A Question of Judgement

The email shown here is piece of spam that made its way around a couple of years ago. It was being forwarded to employees by a high ranking official of a public agency using their work email address. (click on the image for a larger version.)

Earlier this year, Los Alamitos mayor Dean Grose was caught forwarding a similar kind of email showing a picture of the White House with a field of watermelons in the front yard. The public criticism of this behavior quickly cost Mayor Grose his job.

What if it were a Los Angeles official that sent this using their City email? It clearly isn't appropriate and it shows a serious lack of judgement and sensitivity to some of the biggest problems facing Los Angeles today - gang activity, street violence, race issues, LAUSD and the quality of public education in Los Angeles, and so on.

The fact of the matter is that this email was sent by the Office of Public Safety's top officer - Chief of Police Gary Newton - using his City email to others in the department. Newton is the same chief who was found guilty along with the City of racial discrimination and illegal hiring practices a few months ago in a lawsuit that will cost LA taxpayers $1.4 million. One of the people Newton illegally hired over other qualified individuals to manage OPS's patrol officers was previously convicted of beating a minority in handcuffs and fired by the City of Huntington Beach's police department.

LAPD only just had a major federal Consent Decree lifted for the kinds of activities Newton and his hand-picked leadership team have been found guilty of engaging in. In a city where politics and policing is practically defined by the many hot-button issues related to Newton's activities, it leaves one to seriously question why Chief Newton is still in the job and who is keeping him there.

Requests to the City Attorney's office for comment on this issue have gone unanswered.

City, OPS Chief Found Guilty of Di$crimination

At a time when thousands of City employees are facing layoffs and pay cuts, the City of Los Angeles will be paying out more than $1.3 million to three African American officers who were illegally passed over for promotions by the Chief of the City's second police force, the Office of Public Safety.

OPS was created to consolidate security forces in the City, an effort that would have completely dissolved the Library police, the Zoo police, the Park Rangers, and the old GSD Security police in favor of a "one-size-fits-all" juggernaut if the process had gone strictly as planned.

Upon the creation of OPS in 2002, Chief Gary Newton hired and promoted friends and coworkers who were either less qualified, unqualified, or were his biggest personal supporters. Captain Richard Musquiz, hired by Newton, was the most obvious liability. In an incident reminiscent of two recent widely-publicized police violence incidents, Musquiz had previously been found guilty of seriously beating a suspect who was detained and in handcuffs. He was fired by the City of Huntington Park for the incident and later lost his appeal in court.

Newton, himself, had allegedly been illegally promoted to chief of the Department of Recreation and Parks' Ranger unit only a little over a year earlier. When made chief, Newton had been a senior officer less than the required two years.

Gary Newton's activities as chief of OPS were far from news to City officials. The City, the Mayor, and Councilmember Wendy Greuel clearly knew the man they had chosen to run their new police force was a risk back in 2005. At that time, security officers in GSD presented a detailed letter to the City Council outlining Newton's illegal activities and questionable hiring practices. This letter formed the basis of the lawsuit settled today. Greuel allegedly admitted knowledge of the issues with Newton in discussions with private parties, union representatives, and City employees as early as 2003.

It's curious that today, Gary Newton remains firmly in place as the Chief of the Office of Public Safety. Meanwhile, Ed Boks was forced by Villaraigosa to resign as general manager of Animal Services for being found guilty in March 2009 of eerily similar activities in his prior job with the City of New York. The Office of Public Safety's Oversight Committee does meets tomorrow evening and this verdict may be discussed there.

The creation of OPS as a deadly-use-of-force agency* was the brainchild of Wendy Greuel and Jim Hahn, supposedly as an efficiency measure that the CAO claimed would save the City less than $1 million annually. In 2008-09, LA's second police force was budgeted at an incredible $27 million, a budget that has been inflated every year with little comment from the City Clowncil since the force's inception.

The City can now add $1.3 million to OPS's total financial burden. Then add the outcome of the impending lawsuits to recover court costs and attorneys' fees. Now that's efficiency, LA City Clowncil-style.

So what's the over/under that our new City Controller will do an impartial audit of OPS anytime soon? At least Mayor Sam knows where Antonio can get some more police officers real cheap.




*OPS officers are definitely armed. Although OPS has some
unarmed security officers, the office is a POST-accredited
armed agency patrolling the Zoo, parks, libraries,
and public buildings. They are authorized to use
deadly force under specific circumstances.

Letter Details Alleged OPS Discriminatory Practices

As we reported earlier this week, the City of Los Angeles and Office of Public Safety Chief Gary Newton are co-defendants in an extensive discrimination lawsuit.

Mayor Sam has obtained a letter sent to the City Council from a group of concerned GDS/OPS employees in 2005 extensively detailing the alleged actions named in two of the three recent court cases against Newton and the City, including the one going to trial on November 12th. Many of the OPS officers alleged in the letter to have been hired for positions that they were not qualified for are now in major leadership roles within the department.

Why should anyone care about this?

If you read the somewhat sedate comments from earlier this week, you have to wonder. When people aren't angry about discrimination, that's pretty sad. But consider this: since its inception as a money-saving move in late 2004, the Office of Public Safety has quietly grown to become the second major fully-armed and empowered police force in Los Angeles with hundreds of officers patrolling all of LA's 90 libraries, 400 parks and recreation facilities, and more than 1,000 public buildings and spaces.

In City parks and recreational facilities alone, OPS may make contact or interact with more than 20 million parks visitors each year, most of them families with children. If it is proven that there are OPS officers in the chain of command who aren't qualified, everyone -- the public and other, qualified peace officers -- may be endangered.

Finally, if the lawsuit proves legitimate as the first one allegedly was, LAPD should probably care since as happened in the Leimert Park incident, OPS uniforms look a great deal like LAPD, and few seem to consciously recognize that there are two different police forces out there. If the uniforms say "police" on them, then it must be LAPD.

What follows is a reprinting of the letter received by Mayor Sam. The letter is the opinion of, and in the words of the author(s) only. Readers may decide for themselves whether the content is valid or not.

It's worth noting that since this letter was written, one of the concerns mentioned was addressed and an oversight committee for OPS was actually formed and does meet. The next meeting of the committee is Tuesday, September 16 from 5:30 p.m. -- 7:30 p.m at City Hall in room 1035.


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DATE: June 15, 2005

To: Honorable Members of the Los Angeles City Council Council District’s 1-15

From: Concerned Employees of The City of Los Angeles, Department of General Services Security Services Division

SUBJECT: DISCRIMINATION WITHIN SECURITY SERVICES DIVISION



To Whom It May Concern:

The events and incidents outlined below are a chronological account of events that have occurred within Security Services Division (SSD) since October 2002. This document depicts unethical and unfair hiring and promotional practices that have occurred in the past three years and continue to take place even today. While it may be hard to believe, it cannot be misunderstood that there is conspiracy, collusion, corruption and ethical improprieties at the higher levels of City management, as it relates to General Services’ Security Services Division. Employees have described the working conditions and race relations as being “similar to how things were before Tom Bradley was Mayor.” Within Security Services Division exists a covert hostile environment that employees are apprehensive to discuss. One of the primary contributors to this environment is the fact that, there have been no African Americans promoted under General Services Police Chief Gary Newton since December 2002. Nor have there been any African Americans selected for any special assignments or administrative positions. This is the case, despite the fact that there are approximately 100 police and security personnel employed within this Division (many of them African American) and despite the fact that there have been numerous promotions, appointments and assignments within this three year period. It is worth repeating that none of these promotions, appointments or assignments were filled by African American employees. This hostile environment has been further perpetuated by a combination of favoritism, cronyism, good-ole-boyism and institutionalized discrimination. The African American employees of General Services-Security Services Division are demanding a thorough investigation into the events and allegations outlined below. The information described below in precise detail.

The Security Services Division (SSD) of The Department of General Services employs both police and security officers within their Division. Security Services Division (SSD) is responsible for providing both police and security functions for City of Los Angeles facilities. We are responsible for ensuring the safety and security of City employees who work at these facilities as well as the visitors and vendors who conduct business at these facilities. These facilities include but are not limited to City Hall, City Hall East, City Hall South, San Pedro Municipal Building, Marvin Braude Municipal Building, and the Los Angeles Constituent Services Center. We also provide security for various City Council members, City Council Chambers and the Mayors Office. The police officers employed by the Division are recognized as sworn, armed peace officers in the state of California. Peace officers employed by the Department of General Services are employed under the following City of Los Angeles job classifications: Special Officer (Police Officer), Senior Special Officer (Sergeant), Principal Special Officer (Lieutenant) and Chief Special Officer (Chief and Captain).

In October of 2002 the Department of General Services hired a new Chief to oversee the Security Services Division. Prior to this, Security Services Division had been under the direction and management of LAPD for approximately two years. Chief Newton was a sworn peace officer and had joined the Department with previous experience as a former City of Los Angeles Park Ranger (where he was a supervisor and had served as “acting” Chief) He also had approximately one year experience as a Henderson Nevada Deputy Sheriff.....


Read the rest of the letter at MS2.

OPS Chief, City Named in Discrimination Lawsuit

The City of Los Angeles and Office of Public Safety Chief Gary Newton are co-defendents in an extensive discrimination lawsuit filed by a number of African American officers in the same unit. The suit covers a little more than three years from 2002-2005 and alleges that OPS Chief Newton actively hired friends and acquaintances for key roles in the then newly-created Office of Public Safety, many of whom were, according to the suit, not qualified for the civil service positions. The suit contends that a number of African American officers were intentionally discriminated against in the process.

This is the third major lawsuit alleging questionable OPS hiring practices filed against the same parties in the past two years. The jury portion of the case is scheduled to begin on November 12th at Stanley Mosk Courthouse. (Case number BC372183- MARIO PATRICK ET AL VS CITY OF LOS ANGELES ET AL)


It's interesting to see that those rumors we'd heard about OPS may indeed have some basis in fact. More as this story evolves...

Leimert Park Raid Not LAPD? Oops!

WitnessLA.com is reporting that LAPD's presence near the Leimert Park raid on the Shaw Family was coincidental. So who are the officers in this pic? Who demanded social security numbers of the Shaws and threatened them if they didn't comply?

They're Office of Public Safety police, aka General Services police. OPS is the one-size-fits-all solution to all of the City's patrol needs that LAPD won't do. Devised as a way to increased efficiency and as a supposed cost-savings measure by Jim Hahn and Wendy Greuel, they're now a completely sacred cow in this City government, soaking up millions in Public Safety money, equipment, and Homeland Security grants while delivering often sub-par or non-existent services to other departments such as the Zoo, Library, Convention Center, and Rec and Parks who previously received these funds to safeguard their own facilities. In some cases OPS might not be doing much service for the public, but if there is a high profile press or government event, you'll magically see dozens of OPS officers instantly materialize around the cameras and politicos.

So how sacred is OPS in Los Angeles? Laura Chick absolutely refuses to audit them, even though their creation and very existence is supposedly one of efficiency. More sacred than Rocktard's office, then.

OPS looks an awful lot like LAPD on the outside. Their uniforms are almost identical so it's not a surprise that the Shaws may have thought that was who was asking them for their SSNs. This common misidentification is probably one LAPD should back away from quickly, however, given the sensitive state of affairs with race relations and the Consent Decree. Why? OPS leadership, especially Chief Gary Newton and Captain Richard Musquiz, have backgrounds that would cause a lot of trouble for LAPD if they were actually LAPD.

Newton's forays into Nevada law enforcement activities between Los Angeles jobs are rife with rumors along with rumored racially offensive body tatoos and having been illegally promoted within this City.

Better documented is Musquiz, who is in charge of the OPS patrol officers. As such, his leadership sets the attitude for this group. Musquiz has been fired from the Huntington Park PD for beating a handcuffed suspect. Musquiz did appeal and lost. (read the case here). A little over a decade later while he was a Los Angeles Housing Authority officer, the Congress of Racial Equality sought to have him fired for the same incident in 2000. Musquiz is quoted in the Nevada Appeal News as claiming the actions of the civil rights group were a result of disgruntled officers at the Housing Authority. However, it was actually an FBI investigation into Huntington Beach PD issues that brought Musquiz's dismissal to light. One has to wonder what the real story is with Musquiz's time with the Los Angeles Housing Authority.

Regardless, officers with these kinds of backgrounds are not typically considered LAPD material, yet OPS has not one but two in major leadership roles. These two officers of questionable backgrounds have an entirely new police force at their disposal completely unfettered by any kind of consent decree or any real oversight. An entire force that is easily mistaken for LAPD by the public. So what's a little social security number between friends, eh?

An audit by Ms. Chick may be just the thing to bring some much-needed transparency and accountability to OPS. In the meantime, there is a rubber-stamp Office of Public Safety Oversight Committee that meets once a quarter out of formality in what usually amounts to a multi-agency gladhanding session. Anyone who has issues or comments related to OPS and their performance may want to visit this committee, especially the Shaws. The Office of Public Safety Oversight Committee next meets on September 16, 2008.

In the end, it'll be interesting to find out if LAPD really was or wasn't involved -- this remains to be discovered for certain. But we definitely know OPS was, and the biggest question of all still begs to be answered: who ordered this?

City Parks Suffer Dangerous Budget Cut

The Daily News today reported that a result of the Mayor’s all-out assault on Los Angelenos in the form of budget cuts and fee increases will result in serious losses of vital services in City parks. The paper points to two Rec and Parks losses in particular – less clean restrooms and a 50% cut in Park Rangers.

Most people jump right on the mental image of an unclean restroom, but the reality of this Citywide cut is that the far greater loss of the two is actually the Park Rangers.

Park Rangers are perhaps the most recognizable image of any parks service in the United States. However, LA City Park Rangers are far more than an icon. With the increased gang violence and general unrest throughout the City, more specialized park security is a must. L.A. City Park Rangers are fully qualified, POST-certified peace officers. Perhaps even more importantly, Park Rangers are also firefighters, search and rescue professionals, emergency management specialists, paramedics, wildlife specialists, educators, mediators, and community policing specialists. For those who are unhappy with the generous salaries some City employees pull down, Park Rangers are also underpaid relative to other City jobs requiring full peace officer standing. This, plus the fact that there are tons of open peace officer positions in this City, just about guarantees that being a Park Ranger in Los Angeles isn't just a job, but it must be a vocation.

On any given day in at least one of this City’s 400+ parks, Rangers put their unique combination of specialized skills to use on the public’s behalf. During the Griffith Park fire, every Park Ranger in the City demonstrated extreme dedication to their vocation by working more than 95 hours straight. The Rangers’ intimate knowledge of the park was absolutely vital to controlling the May 8, 2007 inferno. It isn’t discussed much in the wake of the usual, well-deserved accolades given to the LAFD, but those closest to the situation know that it was a heroic stand at Bee Rock by Park Ranger firefighters that halted the northeastward advance of that fire. Park Ranger firefighters used their intimate knowledge of the park to determine that this physical location was absolutely key to stopping the fire, and they made the stand that did it.

So here we are with a summer fire season widely predicted to be one of the worst on record nearly upon us. Cutting almost 50% of a single division that is as important to this City as the Park Rangers are not only makes no sense, but it may seriously endanger the lives of the 20 million people who visit Los Angeles parks annually.

The recent mauling of patrons by a Siberian Tiger at the San Francisco Zoo brings up another point. The Los Angeles Zoo is inside of Griffith Park, and the Zoo is far from impervious to animal escapes. The combination of emergency management and wildlife expertise that Park Rangers possess would make them invaluable if such a thing ever happened here. As an aside, it is interesting to note that current SF Zoo Director Manuel Mollinedo, under whose watch the horrific maulings occurred, was a past General Manager of Recreation and Parks in Los Angeles as well as a Director of the Los Angeles Zoo during a time that many of the exhibit enclosures were upgraded, ostensibly to code. Hmmm...


Since they have all the money and resources, I guess the Mayor is assuming the Office of Public Safety will take care of us all. But as was pointed out in an earlier article detailing the creation and performance to-date of OPS, their promise was enticing but their carry-through has been far from optimum, or even adequate for that matter. And Rec and Parks, who is legally mandated to provide security in City parks, has little to no control over OPS which is organized within an entirely different City department.

On May 1st, there will be massive immigration demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles. If they repeat what they did in 2005, 2006, and 2007, the Office of Public Safety will pull every single officer to a man from City parks, libraries, and the Zoo and deploy them all downtown. This means that on May Day, a traditional day to celebrate the coming of Spring, the only peace officers protecting the public in 400+ City parks will be Park Rangers. 50% less Park Rangers, that is, if no one challenges the Mayor’s budget.

It's ironic that also on May 1st, the City's Budget and Finance Committee will hold the hearing on the Mayor's Budget for the Department of Recreation and Parks. So y'all come on downtown May 1 -- skip work, see the protesters and OPS in action firsthand, and give the committee your input on the $cut$ to Rec and Parks while surrounded by a hundred thousand or so of your fellow Angelenos. ...Democracy in action! WooHoo!

How about $7,334,470?

In December 2004, the LA City Council voted to create the Office of Public Safety which consolidated a large number of public safety positions outside the LAPD in to one unit. This was pushed as a budget savings move which, in analysis by the CAO, could save Los Angeles between $200,000 and $900,000 annually.

In February 2008, councilites Greuel and Weiss issued a press release praising the increase in services and the amazing financial savings the creation of OPS has brought the City. (Whoohoo! Save us money!) Simultaneously, stating that they need more funding to do the job they promised to do in 2005 at an annual savings to the City, OPS has requested 2008-09 funding increases of: $2,480,000 + $911,000 + $1,000,000 + $1,532,000 + $25,000 + $1,386,470 = ... (drumroll) ... $7,334,470

Oops!


OPS was created using a ****load of Homeland Security funding with the noble ideal of somehow saving the City money while simultaneously transforming the City’s General Services Department Police into a one-size-does-fit-all solution to law enforcement issues not handled by LAPD in Los Angeles.

This money-saving consolidation caused huge upheavals in a number of the affected City Departments: Zoo, Recreation and Parks, Libraries, General Services, Convention Center all saw a large numbers of employees move to a new department along with the responsibility of some of the most fundamental services they provide. Today these departments continue to be responsible for making sure the services are provided to their respective public patrons, even though these services are now out of their control.

Devised by James Hahn and Wendy Greuel, the plan was shoved shamelessly through by SEIU who was pushing their 'one City, one workforce' mandate (shades of “one size fits all”) and who wanted control of a second police force that was unencumbered by the consent decree and the large number of paying union members that came along with the package.

In a yearlong series of public dog and pony shows, SEIU promised the public that the same services would be provided by OPS as were previously provided by Zoo security, Park Rangers, Library security officers, and GSD Police and Security at public buildings, plus a huge increase in the strictly public safety component. However, the statistics upon which these promises were made were incorrect by anywhere from 33% to 1000%, and SEIU and OPS knew it. Oops!

Regardless, on February 9th, 2005, OPS took over security at more than 800 City locations. And how is that going, so far?

As happened at a Feb 17, 2008 Elysian Park Public Safety forum hosted by Ed Reyes, LA City parks patrons -- those who are either not afraid of political ramifications or not afraid to lose their City-related jobs -- will tell you that not only are the same services not being provided by OPS, but previous service levels that used to be provided by a perpetually underfunded and understaffed Park Ranger division are not even being maintained. The promised “24 hour security coverage” holy grail might exist on paper, but good luck getting a response if the call isn't sexy enough for OPS to respond. Half the time they don’t even have a car in the area, which is exactly one of the main issues SEIU promised the public to correct with OPS. As for that CD 1 Elysian Park Public Safety forum? With concerned members of the public, Council Office and Rec and Parks officials and Park Rangers waiting, OPS arrived 90 minutes late. ...Oops.

Other agencies' public patrons have similar complaints. The Library Commission actually had the political gonads to vote against supporting the Consolidation, and their concerns have proved well-founded. In early 2007, KCBS did an indepth investigation on the huge increase in crime at LA City libraries, the very libraries whose security was taken over by OPS in 2005. In defending the rapidly growing money pit and bureaucratic nightmare, OPS Chief Garry Newton complained that his department was getting more calls that their faulty statistics said they would. He also stated that crime was actually down in City Libraries, but had no data to support the claim. Oops!

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math. $7,334,470 in additional funding is far greater than a maximum of $900,000 in savings, and this doesn’t included the major funding increases OPS has received using different excuses at different times in 2005, 2006, and 2007. The so-called savings are long a thing of the past. Yet, services to City patrons are no better in most cases, and worse in many cases.

Th OPS Consolidation is a very complex beast and Union and City officials are on notice to be team players about supporting this pet project; publicly they make a united front on the wonders of OPS-ness. But for the public, it comes down to this: OPS does not provide the same services as were previous provided and it does not save the City any money -- it actually costs a great deal more. Meanwhile, OPS has absorbed all of the Homeland Security resources and funding that may have gone to agencies like Zoo and Library Security forces and the Park Rangers who actually did provide the services in question as possible on the thinnest of fractions of the funding the OPS behemoth currently consumes. Now during the City budget crunch, OPS wants more. A lot more.


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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact:
Ben Golombek - Greuel
February 6th, 2008 (213)
473-7002

Lisa Hansen - Weiss

(213) 473-7005 Greuel, weiss OFFICE OF PUBLIC SAFETY has improved security and saved city money OFFICE OF PUBLIC SAFETY'S CITIZEN OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE EXTENDED

LOS ANGELES - Continuing their efforts to improve public safety and save taxpayer money, City Councilmembers Wendy Greuel and Jack Weiss, today, led the Los Angeles City Council in extending the Citizen Oversight Committee for the City's Office of Public Safety (OPS) for an additional two years. In December 2005, Councilmembers Greuel and Weiss led the City Council in creating the Office of Public Safety, which consolidated security divisions from City Departments, outside of the Los Angeles Police Department.

"The Office of Public Safety has helped to save the City money and make Los Angeles safer," said Councilwoman Greuel. "We have more security in our parks and at our City facilities with improved response times. Now more than ever, the city must address its economic inefficiencies and streamline the way it does business."

Because of the creation of OPS, City security forces now have the ability to respond to incidents 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As a result, OPS has been able to respond to 131% more calls than the Departments collectively could before the consolidation. The creation of the OPS has helped to save the City money by reducing bureaucracy and duplicative administrative roles.

"The collaboration of the City's public safety departments has been beneficial to maximize limited resources and expertise," said Councilmember Jack Weiss. "Continuing the oversight of the Office of Public Safety will ensure that this office delivers on its promise of efficiency in City services."

The consolidation has also helped enhance security at City facilities -- improving access control, monitoring systems, quality control for contract security, improved policies, procedures and training.

The OPS includes officers that were formerly part of the Departments of General Services, Library, Zoo, Recreation and Parks, El Pueblo and Convention Center.

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