By Mark Gutglueck
Clear contradictions have emerged in the versions of events provided by one of the most recently elected members of the San Bernardino City Council and the city’s police department over what the councilwoman says was the police officers’ union’s use of information that is supposed to be restricted for law enforcement operations against her during her political campaigns.
Ortiz who is now a professor of public administration at California State University San Bernardino, has for years been involved in local political and governmental affairs, having vied unsuccessfully in 2018 for appointment to the San Bernardino County Third District supervisorial post in the aftermath of James Ramos’s departure for the California Assembly, in 2019 unsuccessfully for election to the vacant San Bernardino City Third Ward council position in the aftermath of John Valdivia’s resignation to become San Bernardino mayor and in 2022 unsuccessfully in the race for San Bernardino Mayor when Valdivia was ousted and ultimately replaced by Helen Tran. In 2024, Ortiz, having moved into San Bernardino 7th Ward, ran for election there, capturing first in the March primary and defeating former San Bernardino City Attorney James Penman in the November run-off.
On November 8, 2023, around the time of the opening of the candidate filing period for the March 2024 primary election, Ortiz and Penman met in what by varying accounts was originally scheduled as a friendly meeting that would give either of the two, who by that point had made clear their intentions to challenge then-Seventh Ward City Councilman Damon Alexander in the upcoming race, in which they could discuss one or the other stepping aside so that a concerted effort to defeat the incumbent could take place. During the exchange, Penman told her the Police Officers Association was backing him and that one or more of the police officer had used CLETS, the database shared by California’s law enforcement agencies, to carry out a search of her criminal history and had retrieved information with regard to an incident of domestic violence she had been engaged in some two decades earlier when they ran her name. According to Ortiz, Penman told her the police union, in support of his candidacy, was prepared to use her arrest on the domestic violence charge to launch an attack her during council campaign if she were a candidate.
According to Ortiz, on November 23, 2023, she met with San Bernardino Police Chief Darren Goodman at which she confronted him about the report that the officers under his command had used the state’s criminal history database to obtain information about her. Goodman thereafter, according to Ortiz, told her that he had found no evidence available in the department’s digital records, which apparently went back for a period of three years, that anyone in the department had used the CLETS to ascertain information relating to her.
Both Ortiz and Penman entered the 2024 race for 7th Ward council member against and Alexander and captured the top two spots in the march primary, setting up the November 2024 final between them. In the course of the campaign, Penman’s electioneering team prepared published and mailed to 7th Ward voters a mailer in which it was stated that Ortiz had been “arrested twice for battery” by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department on June 22, 2006 and by the Los Angeles Police Department on March 15, 2015. Despite whatever negative publicity was generated by that political hit piece, Ortiz prevailed in the November 5, 2024 election 3,929 votes or 55.78 percent to 3,115 or 44.22 percent.
There remains some question as to the accuracy of the information contained in the CLETS database, as field reports that are entered into law enforcement databases on occasion or often blur the distinction between the reporting party, the victim, witnesses, alleged perpetrators, actual perpetrators and convicted perpetrators. In Ortiz’s case, records provided by the San Bernardino and Los Angeles Superior Courts do not show any criminal charges having been filed or convictions registered against Ortiz whatsoever, in 2006 or 2015 or at any time, encompassing battery or any form of domestic violence.
While the 2024 contest between Ortiz and Penman was yet in doubt, Ortiz met once more, on August 7, Ortiz once again met with Goodman, at which point he reiterated that a three-year audit of the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System interaction with the San Bernardino Police Department had turned up no inquiries relating to Ortiz. Goodman also allowed her to view at that point a memo generated by the department’s internal affairs division which stated that the information being spread by the Penman camp and campaign with regard to domestic violence/batter was untrue/unverified.
Two days later, August 9, 2024, Goodman submitted a request to the California Department of Justice for an audit of California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System searches relating to Ortiz from January 2018 through August 2024. On August 14, 2024, Goodman received a response from his August 9 inquiry with the California Department of Justice, learning at that time that former San Bernardino Police Detective Steve Desrochers had made a CLETS search of Ortiz’s criminal history on March 29, 2019, while she was a candidate for the city council in that year’s 3rd Ward special election and again on March 12 2020, in the midst of multiple public challenges and critical assessments of the performance of then-Mayor John Valdivia.
By September of 2024, Goodman was sheepishly acknowledging that elements within his department were misusing privileged information available to the department as a law enforcement agency, that there was a “mole” within his department leaking internal memos and other information to entities not eligible or legally entitled to receive it. That month, two months before Ortiz’s election victory over Penman, both San Bernardino Police Officers Association Vice President Lieutenant Jose Loera and Goodman offered personal apologies to her for the way in which the department’s facilities and access to privileged information had been employed against her. Goodman told her that if Desrochers, who at that point was retired, was still working for the department, he would fire him. Goodman further indicated there was an open-ended, no-holds-barred investigation into such abuses of authority by those on the city’s police force.
On March 25 of this year, three-and-a-half months after Ortiz had been installed as 7th Ward councilwoman and no internal police department discipline against the officers involved in the unauthorized accessing of information had taken place and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office had filed no criminal charges relating to the illegal use of the CLETS, she filed a claim for damages against the city, listing $1.2 million in current and future property damage and $800,000 in current and future bodily injury. She stated in the claim, “The illegal acts have hurt me professionally, personally and privately. My schoolwork has suffered over this, my professional career has been put into jeopardy as I was painted as a criminal, I had to resubmit my fingerprints to verify the public records, my students and employer were asking about all the posts they saw online. In addition, my health declined with the stress and anxiety this caused me. I never imagined in my life that calling the cops for help in a time of need was ever going to be a bad thing. No one should ever have to go through this just because they want to represent their city or speak out on issues.”
Ortiz wrote in the claim that “These acts of running me through CLETS and the dissemination of privileged information, while unknown specifically to me at the time they occurred, were later all confirmed b Chief Goodman between August 2024 through October 2024. I believe these illegal acts to be in violation of my civil rights under the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of California, and the California Department of Justice CLETS policies, practices, procedures and statutes. I also believe that this was done for the intended purpose of one day using it to harm my reputation or to try to silence me form speaking out on issues concerning the City of San Bernardino. The fact that this file existed and then was brought forward 3 years later when I became a real contender for city council only confirms this belief.”
Contained in the claim was this sentence, “I thank Chief Goodman for all he had done to help me with this matter, and for all of his hard work to change the culture inside the department.”
Ortiz was hit with an instantaneous chorus of criticism from both other council members and police department officers and their supporters. Ortiz was, many said, attempting to use her vaunted status as an elected official to enrich herself at the citizens/taxpayers’ expense. While Ortiz’s claim and the facts of the matter were being mulled by city officials, some of whom were unaware of Ortiz’s ordeal and others who were acutely conscious of what had occurred and recognized that Ortiz was raising an issue which, if fully explored, would expose a host of misuses and abuses of police department authority and privileges pertaining not just to Ortiz and other politicians and officeholders but citizens, activists, lawyers, journalists and the like who had opposed, challenged, questioned or simply irritated those in power or individual members of the police department.
Once the public criticism of Ortiz’s claim resulted in widespread knowledge of it and its contents, a decision was made to shut it down completely and on May 7, the city council, minus Ortiz, considered the claim in a closed session.
Mayor Tran and the six council members present rejected the claim, which is a necessary precursor to a lawsuit against a public entity under California law, an individual making a claim against a governmental entity has six months to file a lawsuit from the date the claim is rejected. Thus, Ortiz was given a deadline of November 6 by which to file a lawsuit.
In announcing the council’s rejection of the claim, Tran doubled down, seemingly threatening Ortiz with legal action or prosecution if she proceeded with a lawsuit.
“On March 28, 2025, Council Member Ortiz filed a claim for $2 million against the City of San Bernardino, alleging a former detective in the San Bernardino Police Department conducted an illegal search of her criminal history and then shared that information history with her political opponent,”Tran said. “In her initial report of the matter to Chief Goodman, and in numerous social-media posts and recorded videos, she stated that she has never been arrested. Following a thorough review of facts and circumstances surrounding the original report to Mr. Goodman and the claim that she filed, the city finds the information in the claim to be false and dishonest. The city’s review of this matter determined that the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, also known as CLETS was lawfully accessed by authorized law enforcement personnel in March of 2020. The city’s investigation finds the claim to be frivolous, filed in bad faith, dishonest and an attempt to swindle the city of San Bernardino out of $2 million. For the reasons uncovered during the investigation into her allegations and a review of this claim, the city denies the claim. Miss Ortiz will have six months to file a lawsuit should she decide to pursue the matter. If she does, the city is putting her and her attorney on notice it will seek to recover all attorney’s fees in cause and accordance with California Code of Civil Procedure Furthermore, given that the false claims were filed under the penalty of perjury and it is a crime to make a knowingly false claim against a police officer, the potential criminal conduct associated with the claim is being reviewed. Given that the filing of a $2 million claim by a sitting council member is highly unusual and has been the subject of news and social media reports, the city will release information related to the investigation that was conducted and reviewed in connection with the claim.”
Tran said Ortiz had engaged in perpetrating “serious misrepresentations. Her reckless allegations must be stopped before they result in real liability to the city.”
Three months elapsed, during which, it appeared, Ortiz had been cowed into some order of submission. This week, however, the 7th Ward councilwoman came roaring back. On Tuesday, in front of San Bernardino’s iconic-but-shuttered City Hall, she said, “Over the weekend, I received information that throughout the last week or so, Chief Goodman has attended meetings with members of the public and has sat and discussed my denied claim with them. It’s alleged that Chief Goodman then shared subpoenaed information that he got with the members of the public. It was relayed that, if this gets out, it’s not going to be good.”
It was not clear what the subpoenaed information Ortiz was alluding to pertained to and whether it was not going to be good for her or whether it was not going to be good for the city. At one point, Ortiz indicated that Goodman was perhaps threatening to release information relating to her in an effort to dissuade her from proceeding with a lawsuit over the releasing of the CLETS information. “What? Ortiz asked, addressing Goodman. Are you blackmailing me? What? Are you trying to intimidate me?”
Ortiz indicated it was the city rather than she who had the most to fear from the release of information.
In Goodman’s contact with the public, Ortiz said, it was openly stated that the facts of her case represented tremendous potential and actual damage to the city’s reputation.
“Through these discussions, it was talked about that this just needs to go away for the city, and what that would entail,” Ortiz said. “For me, that entails the city telling the truth and to apologize. I will not be silenced or threatened, extorted, blackmailed, any adjective you can describe to what it would describe to make me go away.”
In response to the city’s insinuation that she is being investigated and will be prosecuted for making a false claim against the city, the police department, the police union and the officers that accessed her criminal history through the CLETS, Ortiz said she was taking the matter to the next level by jumping from seeking recourse by pressing the matter in a potential civil suit to calling upon proseutorial agencies to examine the circumstance for its criminal implication.
“Now I have to stand before you and share that I have reported to the DA’s [San Bernardino County District Attorney’s] Office yesterday, when I met with the public integrity unit, which I have now escalated, because depending on the federal statutes involved, I have filed a calim with the FBI, as well as the Department of Justice.”
She is not backing down, Ortiz said.
“I am not going anywhere,” she said.
Ortiz said that what it came down to was that her 911 call for assistance during an incident in which she was being physically abused resulted in her domestic partner falsely claiming to the responding officers that she had “hit him with a pool cue and used the N-word,” accusations that were disproved in the follow-up investigation.
“Even though Chief [Goodman] knows that I did nothing wrong, even though there was no proof that any of this actually happened, he still wants to go out and say that. I guess my question is: Do you want women – I or anybody – to be afraid to call the cops because of what someone might say when we do that?”
Ortiz pointed out that the city and its police officers have consistently made false denials about its use of the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System to do illicit research into her and her background. The city at one point claimed that no one in the department had run her name through the CLETS database in 2019 and then changed its story, acknowledging it had done so, while insisting that it had obtained her written consent to do so. She did not have the authority to suspend the rules law enforcement agencies must abide by in using the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, Ortiz said.
Ortiz said that the police department has now acknowledged on five separate occasions that it had illegally run her name to obtain information about her from the law enforcement database. Now the police department has changed its tack, she said. It is not denying her name was illegally run, but is seeking to use information about the incidents in which she sought police or law enforcement assistance to potentially embarrass her or blackmail her, she said.
“I have never trusted Lieutenant Jose Loera because I have known for years that he has gone out of his way to lie, to make up things against people he doesn’t like and politicize the police department, which is why I will also be sending a copy of a recording of the meeting with me and Councilwoman Calvin and him to the district attorney, to the DOJ and the FBI.”
Ortiz said she was being tested by the police department, which was seeking to determine whether she would accede to blackmail
“I will not be played,” she said. “If I don’t do this now, what will you do next time? ‘Don’t vote on this or we’ll put this report out.’ “Don’t say this or we’ll put this report out.’ Say this or we’ll put this report out.’ Never in my life will you have that power over me. The weaponization of the police department by elected officials will never be allowed again.”
Former Sixth Ward Councilwoman Kimberly Calvin said the San Bernardino Police Department has a repeated pattern of intimidating and blackmailing the city’s politicians, which she said is part of “the history of the city itself. What they like to do is figure out how to make the person that stands up against them, the person that calls them out, the person that won’t go away or just go along to get along be the villain, no matter what they do to them”
She implied that Goodman is now being forced to do the city council’s dirty work of discrediting Ortiz, and that he does not have the strength of character to stand up to the city council.
“What we must understand is that President Loera, Chief Goodman all have bosses, and their bosses are [the] San Bernardino City Council, mayor, city manager,” Calvin said. “What we see here today is exactly what happens to not only elected officials but to anyone who chooses to speak out and against ill-actions against the community or against our city as a whole or city council members. What the city continues to need is people who are courageous.”
The council, the police department and the police union were all part of an effort to shut Ortiz down and discontinue her efforts to inform the public about the underhanded dealings within the corridors of power in the city’s offices, Calvin said. She said city officials were working toward “tying folks hands behind their back” to silence anyone in a position of knowledge “about what they may or may or not have done. What this city is very well known for is creating or fabricating false documents, false reports that they cannot stand by,” Calvin said.
Scott Beard, a local real estate professional and developer who has been one of Calvin’s and Ortiz’s political supporters, stated, “I attended a meeting with Chief Goodman and Dr Ortiz where he admitted to us she had been illegally in the CLETS by former San Bernardino Police Detective Steve Desrochers. Chief Goodman even provided both of us copies of the DOJ CLETS audit showing the run. He told us it was an illegal run, that he could never stand by the reason for the run, if Detective Desrochers was still active with the police department he would fire him over this issue and that he was pursuing a criminal case against him.
Over the weekend, San Bernardino officials had learned of Ortiz’s resolve to press the issue relating to the police union/police department’s use of the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System to do political opposition research on her and scheduled, on Sunday August 10, a special meeting of the city council to be held on Wednesday August 13. The agenda for that hearing showed two items, both of which were to be discussed in closed rather than public session. One was for a “Conference with Legal Counsel relating to the “Initiation of litigation pursuant to Government Code Section 54956.9(d)(4): Treasure Ortiz Claim)” The other was fir a Conference with Legal Counsel” relating to a “Significant Exposure to Litigation (Pursuant to Government Code Section 54956.9(d)(2)): 1 Case. (Treasure Ortiz Claim).”
Reading between the lines, it appeared the city council was looking to file suit or some sort of legal action against Ortiz, based upon her claim and recent public statements, which at the time the meeting was scheduled, did not include her public utterances on Tuesday, August 12. The other discussion appeared to relate to what action the city was to take in response to the lawsuit Ortiz is contemplating against the city.”
At the meeting on Wednesday, Ortiz was present for the public session during which comments from the public were heard, but she did not accompany the mayor, the rest of the council and City Attorney Sonia Carvalho into the closed session.
Addressing the council during the time allotted for members of the public to speak was San Bernardino resident Dolores Armstead. told the council. “The issue that you should be discussing is the police department made an illegal CLETS search to try to find something incriminating aganst Dr. Ortiz. You took a domestic violence report, more than 20 years old, to try and blackmail Dr. Ortiz. The previous police chief conducted an illegal search ordered by then-Mayor Valdivia. The new police hcief has admitted he would not have ordered that illegal search but now he is being ordered to make it look good for you people. The council denied Dr. Ortiz’s claim and tried to smear her integrity. She’s been telling the truth, and I’m glad she came out to the public yesterday. What have you been doing, any of you? What is it about Dr. Ortiz that frightens you all? The truth? Thank God she filed with the Department of Justice, the DA and is getting it out to the public. Chief Goodman, you know the CLETS search was illegal and admitted such. She trusted you to do the right thing, but you didn’t. Now, chief, you are working with this council to blackmail Dr. Ortiz. And guess whose head is going to roll, chief? Not those council members, The blue shield will not back you, chief. Who is going to be thrown under the bus, chief? We know what you did. People: Thiis is what you elected. That is why we are voted the most noxious city to live in in California.”
The council went into closed session at 3:11 p.m. without Ortiz participating, taking no reportable action during the course of those discussions After emerging from behind closed doors at 4:51 p.m. and the announcement that no consensus on action had emerged, Mayor Helen Tran made a public statement, couching it terms to suggest the council was standing behind the police chief, reiterating assertions from more than three months ago that the public wasn’t getting the straight scoop from Ortiz.
“The City of San Bernardino rejects Council Member Treasure Ortiz’s recent allegation against Police Chief Darren Goodman,” Tran said. “These statements are false, inflammatory and without evidence. The mayor and council unanimously stand firm with our police department. The CLETS access in question was lawful and compliant with DOJ [California Department of Justice] policy,” Tran’s statement after the meeting concluded. “We will defend against frivolous claims and the council remains committed to truth, unity and public safety.”