Baxter’s Talk to the Fullerton Council about Kelly Thomas and police spokesman Andrew Goodrich.

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This is the text of the speech our favorite maverick Fullerton liberal, Steve Baxter, gave to the Fullerton City Council last night.  The image at the bottom is one of his many posters.

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Thank you Sharon, thank you Bruce, your leadership has been invaluable. Thank you also for giving me this opportunity to be snarled at by the other three.

About eight years ago I lived on the 100 block of West Wilshire above one of the downtown shops. I worked from home at the time and we had a dog named Lucy. Since we did not have a yard So i would have to take Lucy out a several times during the day for a walk.  It was during this time that I became acquainted with Kelly Thomas, who also called these few blocks his home. Essentially we both lived in the same neighborhood and we both shared a fondness for dogs.

For the periods of time that Kelly was around, I would see him two or three times a day.  There were some street guys I would try to avoid, as they were aggressive, but I liked Kelly, he never was.  He seemed like good kid.  He seemed like he just felt things more than the rest of us do, way more than than you three especially.  Feeling so much is not an easy burden when things around here can get pretty terrible.

Some days Kelly wanted me to come over to where he was sitting with my dog, at other times he was lost in thought or his music, so I left him alone.  Without exception all my experiences with Kelly Thomas were positive and I doubt that many people can say that about the rest of us.  Other than a few short exchanges while he put his cigarette to his mouth, Kelly  never wanted anything from me.

At  the time I had the misfortune of living next door to a sweet but loud Reggae DJ, who regularly played so loud I had to ask him to turn down.  Kelly was interested in the music and I told him he could hang out upstairs on the patio if he wanted to listen.  I did not offer much helping hand, I should have done more, but at the very least this shows that he was not a threat.

Jones, Bankhead, McKinley,  I like to think that if you three knew Kelly, you would be just as just as outraged as as I am about what happened, but then that is given you a herculean benefit of the doubt.  When is the last time this city ever gave someone like Kelly Thomas even a little benefit of the doubt?

When the Orange County  DA, Tony Rakaucus, a man that has seen thousands of crime scenes, gets emotional about the ten-minute torture/taser/stomp-fest your police officers unleashed on Kelly Thomas, you can be pretty sure that it was bad. The knee-jerk reaction of the Fullerton Police department  was not to find out the truth, but instead how to best avoid the pending fecal storm. So someone sent [police spokesman Andrew] Goodrich out to cluster-bomb the public with lies about Kelly Thomas.  Now it’s time to clear Kelly’s name.

GOODRICH CLAIMED THAT:

• Kelly was the aggressor – No, said the DA, he was not.
• Kelly was breaking into cars – NO, said the DA, there was no evidence of that.
• Kelly took on six officers and that the injuries sustained by these officers included broken bones – when, in fact, the worst these guys walked off with were bruised fists, scuffed jackboots and the victim’s blood on their badges.

Fullerton officials have soiled this man’s memory long enough.  It’s time to make it right.

1. Officer Andrew Goodrich is the police spokesperson but he performs his job like he is the police COLON, passing non-verified information and pinching it off one lie after another.  Goodrich needs to apologize to all Fullerton residents, the press, and the Thomas family for his lies.  He then needs to whip himself, flush and draft his resignation letter. [? – ed]
   
2. Assuming that we will not see any colons resign this year, Goodrich needs to be terminated.  If you can’t terminate him for lying as this would put the entire city in jeopardy, you should terminate him for sucking so bad at lying.  Broken bones?  How did your vetting process miss that?  Did Ramos have you sign his case?  Broken bones are hard to fake bro.
3. The City Council and Chief Hughes should each offer formal retractions to the now-disproved statements by Goodrich.  This retraction needs to specifically state, one retraction at a time, that evidence shows Kelly Thomas did not break into cars, that he did not act as the aggressor, and so on.
   
4. The Fullerton Council needs to establish if Goodrich needed to have these lies approved, and if so, by whom.  If that person is still on the force he or she should also be terminated.  If that person just crawled off in disgrace with a $150,000  pension, they should be stripped of their pension and arrested for interfering in a murder investigation.
   

You can’t undo Kelly’s murder, but you CAN restore Kelly Thomas’ name.  You know that’s the right thing to do, no matter what the City Attorney says you should do.

No one in this room actually believes that you will do the right thing. Doing the right thing under these circumstances requires moral muscles which you three have long ago let wasted away.  I just wanted to use this opportunity to point out what horrible human beings you are and that Kelly was actually so much more appealing person than you.  The 17,000 Fullerton residents that signed your termination letter agree with me.

Thank you.