A quick trip to Fullerton Stories reveals a statement by Fullerton City Manager Joe Felz that claims the City never made any “settlement offer” to the family of killer cops victim Kelly Thomas, who was brutally bludgeoned to death by six members of Felz’s police department on July 5th.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
This is just about the shabbiest deception the City has tried yet; verbal hairsplitting to try to dodge the fact that your scumbag lawyer Bruce Praet presented “unofficial” proposals (oh, no not a “settlement,” that can only be authorized by the Council) to the family of the victim. Well, goddam, that’s a distinction without a difference! Felz, shame on you for running this turd up the flagpole, and shame on some stooge named Davis Barber at Fullerton Stories for accepting and propagating this ludicrous trash as pertinent to anything. Maybe now Felz thinks no one will we be inclined to ask who was responsible for authorizing Praet to contact the family in the first place. Was it you, Joe? Or did you even know about it?
Probably the worst part is the not-so-subtle insinuation that Ron Thomas, Kelly’s dad has been intentionally misleading the public.
Soon there will be nothing but a grotesque smile...
Up until now I was willing to give Felz the benefit of the doubt – that he was just some poor former museum director dufus in waaaaaay over his head. Now it would appear that he was either completely out of the loop (bad) or, complicit in a nasty plot to discredit the Thomas family (worse) and protect the assess of some crooked cops.
First and foremost, I extend my condolences to the Thomas family. As a member of our Fullerton community, as a member of our City Council, and as a mother, I am deeply disturbed by the events that led to the death of Kelly Thomas.
For the well-being of the Thomas family and the residents of Fullerton, I will continue to ask the questions and demand the actions that I feel necessary to make sure that justice is done.
Current status: All the officers involved in the Thomas incident have been placed on administrative leave. The city is working with the District Attorney and the FBI to ensure that a full investigation proceeds in the most transparent and expedient manner.
Yesterday, I requested that the city manager seek the resignation of Fullerton Police Chief Michael Sellers. I feel that the leadership required from our chief during this crisis was lacking. Citizens of Fullerton need to have confidence in a police chief who can not only provide expert, professional crisis management, but who is capable of being the face of the city when a police crisis occurs. I believe we were failed on both counts. All of us who are privileged to hold leadership positions in this city should be held responsible and accountable for the well-being of our city.
As we move forward, I understand that there are some things that we cannot address immediately, and for this I ask your patience. We need to wait for final reports from the D.A. and the FBI before we can make a final judgment on the officers involved (and for their own safety, I don’t feel it is advisable for their names to be released publicly at this time). However, there is something we in city leadership can do immediately as we grieve Kelly Thomas and begin our healing: revisit our policy on the homeless in our city and county.
Homelessness and mental illness are serious and complex issues that all cities grapple with, but what can we do to better understand their challenges in Fullerton? How can we work with local and county agencies and churches to make connections for families who struggle with mental illness? How can we find necessary resources for those without a home? At the very least, we can all try to gain a better understanding of their plight (see my P.S. below).
Finally, I love the City of Fullerton! We are a loving, resilient community, and we will make our way out of this very difficult period.
Sincerely,
Sharon Quirk-Silva
Fullerton City Councilwoman
P.S. While speaking to a homeless woman named Kirsten yesterday, I asked her what she might need that could make a difference for her and others on the street. First, she said that, for a woman on the street, it would be safety and shelter. Next, she said, simply: “socks!” She wanted some socks to keep her feet warm and clean. She said that some churches and shelters used to provide a pair, but not anymore. This is a request that we as a community can take immediate action on.
If you have any extra socks and/or travel-size personal hygiene items: toothpaste, soap….please drop them off at City Hall. I will personally pledge to deliver the items to the homeless on a regular basis now and in the future. I know that socks and hygiene items will not solve the issue of homelessness or mental illness, and they won’t bring Kelly Thomas back. But our actions might allow us to better understand the Kelly Thomases who are still out there struggling to live day to day with no place to call home.
Our local leaders have concealed the identities of the six officers who participated in the brutal arrest of Kelly Thomas. In the absence of official information, the public justifiably fears and distrusts every single member of the FPD.
That is probably why sources very close to the Fullerton police department have given us the names of the officers on scene that night. This information was reportedly determined from knowledge of patrol schedules and the observance of which officers have not been reporting for duty since the six were put on leave.
According to our sources:
Officer Jay Cicinelli was there
Officer Kenton Hampton was there
Officer Manny Ramos was there
Officer Joe Wolfe was there
Officer James Blatney was there
The sixth officer would have been a sargent called to the scene due to the use of a Taser. There are two patrol sargents not reporting for duty at the moment who may have been on duty that night. When we figure out which one was there, we’ll let you know.
On national TV our illustrious mayor tells NBC what he thinks of his constituents.
Well, he can run his mouth but he can’t hide behind his cronies and speech writers. Now the entire country knows what kind of idiot we have for a mayor.
The official investigation by The Authorities continues...
In the past few weeks these pages have been littered with a startling list of charges of criminal behavior by members of the Fullerton Police Department, starting with larceny, and evolving through credit card fraud, assault, charges of sexual battery, and of course the gang-homicide of a mentally ill homeless man.
I believe the public is perfectly justified in assuming the worst and that the stuff that has come out recently is indicative of a systemic problem. After all nobody, especially the local “journalists,” were paying the least attention. The issue can’t be deflected by the childish “not all cops are bad” nonsense. The problem is that no cops should be bad – and if any are they should be weeded out quickly and the failure analyzed immediately. After all, these individuals literally hold the power of life and death over you and me. Just like they held it over Kelly Thomas.
And all this begs the simple question: who in the Hell is in charge at FPD? The obvious answer is nobody, if one discounts the unsettling possibility that the cops are in charge of themselves.
Okay, but who should be responsible for making sure the cops are on the up and up?
A carbuncle on the butt of Fullerton (image from Ed Carrasco & our Friends at the OC Weekly)
Well, the first answer, of course, is the the Chief of Police, Mike Sellers. True, he inherited a department, such as it was. But he’s been here a couple of years now. Early on he promised publication of his departments policy on Taser use; that was just a load of unadulterated bullshit. After the Thomas killing occurred, during the initial period when he obviously thought he could skate by on business as usual, he took off on vacation. Seller’s nonchalance backfired. It backfired badly. He failed to get the cops involved off the streets, let alone putting them on leave; tellingly this only happened when the media finally became interested in the Thomas death. And this alone justifies his dismissal.
Of course theoretically the FPD answers to the civilian authorities. Which brings us to the Silent City Council Trio: Mssrs. Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley.
You're not homeless are you?
Don Bankhead is a former cop, and as such should be the most savvy of the three when it comes to understanding the propensity of cop culture to veer out of control. Every time he runs for office he makes sure the electorate knows he is ex-cop. But Bankhead, apart from dubious mental faculties is also a tool of the police union that has supported their boy for over twenty-two years: twenty-two years and numerous pension spikes and giveaways to the union.
The HeeHaw jokes ain't funny no more...
F. Dick Jones? When Jones is not berating his constituents from the dais he is mangling the scripts written for him by City staff. He has never seen a uniform he didn’t like, and was once heard to say: “you don’t get anywhere in Fullerton badmouthing the Fullerton Police Department.” From a political standpoint truer words were never spoken. But Jones is fond of bragging about his service in military; and the military is all about rules and regs so Jones had better start explaining how the FPD came to be what it is today – during his 15 years in office.
McKinley is on the left.
And finally we come to councilman Pat McKinley, former Fullerton Chief of Police, a repuglican cipher dropped on Fullerton by the GOP establishment. McKinley’s got some serious explaining to do since it was under his seventeen-year watch that the Fullerton FPD seems to have descended into the morass in which we currently find it. He was the one who apparently hired a one-eyed cop who was rejected by the LAPD, a cop who seems to be intimately connected to the Thomas murder. He was the one who left his command structure behind. He was the one who, instead of overseeing his department, spent his days inventing a vest that could be sold to his department.
McKinley makes well over $200,000 a year in pensions. Pensions racked up during years supposedly in charge of the Fullerton Police Department.
When someone refers to the gang of thugs that murdered Kelly Thomas as “The McKinley Six” they are right on the mark.
Finally, it seems to have escaped the notice of these three council chimps that even as they plead to the public to wait for “the Authorities” to develop their cover-up, er, investigation, their slimy lawyer is offering Ron Thomas $900,000 to just go away. The irony is pretty profound. But something tells me irony is lost on these three.
This was broadcast on CNN about an hour ago. Goodrich backed out of an interview with CNN at the last minute. Susan Kang Schroeder nearly broke out into tears as she was describing the contents of the video that our city council refuses to release. Watch the video on CNN.com
For some folks sexual fondling in the backseat of a car may evoke happy memories of teenage hormonal overload and good clean fun. But when you’re handcuffed by a police officer on trumped up charges only to be sexually groped by that cop, things take on a much more sinister character.
Night time is the right time...
Like sexual battery and federal civil rights violations, just for starters.
Here are the stories of two women who claim that Fullerton cop Albert Rincon, aided and abetted by Officer Christopher Wren essentially kidnapped them and sexually assaulted them in 2008 while they were in custody – in the backseat of Rincon’s patrol car, to be precise. Rather than rehash the story, I’ll let you read the complaint filed in federal court. Checkout pages 5 through 12 of 35 for the sordid details.
Three long years later the case is winding its way through the court system toward a November 2011 trial. The case found its way to the federal courtroom of Andrew Guilford, who knows all about pervy cops – having presided over the Michael Carona corruption trial. Check out the Joint Conference Scheduling Report:
Note #1: the City of Fullerton offered the victims $7,500 to settle; and the alleged victims assert that the City knew of Rincon’s prior history of sexual misconduct! I wonder what that history was.
Note #2: The DA never prosecuted the alleged victims for any crimes related to their arrests. Is Rincon a Brady cop?
Note #3: the City’s lawyer, Bruce Praet is the same charming individual who allegedly offered FPD beating-death victim Kelly Thomas’ dad a cash settlement before threatening to drag his mentally ill son’s name through the mud; and that before “all the facts were known,” an admonition the cops seem to think only applies to us citizens and taxpayers – not themselves.
Fullerton, this is your out of control police department; it is enabled and protected by majority of your city council. What the Hell are you going to do about it?
Friends for Fullerton’s Future obtained this video footage from an OCTA bus that pulled into the Fullerton Transportation Center moments after the vicious beating of Kelly Thomas by Fullerton police on July 5th. Listen to what these witnesses have to say:
This new video is more compelling evidence that excessive force caused the death of Kelly Thomas. First there was the video where the homeless, mentally-ill man’s cries for his father can be heard as he is beaten and Tased:
And then we saw the shocking photo of Kelly Thomas before he died, which has now been widely broadcast on network television and news websites around the world:
But still, the majority of Fullerton’s city council have refused to release the video that clarifies the police actions that lead to the death of Kelly Thomas on that night.
While we stand shocked at the brutality laid bare under their administrative watch, they quietly whisper behind closed doors, delay, obfuscate, make excuses and ignore the cries of the public for answers.
The people of Fullerton deserve to know right now: Are we safe from our own police?
About 28 years ago, I had just finished building a 20 unit luxury apartment complex here in Fullerton. Interest rates were around 22.5% and at 23 years old I had more pressure put on me than most 50-year-olds ever have. After I completed my project I decided to take a vacation.
But it was no ordinary vacation. I decided to go drifting.
I packed a bag and got a ride to the 91 freeway at Beach Blvd. Off I went.
Drifting is a way of life for many who choose to live on the streets. Kelly Thomas was a drifter, even though he had many places that he could stay, he chose to live on the streets. At his funeral, I witnessed his many friends and family that told me he always had a place to stay if he wanted. But he insisted on living outdoors with his own convictions.
I met many drifters during my six month journey around the West Coast, but the one thing I remember enjoying the most was not having any responsibilities and being accountable to no one but myself.
It’s easy for me to relate to Kelly Thomas’ life. I believe he was his own person, and he chose to drift from place to place.
