California kills bill regulating Flock cameras even as public rage grows

September 4, 2026 By Khari Johnson Leave a Comment

Amid a growing nationwide backlash against license-plate cameras, California this week, for the fifth year running, failed to enact regulations on the technology.

A bill in the Legislature would have strengthened privacy protections on how license plate data is collected and shared. It also would have guarded against misuse of automated license plate readers by law enforcement officers.

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But after clearing the state senate the bill was stopped in the Assembly by majority leader Cecilia Aguilar-Curry on Monday, the final day the Legislature meets this year, before it could be introduced for a floor vote. It was one of a handful of bills that enjoyed strong support from lawmakers and looked poised to pass but died under mysterious circumstances.

All the bills California lawmakers have proposed since 2022 to reform or update regulations on license plate tracking by law enforcement agencies have failed to pass or become law. A similar bill passed last year but was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“It’s a really disappointing outcome at a time when there is bipartisan concern about this mass surveillance tool,” UC Berkeley Center for Law & Technology codirector Catherine Crump told CalMatters. Crump testified in support of the bill in July.

Lawmakers pushing for more regulation of the readers point to police misuse of the data they collect, including illegally using it to help federal immigration enforcers and stalking people.

But law enforcement agencies say many of the proposed regulations would cripple a tool they say has helped solve a wide range of crimes.

“We were concerned that this bill was going to limit the utility of ALPR data to solve crimes, find missing persons, exonerate innocent individuals, and so the fact that it did not pass, we’re glad for that,” California State Sheriff’s Association legislative director Cory Salzillo told CalMatters.

Mounting privacy concerns

Failure to pass the bill or even bring it up for a final vote comes at a time when opposition to license plate readers is growing in and beyond California. Police in Los Angeles and Redwood City and elected officials in California localities like El Cerrito and Campbell have ended contracts with the license plate reader company Flock Safety in recent weeks. Nationwide, more than 200 cities or law enforcement agencies ended license plate reader contracts in August, more than any other month since 2021, according to Secure Justice, a group led by Brian Hofer, a Bay Area privacy advocate who was held at gunpoint after a license plate reader incorrectly told sheriff’s deputies he was driving a stolen car.

License plate readers use cameras and artificial intelligence to log the plate numbers of passing cars. The readers are joined into networks used by law enforcement and information from them can be shared locally or nationwide. The tech can locate criminal suspects or missing persons, but it’s also been tied to police misconduct and immigration enforcement in violation of state law. More than 230 California police or sheriff’s departments currently use license plate readers, according to bill author Senator Sabrina Cervantes, a Democrat from Riverside.

“It’s unfortunate that Senate Bill 1013 did not get the chance to be voted on before the deadline passed, but I look forward to continuing to fight for the privacy rights of Californians next year,” she wrote in a statement shared with CalMatters.

Cervantes argued in July that protections in the bill are necessary to prevent unlawful data sharing, because license plate readers routinely collect information about the movement of millions of law-abiding Californians, and to stop other forms of police misconduct. Lawmakers say license plate readers were unlawfully used by law enforcement officers to stalk or harass private citizens in Los Angeles, Marin, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego, and Shasta counties.

Enforcement agencies outside of California have put the technology to even more controversial use. Oakland activist Crystal Zermeño, who attended a protest against the technology outside City Hall last month, said she’s concerned about the tech being used to track women who get abortions or by federal authorities. After Cervantes’ bill died, she asked,  “How could we not as a state have the political will to do this in a moment when all of these [federal immigration enforcement] attacks are happening and we have limited defense?”

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

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CA will send law enforcement officers to bolster security at Republican National Convention

July 16, 2024 By Nijzel Dotson 1 Comment

California is helping with security efforts for the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement on Sunday that 61 law enforcement officers have been deployed to Wisconsin through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact.

This comes a day after an assassination attempt was made on former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

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“Public safety transcends party lines. California is proud to support our law enforcement colleagues in Wisconsin during this important political event,” Newsom said. “Working together, we are helping to provide a safe and secure environment for all participants at the Republican National Convention.”

According to Newsom, the request for California to provide extra officers has been planned since May 2024.

Click here to read the full article in KCRA

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A prison union is spending big on Gavin Newsom. Is it an ‘800 pound gorilla’ or a threatened species?

July 16, 2024 By Nigel Duara and Nigel Kimelman Leave a Comment

A year after he took the top job in 2019, the president of one of California’s largest and most powerful unions said in a newsletter that he wanted to be “the 800 pound gorilla” in Sacramento politics. 

Since then, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the union known as CCPOA representing 26,000 state prison guards, has spent and spent, in a way it never did before. Its biggest recipient: Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has taken $2.9 million from the union since he was elected governor. 

That’s 31% of all political spending by the union since 2001. 

The union under President Glen Stailey gave $1.75 million to Newsom’s anti-recall campaign in 2021 – the largest single contribution to that effort –  and another $1 million to support Proposition 1, Newsom’s treatment and housing plan for people experiencing serious mental illness, which passed by the narrowest of margins this year. 

That’s a noted contrast to the union’s relationship with the three governors who preceded Newsom, especially former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who fought the union’s proposed raises and was the target of an aborted recall campaign launched by the union.

Campaign finance records show the union largely stayed out of political fights during former Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration. It avoided the ballot measures that lowered criminal sentences for nonviolent crimes and gave inmates more opportunities for parole — propositions that voters passed and that contributed to declining headcounts in state prisons. 

Then Newsom took office, and the union’s pocketbook opened wide. 

There are two ways to look at that spending, according to interviews with legislators, labor leaders, former prison officials and budget watchdogs. 

In one, it’s a naked display of power: one of the richest unions in a labor-friendly state reminding its top politicians that it can spend with them — or against them. That’s primarily the view from outside the Capitol. 

In the other view, from inside the Capitol, it’s a reflection of the union’s anxiety in the face of waning influence as California’s future almost certainly includes fewer prisons and fewer union-represented prison guards to staff them. The numbers don’t lie: California is housing 70,000 fewer inmates in state prisons than it did in 2011.

At the outset of his first term, Newsom floated the idea of closing a single state prison. He’s since closed three and canceled a contract on another private prison, collectively saving hundreds of millions of dollars. But facing a budget deficit and 4,000 fewer inmates projected to be in prison by the end of his term in 2026, Newsom demurred this year from shutting down another institution.

In a year of budget scarcity, when each inmate costs about $132,000 to house annually and the Legislative Analyst’s Office has said the state has space to close five more prisons, Newsom has been stubborn about keeping prisons open. He has said he wants to keep some additional capacity in the system, and that he wants to build up rehabilitative programs that can help inmates reintegrate into society. 

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

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California Police: Virginia Man Killed Family, Took Teenager

November 29, 2022 By Staff Leave a Comment

The suspect in a Southern California triple homicide who died in a shootout with police was a Virginia law enforcement officer who investigators believe drove across the country to meet a teenage girl before killing three members of her family.

Austin Lee Edwards, 28, also likely set fire to the family’s home in Riverside, California, on the day of the shooting Friday before leaving with the girl, according to the Riverside Police Department.

Deputies exchanged gunfire with and fatally shot Edwards after locating him with the teenager later that day, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and Riverside Police said in news releases.

Until last month, Edwards was a Virginia State Police trooper and was recently hired as a sheriff’s deputy in that state, spokespersons said.

Edwards, a resident of North Chesterfield, Virginia, met the girl online and obtained her personal information by deceiving her with a false identity, known as “catfishing,” Riverside Police said.

The bodies found in the home were identified as the girl’s grandparents and mother: Mark Winek, 69, his wife, Sharie Winek, 65, and their 38-year-old daughter, Brooke Winek. Police said the exact causes of their deaths remain under investigation.

The teenager was unharmed and taken into protective custody by the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services, Riverside Police said.

Police in Riverside, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of downtown Los Angeles, received a call for a welfare check Friday morning concerning a man and woman involved in a disturbance near a car. Investigators later determined the two people were Edwards and the teenager, whose age was not released.

Authorities believe Edwards parked his vehicle in a neighbor’s driveway, walked to the home and killed the family members before leaving with the girl.

Dispatchers were alerted to smoke and a possible structure fire a few houses away from the disturbance. The Riverside Fire Department discovered three adults lying in the front entryway.

The cause of the fire was under investigation but appeared to have been intentionally set, police said.

Riverside authorities distributed a description of Edwards’ vehicle to law enforcement agencies and several hours later, police located the car with Edwards and the teenager in Kelso, an unincorporated area of San Bernardino County. Edwards fired gunshots and was killed by deputies returning fire, police said.

Edwards was hired by the Virginia State Police and entered the police academy on July 6, 2021, Virginia State Police Public Relations Manager Corinne Geller told The Associated Press in an email. He graduated as a trooper on Jan. 21, 2022, and was assigned to Henrico County within the agency’s Richmond Division until his resignation on Oct. 28.

Edwards was hired as a deputy in Washington County, Virginia, on Nov. 16 and had begun orientation to be assigned to the patrol division, the sheriff’s office said in a statement. During the hiring process, “no employers disclosed any troubles, reprimands, or internal investigations pertaining to Edwards,” the statement said.

“It is shocking and sad to the entire law enforcement community that such an evil and wicked person could infiltrate law enforcement while concealing his true identity as a computer predator and murderer. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Winek family, their friends, officers, and all of those affected by this heinous crime,” Washington County Sheriff Blake Andis said.

The Washington County Sheriff’s Office was assisting California agencies in the investigation.

Riverside Police Chief Larry Gonzalez called the case “yet another horrific reminder of the predators existing online who prey on our children.”

“If you’ve already had a conversation with your kids on how to be safe online and on social media, have it again. If not, start it now to better protect them,” Gonzalez said.

An online fundraising campaign was launched Monday to help cover funeral expenses and support the victims’ families.

Click here to read the full article in AP News

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Former California police chief charged in CalPERS double-dipping fraud case

November 25, 2022 By Randy Diamond 2 Comments

Criminal charges of grand theft have been brought against Greg Love, one of several Broadmoor Police Department chiefs and commanders that CalPERS said defrauded the pension system by collecting more than $2 million in excessive retirement payments. Another former chief, however, David Parenti, won’t be subject to any criminal prosecution. This despite CalPERS’ contention that he committed one of the largest frauds in its history. The pension plan said Parenti illegally received pension benefits of $1.8 million while with the 11-member department located 2 miles outside of San Francisco. The reason for a lack of criminal action? CalPERS misplaced the records for more than four years that detailed a complaint by a police officer at Broadmoor that his boss, Parenti, was double-dipping, collecting retirement benefits while drawing a salary as police chief and other positions, said San Mateo County Prosecutor Steve Wagstaffe. Wagstaffe said the four years is the statute of limitations for state criminal cases and CalPERS informed him of fraud violations in Parenti’s case only in 2021 after an audit of Broadmoor. That was more than four years after it received the original complaint about Parenti’s fraudulent behavior, Wagstaffe said.

“How they missed it is beyond me,” he said. “Purely on their failure to follow up on things is why Mr. Parenti is able to go free.” When The Bee reached out CalPERS officials, they did not address the missing complaint against Parenti. Instead, they disputed that the district attorney could have not proceeded criminally against him. “While charging decisions are the DA’s prerogative, we don’t necessarily agree that the statute of limitations has run in this case or that there aren’t other ways of pursuing this matter criminally,” CalPERS Chief Counsel Matt Jacobs said in a statement.

Jacobs didn’t go into specifics. Parenti’s civil attorney, Scott Kivel, said his client’s position is that he did not receive illegal retirement payments. CalPERS is seeking the return of the $1.8 it said that Parenti obtained fraudulently. Love, who was charged on November 15 by the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office, collected around $700,000 in pension benefits after retiring from the police chief’s position in 2009 through 2012, Wagstaffe said. Love is scheduled to be arranged on December 9. His attorney Jeffrey Hayden did not respond to requests for comment. Love’s May 2009 retirement only lasted two days, even after receiving an unspecified workers compensation disability payout, which stipulated that he could no longer work as police chief, a CalPERS audit in 2021 showed. Love continued to be the full-time salaried police chief for Broadmoor through 2012 while continuing to collect the retirement benefits at the same time, the CalPERS audit determined. Wagstaffe said Love faces up to four years in prison. EQUAL JUSTICE? The District Attorney said he and his staff have had discussions about the different outcomes for Parenti and Love and whether that is fair. “Parenti is going to go free and Love is held accountable,” he said. “But in the end everyone gets evaluated individually. We have a job to do. We can’t try to even the playing field.” Wagstaffe, a long-time employee of the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office, said he has had frequent dealings with Love in their roles as law enforcement officers over the years. “He is not a bad person,” Wagstaffe said. “It was a bad act that violated the law. He violated CalPERS rules and has to be held accountable.” The DA said he did ask the U. S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco to consider taking the criminal case against Parenti, because federal statute of limitations is six years, two years longer than the state rules, but officials refused without disclosing why. The Broadmoor police department audit by CalPERS in 2021 and subsequent CalPERS findings found that Parenti and Love committed most of the department’s alleged fraudulent retirement benefits, totaling $2.3 million. While Love was found by CalPERS to have collected retirement benefits and salary for three years from 2009 to 2012, Parenti was accused of defrauding the pension system for 12 years from 2007 to 2019. CalPERS contends the fraud included Parenti receiving workers compensation disability settlement from the Broadmoor Police Department of $108,500 on August 4, 2017. While the settlement should have ended Parenti’s career, he continued working as a commander for the department full-time for two more years. This occurred, the CalPERS 2021 audit said, while Parenti continued to receive retirement benefits. HOW DID CALPERS ERR? What remains a mystery is how CalPERS missed the original complaint against double-dipping at Broadmoor. The former Broadmoor police officer who told CalPERS of Parenti’s double-dipping, Steve Landi, said in a Bee interview in February that he had reported the fraud to the pension system in November 2016. “They were lining their pockets for years,” Landi said. “It’s corruption at its finest.” CalPERS had insisted to The Bee that it never received Landi’s complaint. Wagstaffe said CalPERS officials first denied to him that there was a previous complaint, insisting they learned of the Broadmoor fraud first during the 2021 audit. “CalPERS originally told us (in 2021) we knew nothing about this until a little while ago,” Wagstaffe said, referring to CalPERS audit findings that year. He said after his agency insisted CalPERS conduct a review: “They found the complaint from Landi in their records.” Wagstaffe said there was break-down at CalPERS that it missed the complaint of fraud for more than four years. “Ultimately, we pressed them and pressed them and pressed them and they looked at the records, and said oh yeah it (the double-dipping fraud) was reported to us by one of the other officers in Broadmoor.” Wagstaffe’s statements raise new questions about the effectiveness of CalPERS to root out double-dipping and other violations of pension system rules. AN EARLIER CONCERN Broadmoor was under scrutiny by CalPERS for failing to enroll some officers in the pension fund in 2017, CalPERS has previously disclosed, but not for the double dipping by top police personnel. Former CalPERs insider J.J. Jelinicic told the Bee in February that the CalPERS division that monitors employee enrollment issues has little coordination with another unit assigned to examine double-dipping and other state retirement rule violations. “The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing,” said Jelincic, a former CalPERS investment staffer and board member. Even routine audits of CalPERS employer units, like the one that discovered problems at Broadmoor, are rare given the large size of the pension system, which covers more than 2 million active and retired members and has more than $430 billion in assets. Around 240 audits are done a year but there are around 3,000 separate employer units representing municipalities, special districts and school systems that are part of CalPERS. On that schedule, it would take 12 years for every CalPERS agency to be reviewed. The pension system also represents state employees. Broadmoor is one of the smallest of the 3,000 CalPERS employers. In fact, the Broadmoor Police Protection Department is an anomaly in the state of California. There is no town or city of Broadmoor. The police department covers an unincorporated part of San Mateo County of several square miles and is surrounded by Daly City on three sides and Colma on one side. It serves around 8,000 residents. While he is facing no criminal penalties, CalPERS continues to demand that Parenti return the $1.8 million in retirement benefits he received between 2007 and 2020 while working as a police chief and in other positions at Broadmoor. “We are continuing to aggressively address Mr. Parenti’s actions on the civil front,” said CalPERS Chief Counsel Jacobs in his statement. “We strongly believe he wrongly received some $1.8 million in retirement benefits and will continue to pursue repayments of those funds.”

Click here to read the full article at the Sacramento Bee

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Sheriff: Killing of Kidnapped California Family Pure Evil’

October 9, 2022 By Stefanie Dazio and Olga Rodriguez Leave a Comment

The suspect in the kidnapping and killings of an 8-month-old baby, her parents and an uncle had worked for the family’s trucking business and had a longstanding feud with them that culminated in an act of “pure evil,” a sheriff said Thursday.

The bodies of Aroohi Dheri; her mother Jasleen Kaur, 27; father Jasdeep Singh, 36; and uncle Amandeep Singh, 39, were found by a farm worker late Wednesday in an almond orchard in a remote area in the San Joaquin Valley, California’s agricultural heartland.

Investigators were preparing a case against the suspect — a convicted felon who tried to kill himself a day after the kidnappings — and sought a person of interest believed to be his accomplice. Relatives and fellow members of the Punjabi Sikh community, meanwhile, were shocked by the killings.

“Right now, I’ve got hundreds of people in a community that are grieving the loss of two families, and this is worldwide. These families are across different continents,” Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke told The Associated Press. “We’ve got to show them that we can give them justice.”

The suspect, 48-year-old Jesus Salgado, was released from the hospital and booked into the county jail Thursday night on suspicion of kidnapping and murder, the Sheriff’s Office said. It wasn’t clear if he had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.

Earlier, Warnke called for prosecutors to seek the death penalty. The sheriff called it one of the worst crimes he has seen over his 43 years in law enforcement and pleaded for Salgado’s accomplice to turn himself in.

“There’s some things you’ll take to the grave. This to me was pure evil,” he said in an interview Thursday.

The city of Merced, where the family’s trucking business was located, will hold evening vigils in their memory Thursday through Sunday. The victims’ bodies were found near the town of Dos Palos, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Merced.

Warnke on Thursday would not discuss the condition of the adults’ remains in the orchard but said it was unclear how the baby died. Warnke said the child had no visible trauma and an autopsy will be conducted.

Salgado was previously convicted of first-degree robbery with the use of a firearm in Merced County, attempted false imprisonment and an attempt to prevent or dissuade a victim or witness. Sentenced to 11 years in state prison in that case, he was released in 2015 and discharged from parole three years later, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He also has a conviction for possession of a controlled substance, the department said.

Relatives of Salgado contacted authorities and told them he had admitted to them his involvement in the kidnapping, Warnke told KFSN-TV on Tuesday. Salgado tried to take his own life before police arrived at a home in Atwater — where an ATM card belonging to one of the victims was used after the kidnapping — about 9 miles (14 kilometers) north of Merced. Efforts to reach Salgado’s family were unsuccessful Thursday.

The victims were Punjabi Sikhs, a community in central California that has a significant presence in the trucking business with many of them driving trucks, owning trucking companies or other businesses associated with trucking.

Public records show the family owns Unison Trucking Inc. and relatives said they had opened an office in the last few weeks in a parking lot the Singh brothers also operated. The feud with Salgado dated back a year, the sheriff said, and “got pretty nasty” in text messages or emails. Other details about Salgado’s employment and the nature of the dispute were not immediately available.

Warnke said he believes the family was killed within an hour of the Monday morning kidnapping, when they were taken at gunpoint from their business.

Surveillance video showed the suspect — later identified as Salgado — leading the Singh brothers, who had their hands zip-tied behind their backs, into the back seat of Amandeep Singh’s pickup truck. He drove the brothers away and returned several minutes later.

The suspect then went back to the trailer that served as the business office and led Jasleen Kaur, who was carrying her baby in her arms, out and into the truck before the suspect drove them away shortly before 9:30 a.m.

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2 Fallen El Monte Officers Honored As ‘Brave Men’ at Vigil

June 20, 2022 By Brennon Dixson 1 Comment

Hundreds of San Gabriel Valley residents joined Saturday evening with public servants to unite at a vigil with family members of two slain El Monte police officers, who were remembered for their bravery and commitment to the community.

The sudden, violent loss of the two respected officers, Cpl. Michael Domingo Paredes, 42, and Officer Joseph Anthony Santana, 31 — both killed when they encountered a gunman inside the Siesta Inn on Garvey Avenue on Tuesday, June 14 — has shaken the overwhelmingly Latino community in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley.

“It’s unfortunate it takes tragedy to bring the community together. However, I am grateful that we are here to mourn the lives of these two brave men,” Mayor Jessica Ancona told the mourners Saturday gathered at the city’s Civic Center.

“They pursued their dreams and they did it with you — the family and the community,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis, speaking in Spanish and English. “The community is standing with you.”

The pair of beloved officers were responding to a call about a possible stabbing just before 5 p.m. the day they died, officials said. They immediately came under gunfire and were taken to LAC + USC Medical Center, where they died. The suspect they encountered, Justin Flores, 35, also died in a shootout with police.

Both officers, raised in El Monte, had a strong connection to the community, according to  mourners who added to a collection of flowers and messages of thanks at the police station this week.

Paredes had served as a full-time officer with the department since July 2000, working several specialized assignments before achieving the rank of corporal, officials said. He started his law enforcement career as a cadet with El Monte police.

Santana initially joined the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in September 2018 and worked at  the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, Sgt. M. Higgins, a SBCSD spokeswoman said. He was hired by the El Monte Police Department in 2021. He also previously worked with the city as a part-time public works employee prior to his law enforcement career.

He leaves behind his wife, a daughter and two twin boys.

Paredes also leaves behind his wife, a daughter and a son.

Olga Garcia, the mother of Santana, earlier this week described him as a reserved person who shared his relentless, cutting sense of dry humor with those he was close with. He liked to play basketball, was generous with his time when off-duty and always eager to help a friend in need.

While growing up, Santana looked up to his stepfather, who was also an El Monte police officer, his mother said. That relationship inspired him to pursue a career in law enforcement.

Like Santana, Paredes was also compelled to give back to the city that raised him, his uncle, Tony Paredes, said. He said that, as a child, the El Monte officer was kind,  attentive and respected his elders.

He recalled when his nephew approached him about joining the police academy in the late ’90s and asked him to write a letter recommending the then-aspiring officer to the department.

Mayor Ancona was teary Saturday night and earlier this week, as were many others throughout town, as she explained how the sudden, violent deaths of the city’s sons has left her community reeling.

“Heartbroken doesn’t begin to express the loss that we feel,” Ancona said Tuesday night. She noted both officers were “essentially ambushed while trying to keep a family safe.”

El Monte City Councilwoman Victoria Martinez Muela at the vigil offered condolences to the officers’ families.

When thinking about what she wanted to say Saturday, she started thinking about what provides comfort.

“A blanket,” said Martinez Muela. And like one beautiful tapestry, “all of us our own unique thread. But woven together we are so strong.”

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

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Hundreds Turn Out To Honor HB Officer Nicholas Vella At Honda Center Memorial Service

March 9, 2022 By Matthew Cunningham Leave a Comment

Hundreds of police officers from all over California gathered at the Honda Center in Anaheim today to honor their fallen comrade Nicholas Vella, the Huntington Beach police officer who died in the line of duty on February 19 when the HBPD helicopter he was flying crashed offshore in Newport Beach.

The nearly four-hour memorial service was a homage to Officer Vella’s character, love of family, devotion to law enforcement and community, given by his family and fellow officers.

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Orange, Kevin Vann, presided over the memorial service inside the Honda Center. Vella was eulogized by a procession of family and fellow officers.

One of Vella’s friends and fellow officer, Francisco Jimenez, told the assembled throng how Vella always “sticking up for the little guy, the underdog.”

“Nick hated bullies and wanted to protect those who were not able to protect themselves. Protecting people was in Nick’s DNA, and he loved helping others,” said Jimenez. “So it’s easy to see why Nick decided to take the path that he did.”

A common theme in every eulogy was Vella’s smile.

“Every time you saw him, he had this infectious smile on his face,” recalled Jimenez. “That smile, that little smirk with those sad puppy dog eyes, looking at you that smile that I can’t get out of my head. And I will never forget.”

READ: Huntington Beach Police Chopper Crashes In Water In Newport; One Officer Dead, Another Seriously Injured

Vella’s father-in-law, Ron Tovar, spoke of how Vella changed his family when he married Tovar’s daughter Kristi.

“When he came into our family, he just changed our family. It became different. Right away, he became a stable pillar,” said Tovar. “He always just had this peaceful thing about him. He showed us by way of his actions and his deeds. He demonstrated honesty, integrity and patience.”

Tovar talked about Vella’s special devotion to his teenage daughter Dylan, and what he did, few days before his death, to make Valentine’s Day special for her.

“He went to Dylan’s school and stood there in the parking lot with a rose. To give to Dylan,” said Tovar. “I wish I would have thought of that when my kids were in school. But how heartfelt. How loving. How caring.”

Read the full article at the OC Independent

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Biden’s First Year In Office Saw 73 Police Officers Killed – Most Deaths Since 1995

February 7, 2022 By Mark Moore Leave a Comment

More cops were killed in the line of duty during President Biden’s first year of office than any other year since 1995 — and a law-enforcement group says the driving force is the growing anti-cop sentiment, according to a new report.

Seventy-three officers were intentionally killed in the line of duty in 2021 — a nearly 59 percent increase over 2020, when 46 cops were murdered, Fox News reported Sunday, citing the FBI’s database on officers killed in action.

“We believe it’s a combination … of the George Floyd protests — riots, if you will; a general feeling of a preference for less law enforcement; and less prosecution and less policing,” Jason Johnson, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund​ ​and a 20-year police veteran​, told Fox News.​

“Law enforcement officers have essentially been marginalized and demoralized and cast aside and encouraged now to enforce the law. And so we’ve seen massive jumps in the homicide rate in cities across America​,” he said. 

Johnson noted that “it’s natural” that rising homicide rates in the US have “also resulted in many more officers being assaulted because … a lot of leaders in these cities and leaders in Congress and leaders in the White House have really voiced a lack of respect for law enforcement officers.”

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Assembly Passes Stricter Police Use-of-Force Bill

June 2, 2019 By Chris Reed 8 Comments

For the second year in a row, a sweeping police reform measure that law-enforcement organizations said was motivated by antipathy toward peace officers has been embraced by the state Legislature.

Last year lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1421 by Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley. It required police agencies to release information on officer discipline records – treating these records the same as many others that are routinely released to the public under government openness laws. California’s police disclosure rules previously had been among the strictest in the nation.

This year, Assembly Bill 392, by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, appears headed for passage after being approved 67-0 by the Assembly on Wednesday. It says officers may only use lethal force if it is “necessary” for public safety. Existing law says officers can use such force if they believe it is “reasonable” to ensure public safety. While provisions in Assembly Bill 392 were dropped to persuade law enforcement organizations to end their opposition and take a neutral stand – as they did last week – the ACLU says the bill will create among the strictest use-of-force standards of any state.

These organizations were lobbied by Gov. Gavin Newsom to accept Assembly Bill 392. After their decision to go neutral was announced, Newsom, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins issued a joint statement endorsing Weber’s bill, seemingly guaranteeing its eventual approval.

The passage of the two reform measures would have been impossible to imagine earlier this century. Law enforcement unions had tight relationships with most elected Democrats, the same as with unions for teachers, nurses, service workers and government bureaucrats, providing them with heavy campaign contributions.

Gov. Gray Davis’ 2001 decision to give prison guards a five-year, 37 percent raise after its union helped him get elected in 1998 drew sharp blow-back from good-government advocates and newspaper editorial boards, especially after the 2003 revelationthat Davis had badly underestimated the long-term cost of the labor deal. It was among the issues that helped lead to his unprecedented recall later that year.

2004 CHP scandal downplayed by state leaders

But the clout of law enforcement was again on display a year later. In 2004, the Sacramento Bee broke the story of a pervasive workers’ compensation scam in the upper reaches of the California Highway Patrol. The Bee found that 55 of the 65 senior CHP officers who had retired since 2000 had filed workers’ comp claims – with some citing injuries never reported while they were on the job. Their disability claims were routinely approved, sharply increasing their retirement benefits.

CHP Commissioner Dwight “Spike” Helmick agreed to retire after the “Chiefs Disease” scandal broke, then added to it by also claiming he was disabled because of vehicle accidents in the 1970s and 1980s. But neither the Legislature or Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – who courted and won law enforcement support – agreed with calls to bring in an outside reformer to run the agency. Instead, Schwarzenegger chose Mike Brown, one of Helmick’s top aides.

Attorney General Bill Lockyer declined to prosecute the case, citing conflicts of interest because of his office’s close ties to the CHP. The case was assigned to Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully. But in 2007, she closed the investigation without bringing any charges. Scully said CHP officials and former officials were “unable or unwilling” to testify about the pension-spiking scheme. The story faded from the headlines.

But ties between lawmakers and police unions have weakened since then as the national outcry has grown over alleged police mistreatment of minorities, especially a series of fatal shootings of young African-American men in questionable circumstances. The California Democratic Party has also had an influx of newly elected progressive lawmakers who dislike the aggressive, confrontational policing style adopted by many departments after it was credited with reducing crime in New York City in the 1990s under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Recent analyses of how Assembly Bill 392 overcame the obstacles that doomed a similar bill last year have focused on the March 2018 fatal shooting of Stephon Clark, an unarmed black father of two, in Sacramento.

The announcement two months ago that no officer would face charges for Clark’s death triggered an outcry so intense it became a national and international story that appeared to give Weber’s bill new momentum.

This article was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

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