I’m confused by an article at FFFF, but I’ve learned that that’s not the best place to go for cogent explanations of what they’re saying. (It’s a great place to go to be abused for using phrases like “cogent explanations” in one’s writing, but that’s not what I’m looking for today.) It deals with Pat McKinley’s hiring of Jay Cicinelli:
Jay Cicinelli was put on a disability pension by Bernard Parks, Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department following a horrific shooting of the six-week rookie cop. Smart move. Among other injuries, Cicinelli lost his left eye.
But Cicinelli’s dream of being a policeman was not to end so quickly. For he had an ally in the figure of Mike Hillman, a gung-ho cop’s cop – the type whose worldview divides people into two groups: cops and everybody else; and Hillman was determined to put the one-eyed cop back on the streets somewhere – anywhere.
Hillman’s thoughts turned to little Fullerton, California where his one-time boss in the LAPD, Pat McKinley, had been appointed police chief. And what followed was a decision so incompetent and self-serving that it eclipses all of McKinley’s other disastrous personnel decisions – and that’s saying a helluva lot.
McKinley hired Cicinelli, gave him a badge, fire arms, and the keys to a patrol car, a decision so reckless and with such blatant disregard for the safety of the public and his own policemen, that he should have been immediately fired.
(My emphasis added.) I think that Pat McKinley should be recalled because of his role in hiring and supervising officers who have been shown to be overly aggressive and unwilling to honor the public’s constitutional rights. Given the Kelly Thomas tragedy, I don’t think that he should be left to lead the city. It adds insult to the city’s injury. But that doesn’t mean that the analysis above makes any sense.
I think that Jay Cicinelli went beyond reasonable police actions and committed manslaughter on Kelly Thomas at least. I think that he should go to jail. But this too doesn’t mean that the above analysis makes the least bit of sense. So, I’m asking our readers here to make sense of it.
Clear away all of the inflammatory dry brush, and the above four paragraphs are reduced to this:
(1) Cicinelli was shot, lost an eye, and went on LAPD disability pension.
(2) Cicinelli had a friend, a cop who valued cops over non-cops, who wanted to get him a job.
(3) This friend knew Pat McKinley, the Police Chief of Fullerton.
(4) McKinley hired Cicinelli and gave him the tools of the trade.
(5) His doing so was reckless with the safety of the public and his own policemen.
(6) McKinley should have been immediately fired for hiring Cicinelli.
I not only don’t see how the author gets from statements (1)-(4) to the conclusions in (5)-(6); I don’t see how one can get there.
Now, I can believe that hiring Cicinelli was reckless. Reckless (or more often negligent) hiring is one of the things that I address in my practice. What I can’t believe is that the paragraphs above give us any reason to think it was negligent, let alone reckless, hiring — except for one reason that I really dislike.
Here’s what we actually know about Cicinelli from these paragraphs: he was missing an eye and he had a patron who had an “us against them” attitude towards civilians.
Let’s take the second one first: how many cops do you think have an “us against them” attitude towards civilians? I think that it’s a common view, maybe even prevalent. So is the rule that the FFFFsters have in mind that you shouldn’t hire anyone on the recommendation of a cop with an “us against them” attitude, which in practice may mean that you’re not going to hire any cops at all.
(Note that “not hiring any cops” may be fine with Tony Bushala and his FFFFollowers, who as I understand it would like to dismantle the FPD and outsource operations to the OC Sheriff’s Department. That would seem to make sense only if the OCSD is really different than the FPD. Maybe it is; but I see no reason to presume so. Are they gentler towards the homeless? Most of what I know comes from my dealings with the homeless through the Occupy movement — and what information I’ve had about the OCSD doesn’t lead me to think that they have any less of a “cop’s mindset” or are any gentler than anyone else. If they are the same, then how is giving the reins to them any sort of “reform”)?
So, I don’t see how you get to the conclusion that hiring Jay Cicinelli should have been an immediate firing offense based on his recommendation.
That leaves us with two possible reasons why this hire should have been a firing offense. One of them is something that McKinley would not necessarily have been expected to know at the time: that Cicinelli was the sort of cop who would do a Barney Fife freak-out and beat someone’s face in during the middle of a protracted, but still probably still not otherwise destined to be fatal, arrest. Unless that was part of the recommendation he received from his friend, I can’t hang that around McKinley’s neck. He’s not a time-traveler or a prophet. I would never expect to win a negligent hiring case like this without more facts about what he should have known at the time of the hire.
The other possibility is that the criticism is that McKinley was endangering the public because had had only one-eye. The damned intro to the story that it is “a reminder of how a one-eyed cop was hired by the City of Fullerton to patrol our streets with badge, gun, taser and who knows what else.” That is — hired to patrol our streets with all of the equipment that cops normally have.
“A one-eyed cop.” They’re calling Cicinelli and McKinley knaves — a synonym for “jack,” like in your pack of cards — because Cicinelli had one eye?
Can this really be the FFFF argument against Pat McKinley, because he hired a one-eyed cop? Despite this story and the slavering response to it, I don’t think it is; I think that the real case against McKinley probably has a lot more to do with negligence in training and supervision. But that’s not what the FFFF article says: it says that McKinley was endangering everyone because he hired a one-eyed cop. Not a crazy tinderbox-brained cop, but a one-eyed cop.
FFFF writers (and commenters) seem willing just to make any assertion at all, logical or not, about the perfidy of everyone associated with the FPD, secure that 50 differently named commenters (or five commenters with 10 different names apiecce) will show up to scream “amen” at every charge hurled. This is the main thing that gives me concerns about the recall — or, rather, that the three candidates that come out of this anti-critical-thinking environment might think about the world of governance in the same way. Who thinks like this?
Now there’s one thing which would convince me that McKinley truly was negligent in this hire: if it is generally accepted that there’s no way that a one-eyed person can be a cop. (That’s how it works, for example, for airline pilots. No binocular vision, no job.) I just really doubt that this is true. I know enough people with one eye — one of them a cousin here in OC — who seem to get through the world really well. And I know that some of them are good aims with guns. (You know how you sometimes shut one eye while you’re aiming? They don’t have to.)
So, if anyone from FFFF can point me to research saying that one-eyed people should be discriminated against in hiring, I’m open to hearing about it. Until I do — until we find out that binocular vision really should be a job requirement of being a cop — I will consider charges that Pat McKinley made some sort of horrible error because he hired a one-eyed copy to be stupid and vile calls for disability discrimination.
Critics of the FPD ought to have enough good material to work with by now that they should not be grasping at strawd. So — why are they grasping at straws? (Are the polls showing something they don’t like?)
I don’t care if he had one eye or not. The fact is CiCi lost control and now a man is dead. And Fullerton residents will now pay for that. 6 out of control FPD’s, that is a problem and good sign of poor management. I guess the question is who is the real victim of terrible event. The answer is “ALL CITIZENS” thats who…
I agree with you about Cicinelli. So do you agree that the attack on McKinley for hiring him because he had one eye is completely bizarre and offensive?
The same person can be the target of both legitimate and illegitimate attacks. Do you see any value in distinguishing between them?
Greg–
I think the question really comes down to, would having two eyes change the kind of person and therefore the kind of cop Cicinelli would be? Its not having one eye that made him beat Kelly Thomas to death–it was something altogetherr different, perhaps going back to the “us against them” attitude some cops have. When I was in college, I took a CJ classs taughtt my a former police captain. He said one of the greatest psychological dangers cops face is developing the attitude that all people are criminals waiting to be caught. It gets them into situations they would not have otherwise been in, and sometimes the results can be fatal for the “suspect” or the cop himself. One of the reasons police applicants go through so much psychological training is to weed out the ones who respond violently when violence isn’t needed. But as we all know, that doesn’t always work. If McKinley had some way to know Cicinelli was potentially violent and hired him anyway, then yes, hes houldd havee been fired. But if we hold him responsible for the violent actions of a cop he hired, than all policee chiefs–any employers–should be responsible whenever any of their employees turn violent.
The one-eyed label is a cheap shot and an easy target–something the FFFF people are known for. But its also an easy answer–get rid of the one-eyed cop, and the rest of the knuckle-walkers on the FPD, and everything will be fine. But of course it won’t be. The real, more difficult question (and therefore beyond the mentality of the typical FFFF’r ), is how do you address the police culture that creates the “us against them mentality in the first place?
I think the FFFF post is particularly hypocritical because it accused Hillman of dividing the world into cops and less worthy non-cops. That’s exactly what the FFFF blog is all about; tripping over itself praising politicians and candidates who toe its line, and using any accusation, invective, or insult it can find to reduce its opponents (or anyone who dares to disagree with it) into sub-humans.
They’re grasping at straws because staws make good kindling, and all the FFFF wants to do is burn things down. But standing against something is always much easier than standing for something. You may be right–as the FFFF-backed candiates have shown themselves to be the vitriolic and shallow one-trick ponies they are, maybe Fullerton voters, regardless of the their stand on the recall, are starting to realize what they would get if those candidates were elected.
One very important point I forgot. There may be some question about McKinley’s responsibility before Kelly Thomas was killed, but there shouldn’t be afterward. He and the two other Council people made some critical errors right after the killing that really do bring into question their leadership. They should have pressed Chief Sellers for answers and more information; they should have expressed concern and respect for Thomas’ family. And they should have asked some of the questions we’ve been asking–is this is the one-time act of a few out-of control cops or is the problem deeper, ingrained into the kind of department we’ve created? And if so, how do we change it ASAP? They finally started asking these kind of questions through the independent investigator (who’s reports apparently haven’t been damning enough to satisfy the FFFF), but only after the issue was nearly out their control. If we’re going to question their leadership, let’s focus on how they acted in response to the killing, rather then questioning their ability to look into the future.
I agree with one exception: if the department’s policy was (1) to encourage rousts of the homeless and (2) not letting misdemeanants charged with bogus crimes and resisting arrest flee arrest by any means including sitting on them, then McKinley would share responsibility before the fact because it was foreseeable that they might lead to something like this. Those policies would also probably not give rise to individual liability for McKinley given qualified immunity, but they could justify his recall.
Agreed–you may not be able to hold someone responsible for the action of a single individual, but if you create a policy and culture that encourages certain behavior, you have at least a major share in the responsibility for what happens as a result.
BTW, is this reflective of a previous discussion about the FFFF’s blog? As I recall, Tony B denied any responsibility for the invective and borderline hate speech that dominates that blog. Seems he’s rather selective about responsibility, as he is on most issues….
Touché.
“I not only don’t see how the author gets from statements (1)-(4) to the conclusions in (5)-(6); I don’t see how one can get there.”
I think number 5 is true. I don’t know if you saw this yet, but in:
http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2012/here-it-is-read-em-and-weep-justice/
That version of the video at about 19:05, Cicinelli stuns a fellow officer while he was trying to stun Kelly over and over. People may conclude that because of his eye. To me, it looks like he went crazy with that taser. What he did would be like backhanding a kid to be quiet because all your going to get is a reverse reaction. I mean really? “turn over your stomach” *tase* *tase*. Kelly didn’t have control of his body when he was getting stunned and you got officers pinning him to the ground like that. How was he supposed to turnover? Definately, number five.
And number 6, well unless you can go back in time to fire him for something he did in the future. It is already too late to fire McKinley when he hired Cicinelli. He isn’t even the Chief anymore. I don’t know, maybe I am reading that wrong. Maybe there was an incident with Cicinelli way before Kelly Thomas.
Yeah, I saw it and wrote about it here.
(5) may be true, but I doubt it — and in any event it doesn’t follow from (1)-(4). I agree that tasing Kelly was downright stupid policing — and probably led to the overreaction from other officers that helped kill him.
As for (6), they’re saying that the hiring of the one-eyed Jack justified immediate firing of McKinley, even before all of this happened. I say: huh?
Well, if atleast 2-4 did not happen, 5 wouldn’t be known in Fullerton atleast.
This point seems moot compared to the bottom end of your article.
So not only did you dissect Joe’s article, you put your little spin in it with:
“I think that the real case against McKinley probably has a lot more to do with negligence in training and supervision. But that’s not what the FFFF article says: it says that McKinley was endangering everyone because he hired a one-eyed cop. Not a crazy tinderbox-brained cop, but a one-eyed cop.”
From reading Joe’s article, I didn’t get that at all. To me, it was just about why McKinley should have been fired or at this point, recalled. Backed by:
“Meanwhile, the miscreant who hired Cicinelli and all the other thugs, goons. thieves, con men, pickpockets, kidnappers, perjurers, destroyers of evidence, and sex offenders is sitting on our city council, voting on the settlements his employees caused, that will have to be paid by us.” – Joe Sipowicz
This also shows that Joe was name calling McKinley(miscreant) too. And the point of that is I don’t think Joe meant to call Cicinelli, one eye as discrimination as opposed to just his indignation of them. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have a valid point. It is just that I don’t see it like that.
“Critics of the FPD ought to have enough good material to work with by now that they should not be grasping at strawd. So — why are they grasping at straws? (Are the polls showing something they don’t like?)” – Greg Diamond
Oh come on, Mr. Diamond. Elections are is next week. This is the last “push” for any campaign. Your campaign like the recall campaign are new so shouldn’t you be out there right now making the most of the campaign so people remember your name till the last minute like the recall campaign is trying to do? As opposed to your opponent who has been there for so long doesn’t really need to, name recognition go a long way like trying to recall three people who have been working for the city too long.
You don’t seem to address the “McKinley hired Cicinelli … a decision so reckless and with such blatant disregard for the safety of the public and his own policemen, that he should have been immediately fired.” There’s no allegation at all before that that McKinley knew that he was going to be an out-of-control freak. The allegation is that he knew that he was one-eyed. And you see defenses of that idea, there and here. I agree that McKinley should be recalled; I disagree that his merely having hired a one-eyed cop — the point of that article — is a legitimate basis for his recall.
Thanks for your campaign advice, but I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’m not concerned with how I do in June. I want my supporters to come out and support me so that I can gauge where I stand, but I want to see where I stand before I really start cranking. The state is being kind enough to run an awfully good poll of the November race for me; after looking at the results of that poll, I’ll have a much better idea of where to concentrate and how.
Unlike my friends Jay Chen and Sharon Quirk-Silva, a good performance for me does not mean the prospect of getting institutional support for November. My spending money on the race now is wasted. (I am spending some time, though, calling voters in Fullerton and canvassing in the Anaheim portion of the district that I share with Julio Perez.
Meanwhile, I’m getting tremendous gratitude from many Democratic (and some NPP and GOP) activists for being willing to wade into FFFF and call them on (the half of the time) where they are wrong. Not many people are willing to do so, but it has to be done. I don’t think that my being willing to spend time taking them on hurts my chances in November; if anything, I think it helps, although that’s not why I’m doing it.
“You don’t seem to address the “McKinley hired Cicinelli … a decision so reckless and with such blatant disregard for the safety of the public and his own policemen, that he should have been immediately fired.”
Yeah I did which is your (6), I said:
“And number 6, well unless you can go back in time to fire him for something he did in the future. It is already too late to fire McKinley when he hired Cicinelli. He isn’t even the Chief anymore. I don’t know, maybe I am reading that wrong. Maybe there was an incident with Cicinelli way before Kelly Thomas.”
So my response is, how can you? And I am just glad we are all in agreement that McKinley should be recalled so I will agree with what you are saying there about the why. In many cases, FFFF has touched base with all the reasons. It is just this article got a specific point to why that I may not understand what it is really trying to say, but I get its meaning, recall McKinley.
“Thanks for your campaign advice, but I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’m not concerned with how I do in June. I want my supporters to come out and support me so that I can gauge where I stand, but I want to see where I stand before I really start cranking. The state is being kind enough to run an awfully good poll of the November race for me; after looking at the results of that poll, I’ll have a much better idea of where to concentrate and how.”
Oh that’s right. Your “real” election is in November so your last push wouldn’t be until just before November. My bad. Wish you the best on your campaign.
“I’m getting tremendous gratitude from many Democratic (and some NPP and GOP) activists for being willing to wade into FFFF and call them on (the half of the time) where they are wrong. Not many people are willing to do so, but it has to be done. I don’t think that my being willing to spend time taking them on hurts my chances in November; if anything, I think it helps, although that’s not why I’m doing it.”
I wouldn’t have found you/Vern or your site if it wasn’t for FFFF linking this site. I have always liked a little checks and balances which I think you do for FFFF and maybe vice versa. Keeps me thinking. I respect you for doing that.
No, I expect to start campaigning in earnest by mid-June, July 4 at the outside.
Thanks for the compliments. I wish more people in FFFF could handle being challenged without freaking out.
The post makes perfect sense to me. McKinley hired somebody who was already getting a disability pension from LAPD as a personal favor to Hillman. Bernard Parks obviously decided that a one-eyed beat cop was a liability to his force and the citizenry. It was a case of blatant cronyism.
Anybody who thinks being a one-eyed cop making Code 3 call is fine is delusional or just being deliberately argumentative.
Thanks for your reply, Tony. I hadn’t been able to hang this on you, rather than Sipowicz, until now. So here’s how you think:
(1) It is improper to hire someone who is getting a disability pension elsewhere. Not “if they can’t fulfill the requirements of the job,” just “period.”
(2) It is improper to hire someone based on the recommendation of someone you once worked with. (You say “as a personal favor,” but I’m sure you realize that you’re nowhere near proving that. Do you imagine said “this guy’s going to explode someday and take down a civilian or two, but would you hire him anyway as a personal favor to me”?)
(3) You presume that “obviously” Parks (or whoever he assigned to do so) made this decision because Cicinelli had only one eye. In fact, it’s not “obvious” at all; you have no idea if it was that or some other reason — not that you seem to care. Maybe Cicinelli didn’t follow proper procedure in the bust where he was shot; maybe they thought that it would be best for an officer injured so gravely to work in another locale. (Maybe having someone who was shot in the eye was bad for morale.) You say “cronyism” like it’s a fact, but you have no idea.
(4) I’ll post the same challenge to you as I did to someone else below: if binocular vision is truly essential to being a beat patrol officer, it must be in the job requirements for all kinds of cities. It would be listed in the ads for deputies and officers. So pay someone to read all of those ads and find out if it’s true. Because if it’s not generally a job requirement, then your final confident declarative statement is a load of crap.
Hillmann moved from the LAPD to the OC Sheriff’s Department, so the notion of disbanding the FPD in favor of the OCSD, yeah, well…it kind of comes full circle, que no?
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/08/jay_cincinelli_fullerton_beati.php
So the FFFF’ers are promoting the idea that the city’s policing should be turned over to … Hillmann? Wow.
gsr, Hillman no longer works for OCSD.
Hillmann recommended Cicinelli to McKinley who made the hire. Hillmann later found himself as part of Hutchen’s OCSD management team. If the hire was irresponsible, the recommendation surely was, too. Just sayin…
I was only pointing out the institutional repositioning of these three figures.
Is OCSD immune from the sorts of problems — including an “us against them” attitude — that you identify in FPD?
How much have you researched the performance of OCSD? I’m beginning to think that you’re showing an unexpected credulous side.
Let’s see: OK, this 2008 story is quite complimentary: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/05/local/me-ocsheriff5
This one from 2009, not so complimentary: http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2009/08/14/complaints-against-sheriffs-employees-skyrocket/31491/
And, oh look!, they had a 19-year OCSD Sheriff’s Deputy arrested on 80 counts of raping a young girl! http://www.ocregister.com/articles/sheriff-garcia-county-2354633-today-riverside. I’ll bet that you could have had an absolute field day with that story if that had been a Fullerton cop — or if you were trying to get rid of the OCSD and replace it with, I don’t know — the Swiss Guard? Does OCSD have a “culture of corruption”? How do you know.
Try closing one eye and then tell me it was smart to hire a cop with that disability. Being a cop requires a person to be physically fit and vision is a pretty big deal. After all this cop was required to carry a gun. I’m guessing he got a nice pension for losing his eye he didn’t need somebody to do him a favor. Also no person blind in one eye would ever be allowed in the military.
If I had had one eye for a long time and learned to adapt to it, I would do better than if, as someone with vision in both eyes, I closed one of them.
People blind in one eye cannot now enter the military. In a military emergency, that would change.
I’ll make you the same challenge I made to others (and I don’t know what the answer is): if binocular vision is essential to being a beat patrol officer, then it must be in the job requirements, right? Something like “corrected 20/20 vision in both eyes”? Well — is it always there?
I have had monocular vision over 40 years, and you are absolutely correct Greg; you adapt to all kinds of situations. The laws on monocular vision are very confusing to say the least. One group of “government”, the ADA for example, may say you’re disabled, but another “government” entity, SSI for example, say’s you’re not. If you’ve never had monocular vision, a binocular person can’t put their hand over one eye and say you can’t do the job. I don’t know how much money Cinelli was getting on social security disability, but I can tell you this. I have never been able to collect social security disability, yet monocular vision precludes me from getting a sworn police position and many other careers. So I guess we’re just suppose to settle with that?
I don’t know what the big deal is. Fullerton has another cop with one eye and he handles himself just fine. He drives a cop car, has to qualify with a gun every month and at one time was on swat. If he had to he would go code 3 also. Is that a liability?
For those people who are really, really interested in the legalities of this:
None of the loud foghorns at FFFF had the inclination to look things up, so I did it myself. I give you: Doane v. City of Omaha!
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-8th-circuit/1097840.html
For the record, I think that binocular vision is important for a police officer and I would probably support its being a job requirement — but I don’t think that someone who thinks otherwise deserves immediate firing.
Thanks for researching this. Jay had been doing his job for 12 years. I think if he would not be able to do his job it would of shown in the earlier years.
Oh by the way, I have a pistol permit and a drivers liscense.