You can’t make this stuff up. Here’s a press release from DA Todd Spitzer’s office detailing the killing of a driver by Anthony Michael Hanzal, 43, of Anaheim, a drug-addled petty thief who was chased by Fullerton police for shoplifting some Legos from an Albertson’s the week before Christmas.
An undercover cop called in the crime and uniformed cops took over the pursuit of the big heist perp.
The pursuit turned into a high-speed chase on the 91 and in Buena Park and La Palma where the petty thief ran a red light and t-boned the car of his victim.
How in the world did a few bucks worth of plastic culminate in the death of a 67 year old woman in La Palma? Pretty obviously some poor decisions were made all around, but you have to wonder why the cops had to convert this almost ridiculous episode into a chase endangering an awful lot of people and resulting in a death and who knows how many tens of thousands of dollars in vehicle damage.
Somebody needs to do some hard thinking about this sort of thing. Will they?
Of course no OC DA press release would be complete without a stupid speech from Todd Spitzer, and he doesn’t fail to oblige us with this no-nonsense, tough on crime pabulum:
Funny plastic handcuffs graphic borrowed from Voice of OC
“Enough is enough. Actions have consequences and I am mad as hell that an elderly woman is dead because a drug addicted repeat thief decided to steal Legos from a grocery store and then lead multiple police agencies on a high-speed chase through Orange County in the middle of the day,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “Marianne Casey’s family should be planning their holiday celebrations and instead they are planning a funeral because California’s soft-on-crime policies have created an environment where there is no accountability. Those days are over, and while may be of little comfort to Marianne Casey’s loved ones, if you commit crimes in Orange County, there will be consequences for your actions and there will be justice for victims.”
Ironically Ms. Casey is referred to as “elderly” even though she was only a year or so older than Spitzer himself when a completely unnecessary incident ended her life.
George Bushala, the public speaker at the December 17th City Council meeting who was verbally assaulted by the Fullerton Observer’s Sharon Kennedy is documenting the harassment he suffered with the Fullerton Police Department . FFFF has received a copy of his communication to Fullerton Chief of Police Jon Radus. Incidentally, it now seems that the second person involved in this abusive incident (as reported by Jack Hutt) was none other than Sharon’s younger sister, Skaskia. Kennedy.
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
Here is Mr. Bushala’s communication to Chief Radus:
Dear Chief Radus,
As you may recall, I was a public speaker at the City Council meeting on December 17, 2024.
During my comments I was subjected to several violent verbal interjections by Fullerton resident Sharon Kennedy and her sister, Saskia Kennedy.
It is my intent with this communication to convey to the Fullerton Police Department my concern that the violent verbal attacks were damaging to me and have caused me significant subsequent anxiety.
Prior to seeking legal recourse, I would like to file a report with the FPD documenting this incident and I ask for your assistance with this matter. I would also ask that you use your office to help in forestalling any more threatening behavior directed at me from the Kennedys, and any others who participated in this public verbal assault on me.
Thank you for your help in this matter.
Sincerely,
George A. Bushala 409 E. Amerige Ave. Fullerton, CA 92832
Well, I think this is a very good idea. We can’t have public speakers intimidated at meetings – that would be a serious breach of the right to free speech that people like the Kennedys pretend to care about. I hope Mr. Bushala seeks redress for this attack on his honesty and his right to be heard.
You really have to hand it to the Kennedy sisters, Skaskia and Sharon. They are on the verge of perfecting dumbass hypocrisy.
Patsy Markowitz. Left holding the empty bag.
For weeks and weeks they ignored the obviously phony 4th District candidacy of Scott Markowitz and made every effort to dismiss it as a non-story. When Marko was scooped up by the District Attorney and charged with perjury all they did was repost the DAs press release. When Marko plea bargained they then began to delete comments that questioned their obvious dereliction and bias.
When they finally reported the story of Markowitz’s guilty pleas, it was in their print edition – where nobody could comment at all, and where they continued to pretend that the fake MAGA candidate, hand-held by Democrat operative Ajay Mohan, was a real candidate, now dropping out, instead of what everybody knew was true: Markowitz was a plant to take votes away from Linda Whitaker to the benefit of Observer favorite, Vivian Jaramillo. The unstated implication was clear: Marko acted alone and any other conclusion was a Bushala conspiracy theory.
The prevarication ran deep
What all of this really means is that the Observer Sisters, despite their self-righteous posturing as an “independent news” operation, is just the opposite. Recent FFFF readers started catching on watching their performance on the Trail to Nowhere and the moronic Wilt on Wilshire where the two studiously omitted passing on relevant facts, but actively engaged in drumming up support for their cherished boondoggles.
Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)
Longer term Observer observers, of course, long ago cottoned on to the preachy sanctimony and bias of the Observers, noting the disparagement, snide innuendo, and outright lies aimed at their supposed political enemies. It’s been going on for 45 years and was the stock-in-trade of the paterfamilias, Ralph Kennedy. Just a week or so ago, while they were deleting comments they permitted a salacious and defamatory comment about Councilman Fred Jung.
Of course nobody is forced to go to the Observer blog, and except for the unintended comedy, errors, misspellings and factual errors and omissions, there really is no reason. Ditto the print edition that is still killing trees for absolutely no reason. On the other hand there is no reason anybody has to treat the Observer even with the modicum of respect one might give a legitimate news outlet.
According to the OC Register, phony 4th District candidate, Scott Markowitz pleaded guilty yesterday. In exchange for the plea Markowitz gets a day in jail, probation and a month of community service. Felony charges are dismissed by DA Todd Spitzer.
I’ve never seen the wheels of justice grind out a product so quickly.
But what is the product?
As FFFF writers and commenters have noted, Markowitz’s fate was largely irrelevant given that the whole thing was orchestrated by others connected to the cause of electing Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo, including politicians and Democrat operatives.
Since prosecutors are not given to giving anything away I think we can speculate that Markowitz named a name. Or two. We may surmise, I think, that the investigation into who set Markowitz up in the first place is ongoing. On the other hand this sort of case is probably perceived by the DA as a hassle without a lot of glamor and some potential political pushback from Dems he needs in a non-partisan election.
As to Markowitz, maybe we can let the poor sap get on with his life, free of the encumbrance of a felony rap.
Well, she’s at it again. The old warhorse appears yet again to darken our collective doorstep with her presence. Janesse “Jan” M. Flory was on the Fullerton City Council from 1995 to 2003, then reappeared in 2012 like the Ghost of Christmas Past. And yet, she still wasn’t done, getting herself appointed to the Fullerton City Council in 2019, and continuing her history of incompetence, negligence and indifference to her constituents.
She’s running for the 2nd District council seat currently occupied by popular Mayor, Nick Dunlap. Her rationale? That’s not hard to figure out. She is running to protect Fullerton’s highly compensated and highly unresponsible public employees.
Flory must 80 years old if she’s a day, and Fullerton has changed a lot since 1994 – thirty long years ago, but Flory doesn’t seem to have changed at all. The sneer. The disdain for anyone not toeing the bureaucratic line, not accepting any bullshit emanating from City Hall.
Here’s a robotext recently received by a voter in Fullerton’s 2nd District.
Experience? We all know experiences can range from good to horrendous.
It’s nice to see Janesse let us know her campaign promises, because they remind students of Fullerton history that she was front and center of the disasters that she helped create. We can skip over the illiteracy of the writing and focus on the issues.
Fix our roads and streets? Who the Hell was running the City for 14 years while the pavement went to shit? That’s right, you, Janesse. “Saving” the ridiculous money pit called Walk on Wilshire? Really?
You want to hire more cops and firefighters? Who gave those guys the budget busting pay and pension increases? That’s right, you Janesse.
You want civility? Who treated her constituents like trash when they had the effrontery to stand up for themselves? That’s right, you Janesse.
And now for some fun history, yanked from FFFF headlines, a Flory of bill of indictment.
Too much scotch, not enough water…
In 1994 Jan Flory, supported the unnecessary utility tax and actually proclaimed she wished it were doubled.
In 1995 Flory directed the City Attorney to disclose confidential legal advice in order to build a low-income housing project.
Looking down at someone is best…
In 1998, and in years after Jan Flory cheerfully supported the illegal Water Fund diversion, a tax, to support her pals in City Hall.
In 2000 she supported the disastrous retroactive “public safety” pension giveaway, a breathtaking gift of public funds.
Don’t go there…
In 2000 she approved the $3,000,000 Poison Park, a Redevelopment acquisition of contaminated, gang-infested property on Truslow Avenue, an action she never acknowledged or demanded accountability for. The goddamn thing is still sitting there with a fence around it, 25 years later.
In 2012 she banded together with the cops to get herself elected, and then protected the Fullerton Police Department from reform. The Culture of Corruption continued unabated.
Well, it might have happened like this…
In 2016 she favored Police Chief Danny “C’mere, Big Boy” Hughes with a big, wet, goodbye kiss, three days after he tried to organize the cover-up of the drunken Wild Ride of City Manager, Joe Felz.
The hours are great. So is the pay!
To get appointed to the City Council in 2019, she bribed the unemployed Ahmad Zahra with a lucrative seat on the Orange County Water District.
On her way out the door (again) in 2016, she supported the dishonest “bar owners map” for Fullerton’s first redistricting effort, allegedly created by the miscreant scofflaw, Jeremy Popoff that gerrymandered Jesus Quirk-Silva into a free run for City Council.
The closer you look, the worse it gets.
During the years of the Flory, Fitzgerald, Quirk-Silva, Zahra budget deficits, Flory lied to the public, insisting that the budget was balanced, when in fact, the City was raiding reserve funds to pay for increased employee contracts. Or maybe she simply doesn’t understand what deficit spending means.
Don’t Reward the City’s Stupidity
In 2019 Flory embarked with Zahra, Quirk-Silva, and Fitzgerald on an idiotic, spiteful legal vendetta against this blog, Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee, that cost Fullerton upwards of a million dollars in settlement and legal fees.
In 2020, on her way out the door for the third time, she voted in favor of Measure S, the ill-fated sales tax increase for which she was put on the Council to support.
If there were time and temperament, I could examine even more closely Flory’s “experience,” but, really why bother? Why recall all the Redevelopment boondoggles she supported in the 1990s, or the Downtown booze culture that she helped create in the early 2000s?
Mu’u mu’us and wood beads: I have always hated you, and I always will…
Flory’s bile and animus, directed at anybody who challenges City Hall – citizens and taxpayers, has been going on since 1994 and is well documented.
She once proclaimed that the City department heads were “the heart of the City,” And that tells you all you need to know about Janesse “Jan” M. Flory.
The League of Women Voter’s held their usual candidate “forum” on Monday. Ever helpful, FFFF will harvest the video of the event for the Friends, sharing any fun or useful snippets.
Someone had to get his hands dirty…
What should have come as a surprise to no one, phantom 4th District candidate Scott Markowitz was a no show.
Where’s Marko?
Markowitz doesn’t dare show his face in public for two reasons. The first, of course, is because his candidacy is a sham, created by Democrat operatives to siphon votes away from real candidate Linda Whitaker in order to elect Vivian Jaramillo, the Dems first and only choice. The second reason is that Markowitz’s job is done: creating a phony MAGA candidate whose name and statement are on the ballot.
I’d sell out my mother for 10 votes, and I have…
The Markowitz scam, orchestrated by Dem operative Ajay Mohan and others, involved recruiting Markowitz, changing his registration to Republican, and getting a bunch of Democrats to sign his nominating papers. One of them, Diane Vena had already endorsed Jaramillo. But then Markowitz submitted a ballot statement right out of Trump Central. Did his nominators know that was coming? Looks like fraud to me.
And, that’s not very good, is it?
The scam has been reported to the Orange County District Attorney, Todd Spitzer for investigation. An update soon on that.
What appeared to be a pretty tame fall City Council election may have just become a lot more fun.
The closer you look, the worse it gets.
Word on the street is that Jan Flory pulled nomination papers yesterday to run against Mayor Nick Dunlap in the 2nd District election in November.
Too much scotch, not enough water…
Who is Jan Flory? If you don’t know, take a spin through our files, here. You’ll find all sorts of entertaining stories about Ms. Flory and even about her creepy/pervy son Mike, who used to be a Deputy District Attorney and even tried to be a judge once.
How far did the apple fall from the tree?
Maybe not breast fed long enough…
Jan Flory was elected to the City Council in 1994 and voted off in 2002. In those eight years she happily allowed an illegal water tax, voted for the disastrous retroactive public safety pension spike and supported the culture of unaccountability that has helped us get where we are today.
In 2012 she hauled herself out of the stable to try another lap around the track.
See if you can find the old nag.
Her mission was to restore municipal authority to the Old Guard she represented, and to protect the Culture of Corruption at the Fullerton Police Department from any sort of reform. She informed us that the City Department heads were the “heart of the City.”
She put in her four years, patting her Chief of Police Danny Hughes on the fanny as they both walked out the door in 2016, a few days after the drunken City Manager, Joe Felz drove over a tree and tried to drive away. The ensuing cover up turned out to be expensive. Oops.
Poor Sappy. So young, so vibrant…
But Jan wasn’t done with us. Not by a long shot.
When an opening on the City Council occurred in 2019 guess who was there to snap up the job? After her appointment she rewarded the unemployed Ahmad Zahra for his vote with a paying gig at the Orange County Water District.
In this last stint Flory was happy to continue her love affair with unbalanced budgets and was one of the members of the Council, along with Jesus Quirk Silva, Ahmad Zahra, and Jennifer Fitzgerald who waged a legal vendetta against this blog and specifically against Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee. Of course that harpy-like mission cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, but didn’t cost the perpetrators anything.
Ferguson and Curlee. The easy winners…
Well, I sure hope Ms. Flory really does want to run. The entertainment value alone is worth it. Who her constituency might be is unclear. There aren’t that many elderly liberals left in Fullerton. She might get the support of the yellowing, and thinning Fullerton Observer crowd, but a humorless, stick-up-the-backside septuagenarian is not likely to appeal to anyone under seventy.
A good Friend received an interesting piece in the mail the other day, and sent it in to FFFF.
It’s a solicitation from Scott Flynn, President of the FPOA – Fullerton Police Officer’s Association – the cop’s union in Fullerton.
It seems your support of the police union “has been a beacon of hope that has helped fuel many initiatives to make our community a better place.” Somehow your donation helps the cops with their “support” of all sorts of philanthropic efforts. What that support might be is left to the imagination of the reader.
If you give them some big money you will get incredibly valuable gifts as a “VIP.” An “engraved” tumbler and a “custom donor plaque” will be yours for the low, low price of $1000.
Of course the solicitation is based on the idea that the giver isn’t very bright. The obvious first thought is that if you put the FPOA’s decal on you car somewhere, you might just avoid getting that next, expensive, moving violation. Could that be true? I don’t know, but the thought obviously crossed the minds of the solicitors and the donors.
Second, if you look closely at the piece you notice something interesting.
Of course this operation isn’t a non-profit and you can’t deduct your donation. In fact the FPOA exists for only two reasons: first, to use its political influence electing councilmembers to squeeze evermore higher wage and benefits out of the citizenry; and second to remain as unaccountable to the civilian authority as possible.
The whole thing is hardly different than any other mail scam trying to get people to part with their money. There is no charitable purpose here, just a way to get people to support a public employee union by pretending to be doing good works.
Why wouldn’t any intelligent person simply donate to the real and worthy charity of their choice, and get a tax deduction, too?
The other day FFFF related a story told on the Orange Juice Blog about Fullerton City Councilman Ahmad Zahra having been married to a woman in Arkansas in the late 1990s. It’s always been a blank time in Zahra’s otherwise detailed autobiographies.
The problem is that Zahra has been very clear about being a gay man and “always” knowing it. The unambiguous statements asserting his self-awareness are published in interviews. So how and why did he come to marry a woman?
From beautiful Pulaski County
According to the OJB story, Zahra tells of his arriving in the United States (no mention of what sort of visa he held); and, not knowing a blessed soul, heading to Little Rock, Arkansas where he claims a friend of his father lived. There, says Zahra, he met a woman whom he says he “liked” and who liked him in return. This tepid romance led to a marriage, dissolved a few years later after Zahra had made his way to Los Angeles to learn the movie trade.
The story is so outlandish that it stretches credulity far past the snapping point. The OJB forewent an opportunity to delve farther into the strange tale, but the obvious difficulties emerge with startling clarity.
An immigrant to the United States of America shows up for some reason, not knowing anybody. Is he a tourist? Maybe. But if so he decides to go to Arkansas, of all places – not exactly a well-know tourist destination. Well, there he is in Little Rock. Where does he live? How does he get by? He can’t get a job, at least not legally, so he must have a little something stored up for a rainy day Stateside.
Michelle Salmon
Enter Michelle Salmon, stage right. Somehow our eager young visitor crosses paths with Ms. Salmon. How and where they meet is at the heart of this mystery and is open to some interesting conjecture. Inexplicably the relationship leads to matrimony at the Pulaski County Courthouse where a marriage license is obtained.
Michelle has hooked herself quite a prize catch: a 27 year-old foreigner with no job (legal anyway), no job prospects, and, according to Zahra himself, completely aware of his homosexuality. On the surface he seems like pretty poor husband material for an Arkansas gal, so we have to wonder if poor Michelle was either mentally challenged or perhaps in need of financial assistance.
Zahra makes no mention of his visa status in his story to the OJB, but we have to assume that he received either a work visa or permanent residency status because not long after his connubial union he goes to LA, bravely living in a car on the streets of Hollywood (so he says). His visa would have been helped along by a marriage certificate to a citizen and it’s safe to say he got one that permitted him to stay in the US.
Well, says Zahra cavalierly, the marriage thing didn’t “work out,” what with the husband living in a car in Southern California, and with Michelle deciding to remain in Arkansas “with her family.” Divorce ensued and Ahmad’s new life journey had begun. He became a citizen in the course of time, a fact he shares as if this simple fact absolves him of any impropriety in the acquisition thereof.
Here’s what happened…
Naturally, Zahra tried to paint this ludicrous picture to the OJB as his “coming out” portrait, and invited homophobic and Islamophobic FFFF to “make fun” of the narrative. The old dodge. Homophobia. Islamophobia. Be a victim.
I’m not the least bit interested in making fun of anything relating to Zahra’s gay coming out story – whichever variation he is selling at any given time; except when the story is cooked up to obfuscate what looks like a serious and likely problematic question. To wit: did Ahmad Zahra commit Marriage Fraud to expedite the legal requirements for him to stay in this country?
Our friends at the Orange Juice Blog published a story yesterday about Fullerton City Councilman Ahmad Zahra having been married in Arkansas, of all places, in the late 90s. And to an American woman named Michelle Salmon.
FFFF was sent of a copy of the marriage license.
Now this would normally not be of interest to anybody, except that Mr. Zahra has branded himself as the first gay Muslim, etc., etc. – brave hero, in fact. However, his self-propagated biography, such as it is, has never discussed a sojourn in the state of Arkansas, let alone having a wife there.
Michelle Salmon
How a Syrian immigrant ended up in Arkansas, married, sounds like an interesting tale in itself.
According to an interview with Zahra, the OJB reports his version of how he ended up in hillbilly country:
Adrift on a foreign shore. What to do?
“I got to this country and I didn’t know anybody, but my father had a friend in Little Rock, so that’s where I went first. I met Michelle, and we liked each other and thought we could work things out, but it didn’t work out. She was even going to go to LA with me but she decided to stay with her family.”
Wow, that’s pretty damn thin. Personally, I “like” all sorts of folks without feeling the least bit inclined to get married. Not surprising “it didn’t work out.”
Zahra, 52, did not have one specific moment when he came out as gay. He always knew he was, but it would be decades until his family would know.
In fact, when Zahra did finally come out to his friend, he was not entirely surprised, saying, “That explains a lot.” Zahra had never dated girls.
So why does a gay, Muslim immigrant marry an American woman in Arkansas? That’s a good question. Was Zahra giving the hetero deal one last swing at the plate? No need for marriage to do that, especially in Arkansas.
The Orange Juice suggests another reason:
Okay, well, the suspicion arises that this was a marriage to get citizenship, which is illegal under the Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendments Act of 1986. But Ahmad tells us he didn’t become a citizen until long after their 2001 divorce, in 2008.
Um, we always know that when somebody provides irrelevant information, he’s likely avoiding something. In this case the year of Zahra’s actual citizenship (even if true) isn’t the issue. The issue is whether he tried to accelerate permanent residence status by virtue of a phony marriage. And as OJB observes, that is illegal.
The fact is that nobody cares about Zahra’s sexual orientation, or his “heroic” coming out narrative, real or otherwise. What I (and others, no doubt) care about is his pattern of untruths including his tale that he was “exonerated” by the District Attorney in a case of battery; his phony accusation of assault against Fullerton council colleague Fred Jung; his disappearance from a council meeting for a photo-op, etc. And naturally, if an immigrant’s first official act in America is to break the law, then the public deserves to her about it.
