The guy who pounded Kelly Thomas’ face to bloody jelly (right after he got done torturing him with multiple Taser shocks) won’t lose his disability pension from the LAPD. In fact, the board that oversees such things won’t even review the case. Marisa Gerber relates the story in the OC Weekly, here.
What case is that? It stems from Cicinelli’s getting all shot to hell a few weeks out of the chute back in the mid-90’s. Among other injuries, one of his eyes was shot out. At the time, the pension board granted him a lifetime disability, but of course that decision didn’t contemplate Cicinelli going back to work as a one-eyed cop, which he did in Fullerton a little while later. And apparently nobody from Fullerton bothered to inform anybody in LA of Cicinelli’s new employment status.
So Cicinelli was making $40K a year from LAPD and made about $90K from Fullerton on that hot, sultry night of July 5th, 2011. Equitable? You decide.
Speaking of getting two pensions, I now roll around to the main point of this post. Which is Pat McKinley, the double barreled pension grabber who, as chief of the Fullerton Police Department hired Cicinelli and deployed the one-eyed cop on the streets of Fullerton. It was a favor for an old LAPD crony. In so doing, he placed Cicinelli, the public, and the taxpaying citizenry at dire risk.
He also hired the rest of the FPD gallery of rogues that has made the news lately: the druggies, pickpockets, perjurers, thugs, sex offenders and killers.
McKinley still insists he is proud of all these people (except for “the two!”) and has nothing to apologize for.
See, in Pat’s weird world mistakes are never admitted, responsibility for failure is never taken, and of course, accountability is utterly absent. McKinley won’t acknowledge what everybody else already knows: during his tenure as the head of the Fullerton Police Department his leadership failure created an obvious Culture of Corruption that culminated with the death of Kelly Thomas and the subsequent attempt to hush it up.
Well, I guess since McKinley won’t man up to his own failures, we’re going to have to do it for him
Heh, heh. When nobody was looking the collection plate went missing.
When you are a moral vacuum like Dick Ackerman, you really don’t stand for much of anything except your own well-being. Public service? Hell, no! It’s all about personal service. Everything else is just platitudes and bull shit.
An indication of Mr. Ackerman’s future career path was clearly established with the creation of a fake charity by his wife that was simply a mechanism to get state legislators (one of whom was Mr. Ackerman) alone on Maui with lobbyists for big corporate interests who actually paid for the whole junket. Ackerman is hilariously quoted as saying how beneficial these get togethers were, as if being lobbied in Sacramento (instead of Hawaii by the same cast of characters) was somehow just so much more darned inefficient. FFFF posted all about the utterly phony Pacific Policy Research Foundation, here.
I don't even know how I got into the room...
That was just the start of Mr. Ackerman exploiting Mrs. Ackerman for family gain. And it wasn’t enough that The Dickster got the missus on the Metropolitan Water Board where she naturally supported huge water rate increases (true, that bar was already set really, really low).
Now people endowed with a normal dose of shame would have simply receded into the background after the man they promoted was busted for moral turpitude. But the Ackermans are not so endowed. Dick’s immediate impulse was to promote the candidacy of the wife, a woman who had, apparently, never even held a job except as a “consultant” raiding her husband’s campaign accounts.
Well, okay. Lot’s of unqualified dimwits run for the Legislature. The real problem was that the Ackermans didn’t even live in the district. The Ackermans live in a top-secret gated community in Irvine! The State Constitution says you have to live in a district a year, but what the Hell, the State Constitution is for losers!
The point of the story is simple: there is no basement so low that Dick Ackerman & Co. won’t crawl into it in order to pull a string or make a buck. And if you don’t recognize Dick as the moral barometer of the anti-recall campaign, you don’t know Dick.
On Thursday the Fullerton Police Department released a sketch of a sexual assault suspect, according to the Register, here.
The attack occurred on October 12th, on Berkeley, near FJC, one month earlier. A little late. Still, not bad for Andrew Goodrich, who inexplicably (or perfectly explicable if you believe in the FPD Culture of Corruption) remains the face of Fullerton on police matters.
Here's your man...Oops, sorry. here he is.
Naturally some of the commenters on the ensuing thread wonder aloud when the Goodrich & Co. are going to release the image of former FPD cop Albert Rincon, who sexually assaulted women in the back seat of his patrol car, with the full knowledge of his superiors in the department.
Oh, that’s right. Former police chief, city councilman and current recall target Pat McKinley has explained all: “it’s just touching. Not a good thing, but not a dangerous thing.” So despite a $350,000 settlement (to date) Rincon is not really a danger to anybody.
Lookin' out for the ladies, oh yeah!
But if that sets the bar for behavior then it looks like their suspect falls well withing the bounds of propriety established by McKinley.
Uh oh! The LA Times discovered that one of the cops who beat Kelly Thomas to death is still getting a hefty disability pension from the LAPD, even though he was also pulling down a full salary to work here in Fullerton for the last 12 years.
The story is complete with an internal memo suggesting how unfortunate it would be if the public caught on to the scam. “We might get some unwanted attention if anybody notices that he will still be getting paid 70% of a P-II salary (tax-free) from LAFPP until we’re allowed to get the Board to address it?” says one government employee to another.
Too late. The truth is that the fully disabled Jay Cicinelli should have never been put back on patrol with only one eye, he should never have had the opportunity to pull that disability scam, and he definitely shouldn’t have been around to beat an innocent homeless man to death.
We won’t let you forget that Fullerton has Pat McKinley to thank for that chain of events.
I hired that guy.
Of course McKinley is still boldly maintaining he made all the right choices; that he’s being unfairly attacked for his well-tuned judge of character, his brilliant plan to stock Fullerton with LAPD rejects and his 17 years of coddling criminal behavior in what would become one of the world’s most renowned local police forces.
At least there’s something to be said for his persistence.
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:
We received some interesting correspondence after our last report on Officer Perry Thayer. Others wanted to share their experiences with one of the FPD’s “enforcers.” This particular reader wished to stay anonymous.
The story begins when Fullerton Police were dispatched to his mother’s home after she had threatened to commit suicide. Uh-oh. Our reader tells his story:
I arrived at the house I spent my life growing up in, with 5 or 6 officers at the scene peering in through the windows and garage. I quickly exited my car, and identified myself as her son, with a key to open the house.
They ask me if there are any firearms or weapons inside the house, to which I replied no. I also advised the group of officers to stay outside because they are the last thing she wants to see. Keep in mind this whole conversation took place as I was walking up the driveway to the front door with keys in hand.
I asked them to stay outside one more time as I was entering the house. I closed the door behind me, keeping my focus inside the house. Before the door closed all the way behind me, I felt it hit me in the back and arm with an officer charging through it. He immediately put me in a choke hold, which completely shut off my supply of oxygen, while rapidly repeating “PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK” 4 to 5 times in succession. I complied and put my hands behind my back, as my contact popped out of my eye as he tightened his hold.
I was put in handcuffs and taken outside of the house as the officers rushed in. I could hear my Mom’s confusion as to why they were there, and how they were making it worse. She had no idea I was there or that I opened the door.
I asked Officer Thayer why he attacked me. He then pointed to his finger stating I had “slammed the door on me and the other officers”. He told me to look at his finger, where I didn’t see any injuries. Obviously his DAR was on, making him look pathetic as he was trying to gain some kind of evidence from his recorder. I really couldn’t believe a person like this existed, especially in a police uniform.
He then took me to the police station where another officer asked Thayer if I was “another raver kid.” I didn’t know being Korean made me a “raver” kid. Hell, I’ve never in my 23 years of life been to one. I was booked and forced to wait in a room as Thayer was bragging about putting me in a chokehold, and making this whiny, high-pitched voice to imitate my mom. Officer Thayer then opened the door to ask, “did you pass out?” then closed the door. I asked the booking officer what I was being charged for as he was taking me to my cell. 2 counts of assault on a peace officer and resisting arrest. Luckily I made $2500 bail an hour after, but that was more of a miracle in itself to obtain.
I had trouble breathing for a month, as my neck was sore, and I also had a bruised eye. I had lost complete faith in a lot of aspects of life, and was always angry to the point where it affected my social life.
Unnecessarily brutal treatment of in this case, not even a suspect, but merely a potentially suicidal woman’s son, compounded of course by false arrest. Protecting and serving us again Officer Thayer?
Our reader continues:
After a slew of court dates, personal character reports from employees and church members, I plead guilty to disturbing the peace. To be honest, the reason why I didn’t want to fight it in court was due to my unfamiliarity with the court system and the fear of more court dates in which I could lose and have that on my record.
I didn’t file a civilian complaint. I don’t know the reason that compelled me not to. Figured I never wanted to step inside that building again.
(On Thayer): Honestly, what kind of a person reacts this way to a potential suicidal situation, in where they could do the most harm, and where I could have resolved the whole situation peacefully? I can’t explain how bound and powerless I felt as a human being in society, or more importantly as a son. Though my charges were knocked down to disturbing the peace, my biggest regret now was not exposing it at the time.
Officer Perry Thayer (artistic depiction)
It seems understandable that after being abused and charged with imaginary crimes for merely trying to prevent a distraught elder parent from killing themselves, one would be reluctant to deal with that police force again. But check out this bit of information:
I’d like to add that during my time in the room while I was waiting to be booked, after Thayer’s conversation with the booking officer, a female officer of upper ranking (apparently a Sergeant who was at the scene) replied to him, “that’s what you’re here for” as it sounded like she pats him on the back to congratulate him.
“That’s what you’re here for.” To randomly beat, choke, batter, and falsely arrest our citizens? With supervisors like this, who can be surprised by the ever-increasing reports of the FPD’s off-the-chart thuggishness and violence?
With each new incident, the view that the Fullerton Police Department has gone out of its way to encourage its officers to commit wanton acts of brutality against the public is becoming less of a conspiracy theory and more of an evidentiary certainty.
Just in case you ever to decide to scrape the moss off that Kevlar dome and decide to do some real thinking.
When the cop YOU hired handcuffs and gropes women in the backseat of his patrol car YOU are responsible. When numerous complaints are brushed aside by the FPD, YOU are responsible. When hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars are paid out in damages to the victims, YOU are responsible.
So why not haul your sorry ass off the Fulleron City Council dais ASAP and make way for someone willing to be accountable for their actions, rather than blame everybody else. Hell, just make way for somebody with a miligram of integrity and humanity.
And be sure to take those other two wizened sphincters with you.
Here’s the entire episode of today’s Inside OC show; it’s a full blown battle of wits on why the recallees deserve to be thrown out of office in the wake of their catastrophic failure to lead.
In it you will find a furious debate between Chris Thompson and the anti-recall team’s Chief Distraction Officer, Larry Bennett, along with Bruce Whitaker’s accusation of an FPD cover-up in the aftermath of the Kelly Thomas murder.
Finally, the show closes with a sad, sad interview with Pat McKinley, who claims he still doesn’t understand the accusations against him and his police department, although he does summon enough mental clarity to remind us that Officer Manny Ramos’ criminal defense attorney is very highly regarded.
Watch this video clip of Fullerton City Councilman Bruce Whitaker explaining to David Nazar the lies, half-truths and distortions he’s been getting from his own employees about the Kelly Thomas murder.
Whitaker understands what we have understood all along: the Fullerton Police Department and its spokesman, union boss Andrew Goodrich, had no interest in telling anybody what really happened to the homeless victim Thomas on that hot July night in the Fullerton Transportation Center. The falsified reports, the return of the murderers to the street, and the lies peddled by Goodrich all point to one inescapable conclusion: the police department, stalled, lied, and temporized waiting for the scandal to go away.
Yes, Bruce, it must be really exasperating for an elected official to be stonewalled and sandbagged by a bunch of goons and thugs dressed up like policemen, and also by your City Manager and City Attorney who have handed over legal and managerial oversight of the police department to the cops themselves; and even more exasperating to know that the Three Dessicated Dinosaurs are committed to participate in protecting the crooked Culture of Corruption status quo.
Here’s a riddle: Which OC Police Department met with a citizen who, after leaving police HQ, plowed into three parked cars?
Well, if you liked to bet and didn’t mind a scant payoff, you’d almost immediately say the Fullerton Police Department, of course.
It seems as if one Robert Ghanadian, was at the FPD station on Wednesday afternoon, meeting with a cop in the traffic division about some prior accident. While the details of this encounter remain something of a mystery, what is perfectly clear is that Mr. Ghanadian was impaired by some kind of intoxication when he sideswiped three vehicles on the south side of Commonwealth Avenue, one of which belongs to Ron Thomas, the father of FPD murder victim Kelly Thomas. An eye-witness claims Ghanadian came from the police station.
Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
What makes this story particularly ironic is the way one FPD apologist earlier in the day defended the illegal arrest of innocent citizens on unsubstantiated charges of public intoxication based on possible risk to the City. Did the FPD let an impaired Ghanadian get behind the wheel of his SUV and motor off ignoring risk to the public? If so, he didn’t get far.
Maybe it was a pro-FPOA decal that did the trick. Who knows? But one thing I do know is that we are all lucky Ghanadian didn’t kill anybody.
