DISTRACTION TECHNIQUES; RESTART

Last Friday as much of the city waited for the verdict in the wrongful death trial of Ken Ellis III, RJ Berry and his cohorts, Perry, McCleskey and city attorney David Tourek moved Berry's re-election effort into full gear. You see, hours before the verdict which, on paper, awarded Mr. Ellis' son over $10,000,000 in damages (we say on paper because no sooner was the verdict read then Tourek and Perry moved to have the judgment set aside, a reversal of Judge Bacon's summary judgment ruling, and a new trial--all of which will delay justice due to the Ellis family) not so coincidentally APD's notorious chief announced his pending retirement. In the world of policing; this is referred to as a "distraction technique."

NOTE: Why was Schultz's Letter of Retirement dated March 13, 2013, but was not publicly announced till March 15, 2013? Why has Berry, Perry and Schultz refused to comment on it until Monday, March 18, 2013? This was all a distraction technique to shift the publics' attention away from the $10,000,000.00 verdict.

The premeditated announcement of Schultz's "retirement" dominated the newscasts. While the stations and paper covered the Ellis verdict, that story was overshadowed by Schultz's announcement. We heard about how long he's been chief. What's happened since he's been chief. What he's done since he's been chief all ad nauseum. But of course we didn't hear when the chief is retiring.

You see it's because he isn't. Or is not planning to. His letter is dated two days before it's release and it is sent not to Mayor Berry but to CAO Rob Perry. It also does not identify a date except that it may be after the election. But we all know what that means. IF Berry were to win re-election, we will no doubt hear about Schultz making the greatest personal sacrifice while stepping up to the call of duty and REMAINING as APD's chief of police.

The local paper saw fit to reflect on some cherry picked items noting the highlights and lowlights of Schultz's tenure in office. Let's flesh that out a bit shall we? In fact, let's just keep it to 2012...

•APOA survey identifies morale is at the worst it could be and that the mayor and chief have led the department to it's horrid state.

APOA president Sigala is arrested and booked and investigated for massive embezzlement and fraud yet the case mysteriously disappears while Schultz remains silent.

•Officer misconduct cases where Schultz was aware of the misconduct but failed to do anything prior to the news media breaking the story.

Chad Solis, Conner Rice, Ron Suran and the runaway taser and beating incidents.

Patrick Ficke; allegations of drunk driving in a police car and domestic abuse against a family member and other inappropriate behavior both on and off duty for over a year.

Several ranking members of APD whom were with Ficke drinking are now also under investigation.

Adam Casaus; allegations of speeding through a red light at 80+ MPH resulting in the death of a young lady and severely injuring her sister.

•IPRA violations and noncompliance resulting in ongoing lawsuits

•Lieutenant lawsuit by over four lieutenants who allege discrimination in the department promotional process

•Age discrimination lawsuit by dozens of APD officers after federal EEOC investigators found they had cause to sue.

•DCOP Banks lying under oath in sworn hearing.

•Violations of officer involved shooting SOPS (Peck, fleeing car, Parrish)

Releasing of evidence

 

Contaminating (spoilage of) evidence

Tainting witnesses

•Unlawful termination of employees and intimidation of employee favorable witnesses. All we need to say is John Doyle and Robert Woolever.

Unlawful use of public property

 

Friends of SWAT operating out of the Valley Area Command

Karen Salazar’s new private ARAPA organization operating out of the Main Police station

Personnel staffing Tiburon

TJ Wilham’s use of RTCC for private purposes

•Schultz seen socializing with disgraced nefarious PSD Darren White at MMA fights in ringside seats while technically the duty-chief and on call.

•Staffing problems

Limited recruits

Accelerated retirements

•Officer response times all time high

•High profile misconduct

Han (botched murder investigation) incident

Retired District Court Judge Murdoch

•SWAT losing federal certification

•Financial mismanagement

$160M for a department 15% smaller than it was 5 years ago

•Creation of a 4^th deputy chief position

•Nepotism

Police cadets related to sworn personnel who are not qualified to be hired because of fitness disqualifications or criminal issues.

•Termination of T. Zane Reeves who is recognized as one of the country's leading employment hearing officers

•National recognition of the worst kind in media stories across the country:

Police shootings

Mary Han’s crime scene intentional contamination and bias

•Promotion system built on cronyism

Christman, Rowe, Comacho

•Deputy Chief’s assigned to bureaus they have no experience

 

Banks as FSB DCOP

•West Mesa Murder investigation dropped
 

•Manipulation of UCR data (past and current)

•Leaderless leadership style—nobody is in command

City lawyer David Tourek never present

CAO Perry never aware

Mayor Berry never knowing

Chief Schultz not knowing

•Property crime is up

•Berry’s and Schultz’s Our city, Our property initiative is a total failure

•nITE detectives unit fiasco

 

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST: a full blown comprehensive federal investigation of APD by the US Department of Justice which now our Eyes tell us, includes a criminal investigation as well.

 

After all of this in just one year, what else can one say but it is time to take out the trash and restore this department to the model police department it was. We hope the door does hit Schultz on his way out; oh wait, that whole thing about retiring was just a distraction technique unless Berry loses.

But if there was any doubt that our local paper is nothing short of a propaganda piece for the Berry administration, one only has to look at Sunday's editorial by Michael Coleman of the Journal's "Washington Bureau." In the editorial he describes as "explosive" and "serious" allegations in the Assistant AG Perez's Civil Rights Division that certain conservative DOJ lawyers have their feelings hurt. In a review of 10,000 documents and interviews with over 80 people, an inspector from the Inspector General's office found troubling evidence of "liberal bias" and employee intimidation (READ it  HERE).

We just want to make sure we understand the standards the Journal adheres to: If you are an assistant attorney general of the United States and some employees have their feelings hurt the paper will do a Sunday Edition with an editorial scrutinizing you. But if you are a "major city" police chief and you leave a trail of ruined lives, death, cover-ups, financial mismanagement, confirmed patterns of age and racial discrimination, perjury, lies, deception, omission, and acts of abuse of power the paper will refrain from any direct criticism or editorials condemning your activities.

Is this right?

BREAKING DOUBLE BAD

Today is not what you would call a good day for APD and it's failed leadership of Ray Schultz, Allen Banks, Steve Warfield, or acting deputy chief Will "photobug" Roseman. Nor was it a good day for APD lawyer Kathy Levy. Our Eyes tell us despite Levy's efforts to hide the ball and move the line, Judge Bacon ruled in favor of the the Plaintiff's in the civil rights lawsuit of Kenneth Ellis v. APD/Ray Schultz. If you remember this shooting occurred in January of 2010 and stands as a hallmark of a series of questionable shootings by APD. In this case, similar to other cases, Mr. Ellis was shot while he was holding a gun to his own head. With the exception of the officer who originally stated "Fuck, was that me" all the other officers on the scene asserted there was no need to shoot Mr. Ellis. The shooting officer then later changed his statement to argue that shooting Mr. Ellis was necessary because he posed a threat to other officers. The Plaintiff's argued that there was no significant disagreement on the facts of the incident and thus asked for a summary judgment. Since the jury ultimately determines what the facts are IF there is disagreement of the facts it was not necessary for this case to go to a jury. Ms Levy tried in vain we are told to twist and distort the facts so it appeared there was disagreement and aside from infuriating Judge Bacon did not further her cause. In the end the judge ruled in favor of the Plaintiffs and held that APD and the officer were unreasonable in their use of deadly force and in doing so violated Mr. Ellis's civil rights. For a plaintiff to succeed on a motion for summary judgement involving an incident of such magnitude is no small feat and only reveals how unlawful the actions of the officer sadly were.

Now the question is how many millions will the city have to pay to cover the punitive damages associated in this case...

Just as it seems things could not get worse, things do. You see despite BCSO's initial reports that APD Sgt. Adam Casaus was chasing a drunk driver when he collided into another car killing one of its occupants and severely injuring the other, we are no told that not only was Sgt. Casaus NOT on duty at the time of the accident, but he in fact ran the red light colliding into the other car. Sgt Casaus failed to clear the intersection. Of course in neither case has the failed leadership of APD owned any responsibility for these tragedies. Nor have they personally reached out to the families of either party to express their sincere sadness and desire to find the truth of what occurred. Instead they hide behind a lawyer barely fit to argue a traffic tickets.

Again we ask, how many millions will the city have to pay to cover the punitive damages associated in this case...

Lastly, we hear that IA is now doing the investigation into former Sgt. Pat Ficke's drinking buddies. We here at the Eye have been wondering about this since this story broke out. Given that Commander Christman, Lieutenant Troy Luna, Sgt Alex Catsis, and Sgt Dan Cambell are of such rank who is exactly going to do their investigation. We think ANYBODY in APD is clearly unfit for such a job and it should be referred out to another agency because of the grotesque conflicts of interests such an investigation poses. But given the department's efforts to hide, conceal, and lie we suspect such an investigation will be handled in-house and probably by the likes of whomever wants to be APD's next Deputy Chief. Who knows, given their success at FAILING at so many things, perhaps Deputy Chief Banks would do a tremendous job with their investigation...

Why Oh Why doesn't common sense prevail? These debacles are going to cost millions.  Don't forget the 44 million spent last year on liability by Berry and Company.  This is just another one of Berry's "Train Wrecks."

Mayoral Candidate Paul Heh has said it many times; "Tell the truth and make right whatever it is the City has done wrong?"  If the City is wrong, make good on the problem and if the City is right in its' actions then fight it.  This is just one more reason to get rid of Berry and VOTE PAUL HEH into office.