So many victims, so many lies, so much still hidden, so much of your money wasted, so much you need to know to finally be free of the sins of the past.
If you think you can escape the consequences of allowing your cops and your city officials to conceal the truth from you about all that has happened for so long inside the Burbank Police Department — as if your ignorance is some kind of shield — you are kidding yourselves.
Rampant racism and sexism and nepotism — this has been going on too long.
What has come out in recent weeks in the trials of two lawsuits filed by Burbank Police Det. Steve Karagiosian and former Deputy Chief Bill Taylor is a sordid tale of incompetent leadership, conspiracies and back-stabbing, tolerance for brutality and discrimination.
It is a story within a story within a story that is so complicated and has so many players, it would take a blue-ribbon commission or an authoritative and comprehensive report to sort out all the details and to determine the levels of responsibility.
What the jurors heard in court convinced them to award $150,000 to Karagiosian and nearly $1.3 million to Taylor. The city’s legal bills are almost certain to rise even more when Officer Cindy Guillen’s case comes to trial next month, and when Lt. Omar Rodriguez gets his day in federal court.
Attorney Solomon Gresen, who represented Karagiosian, and attorney Gregory Smith, who represented Taylor, provided a tour in lengthy conversations through the labyrinthine saga and how it started to unravel after the Porto’s Bakery robbery on Dec. 28, 2007.
Rumors were flying around that gang-member suspects in the case were beaten by officers. Four months after the robbery, an anonymous letter — purportedly from officers afraid of retaliation — was sent to shed light on the allegations.
Testimony in these recent trials cast then-Police Chief Tim Stehr in the middle of all that went wrong, a man way over his head who had promoted his pals over more capable officers and then, as the pressure grew, started looking for someone to blame.
Taylor was accused of obstructing the Porto’s investigation. Pressure was put on Rodriguez to turn on Taylor, who had dared to support his efforts to hire more minority officers. That made Rodriguez a marked man, accused of using excessive force on a suspect.
And so it went. Officers chose sides, changed their stories about what had happened. By the spring of 2009, the department was in turmoil.
And we wonder why the kids bully each other. How ugly truth is.
But we must be honest – we are all perps and victims. Maybe that will
help change our governments and lives.
Timely – thank you, Ron.
The jury award WAS TOO LOW! These cops got SCREWED for speaking up. They would of made more money just working and keeping quiet! These awards should BEGIN at 2 MILLION and go up to a maximum of $20 MILLION. Confidential settlements SHOULD BE OUTLAWED and trial and appeals total should take a maximum of 1 year to complete! Attorneys fees set maximum 10%! Then the City’s elected SCUMBAGS can run for office ON A MORE TRUTHFUL RECORD than ever before. If these reforms were in place, no elected official would put up with this cover-up crap for 1 minute—it would BANKRUPT the City to do so, thus the Buck would FINALLY STOP WHERE IT MUST. All these little Cities would get the message and then the Sheriff’s Dept would begin to get it together. Police in this Nation are over-militarized, way over budget, over-armed AND WAY WAY UNDER-TRAINED in how to make a legitimate arrest and determine probable cause vs. NO CAUSE.
Lets see MORE WHISTLEBLOWERS COME FORWARD AND MUCH MUCH HIGHER DAMAGES AWARDS FOR THE FEW BRAVE AMERICAN CITIZENS who decide to stop going to work each day to kill, main, and rip off the Public they swore to serve. Check out Friday’s LA Times Extra—a Compton man who was a busdriver was nearly beaten to death over a traffic stop! He got 2.2 million (before the lawyers outrageous high cut and before the appeals that will take place.) He should get the whole amount NOW and start rebuilding his life that they DESTROYED!
“It is a story within a story within a story that is so complicated and has so many players, it would take a blue-ribbon commission or an authoritative and comprehensive report to sort out all the details and to determine the levels of responsibility.”
Pshaw! This is Hollywood. All it would take is a couple of soap writers; they think in concentric circles, and since Ron did such a good job of following the circular dots, he must have been one in a former life.
“Rampant racism and sexism and nepotism — this has been going on too long.”
There are more of us than of them, we have an election coming up, even they will
have to concede their game is over. We shall overcome.
“Police in this Nation are over-militarized, way over budget, over-armed AND WAY WAY UNDER-TRAINED in how to make a legitimate arrest and determine probable cause vs. NO CAUSE”. Spot on! They also overreact like they did in their school lockdowns over the security guard’s false claim of being shot. Police is out of control.
Stehr has an exact parallel in LA City.
GSD (Office of Public Safety) Capt. Gary Newton promoted all of his unqualified -for the most part – white “buddies” including one Richard Musquiz, now Capt in charge of the field officers in OPS. Musquiz is by all definitions a “bad cop”. He was convicted of handcuffing and beating an African American suspect and kicked out of the Huntington Beach PD. He lost all appeals. He was kicked out of the (MTA?/Housing Dept?) police too for similar behavior. Yet he remains a captain in OPS by Gary Newton’s hand.
If OPS had any real authority in LA, you can imagine OPS rapidly evolving into the vicious clusterf*ck that the Burbank PD became.
You cannot make a better case for letting LAPD absorb OPS and weed out seriously bad officers like Newton and Musquiz.