First of two parts
Sharply critical of the police union’s tactics and conduct in its campaign to force out Chief Don Pedersen, the Interim City Manager today expressed surprise that none of the identified charges against the chief rise above the pedestrian level.
This is unusual in a case of attempted ouster, said Lamont Ewell while delivering a solid scolding of the union as he started his final week on the job at City Hall.
Having reviewed all five accusations, both with union leaders and the chief, Mr. Ewell is confident that in each instant, Mr. Pedersen conducted himself acceptably.
Throughout the four months of his temporary assignment in Culver City, Mr. Ewell has devoted a remarkable amount of time to exhaustively researching each of the charges against the chief, interviewing numerous parties, confronting the accusers and the accused while gaining a clear reading on the prevailing atmosphere. He has reached a firm conclusion:
“I strongly support the chief,” he said, “and so does the City Council,” the only body with the authority to discharge Mr. Pedersen.
Even though some City Hall observers cynically declared that Mr. Ewell merely would be a placeholder when he was hired for 120 days, starting April 1, his detective work in volleying to the core of the Police Chief-POA dispute proved the exact opposite.
Mr. Ewell’s wide-ranging research carried him into the far corners of a by now long-cold case involving the late City Councilman Albert Vera and his son, Albert Jr., known popularly as Junior. The case centered on a stolen police radio, and Mr. Ewell said he learned facts that contradicted the police union claims.
In the potential upcoming public relations battle to win the hearts of the community — City Hall vs. the police union — he believes Culver City is “too sophisticated” to embrace “aggressive scare tactics” that police unions in other communities have used to get their way.
Even though he was speaking cautiously, Mr. Ewell appeared at least suspicious about the creative manner in which the Culver City Police Officers Assn. obtained a 77 to 12 result over a three-day period in this month’s no-confidence vote against Mr. Pedersen. The City Manager declined to use the term “intimidation” to characterize the way the desired outcome was achieved, preferring “inappropriate,” a word he employed frequently.
Many persons in City Hall believe that the timing of the POA’s decision to go public 24 hours ago for the first time in its ongoing beef with the chief was calculated to coincide with Mr. Pedersen’s vacation, thereby depriving him of a chance to promptly respond.
POA Board member Brian Fitzpatrick told the newspaper yesterday that it was “completely coincidental” the chief was away on holiday when the union chose to issue a condemnatory 1,080-word press release along with condensed versions of the release in full-page advertisements in the Culver City News and Culver City Observer.
“They knew last Monday that the chief was out,” said Mr. Ewell. “They knew also that the newspapers where they placed the ads come out on Thursday. If they were that concerned, they could have asked the papers to hold off until next week.”
Sounding exasperated as he gave out his second interview of the day, “I am severely disappointed they would do something like this when the chief is out on a well-deserved vacation. And they knew he was on a well-deserved vacation. If it was coincidental, they easily could have asked the ads to be withheld.”
Mr. Ewell said he is intimately familiar with the five accusations the POA pinned on Mr. Pedersen:
• That he interfered with a criminal investigation, the Vera case.
• That he failed to report collision damage to his take-home city vehicle.
• That he refused to identify himself as the police chief, and then lied, at the scene of a search warrant.
• That he lacks willingness or ability to make timely decisions affecting the organization.
• That he has, on several occasions, attempted to intimidate members of the POA from participating in union activities.
Mr. Ewell was asked to evaluate the charges made in the press release.
“I personally looked into the incident involving the Vera family,” he said. “I got a response from the Police Chief of Redondo Beach. He gave an entirely different account of what occurred from what the POA claimed.”
Although the POA never identified the Veras by name, here was their accusation:
• Chief Pedersen interfered with a criminal investigation involving the son of a City Councilman, who coincidentally had hired him as chief. Chief Pedersen hindered the investigation, and even discouraged the case detectives from serving a search warrant aimed at recovering stolen property. After the investigator claimed interference, Chief Pedersen turned the case over to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. Sheriff’s Dept. detectives ultimately served a search warrant, at which time they recovered multiple items of stolen property and contraband. Early in the investigation, a South Bay police department had arrested the Councilman’s son, at which time they found a stolen Culver City police radio in his car. The Councilman’s son had allegedly taken the radio during a burglary at the home of another City Council member. In a highly unusual move, Chief Pedersen took it upon himself to drive to the South Bay department’s headquarters and remove from evidence the recovered stolen radio. When detectives attempted to recover the stolen property, they were told that Chief Pedersen had already checked it out of the evidence room. The detectives later confronted the chief about the location of the radio. In response, Chief Pedersen asked, “Are we on or off the record?” Pedersen then admitted that he had returned the radio to the City Council member. To our knowledge, there has been no burglary reported, investigated, or prosecuted regarding this case.
“The Police Chief of Redondo Beach told me the Police Chief of Culver City acted appropriately and is someone of high integrity,” Mr. Ewell said.
“The facts the union understands did not seem to bear out when I looked at this thing. I thought the union said the radio was returned to Councilmember Gross. That did not happen. Chief Pedersen did, in fact, pick up the radio in Redondo Beach on his way to work in Culver City because he lives out that way.
“He picked the radio up because it was being released and wasn’t needed as part of the investigation. He turned it in to the radio shop. I actually then got something to verify that that occurred. So (the union’s) facts are not correct, at least on that issue.
“Quite frankly on the other issues, Chief Pedersen has shared what happened, and I am satisfied there were no ethical violations.”
(To be continued)
