I’m starting to get a little annoyed about a system that coddles public employees, especially those who are supposed to be providing “public” safety, yet who seem to creating more public danger than safety, especially when budget time rolls around.
Let’s take our current police chief, Michael Sellers, who is on some sort of indefinite sick leave. Is he really sick? His doctor says so and like our idiot mayor, I am willing to believe he somehow got hold of a medical degree and a license to be a doctor.
So what’s ailing Sellers? Initial reports said high blood pressure and stress. Hell, I give my cat medicine for its high blood pressure, so that’s a load of bullshit right there. Stress?!! Jeez, some tax payers rightfully conclude that workplace stress is one of the reasons people like Sellers are paid huge salaries of almost $20,000 a month.
Maybe Sellers is just sick all of a sudden about being held accountable for something he was supposed to be in charge of.
And now that Sellers has disappeared to the friendly beach-side confines of San Clemente, he still pulls down that fabulous salary for doing nothing! At this point some cynical folks might assert that Sellers wasn’t doing anything anyway, so what’s the difference? Hard to argue against that. But Sellers has a boss – City Manager Joe Felz; and Joe Felz has five bosses – the city council. So who the Hell has been in charge of the Fullerton police the past two years? Nobody, apparently. It’s true that Pat McPension left Sellers a culture of corruption, but still, Sellers must have known what was going on.
Will he be back? The Three Mummified Miscreants don’t seem to think so, but their lawyer has told them they can’t talk about it.
They even put a little chocolate mint on my pillow!
Here’s a really fun post I did about 20 months ago making sure people knew that it wasn’t just a spendthrift Democrat who blew over a grand at a fancy hotel at a useless League of Cities meeting. Turns out the RINOs Bankhead and Jones did, too. The way they see it, it’s their money, not yours.
– The Desert Rat
Okay, like I said the other day, I’m a fair guy. Fullerton Mayor Don Bankhead attended that fall of 2008 League of Cities Meeting in Long Beach right along side Pam Keller. Like Keller, Bankhead also put in for a double occupancy room for three nights. Here’s the smoking gun.
Over $1100 for a swank hotel room barely 25 miles from Bankhead’s house. And this during the vast economic melt-down of late 2008. Bad judgment? Sure, to you or me. But not to a guy who has likely spent twenty years going to these schmoozefests on our dime.
Sayonara, baby!
A juicy side-irony is the fact that this is the same piece o’ manpower that Doc Jones seems to think is the right guy to lead Fullerton through tough economic times. Which pretty much tells you all you need to know about the dimwit Jones. Hell, Jones was at the no-tell hotel, too!
Well, anyway, Don Bankhead, like Pam Keller, is up for re-election this year, if in fact he decides to run, which of course he will. So you can bet the desert acreage that both of them are going to be targets because of their willingness – no, eagerness – to waste, public money.
Looks like the anti-recall sponges and parasites have decided to hold a party to raise money for the Three Blind Mice.
Well, good for them, say I. After all, we really need to see what kind of creeps will support the incompetents who created and tolerated the Culture of Corruption in the Fullerton Police Department.
Of course they were going to trot out the Jurassic McClanahan and Catlin – who were both recalled alongside Bankhead in 1994 for imposing a tally unnecessary utility tax on Fullerton. Oh! And here’s Jan Flory who not only supported the utility tax, but even wished it were doubled. And all of them voted year after year to stick us with a 10% tax on our water bills for no damn good reason other than that they could get away with it. Oh, yeah, they also supported every single Redevelopment boondoggle, giveaway, disaster, and money pit.
And Dick Ackerman? Ho ho! We’re onto that slime ball’s influence peddling schemes. Just a few weeks ago the Three Desiccated Dinosaurs awarded the lobbyist Ackerman’s clint a multi-million dollar subsidy for an unnecessary housing project. Awarded for services rendered, no doubt.
Well, there’s your sad crew of anti-recall characters. Here’s a thought: let’s sweep the whole rotten Phalanx of Failure into the garbage can of Fullerton history – once and for all!
Just give me a few more minutes and I'll come up with something even dumber...
Thus spake newly minted Fullerton police chief in an LA Times article, here, thoughtfully provided by a frequent commenter Jane H.
Pat McKinley was referring to the Rodney King beating at the hands of his colleagues in the LAPD that turned out to be the catalyst for the most destructive riots in American history.
Here’s the money quote from the egregious McKinley:
“Hey, we’ve got to do some training, we have to provide appropriate tools for officers on the streets and we need to go on.”
Uh, yeah, Pat. Good deduction. Let’s “go on.”
Speaking of training, McKinley style, flash forward to the fall of 2010 when McKinley-hire Kenton Hampton knocks the phone camera out of Veth Mam’s hands before throwing him to the pavement like a rag doll and dropping his 250 lbs of bulk on the helpless Mam. That’ll teach him to document the activities of McKinley’s downtown goon squad.
Then flash forward again to the sultry night of July 5th, 2011 when six McKinley hires (including Hampton, again) beat the mentally ill transient, Kelly Thomas, to death. In the aftermath of the killing we now know that digital and film records of the event were purloined by FPD cops at the scene.
If you ask me, what McKinley really learned from the Rodney King case, and what he meant by “training” was to make sure that witnesses who recorded the event were properly shaken down, intimidated and relieved of any incriminating visual evidence.
Oops! Too late. McKinley’s crew never dreamed that THEIR own camera would testify against them.
We have already documented dime store psychologist Pat McKinley’s pompous blather about how it was necessary to use nunchucks on pro-life protesters because of their super-human resistance to pain.
And for McKinley, pain is the name of the game. When you want to try out a new toy from your chamber of horrors, well, hell, you’re going to need justification. So why not cook up some psychological mumbo-jumbo?
Someone with a little bit of real psychological training might suspect that Pat McKinley has an unhealthy obsession with the application of pain. Judging by the actions of cops he hand-picked to patrol the streets of downtown Fullerton, I think it’s fair to say that sometime between 1993 and 2009 the problem spread like contagion in McKinley’s police department. Was it his game plan, or was he just not paying attention. The signals he was sending his boys was clear enough.
We have seen the videos and read the accounts. Then there’s this:
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.
For a dollar I will psychoanalyze you and guess your age and weight, too...
What is it about some cops? They just feel compelled to act out roles for which they have no qualifications. It’s not enough just to chase ’em and catch ’em. Oh, no. We have to be regaled with legal mumbo jumbo and psychological drivel to explain our own moral inferiority.
Take the classic case of Mr. Pat McKinley, formerly of the LAPD Riot Squad, Fullerton’s police chief from 1993-2008, and now councilmember. We have heard about him sharing, oops, no selling, his in-depth knowledge of the criminal mind here.
But this is by no means recent behavior for McKinley, under whose “leadership” the FPD descended into an undeniable culture of corruption.
Here is an LA Timesarticle from 1991, shared by a commenter. It’s about a lawsuit involving the use of martial arts nunchakus on anti-abortion protesters. From the article:
Nunchakus consist of two 12-inch lengths of hard plastic connected by four inches of nylon cord that officers clamp tightly around the limbs of demonstrators to force them to move.
The Operation Rescue lawsuit alleged that officers selectively “tortured” up to 500 protesters at demonstrations in 1989 and 1990 as the activists attempted to block the doors of clinics in Los Angeles.
In all, more than 30 people filed medical claims against the city for injuries allegedly suffered during arrests. Three of the protesters testified that they suffered nerve damage and broken limbs.
Our old friend Pat McKinley is quoted from a 1989 declaration to a judge urging him not to outlaw the use of the martial arts implement on pro-life protesters:
“Pain for many of the demonstrators is a catharsis for past failures to take action against abortion,” McKinley said. “Therefore, they have an unusual capacity to withstand pain. Some appear as a young child welcoming punishment for past transgressions. With this unique ability to withstand pain comes possibility of injury since a great degree of pain is required to induce compliance by arrest.”
Well, thanks for that in-depth analysis Pat, based on zero years psychological training. Notice how in one sentence he manages to psycho-analyze, demean, and then dehumanize the protesters, too. Just about like the cop apologists have tried to do with Kelly Thomas, the allegedly souped-up super tramp.
But really what this is all about is McKinley’s desire to justify torturing protesters. Why? Because it will make his job easier. And anyway, it’s for their own good, see?
As he blandly looks into a TV camera and tells his constituents that he has nothing to apologize for, consider this laundry list of offenses and incompetency only the most narcissistic, self-aware-less jackass could overlook:
Kelly Mejia iPad theft accusation
Todd Major ripping of Police Explorers and taxpayers to support his pill habit.
Kenton Hampton beating up, falsely arresting, and falsely testifying against Veth Mam. Civil suit on the way. Frank Nguyen lied on the stand, too.
Ditto Kenton Hampton and Edward Quinonez – at least no perjury. Yet.
Ditto allegations against Cary Tong against a college student.
Allegations that Vincent Mater encouraged a jail suicide and then smashed his DAR to try to conceal evidence.
The false identification of Emmanuel Martinez by Miguel Siliceo and his subsequent wrongful five-month imprisonment (with $30,000 bail – five grand higher than Jay Cicinelli’s).
Hiring sex criminal Albert Rincon and ignoring numerous complaints from women he abused. Habitually turned off his DAR against department policy. Several hundred thousand dollar settlement recently agreed to.
FPOA president John Cross detaining and beating up an innocent motorist. Slap on wrist.
Hiring a one-eyed cop, Jay Cicinelli, as a favor to an LAPD crony after that cop had been deemed unfit by the Chief of the LAPD.
Six FPD cops murdering, or aiding in the murder of a mentally ill homeless man Kelly Thomas. Cimimal charges, civil rights charges, civil suits on the way.
Cops he hired conspired to get their stories straight, were coached by supervisors, and were put back on the streets the next day.
Department spokeman and union officer Andrew Goodrich spinning false tales about the Thomas murder to mislead the public and the City Council.
Etc., etc.
Of course this is just some of the stuff we know about. As Michael Gennaco says, “there is more. There always is.”
Remember that these people and actions were foisted upon Fullerton by rudderless FPD that allowed Pat McKinley to spend his time “inventing” a police vest and slaving over his She Bear tome. And nothing for McKinley to apologize for.
Given his denial and inflated sense of self, it seems to me he is in serious need of some psycho-analysis himself. But the real kind, not the kind he dispenses to women who buy his book.
