Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait. (CC/vexrobotics)
After a couple days of relative calm in the city of Anaheim since social unrest erupted on Tuesday, the arrival of this weekend promises another round of protests. Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait has been vocal in the aftermath of fatal officer-involved shootings and police repression in the community – though he hasn’t called it that – making statements in the press calling for state and federal help in assisting independent investigations into the Anaheim Police Department.
With a successful recall ending the tenure of the Fullerton City Council‘s “three bald tires” in the wake of the Kelly Thomas police beating death, Tait knows he must be politically calculating and placate public anger. For some, these gestures in the name of transparency have been enough, but I call the bluff. It’s quite telling, as Presente.org co-founder and strategist Roberto Lovato has illustrated, that Tait, Chief Welter and other officials have been much more passionate about denouncing broken windows in downtown Anaheim, than they have about annihilated brown bodies and traumatized communities.
If subsidizing Anaheim’s resort area plays into the equation of the city’s very public descent into dystopia, Tait’s past has certainly played into that dynamic. Leading into a vote for a charter amendment to vet such “public-private partnerships” that was ultimately shelved due to the swelling outrage over police brutality, the Orange County Business Council reminded him of his political past before his public opposition to a $158 million tax giveaway for a hotel development less than a mile from a fatal officer-involved shooting that killed 21-year old Martin Angel Hernandez earlier this year.
As Mayor, Tait has also pushed for economic deregulation with a task force seeking to make Anaheim more ‘business-friendly.’ Perverted priorities at City Hall were in full effect long before the current controversy less than friendly ‘community policing’ has made international headlines.
At a meeting of police presentations masquerading as a community forum held back in March after Hernandez’s death, Tait was present alongside Councilwoman Lorri Galloway and Kris Murray. His quotation of Mother Theresa and endorsement of Chief Welter was met by silence from the crowd. The tension was palpable then and city officials should have known the time to act had arrived, but they failed.
Now Tait has called for outside investigations, but what does that really mean? The Los Angeles Times, which has been rather abhorrent in its coverage thus far, does shed some light on that question in an article this morning. “The FBI said it would review evidence and reports by the Orange County district attorney’s office to determine whether a federal investigation is warranted, though sources said that at this stage, the U.S. attorney’s office and Justice Department are not initiating a civil rights probe.”
A federal investigation is contingent upon the findings of the very DA who, in a span of over 13 years, has failed to pursue charges in officer-involved shootings all but once and never in Anaheim. To reiterate, neither the U.S. attorney’s office nor the DOJ are launching a civil rights probe into the killing of Manuel Diaz a week ago. Feeling underwhelmed yet? Presente.org has gathered nearly 17,000 signatures nationwide demanding a full investigation be conducted by the state attorney. On Monday, in conjunction with Anaheim community residents, they will be handing them over to the LA office of Kamala Harris.
There is nothing to indicate that anything proactive is happening at the state attorney’s office with regards to the APD, so pressure must be applied by those who seek not to placate, but agitate for true justice and accountability.
Were I an Anaheim resident, I might choose not to vote for Tait over some of the things you mention. And he (like most of the rest of us) wasn’t proactive enough regarding what starts to look more like summary executions of gang members (or suspected gang members, or people who looked like they could have been gang members — that’s one good item for investigation.) But that to me isn’t the stuff of recalls. The bad response to a crisis like this is potentially the stuff of recalls.
You ask a good question about what external investigations actually mean. If they are something that can be blocked by the office of Rackaukus, that’s not good enough.
I regret that that eye-popping KCAL-9 video has been (so far as I can tell) removed from YouTube. Copyrighted or not, that’s not very public spirited. I’d add that to my plate of things to demand. It should be seen by more people, for a longer time period. (It’s hard to believe that this crisis is barely into its ninth day as I write.)
I made early connections between the TOT tax giveaway and fatal officer involved shootings since the killing of Hernandez happened less than a mile away from the GardenWalk – proposed site of the controversial construction of two hotels.
Say the TOT giveaway had not occurred though and future revenue from the general fund had been consolidated. Where do you suppose most of THAT money would have gone?
The site of today’s protest.
It’s time for a new kind of politics…
Y’all are bitching at the wrong Mayor. Once upon a time, Anaheim had a community policing program that allowed cops and community to work together to improve our neighborhoods. I know, because my own neighborhood was pulled back from the brink by that program. But over the last decade Mayor Pringle kept cutting budgets back, eliminating community policing, stripping codes enforcement of any teeth to deal with slumlords, etc. cops have been stretched to the breaking point year after year of his leadership, riding long shifts alone, no partner, very little time to connect with the community, knowing if they call for backup they are going to wait for someone to have their back. Humans can do that for just so long before it affects attitude, and we see the result. I know times have been tough but for years under Pringle we had hundreds of thousands for Rose Parade floats, etc. to benefit Anaheim’s political elite, while we could not afford to replace cops who were retiring. Mayor Tait inherited a mess from Pringle, reserves depleted, special interests running city hall, and Tait is busting his tail to clean it up. Look at Voice of OC and how Tait is getting kicked in the teeth for standing up to the corruption and special interest money. Council had already authorized an outside investigation of APD several weeks before the recent shootings, and trust me, the Political machine in Anaheim that prefers the status quo is doing an awesome job attacking Tait, claiming the unrest is his fault because his calling in the State Atty General and the Feds “undermined” Chief Welter. Poor guy cannot win, if he doesn’t string up a bunch of cops on the street based on rumor he is soft on cops and if he calls for outside investigation he gets it from the establishment. Give the man time to do his job, if he doesn’t I promise you, Anaheim will deal with him.
I’m not slamming him. I don’t know that I’d vote for him, but I don’t think that he’s a villain in all this. I’m not sure what GSR thinks.
Can we get real for a moment? This is about the police response to gang violence — a problem of long standing and wide applicability. Anaheim isn’t the first community to face it and it’s not the one facing it worst.
I’m not sure what the best approach is to addressing gang violence. But I am pretty sure that it doesn’t involve summary executions.
Gabriel makes some good points; but Tait seems to have been a decent if enigmatic figure in most of these issues. I had already been planning to do a story on him, hopefully an interview, but either way entitled “Sure, Blame it all on Mayor Tait.”
Because the real villains, the Murray-Eastman-Sidhu-Brandman-Pringle-Daly axis, has been making like he’s Che Guevara, calling forth his anrarhists and communist minions from far and wide to wreak havoc on the poor cops and peace-loving businesses of Anaheim. Believe it or not, that’s what they’re saying.
They are gunning for him because they want the full-on corporatist Kris Murray to take over as Mayor. Tait (whose motto “fiscal responsibility, freedom and kindness” sounds pretty decent to me) is safe till 2014 though. And I see no reason to recall him, not like Murray and Eastman. And given the slim pickings in town, I probably WOULD vote for him. He opposes the TOT and he agendized districts.
It’s good to know if the call for US attorney involvement depends on T-Rack – then it’s essentially not gonna happen. T-Rack used up every last bit of his energy charging a couple of Kelly Thomas’ murderers and noticing that something was awry with Bustamante’s work behavior. So it’s good we have that Presente petition going to Kamala, we should all sign it.
And if I manage to get a Tait interview, I’ll ask him anything Gabriel wants me to. It was nice to see you today, bro! Dig your new look.
“It was nice to see you today, bro! Dig your new look.”
Ha! I don’t want to buzz my hair too short being in Anaheim if you now what I’m saying.
Vern rockin’ the Occugoatee!
Ok Greg, just my knee jerk reaction to a bad week and watching poor Tait take it in the teeth for something he has worked to fix…have a good evening, I need some sleep.