Behind the Badge OC Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

January 11, 2017February 24, 2017Setting The Bar Low

While We Were Away. A Story You Didn’t Read About in “Back the Badge”

A few years back we pried the lid off the FPD barrel, hoping to discover and toss out some of the bad apples. Unfortunately, our search brought forth a cornucopia of ethical and even criminal misconduct. These names might ring a bell: Rincon, Mejia, Major, Hampton, Ramos, Wolfe, Cicinelli, Mater, Baughman, Sellers, Tong, Nguyen, Craig, Blatney, Coffman, Kirk, Basham, Goodrich, Cross, Nowling, Wren, McKinley, Siliceo and Bair.

Exhausted by wading through this morass of misbehavior, we took a well-earned break in 2013. Unfortunately, the Culture of Corruption did not. Here’s an OC Weekly story about a Fullerton police officer Hugo Garcia, who was charged with felony fraud and embezzlement in 2014. Uh, oh, an “alien” body snatcher has once again grabbed one of “Patdown” Pat McPension’s recruits.

Garcia is the fellow on the left. You already know the other one.

Officer Garcia recently pled guilty and ended up with 100 hours of community service and 18 months of probation for his crimes. Somewhere along the way he became “no longer employed” by the Fullerton Police Department, but we’re not entitled to know why. Nobody knows what other deeds this criminal may have pepetrated upon the public while he was wearing a badge and a gun.

I hope you didn’t miss the charming snippet from the Weekly article: “…the OCDA, which stresses Garcia was off-duty and not acting in his official capacity as a police officer at the time of the crime.” Somehow the DA found it necessary to exculpate Mr. Garcia’s on duty behavior, to reassure us that Garcia’s felonious nature only kicked in when removed his FPD uniform.

December 3, 2016February 24, 2017I Aint a Swallerin That

Behind the Bullshit – Late Turkey Edition

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy14 Comments

You know you want it...just put down the gun, junior — You know you want it…just put down the gun, junior

The other day one of our fine writers in the FFFF stable of bloggers brought to our attention a rather noxious operation called Behind the Badge, that profits from taxpayer’s by acting as a PR conduit for the local police force. In other words we pay them to tell us how great our cops are.

So I took the trip to BtB to see what sort of pabulum they were dishing up. The usual insipid fare. But one thing they were touting in a “story” was a program by OC GRIP – some sort of gang intervention program run by our good-for-nothing District Attorney – that was giving Thanksgiving dinners to kids who had “earned” it through attitude improvement. The post was full of happy pictures that featured smiling Fullerton cops, who got the job of handing over the turkeys.

Sounds nice huh? But really, what kind of program uses food for the Thanksgiving holiday as an incentive to act good? The whole thing started to smell like an old turkey carcass left out in the dumpster- sort of a government charity masquerading as “tough love” where kids “earn” (we don’t give anything away, here!) food for a holiday. The whole thing strikes me as manipulative and patronizing.

And of course the writer of this piece was none other than our old acquaintance Lou Ponsi, whose slavish loyalty to City Hall and the FPD, even as he pretended to be a real reporter, have been documented, here. At least he doesn’t have to pretend anymore.

November 29, 2016February 24, 2017I Aint a Swallerin That

Behind the Bullshit – Standards? Really?

by Joe Sipowicz37 Comments

“Behind the Badge OC” is a propaganda outlet for “public safety” departments across Orange County. It is run by former OC Register staff who came to realize that writing cop puff pieces on their own was even more lucrative than doing it while pretending to be reporters for the pathetic, knee-jerk pro-cop Register.

This enterprise works for police unions in the main, but things get really profitable when they can sucker a public agency, like the City of Fullerton, to use public money to write this drivel, all under the auspices of “educating” us about our wonderful police department. You’d think that honest work, a good attitude, and abiding by the same laws the rest of us have to, would be sufficient to generate respect for our boys and girls in blue. Wink.

But enough preamble.

Back on June 13th, BtB published this completely unremarkable tale about the squad responsible for documenting the training given to FPD personnel and the standards that apply thereunto. Standards, eh?

Fullerton Police from left, Cpl. Eric Song, Patricia Arevalo, Sgt. Dan Castillo, Lt. Andrew Goodrich and Cpl. Donny Blume. Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC & Paid for by Fullerton Taxpayers — Fullerton Police from left, Cpl. Eric Song, Patricia Arevalo, Sgt. Dan Castillo, Lt. Andrew Goodrich and Cpl. Donny Blume.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC & Paid for by Fullerton Taxpayers

Check out the adipose and otiose individual in the middle who is in charge of this unit: none other that our old friend Andrew Goodrich, who was last heard of serving in the exalted office of watch commander the night of November 8th, when our City Manager, Joe Felz, ran off the road, was given a pass on a breathalyzer test, was driven home and tucked into bed by one or more of those cops who got all that expensive training.

You may also remember Goodrich from his stint as FPD Public Information Officer – a job in which he really shined – passing out phony information to make Kelly Thomas look bad, and the cops who killed him, well, at least better. He was also part of Chief Danny Hughes’ obnoxious scheme to hand out tickets to protest supporters for “excessive horning.”