Friends For Fullerton's Future
FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Somebody captured this campaign sign recently. It suggests one of three things.
1) Don Bankhead is a liar who wants people to think he is an incumbent; or,
2) Bankhead belongs in a memory care unit since he can’t remember that he was recalled four months ago and is no longer on the City Council; or,
3) he is too cheap to buy new campaign signs and is using old ones.
Well, which is it?
Well, that’s former officer Wolfe to you. Here is the D.A.’s announcement:
THIRD FORMER FULLERTON POLICE OFFICER ARRAIGNED ON INDICTMENT FOR BEATING-DEATH OF 37-YEAR-OLD HOMELESS MAN
SANTA ANA – A third former Fullerton Police Department (FPD) officer was arraigned today after Orange County District Attorney (OCDA) Tony Rackauckas obtained an indictment from the Orange County Grand Jury against him for his criminal participation in the July 2011 beating-death of 37-year-old homeless man Kelly Thomas.
Former Officer Joseph Wolfe was indicted Sept. 24, 2012, on one felony count of involuntary manslaughter and one felony count of the use of excessive force. He faces a maximum sentence of four years in state prison if convicted. Per the statutory bail amount, Wolfe surrendered on $25,000 bail. The defendant is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing Nov. 2, 2012, at 9:00 a.m. in Department C-40, Central Justice Center, Santa Ana.
The first two defendants in this case, then-Officer Manuel Ramos and then-Corporal Jay Cicinelli (see below), were charged Sept. 21, 2011, in Case #11CF2575. Since that time, the OCDA has actively continued its investigation and legal review and decided to seek an indictment against Wolfe following extensive legal and factual analysis and development of evidence.
The Orange County Grand Jury heard testimony from 10 witnesses and examined 113 exhibits of evidence over three days beginning Sept. 19, 2012, before returning an indictment on Sept. 24, 2012.
The law requires that grand jury transcripts, including any evidence or testimony, to be sealed until 10 calendar days have passed from the date of receipt of those transcripts by the defense. Due to this restriction, the OCDA is legally prohibited from discussing any information related to the grand jury proceedings at this time.
This piece was sent in yesterday by an FFFF reader who calls himself Brandon. I’ve also included a video of the acting chief making the city’s announcement.
Well it took 14 months but the Fullerton Police Department finally admitted what many had suspected since the beginning- Kelly Thomas was not doing anything wrong the night he was harassed and eventually beat to death by 6 Fullerton Police Officers. According to a statement made by Fullerton acting chief Dan Hughes, “There is no evidence of which the Fullerton Police Department is now aware that Kelly Thomas actually tried to steal anything from any of the vehicles in the lot.”
While this information is not surprising to anyone who has been reading the Friends for Fullerton’s Future blog over the last year or so, it is a victory toward holding the officers involved in the beating death accountable. A large part of the defense of the two (and soon to be possibly three) officers currently facing charges in the case rests on Thomas’ “criminal” behavior on the night he bludgeoned, electrocuted, and suffocated to death by six of Fullerton’s finest. With this admission by Chief Hughes, the lawyers for Manuel Ramos and jay Cicinelli will likely have a difficult time trying to convince a jury that Thomas was asking for his deadly beating that night. Of course the attorneys representing the ex-officers will no doubt still try to paint Thomas as a dangerous criminal whom their clients were afraid of that night. But when you are defending one of the most heinous, callous murders ever caught on tape, you have to draw at straws in order to have a chance at getting your clients off.
While many are no doubt happy to see the FPD finally confirmed what they had been suspecting and postulating on for over a year, relatives of the accused are not among those rejoicing. John Huelsman, the stepfather of Cicinelli tried to blame the current Fullerton City Council for directing Hughes to make the statement. “This is a criminal matter,” Huelsman told reporters. “These guys can go to prison… and the City Council just said they’re guilty because Kelly Thomas was innocent.” Talk about overstating the obvious. Mr. Huelsman’s incredulity at the fact his step-son could possibly be complicit in the murder is rather amusing given all of the evidence supporting it. And I don’t think the Fullerton city council has to tell anyone that your step-son and his comrades are guilty. We’ll let the video evidence and eye witness reports do that.
It took a year, and some double talk by our esteemed DA, but news reports are saying the OC Grand Jury is convening to day to indict former Fullerton bully cop Joe Wolfe in the death of Kelly Thomas. Originally Tony Rackukas said Wolfe couldn’t have known what was going on between Ramos and Kelly and therefore was excused from any wrongdoing, a yarn so unbelievable that, well, nobody believed it, especially when the video came out and we could see a fully engaged Wolfe take batting practice on Kelly.
And here’s some food for thought: Joe Felz and Acting Chief Danny Hughes put this cheapjack goon (or so the story goes – and it has the perfect ring of truth) on a disability retirement for throwing out his shoulder beating up on Thomas! In any case Wolfe is gone from the Department, but not ’til afer getting a clean bill of health from our new, reformed police department and its esteemed Acting Chief. Fortunately the Grand Jury is likely to be a lot more discriminating as to who it determines to be Hero. Ad hopefully this Hero will get what he deserves.
I have always been fascinated by the urge for government employees and their die-hard supporters to cling to the notion of collective bargaining as some sort of birthright. The ability for public employees to unionize is actually not even that old, but is a comparatively recent and curious chapter in the history of organized labor.
Classical Marxist doctrine holds that in the capitalist phase of history there are two elements contributing to economic activity. There are capital and labor; the first representing the bourgeois investment class (and their managerial overseers); the second is the workforce that sells its labor to the former. Naturally, the cost of labor , the investment of the capitalists, and the return the latter is willing to accept determine the supply side cost of goods.
The Marxists believed that capital habitually exploited an oversupply of labor through poor working conditions and long hours of employment. There was certainly evidence to support this contention and the capitalists did their best to outlaw labor “combination” through their control of legislatures.
(For the sake of argument I will happily stipulate the socialist fact in evidence.)
Of course labor did combine.
But the idea of government workers unionizing did not enter the into the equation. Why? For several reasons, one of which is succinctly stated by the most effective liberal in American history, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Roosevelt realized that people who work for the government cannot hold the same employer/employee relationship since their employer is the people as a sovereign whole. Clearly the idea of collective bargaining, and particularly militant union tactics used against the citizenry was abhorrent to old FDR himself.
Another related problem is that government employees do not fit into the labor-capital equation, since the “capitalist” investor in their operation is none other than the taxpayers and citizens – and not a natural adversary in an economic system. And public employees were granted civil service protection and security to make up for comparatively modest wages.
And then there is the problem of the complete public sector labor monopoly. Producers of goods compete with each other in marketplaces that, among other things, sets a value on product that helps determine the cost of labor. No such balance exists in the public sector where nothing is for sale and there is no competition in the labor market at all.
The ability to unionize and the concomitant ability to engage in collective political action has enabled the public sector labor monopoly to elect its favored candidates at all levels, and subsequently to exact greater and greater salaries and benefits for themselves; and always using the argument that all they seek is parity with the private sector. Yet never have they jettisoned the civil service protections that makes in almost impossible to fire an incompetent public worker.
Most comical are the “management” unions that represent the upper tier employees who oversee the lower, and whose own interests in running the “company” are inexplicably linked with the benefits conferred upon the latter!
And so dear Friends, next time you see a “retired” 50 year old cop who was granted almost 100% of his salary as a pension, and who was given two decades of retroactive benefits, ask him whom he has to thank. I guarantee it won’t be you, or even the other public employees who negotiated his benefits on your behalf; nor even the lackeys on the city council like Don Bankhead, Dick Jones, and Jan Flory whom his union got elected. Nuh, uh. He will thank an anonymous “system” that has created this mess and that has virtually bankrupt California and threatens almost every municipality in the state.
Well, we know who to thank.
An alert FFFF reader just noticed some comments placed on Jan Flory’s Facebook page that should be of interest to all Fullertonians who are interested in Flory and her supporters.
Here’s a semi-literate comment, aimed at the Boss:
Sonny Black because there they are all puppets and thats how BUSHALA told them to vote!!!!
4 hours ago via mobile · 2
And another the next day:
“Sonny Black.” Hmm. Now where have I head that moniker? Oh, right, it’s the Facebook handle of Miguel “Sonny” Siliceo, made notorious on these pages as the cop who pinned a rap on Emanuel Martinez that landed him in the county lock-up for five months. The only trouble was that the eye-witness had actually ID’d a completely different person. Whether Mr. Siliceo was just stupid and lazy, or corrupt is a matter for speculation; but an innocent guy spent five months in jail for no legal reason thanks to Sonny. Oh, well.
Subsequently Sonny removed tell-tale traces of his identity, but oops! Too late.
For extra fun here is a picture of “Sonny Black,” enjoying some very close personal time with his Facebook pal, “Alby Al” Albert Rincon at a downtown bar.
If you are going to get involved in politics developing a thick skin is essential. If you can’t take the heat, well you know. Here is Jan Flory attacking Travis Kiger for having the temerity to be “webmaster” for the award-winning FFFF blog.
It’s interesting to see how Jan Flory thinks this blog has some issue “strong, older women” (i.e. her). That’s wrong, of course.
It couldn’t possibly be that our antipathy with Mrs. Flory is because she has always been a mean, vindictive harpy with a trail of votes that have cost the taxpayers of Fullerton a fortune, now could it?
I don’t know. That’s his story, anyway, and because he has a lot of gang tats and an old affiliation with a Fullerton barrio gang, his story is sure to be challenged.
Here’s the synopsis.
On August 11th, Fullerton resident David Tovar was riding his bike on Valencia Ave. when an unknown truck sped up behind him. Fearing for his safety from the unknown persons in the vehicle, Tovar veered off. The truck chased him down an alley just east of Harbor Boulevard, and then across Harbor and rammed him from behind. He was knocked him off his bike, his head striking the concrete curb. He was unconscious. He later discovered that the driver and passengers were undercover Fullerton cops in an unmarked car who pursued him because he had no light on his bike!
Well, that’s his story.
Here’s an interview with Tovar.
Naturally, we here at the FFFF City Desk, are in hot pursuit of any witnesses, so stay tuned! If anybody in the vicinity of Harbor Blvd. and Ash Ave. on August 11th saw this incident, we would like to get your story.
We will also be inquiring about any such event logged in by the FPD and see if any of this story might be true.