First of two parts
I have read all of the articles in the past few weeks about the Police Chief vs. the Police Union controversy.
First of all, Lamont Ewell, the former Interim City Manager, is the highest-paid Santa Monica retiree at $225,000 per year (according to CalPERS).
He should have taken his $80,000-plus for four months’ work in Culver City and remained silent.
The Police Officers Assn. is right in their statement that Mr. Ewell conducted a poor investigation into this matter. He is not qualified to conduct an investigation into police procedures.
With his experience, he should be looking into arson cases or violations of the Brown Act. He did a great disservice to the new City Manager who has just inherited this mess.
For the Culver City community, give little credence to the endorsements of Chief Don Pedersen’s performance by members of municipal administrator associations, police chief association, and Culver City management staff.
These are the same people who never made a negative comment and have remained silent in the city of Bell salary scandal, while the Riverside police chief crashed his police car while driving drunk, or Orange County Sheriff Mike Corona’s retirement deal of $215,000 per year as a convicted felon.
There has been a lot talk about the following allegations listed by the Police Officers Assn.
People have said they are major ethical and integrity violations. Others have called them minor indiscretions.
In police work, you are held to a higher standard.
There are no minor integrity violations or arguing “it is just a little white lie.”
My only question for the police association is:
Why are you making these allegations now?
No. 1. — Chief Pedersen failed to report collision damage to his assigned, take-home city vehicle, and then later had it taken to a private body shop for a quick, “off-the-books” repair. This is a department policy violation for which lower ranked officers would be severely disciplined. When a subordinate asked Chief Pedersen about the damage, he denied knowing about it and speculated that a young civilian employee may have caused the damage while she was refueling his car. Chief Pedersen later changed his story and said that his car was damaged while he was working out inside his gym. To date, we have not seen any evidence that the chief has properly documented his vehicle’s damage.
In the past, I have seen police officers involved in unreported accidents fired from the force, while chiefs, city administrators, command staff, and other officers have gone unpunished.
But there was no outrage from the Police Association. In some of these cases, their own members were asking for help. The association remained silent. They gave no assistance, “Why now?” I wonder.
No. 2 — 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.
Interfering with a criminal investigation is called obstruction of justice. It is a very serious crime.
If there was a crime report with a victim of a burglary listed and a Culver City police radio was taken, the Chief should retire now. If the burglary is only speculation and no report was made, Chief Pedersen had every right to recover Culver City property from Redondo Beach and return it to the Council member it was assigned to.
One association member made a statement he never has seen this type of thing happen in Culver City. It has happened more than once in Culver City. Just about every one knew about it, and the police association did nothing.
Why now?
(To be continued)
