I REPORT, YOU DECIDE-by Barry Levinson.
BARRY LEVINSON
I want to thank all the good people from all over California who graced our city with their presence last night at our Fullerton city council meeting. They really showed everyone there that the truth will win out over the public relations machine known as our current FPD.
One of the speakers asked Dan Hughes to produce the DAR’s (Digital Audio Recordings) of those officers who arrested the protesters the day of January 18th, 2014 which will allegedly verify that one or more officers taunted the arrestees, with the chant, Not Guilty, Not Guilty with a broad smile. One or more of the officers then allegedly stated that when the protesters are handed over to the sheriff deputies, that they will have their faces beaten in.
Well I now demand that Dan Hughes hand over these DAR’s to prove whether or not those accounts made by I believe all those that were arrested are indeed the truth.
The clock is ticking Dan Hughes and we expect that information to be presented immediately. After all you always tell us that the new FPD is open and transparent and therefore, should have absolutely nothing to hide from the public.
One more thing Dan Hughes. What is the more serious crime? A non-violent failure to disperse or a specific threat to 10 people in Fullerton Police custody that their faces will be beaten in by OC sheriffs. Sounds a lot like the threat that Ramos made
against Kelly Thomas on July 5, 2011. 
Since these terrible allegations against the police were reported extensively right after the arrests on January 18, 2014, why did you not have the answer to that question last night?
Barry Levinson
#1 by Barry Levinson on June 7, 2014 - 10:05 am
I want to answer my own question I posed above. Namely, since these terrible allegations were widely reported that the men and women protesters arrested on January 18, 2014 were threatened with life threatening physical violence from one or more Fullerton police officers, why did Police Chief Dan Hughes not have the answer to that question at a council meeting agenda item whose only purpose was to get answers for the actions and behaviors of our FPD?
There is no good answer for the chief’s total silence on this vital and extremely important question.
If Dan Hughes had already checked those officer’s DAR’s (Digital Audio Recorders) and heard those alleged threats and chose to ignore them, or if he just ignored all the reports of the police taunts and physical threats and chose not to review the DAR’s, it all means that Dan Hughes was in dereliction of his duties as Fullerton police chief.
If either of the above are found to be true, IMHO, this requires the city council to immediately dismiss Dan Hughes from his post. Nothing less would be an adequate response by the council and city. In addition, I believe the OC District Attorney would need to open up a file on our chief to see if he broke any laws by his failure to carry out his duties. If he cannot prove that he reviewed the DAR’s of those officers in question, even if it turns out that all 10 protestors who were arrested made up this story (highly unlikely), the chief would still be in dereliction of his duties for failure to follow-up on these very serious allegations made against one or more members of the Fullerton police department.
Remember ladies and gentlemen, we learned the Chief Hughes called for a police committee to review the tape of the protest for the purpose to see if they missed any other criminal behavior that day by the protesters. In light of this information becoming known, it is just inexcusable of Dan Hughes not to have reviewed all the officers’ DAR’s to find out if the very serious allegations made by the men and women who were arrested were true, partially true, or false. Maybe there is another plausible answer, but common sense tells you if there was one, we would have heard it directly from our Police Chief’s mouth on Tuesday night at our Fullerton council meeting.
He never told us if he reviewed those DAR’s. Critical information that he withheld from the public.
The amount of information not provided by our chief on Tuesday night was just mind boggling to me. Leaders lead and get out in front of problems. That unfortunately does not describe our current police chief, Dan Hughes.
One last point that needs to be addressed here. If the council allows Dan Hughes to continue to be our chief after verifying the above, there is only one thing left for the people of Fullerton to do. All those council members protecting Dan Hughes under those circumstances will need to be recalled. They may not look like Pat McKinley, Dick Jones or Don Bankhead, but if they put there heads in the sand or worse, like those gentlemen certainly did, they still need to be shown out the door of our city hall.
#2 by Joe Imbriano on June 7, 2014 - 10:13 pm
I agree, ladies first.