Whipped Cream Difficulties

Fullerton PD officer Manuel Ramos is no longer with the department as of July 3rd.

Former officer Ramos faces murder and manslaughter charges in the beating death of Kelly Thomas. (Graphic image at that link.) The department did not state whether officer Ramos was fired or resigned. Ramos and officer Jay Cicinelli (also charged in the Thomas death) have been on “unpaid leave” since October.

In other news, the LA County Sheriff’s Department was apparently in the habit of passing out “official looking” badges to “civilians with no law enforcement duties”, like local politicians.

Now they’ve decided they’re going to take back about 200 of those badges.

At first glance, the badges closely resemble those deputies wear, with the same six-pointed star design. Instead of identifying the person as a “deputy sheriff,” the badges read “City Official Los Angeles County.”

Why are the badges being recalled? Well, they’ve been a source of concern since the attorney general issued an opinion in 2007, stating that the badges “created the potential for civilians to falsely pose as law enforcement officers”. The department swears that the badge recall is prompted by that opinion, and has nothing to do with the arrests of the Cudahy council members.

And why would anyone think this had anything to do with the Cudahy council members?

That’s why. That photo was taken in a nightclub in Cudahy. The badge she’s wearing is one of the badges in question; specifically, indicted Councilman Osvaldo Conde’s badge.

(Obligatory.)

It looks like San Bernardino is the next city up on the bankruptcy watch.

And retiring police chiefs are making out like bandits when they cash in their unused sick leave and vacation time:

Those employees include Roy Campos, Downey’s former police chief, who was paid $594,000 in 2009 after cashing out more than 3,300 hours of unused sick and vacation time. The same year, Monterey Park’s outgoing chief, Jones Moy, earned $531,000, including cash-outs of about 2,700 unused hours. In 2010, Santa Clara’s police chief, Steve Lodge, left his job with almost $600,000 in total pay thanks to a variety of cash-outs.
In contrast, [Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie] Beck earned $297,000 last year and [Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee] Baca made $334,000.

More:

Over his thirty-plus years with the department, [El Monte Police Chief Thomas] Armstrong was permitted to bank unused hours without limit, then cash them out at the hourly rate he made as police chief. Some of the unused sick hours also counted toward his CalPERS safety pension, which at $229,000 a year is among the largest in the entire state. Armstrong’s pension is also higher than the largest base salary he earned, $217,000.

(The LAT notes that the El Monte PD had 110 officers, for a city of 113,000, and that El Monte’s credit rating has been downgraded to “junk bond”.)

And more:

[Former El Monte chief Ken] Weldon’s and Armstrong’s contracts permitted more than three months off each year. That total covered one month of vacation, about three weeks of leave, as many as 12 sick days and 14 holidays (including Admissions Day, a September holiday that celebrates the date California became a state).

I picked the wrong profession. I should have become a police chief in California.

Edited to add: Here’s a shocker that either I missed, or that wasn’t in the original LAT story about San Bernardino:

City Atty. James Penman said city budget officials had falsified documents presented to the mayor and council for 13 of the last 16 years, masking the city’s deficit spending.
“For the last 16 years the budget prepared for the council showed the city was in the black,” Penman said, not naming those allegedly responsible. “The mayor and the council were not given accurate documents.”

If the city attorney’s assertions are true, I would expect criminal indictments somewhere down the line.

…let us turn our eyes to the West, and the state of California. It’s like a whole other country! Specifically, like a third world banana republic.

On Tuesday, the mayor of Cudahy, David M. Silva, resigned.

Silva, Councilman Osvaldo Conde and Angel Perales, the former head of code enforcement, are accused of taking $17,000 in bribes from a marijuana dispensary owner who was working as an FBI informant. The officials allegedly took the bribes in exchange for their help in opening a store in the small blue-collar city, according to federal authorities.

I’m intrigued by the idea that the FBI was using a marijuana dispensary owner as an informant, given the tensions between California and the Feds over medical pot. But there’s more to the story:

In the Cudahy case, a 146-page criminal complaint indicates that the arrests were part of a larger investigation that includes allegations of election fraud. The complaint also refers to the possible involvement of a towing company and a sheriff’s deputy. The federal document, which includes about 130 pages of wiretap transcripts, paints a picture of unchecked power by officials who boldly plotted taking bribes and talked about accepting cash as a way to avoid public disclosure required for campaign contributions.

There’s a complimentary story in the LAT that goes into more detail about the alleged election fraud. Two men who ran for city council seats had their cars vandalized, rocks and bricks thrown at their homes, and then…

Late one night, a surveillance camera on Garcia’s home captured a car stopping nearby. A man crouched behind Garcia’s pickup and hurled a Molotov cocktail at the house.

By the way, remember Maywood? The Maywood PD also patrolled Cudahy. A former Maywood PD chief is quoted in the article as having concerns about Cudahy’s elections and the “aura of intimidation”. (As far as I can tell, that chief came in at the very end of the police department’s existence, and did not have anything to do with the circumstances that led to the department being shut down.) The “towing company” involvement is interesting as well; as you may recall, there were some questionable things going on in Maywood with a towing company as well.

More:

In one of the wiretapped conversations, a Cudahy employee, Simon Rojas, spoke about the lengths to which he would go to protect his boss, Conde. Federal prosecutors said the pistol-packing code enforcement worker described “his willingness to commit acts of violence against anyone who” meddled with Conde.

Tough town, if the code enforcement folks need to carry guns.

Related: “What you have just said is among the most absurd things I have ever heard.”