THE CHARADE OF FULLERTON POLICE DEPARTMENT REFORM UNDER FORMER POLICE CHIEF DAN HUGHES AND THE SILENCE OF OUR FULLERTON CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS…MAYOR BRUCE WHITAKER, MAYOR PRO-TEM DOUG CHAFFEE AND COUNCIL MEMBERS JENNIFER FITZGERALD, GREG SEBOURN AND JESUS SILVA. BY BARRY LEVINSON
Barry Levinson
Our streets are the joke of Southern California, we are drowning in millions of dollars in red ink caused by overly generous salary and pension increases, our traffic congestion is quickly reaching big city proportions and our elected representatives are the poster children for corruption and crony capitalism, yet the biggest problem still remains the corruption throughout the ranks of our Fullerton Police Department. They have the power to use lethal force against the public and the ability to put innocent people in jail. I have first hand experience with the latter statement. This can definitely impact adversely every citizen in Fullerton. It does not matter if you are an activist or you are someone who does not know the names of any of our elected officials. We are all at risk and will continue to be at risk until we clean house at the FPD!
So with this as the backdrop, I spoke at the Fullerton City Council during Public Comments on April 18, 2017. They give you a “generous” 3 whole minutes to speak. In reality, with the current group of council members, it would not matter if they gave you three hours or even three days to speak because they ignore everything out of the public’s mouths unless you choose to kiss their you now what!
I spoke about two very important subjects. The first subject was the failure of our “reformed” Fullerton Police Department to take the statements from Joe Imbriano and myself to report the crime of obstruction of justice by recently retired Police Chief, Dan Hughes in regard to his failure to allow his officers to follow normal police procedure to arrest Joe Felz for DUI and for leaving the scene of an accident with damages. Joe Felz was eventually charged with those two counts, months after the incident by the OCDA Office. I admonished the entire council for its continued failure to discuss this very important issue.
With my remaining 30 seconds I dropped a bombshell in the laps of our distinguished dais. I told them that I was informed by Banc of California employees at the Euclid and Rosecrans Avenue branch that it is closing because a developer bought the property to be part of the development of the entire Sunrise Village Shopping Center to become mixed-use high-density high-rise residential units. The city desperately needs the short-term infusion of money that would be generated by the Park and Recreation Department Park Dwelling fees of $11,700 per residential unit. If they build 500 units for example that would generate an additional $5,850,000 in revenue. This would help to cover the extremely generous salary and benefit employee raises approved by the council last year. More development approvals would be needed to continue paying for these salary and benefit increases approved under Mayor Jennifer Fitzgerald in 2016 for subsequent years. I put the council on notice that I smelled a rat. Namely that the city in my opinion has been dealing with developers to make this mixed use project a reality in the near future. Why else would these landlords create vacant properties with the absence of valuable rents if they only had a hope that they could convert the shopping center to a concrete jungle of mixed use high-density housing units. I told them it was not zoned for that use and that the people of that neighborhood would fight to make sure it never ever came to fruition. You should have seen the faces of Bruce Whitaker and Jennifer Fitzgerald after I finished with my comments. They did not look pleased at all.
Of course, there was no response by any council members to these comments and the Interim Police Chief also was silent after he learned that his department would not take a simple police report by two members of the community. Gee silly me, I thought it was their job to take the statement and then go and investigate; not determine that no crime was committed so therefore no police report was necessary to be taken by them in the first place.
The first order of business has to be from the OCDA Office by filing obstruction of justice charges against Dan Hughes.
Like I said at the beginning of this post, the City of Fullerton and the Fullerton Police Department are corrupt and the Fullerton Police Department needs to clean house
#1 by Barry Levinson on April 20, 2017 - 8:30 am
Joe and I returned for the third time to fill out a police report on Dan Hughes for obstruction of justice charges.
Again an off-duty Captain, Captain Siko shows up 5 or 10 minutes later after we speak to the police receptionist in the police lobby.
He now says that after he refused to allow us to file on April 11, 2017,and instructed Sgt Klander on April 13 to not take our report (our second attempt to file a report) that he now instructed Sgt Klander to file a report and that Joe will be getting a letter and a copy of the report either that day or the next day.
Are you confused yet. We are to believe that after thwarting us not once but twice, now Captain Siko, (the head of the street division) made a 180% turn and now is assisting us voluntarily. I find that hard to believe.
Here is what probably really happened. On Tuesday night I spoke at the City Council meeting and told all included the Interim Police Chief present at the meeting that we were not allowed to file a criminal police report. I believe probably the Interim Chief called Captain Siko and told him to file that report pronto. After all my comments at the city council meeting now put their denial of our rights to file a criminal police report on the official record. I believe this is what forced Captain Siko pronounced pycho, to finally stop thwarting our efforts. Even when you get the police in Fullerton to do the proper thing, they apparently still find it easier to tell you a story rather than the truth. This is what I believe happened based on pure common sense. For that would be the likely catalyst for the Captain to help us on our third try to get the FPD to do their jobs and take our report. We will now wait for the US mail to deliver that report. We will keep you the readers advised if in fact a copy of that report was sent to Joe Imbriano.
#2 by Barry Levinson on May 2, 2017 - 10:50 am
Well now we know that there was no criminal police report filed, but instead a Miscellaneous Report That Requires No Action By the FPD. This is after Captain Siko told us he made sure a Police Report was indeed filed as we requested of him not once but twice. He is in charge of the uniform division of the FPD. Yet he thinks he can get away with giving us misleading information. This is not the face or actions of a reformed police department, quite the contrary. This is the face of a corrupt, dishonest police department that does not believe apparently in the rule of law especially when it should apply to their own police officers who swore an oath to serve and protect the community.
Where is the Orange County District Attorney’s Office? Where is the Federal Department of Justice needed to investigate this cesspool of corruption?
We want answers and we want action. Are we a nation of laws or are we a third world banana republic? It is a question that I would have never asked or even thought of a decade ago. Now it is imperative that we continue to seek justice and never stop speaking out until our government leaders do their jobs properly!
#3 by Nicolas on May 6, 2017 - 8:15 am
FPD is a joke! I got snatched out of my car & clothes searched with zero consent for minding my own business in front of my nephew as well, You suck department scum Pro Agenda 21 fools. Great video