Category: Fat Cops

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Fullerton City Manager Joe Felz – who crashed his car after drinking on election night, will retire at the end of the month

Fullerton, California

Fullerton City Manager Joe Felz, who has been leave since he crashed his car after drinking on election night, will retire at the end of the month, according to a letter Councilwoman Jennifer Fitzgerald read during Tuesday night’s City Council meeting.

“After many years working in public service, I have decided that my family now needs to be my first priority, and I will take some time away from working to spend time with my children as they enter their high school years,” read Fitzgerald from Felz’s letter while choking back tears.

In the wee hours of Nov. 9 after attending election night parties, Felz crashed his minivan within a half a mile from his house in a residential neighborhood north of downtown – driving it over a curb and into a tree. When police responded to the scene, they smelled alcohol on Felz but did not give him a breathalyzer test.

A police sergeant conducted a field sobriety test and apparently determined Felz was not drunk, according to a memo former Police Chief Dan Hughes sent to some council members later that day.

New Mayor Bruce Whitaker, who has been outspoken about the incident, wasn’t included in the email from Hughes to the rest of the council.

“Joe (Felz) has not had the opportunity to discuss with (then) Councilmember Whitaker so he asked that I delay sending it to him until he has an opportunity to do so,” read the email from Hughes, who left the city last month to take a job at Disneyland.

Whitaker previously said Felz called him the day after the crash and said he lost control of the car because he was fidgeting with loose wires underneath the steering column.

The city attorney’s office has denied requests by Voice of OC for both the police report on the crash and body camera footage. The case has been sent to District Attorney Tony Rackauckas for review.

Although the city referred a Voice of OC reporter seeking a report on the incident to an internal affairs investigator, neither the department nor City Attorney Dick Jones will confirm or deny an ongoing internal affairs investigation.

On Tuesday, Fitzgerald said Felz helped bring aboard Hughes to clean up the police department after the city was engulfed in controversy following the 2011 beating death of Kelly Thomas, a mentally ill homeless man, at the hands of Fullerton officers.

“When we needed a leader to step up and lead us through those tough times, Mr. Felz stepped up and was there,” Fitzgerald said.

“I can’t thank him enough for his decades of hard work in the city,” Councilman Greg Sebourn said.

After the meeting, Whitaker said he plans to press Rackauckas’ office for more information about the case.

Meanwhile, the city will hold a special meeting Jan. 5 to begin the selection process for an interim city manager. Human Resources Director Gretchen Beatty has been the acting city manager since the election night crash.

Spencer Custodio is a Voice of OC contributing writer. He can be reached at [email protected].

https://voiceofoc.org/2016/12/fullerton-city-manager-announces-retirement/

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Tustin officer gave man less than a second to raise his hands before fatally shooting him, court says in ruling – Officer Osvaldo Villarreal couldn’t reasonably have feared for his safety when he shot 31-year-old Benny Herrera

Tustin, California

Tustin officer gave man less than a second to raise his hands before fatally shooting him, court says in ruling

A Southern California police officer gave a man less than a second to raise his hands before opening fire and killing him, a federal appeals court noted Friday in rejecting the officer’s request to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit against him.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Tustin Police Officer Osvaldo Villarreal couldn’t reasonably have feared for his safety when he shot 31-year-old Benny Herrera after responding to a domestic dispute call in December 2011.

That determination ran counter to the Orange County district attorney’s office, which said in 2013 that the shooting was reasonable and justified because Villarreal fired after Herrera ignored orders to show his hands.

A video captured by a police dashboard camera shows otherwise, according to the 9th Circuit judges who cited the footage.

“Less than a second elapsed between Villarreal commanding Herrera to take his hand from his pocket and Villarreal shooting him,” the court wrote. “Just as Herrera’s hand came out of his pocket, Villarreal fired two shots in rapid succession … The command and the shots were almost simultaneous.”

The video has not been made public and is under a court seal.

The seven-page review of the case by Orange County prosecutors does not mention the existence of a video and appears to rely heavily on Villarreal’s own statements.

Sonia Balleste, the senior deputy district attorney who wrote the review, said Friday that she didn’t immediately recall the case or why the review didn’t mention the video but that she was sure she “looked at all the evidence that was available.”

“As a general practice it wasn’t my custom and habit to write down everything I looked at,” she said, adding that her office has since changed how such reviews are written to include more information.

Attorneys for Herrera’s parents and four children, all under 7 years old, filed a civil lawsuit against Villarreal and Tustin in 2012. Friday’s ruling allows that lawsuit to move forward to trial and upholds a lower court’s order declining to toss it out.

Tustin City Atty. David Kendig, speaking on behalf of Villarreal and the city, noted that the 9th Circuit was looking at the case in the light most favorable to Herrera’s family.

He said the city provided the district attorney’s office with video of the shooting but didn’t know why it didn’t make it into their review of the case.

Dale Galipo, who represents Herrera’s family, criticized the district attorney’s review as a “farce.”

“Are they not getting all the information from the agency? Did they not get the video, or are they just ignoring facts that support that the shooting was excessive?” Galipo said. “The whole process is flawed. It really is a joke.”

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-tustin-shooting-20160917-snap-story.html

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No criminal charges will be filed in the March 9 courthouse brawl between an Orange County District Attorney’s investigator and a defense lawyer who won a victory in the county’s jailhouse informant controversy, state prosecutors said Thursday.

Editorial – This District Attorney Tony Rackauckas’ Office and the Courts in Orange County are a Disgusting Hellhole of Corruption – Lies – Rigged Juries – Kiddie Porn Judges – A Psycho Asian Chief of Staff – and Boy Crazy – Republican DA Interns –

California declines to file charges in O.C. courthouse brawl tied to informant scandal

No criminal charges will be filed in the March 9 courthouse brawl between an Orange County District Attorney’s investigator and a defense lawyer who won a victory in the county’s jailhouse informant controversy, state prosecutors said Thursday.

State Attorney General Kamala Harris’ office concluded it was unclear whether either investigator Dillon Alley or Orange attorney James Crawford was criminally at fault in the bloody fight in a court hallway. The state investigated the incident because the involvement of a local District Attorney’s Office investigator created a conflict for that office.

“Both parties tell a different story about how the fight started, and both have two to three witnesses who fully corroborate their version of events,” Senior Assistant Attorney General Julie L. Garland wrote in a letter Thursday to Crawford’s attorney. “Because of the conflicting evidence it is not clear what party was the initial aggressor.”

The fight was not captured by the court’s surveillance camera, the letter said.

Related: Read Harris’ letter about the investigation

“We support the Attorney General’s decision to clear the OCDA investigator involved in the courthouse altercation. We will continue our own review of the facts, including any new information we receive from the AG, to fully determine what happened on that date,” the office of District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said in a statement.

The letter ends a nearly three-month investigation and was issued on the same day that the Register published a story in which former state Attorney General John Van de Kamp said the probe was taking too much time.

The investigation included nearly a dozen follow-up interviews as well as a review of medical records, surveillance video and witness declarations, the letter said.

The altercation, to some, was indicative of the heated feelings on both sides of the two-year-controversy over whether prosecutors and police in Orange County improperly used jailhouse informants to get confessions and withheld evidence from defense attorneys.

Using snitches is legal, except when the target is represented by an attorney and has been formally charged.

At least six murder and attempted murder cases have unraveled in the snitch crisis, resulting in overturned convictions, reduced penalties and dropped charges.

Crawford was fresh from winning a new trial for a man twice convicted in the double murder of a pregnant woman when he says he was attacked from behind by Alley.

Crawford and Alley had exchanged expletives about the informant controversy when Alley slammed Crawford’s face into a wood bench outside Superior Court Department 40 in Santa Ana and pummeled his head, Crawford said. Crawford that day released photos of his injured face and bloody eye.

Witnesses for Alley agreed both men traded words angrily, but said Crawford took the first swing at the DA’s investigator and was to blame for the escalating tension.

https://www.ocregister.com/articles/attorney-718066-crawford-alley.html
https://www.ocweekly.com/news/boy-crazy-6369193
https://www.ocregister.com/articles/kline-59382-court-computer.html
https://www.ocweekly.com/news/illegally-park-ed-6402361
https://voiceofoc.org/2015/04/das-charity-events-prompt-questions-about-chief-of-staffs-side-business/

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