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Kelly’s father Ron Thomas writes us:
Tuesday, January 13th it will be one year since an Orange County jury decided that Ramos and Cicinelli were not guilty of any wrong doing in the Murder of my son. There will be a PEACEFUL gathering at the Fullerton Transportation Center where he was killed (Kelly’s Corner). It will start at 6:30pm. It has been very hard to put it all into perspective and try to understand how they didn’t even find them guilty of excessive force. I really want one or more of those jurors to come out and talk with me about what made them decide the way that did.
What you don’t know is that ALL SIX of the officers that were there that night have decided to give up their right to the Fifth Amendment. This means that they will all give depositions (most have already done so) before the civil trial that is to take place in March. So, unlike the murder trial, they will all be on the stand and will need to answer questions by my attorney and his team. You will learn many more facts then were brought out in the murder trial.
Also, Kelly’s story will be completed as a movie in a few weeks, and will premier at the Action on Film/International Film Festival this August.
I hope to see you Tuesday – Ron Thomas.
The Orange Juice Blog will try to have somebody on the scene. Seems appropriate now to reprint Ryan Cantor’s unforgettable reaction to the verdict last year:
“Not Guilty?”
That sound you heard in at 3:58 at the Fullerton Transportation Center? That was a pin dropping.
I’m not an expert in dealing with loss. I’ve never had a crisis of faith. I’ve never been an addict. I understand what doubt is, but I do not appreciate the intoxicating grip of despair. I’ve never had to walk down a seemingly unending dark tunnel. I’ve never had to hope that somewhere a light is left to guide my way.
I’ve never heard a man threaten to fuck up my son. I’ve never heard my son beg for his life, to ask me to help him, to ask me to save him. I’ve never seen a loved one beaten to death on camera. I have never had my heart break. I have never had my soul shatter. I have never had my world go dark.
The community I want to live in would have a way of making it clear that bullying and small minds will find no shelter. We would make it clear that we govern with our conscience and that we expect those who uphold our laws to not only enforce what is written, but also what is unwritten. We can’t codify what it means to be kind, to show compassion, to abhor contempt, but we do understand how to show it. Where I want to live, respect would be earned and not taken. Where I want to live, the least among us would be confronted with charity and not with the sound of snapping latex and the dull thud of wood landing on bone.
Instead, where I live, it’s a greater crime to discuss FACTS about what wrong a law enforcement officer has done in his past while on duty than it is for a law enforcement officer to beat a man to death in the street. Where I live, we’d rather pay a handsome sum to a stranger to spot-check our community’s integrity than to let a neighbor have her say in how expectations should be enshrined. Where I live, we happily tell a father that his son’s murder was actually a suicide. We casually tell a mother that her son’s cries for help were just the dying delusions of a man who could clearly breathe. Where I live, respect is taken, and the difference between a dog and a man is a subject for debate.
Where I live, a man can kill another man on video for the whole world to see, he can taunt him, threaten him, and use his massive obese grotesque bloated frame to squeeze the very life out of a man and get away with it just because someone put a star on his fat furry yellow belly. Where I live, not only is being homeless a crime; it’s a death sentence:
I live where I have to wonder what kind of courage is required to do the right thing. What it takes to make a choice to not bludgeon a man without a shirt to death. What it takes to actually convict a man of killing another. I get to wonder if the thin blue line protects me as much as it protects itself. I get to wonder why that matters.
Illustration by Michael Em.
I don’t know how to get from where I live to where I want to live. I don’t understand how we can grant special legal privileges to shield those we expect to be our heroes from the consequences of their own bad behavior, and yet not allow the simplest of rights and basic protection to those who get nothing but the scorn and contempt from our society each day. I am not granted the wisdom to substitute my judgment for that of twelve of my peers, nor (apparently) am I granted the sum total of brain cells required to defend their decision.
Maybe tomorrow will be a better day than today. Maybe I’ll be able to be something other than bitter; that I’ll be able to be constructive and I’ll have a voice for change.
Today, I’m just angry.
I can’t guarantee or do anything to ensure that my son won’t grow up to be just like Kelly Thomas, but I can guarangoddamntee that my son will not be anything like the contemptible piece of shit that killed him.
UPDATE: I rarely ask anyone to sign a petition, but please sign this one, asking for a Federal investigation: http://wh.gov/lIsdX
Commentary by other Orange Juice Blog contributors and friends:
- Retired cop Diane Goldstein: A “Peace Officer” Considers the Kelly Thomas Verdict
- Fullerton artist Jesse LaTour: Reflections on the Verdict
- Fullerton activist Matt Leslie: Sign Your Anger on the Dotted Line!
- Attorney Greg Diamond: Verdict – Not Guilty on All Charges
Will be an exciting trial to attend and follow. Reality Is…
“Our panel includes
Brian Buchner, president of NACOLE, National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law
Enforcement, which has engaged with the city of Ferguson to develop a new citizen
oversight committee in that community.
Pete Eyre is co-founder of Cop Block, a national decentralized project that focuses on
police accountability.
Pamela J. Meanes is president of the National Bar Association and active in the recent
actions in Ferguson, Missouri.
Jonathan S. Taylor is a professor at California State University, Fullerton, who’s
been active in issues of police violence, particularly following the brutal crackdown
on the Occupy Movement and the killing of the mentally ill man Kelly Thomas in 2011”
“Particularly since Michael Brown’s death at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri, a national dialogue has been taking place regarding the creation of citizen oversight boards to monitor law enforcement. In this, the fifth installment of Fatal Encounters, the Reno News & Review’s series on issues of deadly police violence, we’ve assembled a panel of people who, for various reasons, have reached the national stage with regard to police violence”
Published 10.16.2014
http://www.newsreview.com/reno/eyes-wide-open/content?oid=15222461
Once I read Cop Block this lost all credibility. Read every article they ever post or write about. It has 5% fact maximum, the rest made up just to get people to read it and react. Worthless organization and they lost credibility quickly with anyone that cares.
Its a pretty long discussion, you really want a diverse representation.Very many Officers agree they just have to wait till they retire to speak, or they can go online anonymously. I heard the Hacker Group Anonymous has Government ties, organized crime did too, now The Chief Executive is from Chicago crime families.
That 5% fact, comment said it all.
*What ever happened to the FBI investigation and the issuing of a “Consent Decree” for 10 years? Oh, they seem to still be working on that in Ferguson too!
The so called federal investigation in Ferguson was just to appease Holder’s peoples. I mean it’s clear there isn’t even close to enough for a state level trial, and you are going to say you are going to bring federal charges? Come on. Politics is such BS. Just like the Thomas case, they say they will look into it and all you hear is crickets for 10 years. Federal is all a dog and pony show. Holder is the most worthless racist person this nation has ever seen at the top. Well Obama might be just as bad.
Federal Bureau of Intimidation will Police the Local Intimidation Police accordingly.
They are POLITICAL POLICE. They are incalculably outnumbered. Remember the weaponable Plutonium scare in Fullerton, January 2013 (Im trying a little bit of dark but actual humor). Politics has always been about SUBJEGATION, back in the days of US Black slavery, Even wage labor was considered a form of slavery.
“International Socialist Review Issue 21, January-February 2002
Federal Bureau of Intimidation: The FBI’s record of repression”
“The Constitution has been slain in the house of its friends. So far as colored people are concerned, the Constitution has been a stupendous sham, a rope of sand, a Dead Sea apple, fair without and foul within, keeping the promise to the eye and breaking it to the heart.
Frederick Douglass, 1886”
http://isreview.org/issues/21/fbi_repression.shtml
“Secret police. Secret courts. Secret government agencies. Surveillance. Intimidation tactics. Harassment. Torture. Brutality. Widespread corruption. Entrapment schemes.
These are the hallmarks of every authoritarian regime from the Roman Empire to modern-day America, yet it’s the secret police — tasked with silencing dissidents, ensuring compliance and maintaining a climate of fear — who sound the death knell for freedom in every age.
Every regime has its own name for its secret police. Mussolini’s OVRA carried out phone surveillance on government officials. Stalin’s NKVD carried out large-scale purges, terror and depopulation. Hitler’s Gestapo went door to door ferreting out dissidents and other political “enemies” of the state. And in the U.S., it’s the Federal Bureau of Investigation that does the dirty work of ensuring compliance, keeping tabs on potential dissidents, and punishing those who dare to challenge the status quo.”
http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/the-fbi-americas-secret-police-2/
The Consent Decree for the Rampart Division in LA…..was neither a KNVD operation or a Russian Security Forces edict. True, these major disclosure operations of police wrong doing may not come along as often as necessary. Serpico comes to mind in NYC. The truth of the matter is….that in this so-called modern era, the rules of engagement have change about 20 years ago. They didn’t bother to mention it to the civilians out here in the hinterland….but when they changed the message on the Cop cars from Protect and Serve to Safety and Service…..we should have all paid more attention. As the new recruits come into the system, they are not required to watch old episodes of Police Story, Kojak or Hill Street Blues. They should. Let’s face it, the value old human life has been deminished. We can say it is because of the influx of various immigrant populations, the demise of our education systems, the dumbing down of our news reporting or television programming, what they are putting in our food, the years of endless war and the guys that come back with suicidal tendencies, PTSD, Brain Trauma, Racial Hate mongering, or maybe just people having babies that are as dumb as they are. We have plenty of blame to go around to politicians, institutions of all kinds, greedy banks, greedy developers and those that blame all their bad conduct on the fact that they have a family to support. The truth is Homelessness is a problem, Domestic Abuse always existed but nowadays it is highlighted. Police are just segments of our society. In the old days, they lived down the street. Today they live out of town to protect their identities and that of their families. In the old days, as seen in Animal House, only the Police Chief’s daughter was the town pump. Only, the daughter of the police sargent was the drunken party goer. Only the son of one of the local officers was stealing hub caps for Midnight Auto Supply. Those days are gone. Today, drugs are the prevalent issue, which includes abuse of prescription drugs combined with alcohol. Parents and Teachers today cannot do their job as they did in the past – at arms length. They have to be the Gestapo, The FBI, CIA, BATF and DEA all rolled into one. In the meantime, they have to work, make a living and pray that nothing happens until they get home at night. For all of these reasons the Fullerton Police Dept. and the Ferguson Police Dept. needs Federal Consent Decrees to watch over their operations for the next 10 years.