting a subservient collection of clowns you elect to go along for the ride.
I especially enjoyed Goodrich bragging about batting one thousand. The record looked great in 2003, but then the wheels started coming off the squad car. Chris Norby and Shawn Nelson jumped ship PDQ (although Norby stayed on the Police Reservation long enough to vote for the obscene 3@50 deal in 2001, thanks Norby). The pitiful police-backed pipsqueak Mike Clesceri was tossed out in 2004 after a mere one term; and ditto the equally useless Leland Wilson who was just a bad memory by 2006.
In 2010 the union backed a geriatric of dubious mental competency, a poster boy for pension abuse, and a guy who dodged criminal responsibility by giving his DNA to the DA. Hey two outta three ain’t bad –for them. For the rest of us? Not so good!
Bringing shop floor militancy to a police force near you...
And here’s a little bit more about Mr. Goodrich: promoted to “Community Services bureau leader – and police public information officer” last January as chronicled by Barbara Giasone:
Goodrich also signed the May 3, 2010 MOU on behalf of the FPOA, along with Barry Coffman and Robert Kirk.
And just in case you feel your tax dollars that pay for 3@50, etc. are insufficient thanks to the police for all they do you can always help out some more. Here’s a solicitation we received from the FPOA just yesterday. Your gift is supposed to go to FPOA “community outreach” but IS NOT tax deductible. Hmm. You get a decal of a police badge.
In closing I really feel compelled to wonder whether or not any of the three worthy gentlemen named above have been posting comments on our blog.
UPDATE: Please note Coffman’s admission: “This year, my first citation”. So he obviously took on this assignment to harass citizens out of the sheer joy of it. And there you have it. Your tax dollars at work.
The other day we shared a video here of the Fullerton Police Department’s PR disastrous anti-honking ticket strategy. Of course it was justifiably greeted with a hail of scorn and outrage and was ridiculed across Southern California as blatant harassment of peaceful protesters. Egad, another FPD humiliation. Another day another embarrassment!
Oh, well, I guess when you don’t have a sense of shame it’s impossible to be shamed.
What went unmentioned in the video was the identity of the well-fed cop who handed out the ticket to the protester who had the temerity to honk for justice for Kelly Thomas. Well, I know who this churlish individual is.
No surprise! That’s Fullerton Police Officer Association President, Barry Coffman – the head union goon who got The Three Blind Mice McKinley, Bankhead, and Jones elected in the first place, and then watched in satisfaction as these three clowns handed over Fullerton to his union comrades.
Barry says he is smirking because he gets so much job satisfaction. But Barry won’t be smirking for long. Whatever the DA does there will be Federal and civil lawsuits coming FPD’s way, and likely punitive damages against the McKinley Six. And that’s not going to be hushed up as usual. And he’s got an anti-recall campaign to finance with three elderly orangutans who have finally been exposed as utterly incompetent.
When that cop intimidated Bunny and took her roll of film shortly after the brutal beating of Kelly Thomas, he didn’t realize that Bunny had already used up another roll of film taking pictures of the crime scene. She thought that roll was useless. She was mistaken.
That roll of film escaped the clutches of the Fullerton police and these photos were developed over the weekend:
The pictures are chilling, knowing what we know now about how Kelly died. Yes, we can see light reflected in the pool of blood near the cops feet – right next to the front right wheel of the patrol car. The light pole to the right of the picture is where Kelly’s Memorial has been set up.
The one thing that strikes me most is the way the FPD are not treating this like a crime scene.
Fullerton City Councilman and former Police Chief, Pat McPension ain’t sayin’ much these days, at least nothing that isn’t getting him in even deeper in the City’s cover-up of the Kelly Thomas homicide at the hands for six Fullerton cops on the sultry night of July 5th.
But take a quick trip to Fullerton Stories and listen to then candidate Pat McPension in the fall of 2010.
Enjoy Pat’s list of repuglican endorsements, including DA Tony Rakauckas (!) and also the rear guard of decrepit liberalism in Fullerton, Molly McClanahan and Jan Flory.
Also enjoy Pat’s observation that it’s a good thing when nobody shows up to public meetings! Check. It’s a lot easier to cover-up what you’re doing when nobody is around (except “journalists” who regurgitate City Hall press releases and toss up softball questions). And of course nobody will be there to call you out on the serial misdeeds of your police department. The one you were in charge of for 17 long years. Remember, Pat? Yes, when you hired thieves, thugs, pill-poppers, sexual predators, kidnappers, perjurers, one-eyed LAPD rejects, killers of unarmed homeless people (and who knows who else) to patrol the mean streets of Fullerton.
Suffer through McPension’s bogus concern about out-of-control public employee pensions, and reflect upon the sad fact that in eight months on the City Council he hasn’t uttered so much as a tiny squeak on the subject.
In 2010 Pat promised to “hit the ground running.” Boy, that sure turned out to be a big elephant splat on the pavement in 2011.
