Category: Union Goons

Posted onBoohooism

Two Kinds of Deflection

by 62 Comments on Two Kinds of Deflection

In the wake of the Kelly Thomas murder at the hands of the FPD, two different yet eerily similar tactics emerged for deflecting responsibility away from the cops.

Fullerton’s antique liberal crowd quickly banded together so that society itself could be blamed, not the FPD: the problem was not murderous, corrupt or even incompetent cops. Oh, no. The problem was one of homelessness and the solution was to provide a homeless shelter! Why Kelly would probably even be alive today!

On the other hand, the anonymous cop-protectors keep insisting that the problem lay with poor parenting for Kelly’s death, as if a schizophrenic, 35 year-old man was somehow the responsibility of his parents, and as if that somehow exculpates the six cops who beat him to death and stood around laughing as he died in a pool of his own blood.

Of course both groups relied heavily upon a completely comical whitewash of the FPD Culture of Corruption by paid-for opinion of Michael Gennaco.

Two different cliques, two very similar tactics.

 

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Posted onChronic Failure

Ramos and Cicinelli Go To Trial: Wolfie Not Far behind

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Manny Ramos and Jay Cicinelli, two of the six Fullerton cops who presided over the death of transient Kelly Thomas on July 5th, 2011 were told today by Superior Court judge Froeberg that they would be standing trial in June for the death of the schizophrenic homeless man. Their running buddy, Joe Wolfe the third Fullerton cop charged, has another hearing to dismiss in March.

According to the judge there was sufficient evidence to go to trial. Of course we already knew that; and we also know that newly minted Chief Danny Hughes, the boss of the Fullerton Six told them they did a good job that night. He also claimed there was no Culture of Corruption in the FPD, and other bedtime fairy tales.

Kelly Thomas was killed eighteen months ago.

 

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Posted onChronic Failure

Judge Refuses to Drop Charges in Kelly Thomas Case

by 190 Comments on Judge Refuses to Drop Charges in Kelly Thomas Case

Ramos

Another effort by the lawyers for the FPD cops charged in the murder of transient Kelly Thomas has failed.

Wolfe
What, me worry?

The Voice of OC(EA) has the story  succinctly, here. Apparently the issue will be revisited again on the 18th in Judge William R. Froeberg’s court, but from the statements made by the judge it sure looks like this will go forward.

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Posted onThe Cost of Defeat

Now, What About Our Water Tax Refund? Part 1: A Recap

by 56 Comments on Now, What About Our Water Tax Refund? Part 1: A Recap

thief

For 40 years the City of Fullerton has added a 10% tax to your water. The ostensible purpose was to pay for general city costs necessary to deliver water, like the City Manager and the City Attorney. In the beginning the rate was a small 2%. Then in 1970 the City Fathers realized nobody was watching and they bumped it to 10%. But the fee had nothing to do with infrastructure or anything else withing the purview of the Water Utility.

For the first 27 years it was just a scam – the City departments were already charging directly to the Water Fund – the 10% was just pure high-fat content bureaucratic gravy, ripped off from unsuspecting water users by ignorant and lubricious politicians and administrators; then in 1996 Proposition 218 was enacted, requiring that objective studies, approved in public, be the basis of these charges. At this point the annually rubber stamped water tax became illegal; but it was still there, happily rising whenever the cost of the water commodity itself went up – from 1997-2012.

In 2012 the City itself acknowledged the magnitude of the ill-gotten revenue – over $27,000,000 since 1997, a sum that went into the General Fund to pay for salaries and benefits of employees who have absolutely nothing to do with the procurement or transmission of water, as well as other fun stuff – like council junkets to four start hotels.

Last year, the previous council majority made a commitment to return as much of the graft as possible. The new council? Don’t hold your breath. Mrs. Flory, one of architects of the ripoff, and someone who, arrogantly, has never even bothered to proffer an apology for her heist, has claimed that the City can’t afford refunds of even the minimum amount prescribed by law.

Well, we’ll see how this plays out. In the meantime, stay tuned for Part II: How to Phony Up A Report.

 

 

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Posted onChronic Failure

Excuses, Excuses

by 172 Comments on Excuses, Excuses

Ponsi2

OC Register excuse for a journalist, and notorious bad-cop-story-misser, Lou Ponsi, really outdid himself today with a ridiculous “story” about all the excuses his pals on the force heard from folks who wanted to dodge a traffic citation. Real tough, hard-hitting piece there, Lou.

I wonder if Ponzi will ever tire of writing stupid fluff pieces for one of the most notorious police forces in California. I also wonder if writing salacious cop-accounts of wanton females is the best story line, given the well-documented behavior of FPD serial sex batterer Albert Rincon, whose activities were essentially known, and condoned by the department.

Anyhoo, that’s all introductory to my own version of a real human interest piece, something of which we are all too familiar, by now. And that’s the excuses doled out by the cops themselves to try to explain away their own malfeasance – crap subsequently sucked up by drones like Ponsi. Enjoy.

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1. He was running.

2. He was fighting.

3. He disobeyed a legal command.

4. He was reaching for his “waistband” (whatever that is).

5. That donut was supposed to be jelly-filled.

6. We put our lives on the line every day.

7. Our belts weigh 80 pounds.

8. We die at average 53 years old.

9. We try to arrest the right guy.

10. He thought he was beating up the right guy.

11. That’s POBR covered. Can’t talk about it.

12. It was not just honking. It was excessive horning.

13. No, it’s not tax deductible, but give us your money anyway, you’ll get a decal.

14. The job stress hooked me on those pills.

15. I just set my bag of chicken on that iPad. After that I don’t know what happened.

16. I got mad at my DAR and smashed it against the wall.

17. We slammed his head against the bars as we removed the dead body.

18. Those ladies weren’t like you.

19. Just wait to see the video. You’ll change your minds. I’ve seen it 400 times.

20. There were broken bones.

21. There was only one, maybe two deeply involved.

22. He was breaking into cars.

23. He was high on PCP.

24. He was a gang banger.

25. I feared for my safety.

26. The 90 pound girl with the jack knife entered the 22 foot radius so we had to shoot her 18 times.

27. Ron Thomas was never a deputy sheriff.

28. He was just a smelly bum.

29. The free sandwiches and beers are just a small perk for an otherwise unrewarding job.

30. My second wife doesn’t understand me and my girlfriend just wants a chunk of that pension.

31. It was suicide by cop.

32. He was a terrorist.

33. It was just a bong from the evidence room. It’s not like i was going to use it or anything.

34. Once you take a guided tour of the station you’ll feel differently about everything.

35. it was really all just a misunderstanding.

36. They are either misinformed or lying.

And now, feel free to add your own.

 

 

 

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Posted onSomething Wicked This Way Comes

Have At It

by 245 Comments on Have At It
hughes
Here’s how it happened. And no, I wasn’t there…

As expected, the new council voted 3-2 to begin “negotiations” with Dan Hughes to become Fullerton’s police chief.

Flory, Chaffee and Fitzgerald took their vote even as questions remain unanswered about Hughes’ role in the aftermath of Kelly Thomas murder, and accusations that Hughes himself was involved in an incident which is now the subject of a lawsuit against the City; and of course ongoing suspicion that Hughes has been an active part of the Culture of Corruption every step of the way.

Now watch ’em give away the store.

Oh, and yeah: you will not be getting a police oversight committee.

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Posted onChronic Failure

Hail to the Creep

by 61 Comments on Hail to the Creep
The Best and Brightest?

Back after a month in eastern Nevada, I picked up some information about Fullerton’s cop union president.

We first met Barry Coffman on these pages as the carb-packing ticket writer for “excessive horning,” a charge made up by the FPD as tickets were being handed out to honest citizens honking their horns in support of Kelly Thomas murder protesters outside the Fullerton Police Station. That strategy was organized by then Captain “Danny” Hughes who got to act as both bad cop and good cop all by himself by thoughtfully tearing up the tickets he himself had ordered handed out. Hughes and Coffman. What a team.

But back to the egregious Coffman, himself.

I have it on good authority that Coffman was re-elected  as head man of the Fullerton Police Officer’s Association, proving that being an otiose fathead who won’t even stick up for one of his own members is no obstacle to leadership in the FPOA.

Coffman had no opponent; apparently another cop challenged Coffman and was told he couldn’t run without naming a Vice President candidate. Whether or not such nonsense is actually memorialized in the FPOA by-laws in anybody’s guess, but I would bet not. Yes, the FPOA resembles nothing so much as a small, corrupt banana republic.

 

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Posted onChronic Failure

The Settlements

by 223 Comments on The Settlements

Yes, Friends, elections do have consequences. But you already knew that.

The results of the November election mean that the tepid and incompetent reign of Fullerton City Manager Joe Felz and City Attorney Dick Jones will continue as they preside over policies (or lack of policies) meant to evade accountability for your employees and electeds in City Hall.

Acting Chief Danny Hughes, the legacy boss of the FPD Culture of Corruption will soon see his title made permanent, even as the accusations by Ben Lira about Hughes’s direct involvement in cover-up and brutality, continue to  swirl.

(No, you will not get a refund in any part for the illegal $27,000,000 tax that City Hall stole from you. But in the larger scheme of things, that’s small change)

I want to talk about justice.

In our State the cops can do damn near anything they want with impunity. Our spineless politicians have given them wealth, influence, and most importantly, virtually no accountability to anyone. The justice system itself, run by District Attorneys surrounded by ex-cops, has little interest in pursuing justice against their own allies, even when this means coddling the very perjuring cops that have scuttled many of the DA’s own cases. And when the cops themselves actually commit crimes, the law enforcement establishment immediately springs into action to defend the indefensible.

Think about what happened to Veth Mam. An innocent man was assaulted, arrested and falsely prosecuted. Fullerton cops knew the real truth and lied under oath to hide the fact that they beat up and arrested the wrong guy. Were there any repercussions? Of course not. Remember the Martinez kid who spent five months in jail thanks to the Fullerton cops? Well, Goodrich said everything was just fine – a slight error. Trevor Clarke says the FPD beat him, gave him a few sadistic “screen tests” just for fun, threw him in jail, and robbed him for good measure. Ben Lira says Danny Hughes was one of the instigators. Will anything happen? Not very likely, is it?

Let’s let the Albert Rincon case be our guide: we know that Albert Rincon serially molested women in the back seat of his patrol car. We know because of the depositions of just two of his victims (there are said to be a dozen). But the obscenity of what occurred, and importantly the roles played by Patdown Pat McKinley and Mike Sellers in covering up the whole mess, and worse, putting the creep back on the streets shall never be known. Why? because there was a settlement; a settlement approved by by-then Councilman McKinley himself.

The lawsuit settlement is the mechanism to hush everything up, from brutal and sadistic cops and an immoral FPD leadership, to a feckless city manager and city attorney who condoned the Culture of Corruption. If you wondered how the FPOA and the FPD/City Hall crowd could share a common goal, this is it.

And the path to settlement is the route no doubt most favored by Garo Mardirossian, the lawyer who is representing a whole slew of FPD/FPOA victims of brutality and perjury. For a lawyer a big payday without having to risk anything is a gift. And co-incidentally the same result will be a gift for Joe Felz, Pat Mckinley, Danny Hughes, Barry Coffman and the rest of the gang.

Your new council majority of Chaffee, Flory and Fitzgerald will make sure that Fullerton returns to the normalcy where no bad deed goes reported.

Of course it won’t be their money that goes to pay off Veth Mam and Kelly Thomas’s relatives. It will be yours.

And you will be poorer but no wiser.

 

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