Whipped Cream Difficulties

There’s an article in the LAT this morning about the last days of the city of Maywood (at least, as an independent entity) and the Maywood Police Department.

At 12:01 a.m. Thursday, the 86-year-old Police Department was disbanded, most city employees were let go and the day-to-day detail work of running the working-class city southeast of L.A. was handed over to neighboring Bell.

How sad.

“It’s really sad knowing that I’ll never come back to this place,” Saavedra said as he drove through the city’s streets. “Last Saturday a man called me over and asked me if his brother’s murder case was still going to be investigated. That was really a sad moment. We’re worrying about losing our jobs, and [he’s] worrying about his brother’s murderer.”

Isn’t that awful?

A sign at the entrance to City Hall read, “…the City Council has requested that from this date forward, no media will be permitted inside city hall…”

Well, that seems kind of odd. (Oh, did I mention that “Only the city manager, city attorney and elected officials remain on the payroll.”?)

Those who came to City Hall on business said they noticed little difference. Jose Lopez rode his green bike to City Hall with a pistol tucked in his belt to get a senior bus pass, just as he’s always done the first day of every month.

“…with a pistol tucked in his belt, to City Hall”? In California? Say what?

Oh, and why did this happen?

Maywood officials said they had no choice because the city could not obtain insurance

A city couldn’t get insurance? Interesting.

the consequence of too many lawsuits in the past, many involving the Police Department, which also patrolled the nearby city of Cudahy.

You don’t say? Let’s look into that a little more, why don’t we? Much of the information in this post originated from a post at Pro Libertate; I think that article is slightly biased and a little strident in tone, so I’ve attempted to verify it independently, and provide links to other sources.

A good starting point is a 2007 investigation by the LAT itself:

The Maywood Police Department — a 37-man force that patrols a gritty square-mile city south of downtown Los Angeles — has become a haven for misfit cops who have been pushed out of other law enforcement agencies for crimes or serious misconduct.

Among those on the job: A former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy terminated for abusing jail inmates; a onetime Los Angeles Police Department officer fired for intimidating a witness; and an ex-Huntington Park officer charged with negligently shooting a handgun and driving drunk.

…

In all, at least a third of the officers on the force have either left other police jobs under a cloud or have had brushes with the law while working for Maywood. Several officers in recent years have left Maywood after being convicted of crimes.

Even the newly appointed police chief has a checkered past: He was convicted of beating his girlfriend and resigned from the El Monte Police Department before he could be fired. His conviction was later overturned on appeal because the defense was not allowed to exclude a juror who had previously worked with domestic violence victims. He was ultimately convicted of a lesser charge of making a verbal threat.

Maywood’s finest:

Maywood Officer Brent Talmo was hired in 1998 after being terminated from the county sheriff’s department in 1986 for displaying a pattern of “bizarre behavior and unprofessional conduct,” records show:

Talmo poured dirt into the gas tank of a county vehicle; placed a dead gopher in a prisoner’s pocket as an apparent prank, then lied about it and tried to get another deputy to lie on his behalf;

A dead gopher? Harlan Ellison, call your office, please.

tipped over the bed of a sleeping prisoner, causing him to fall face first onto the floor and bloodying his nose; and telephoned a fellow jail guard and referred to him as a snitch and used a racial slur.

When Talmo was fired, then-Sheriff Sherman Block publicly singled him out as “the primary culprit” in a campaign of harassment aimed at prisoners.

(Here’s a link to what I believe is a California Court of Appeals decision upholding Talmo’s firing from the LA County Sheriff’s Office.)

But after all, isn’t Talmo entitled to a chance to redeem himself? Was it wrong for Maywood to give Talmo a second or third chance? (After leaving LACSO, Talmo was hired by the Los Angeles Housing Authority Police, and was actually commended while on the job with them. I haven’t been able to find out why Talmo left that job for Maywood. If the LAT is to be believed, the Maywood PD paid a lot less than other area departments.)

Perhaps Talmo was entitled to a shot at redemption, although he is named as a defendant in at least one civil rights suit I’ve found, along with the city itself and what I believe to be other officers. But it seems that there were deeper cultural issues in Maywood:

• at the time of the LAT investigation, officers were allowed to accept free meals from restaurants. (I know that seems like small potatoes, but that’s not something larger departments let their officers get away with. For example, the Austin Police Department’s Code of Conduct states “Employees shall not intentionally use their affiliation with the Department to influence another into offering a gift, gratuity, free or discounted service, reward, or special consideration.” Letting your officers accept free meals strikes me as being a symptom of something larger, as well as fostering an “us vs. them” mindset.)
• Officers were also allowed to carry saps. In 2007. Long after most police departments had stopped allowing them.
• Also quoting from the LAT investigation, “…supervisors at the department don’t always see the need for documenting citizens’ complaints, a practice mandated at other agencies. In a recent deposition, the lieutenant in charge of internal affairs said complaints were often “resolved casually” in the lobby of the police station.” (I suspect that “resolved casually” is a short version of “You want to file a complaint? Tell you what; you leave the station now, and we don’t throw your ass under the jail for whatever charge we can think of.”)

Surely there were good cops in Maywood? Yes, yes there were.

A judge ruled Tuesday that four Maywood policemen who allege they were put on leave and told to take mental exams for exposing serious misconduct within the department will have to file separate lawsuits.

(Note that this case is still ongoing, and the allegations made by the Maywood officers are just allegations by one side in the case.)

The California Attorney General stated

…the Civil Rights Enforcement section was unable to secure the interviews of several Maywood Police Department police officers who repeatedly were reported by witnesses interviewed to be “good guys”. The refusal of these officers to be interviewed evidences a code of silence that substantially contributes to the deficiencies found in the Maywood Police Department’s organizational culture, systems, policies, and practices that will be discussed in this report.

Here’s a link to the California Attorney General’s report on the Maywood PD. I love this document; it’s one of the most strongly worded bits of writing I’ve read in a long time.

For example, there’s the story about the two guys who were leaving a night club when they were “assaulted” (California AG’s words) by Maywood’s finest, who Tasered one in the groin while he was handcuffed. Both men were released at the scene and not charged with any crime, even though one of the officers got on his radio and said his life was in danger.

Or this: “There were a number of allegations concerning consensual sexual encounters by several Maywood officers while on duty.” Note that Al Hutchings, who was named chief in 2008, previously resigned from the department “after being told a videotape had been made of him allegedly having an on-duty liaison with the female owner of a local doughnut store.” (Speaking of jokes that write themselves.)

Probably the best part of the sad Maywood story is the Maywood PD’s “stop and impound” policy. The department aggressively stopped people in the city and impounded their vehicles: 17,773 of them between 2/1/2002 and 4/30/2007, at a minimum of $200 an impound.

(If you were wondering, that averages out to a little over nine six impounds a day every day just in Maywood (excluding the ones in Cudahy; adding the Cudahy impounds back in gives a figure of a little over nine per day), in a city with an estimated population of 28,083 people based on 2000 Census figures. (Cudahy’s 2000 Census population was 24,208.) Maywood apparently has a large undocumented population, and there are estimates that the true and current figure is closer to 45,000 people.  I would like to know how that impound rate compares with other California cities of similar size to the combined cities; that’s one thing missing from the AG report. Worth pointing out is that Maywood elected a new city council in 2005; the new city council ordered the police to tone down traffic enforcement, and there was a significant reduction in impounds after that. So the per day average may actually be even higher, if you throw out the post-2005 period. Also worth mentioning, though I’m not really sure it relates to the Maywood PD issues, is that the new city council declared Maywood a “sanctuary city” around the same time.)

Oh, by the way, the towing company that the Maywood PD had an exclusive contract with? They allegedly paid for trips to Vegas for officers, allowed officers to purchase impounded cars, and provided catering services for officers while they worked checkpoints.

It shouldn’t come as a shock to any of my readers that many of the people targeted by the Maywood PD’s aggressive impounding program were illegal aliens. (After all, it’s no fun being an illegal alien.) More interestingly, there seems to have been a pattern of stopping and impounding drivers who didn’t have California driver’s licenses, but had valid licenses from other states or Mexico. In one case, they stopped a guy with a valid Oregon license for an expired registration; even though he presented proof that he had renewed the registration, they cited him for an expired registration and driving without a California license, confiscated the valid Oregon license, impounded the car (which was parked in an apartment complex parking lot at the time) for 30 days, and required the driver to pay $1,500 to get the car back. “The two officers involved failed to appear in court for the citations and the case was dismissed.”

If it was just the Maywood PD that was the problem, couldn’t they have shut the department down, let LA County take over policing, and maintain the city government? (As I recall, this is what Compton did.) According to the LAT in a June 25th article:

Maywood officials were put on notice last summer that the city would lose its insurance coverage unless they met a list of 20 conditions, which included hiring a permanent city manager.

…

[Interim City Manager Angela] Spaccia said that after checking with the nine major municipal insurance agencies, she learned that the city would have annual premium payments of $1.3 million and a deductible of $2 million.

Even if the Police Department were disbanded, Spaccia said, Maywood employees were considered such a risk that the insurance cost would remain the same.

Wow. How bad were things that even the non-police municipal employees were considered a risk? Were the guys in the building code department beating up people? Did they give Tasers to the fire department?

I shared the Pro Libertate link with Lawrence while I was writing this, and his comment was “this piece brings the words ‘New Rome‘ to mind”. Indeed. This isn’t about the budget crunch, or citizens being unwilling to pay for services, or Proposition 13; this is about a corrupt city government getting what was coming to them.

Edited to add: Lawrence asked a good question when he was reviewing a draft of this post: “Did the Maywood PD have a union?” I can’t find an answer to that question: Google turns up a lot of police unions around and in the area of Maywood, but no union specific to Maywood. However, in the process of searching, I did find the City of Maywood web site. Sure, the cops are thugs, crooked, or both. Sure, the city has trouble getting insurance. But hey!

The City of Maywood offers a free WiFi network service to residents, businesses and visitors.

How cool is that?

The coverage is highly dependent upon location and proximity to wireless access points along Atlantic Blvd. and Slauson Ave.

Oh. And here’s the Maywood PD web site. (.info?)

This entry was posted on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 11:44 am and is filed under California Über Alles, Clippings, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.