San Diego Mayor Says You Should Know Better than to Believe the Chief of Police

The editors of Voice of San Diego told their readers today:
"The mayor's explanation for his police chief's misstatements is simple: Residents just can't trust what the police chief says out loud and they should know better than to think they could."

Here are the first two paragraphs of the editorial:

"For several years, members of the San Diego City Council have complained that they were misled if not outright lied to by the city's employees. Several of them have blamed staff members for getting them into so much trouble with agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission. One of them, in fact, Councilman Brian Maienschein, regularly has avoided closed-session meetings of the council because, he says, he simply can't trust what he is told in them.

"Yet only Councilwoman Donna Frye has complained after revelations recently that Police Chief William Lansdowne has regularly made materially misleading statements about crime rates in the city of San Diego. Sometimes to the City Council itself, other times in public forums, the police chief has touted the city's crime environment with statistics and conclusions that were simply untrue. In a 2006 presentation to the City Council committee that oversees public safety efforts, Lansdowne claimed that the crime rate had gone down but that "it would be a struggle for us to do it again next year." The crime rate, in fact, had gone up."

http://voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2007/05/30/opinion/01editorial053007.txt

Perjury should be prosecuted in criminal courts, as Bonnie Dumanis well knows

Dear Bonnie Dumanis:

If you are not going to prosecute perjury by officials with real power, but use the law only to prosecute workers who did not properly fill out their leave slips, you are not assuring public integrity. You are promoting lack of integrity and abuse of office. I couldn't help noticing that San Diego County's District Attorney indicted only workers and union leaders in the San Diego City pension fraud case. Not one official.

Your office's recent letter to me notes that I am pursuing my perjury claims in civil court. You know very well that my civil suit will lose because EVERY COURT IN CALIFORNIA WILL RULE that "public policy," meaning protection for lawyers, trumps the California law that allows citizens to sue for perjuy in furtherance of an act of destruction of documents. The California law that is universally ignored in California Courts is Civil Code 47 Section (b)(2).

You know that "public policy" relies on district attorneys to prosecute perjury in criminal courts, not citizens to prosecute it in civil courts.

Despite your oft-quoted claims that you will begin to prosecute perjury, you are letting all the big guys off scot-free. Cheryl Cox spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to hide crimes, and to pay lawyers to commit crimes. She knew the truth. I reported to her on December 4, 2001 that Richard Werlin was obstructing justice. Five months later, she voted to keep funding that obstruction of justice. She voted to intimdate teachers and administrators into committing perjury. Sometimes they got mixed up, and let out small bits of the truth in their depositions. Then the lawyers would step in. Kelly Angell (AKA Minnehan) of Stuz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz got Robin Donlan to reverse her testimony--right in front of the video camera that was recording the deposition!

Does Bonnie Dumanis now have her very own Dale Akiki?

Tanya Mannes writes about Bonnie Dumanis' mysterious "Public Integrity Unit" in this morning's San Diego Union-Tribune:

"In existence about 14 months, it has filed charges against one person: Jason Moore, a former Chula Vista mayoral aide." Jason Moore worked for Steve Padilla, a Democrat who was in a run-off election against Republican Cheryl Cox.

The investigation of Moore, for taking two hours off work to take pictures of Cheryl Cox with David Malcolm at a Cox fundraiser, began in August 2005, well before the November election. Oddly, Bonnie Dumanis says, that in the future, in most cases, "we will not investigate a complaint until after an election."

Bonnie says her office is determined to be nonpolitical. When will that start, Bonnie? Specifically, when will you investigate complaints against Cheryl Cox and her associates?

Dumanis did not even announce the existence of her "Public Integrity Unit" until March 1, 2007. Jason Moore was indicted on March 27, 2007.

O'Toole and Dumanis have each claimed to be personally interested in prosecuting perjury. But Dumanis' office recently refused to investigate proven perjury by Cheryl Cox's co-conspirators in crimes committed when Cox was a trustee of Chula Vista Elementary School District.

L.A. Chief William Bratton Shows Leadership

Kudos to Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton for demoting the top law officer at the immigration rally on May 1, 2007.

A small group of at the fringes of the crowd began throwing plastic bottles and trash at the Metro Squad, but instead of arresting one or more of the violent individuals, the Metro Squad attacked, and the police violently ended the entire demonstration. Journalists were manhandled. It would seem that the police joined the hooligans, rather than stopping them.

Bratton also took the step of transferring the person who was second in command at the time.

Some have suggested that when the Metro Squad is dealing with events that involve ordinary citizens, it should be outfitted with uniforms and gear that make its members look like regular cops. At the immigration rally, the Metro Squad looked like an army of Darth Vaders, which apparently some young men found to be provocative.

Who's guilty of the largest fraud on the California justice system?

Move over, Santa Barbara Sheriff and friends. You filed false documents and committed perjury, but Kathleen Culhane has one-upped you.

She forged statements from jurors in death row cases, creating the impression that the jurors did not want Michael Morales and others to be executed.

Sam Gross, Mike Carlson and Deborah Garvin got clean away with their frauds on the court regarding the antics at the Santa Barbara Sheriff's department, but it looks like Kathleen Culhane will spend years in jail.

Readers may remember that Ken Starr, the Whitewater prosecutor who charged Bill Clinton with lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, filed Kathleen Culhane's forged documents in California court. It would appear that Ken Starr is neither as honest nor as good an investigator as he would have us believe. He never bothered to talk to the jurors, just forged on, full steam ahead, trying to prevent the execution of a man who murdered a teenager. Is Ken Starr soft on the death penalty? What exactly does he believe in? Perhaps in lieu of principles, he just has personal desires and emotions.

We'd all be better off if only people who actually believed in the rule of law were allowed to practice law and enforce it.