By Ruth Musser-Lopez
NEEDLES—Further evidence has emerged that San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies assaulted a young woman from Needles after mistaking her for a vandalism suspect and subsequently falsified the police report of the incident to induce the district attorney’s office to criminally charge her in an effort to immunize themselves from their own liability in the matter.
A tall and quite striking, young Navajo athlete and mother with thick long black hair, Kristen Raquel Arthur was frequently up at night with her baby girl. The temperature on summer nights in Needles typically cools to 95 to 100 degrees and it is not unusual for people to get out of the house, take walks or ride bicycles at night. According to Kristen’s mother, Delrae Christina Yazzie Arthur, “She told me that she was going to take a walk to get a Polar Pop (soda) at the Circle K but she never came back. She was never even allowed to make one phone call from jail and I was sick with worry about what had happened to her.”
“How will I ever be able to get a job working for law enforcement now?” Kristen, 24, cried from her jail cell at West Valley Detention Center on August 25, three months plus after being arrested on May 11 on suspicion of breaking a window. “I wish I would have never left my house. I wish I could turn back time.” She was studying criminal justice at Palo Verde College in Needles and dreamed of working for the Coast Guard.
Though the initial charge of Vandalism PC 594(A) – the breaking of a window – used as justification for detaining and holding Kristen was dismissed two days later on May 13, 2016, new charges of two counts of battery against a police officer PC 243 I(2) were filed at that time and the bail was increased from $100,000 to $250,000. Kristen was not allowed to have visitors for 60 days. “By the time I was able to visit her,” her mother said, “many of the bruises and wounds were healed up. I was finally able to visit her on July 12,” Delrae Christina Yazzie Arthur told the Sentinel. “I learned that deputy April Jennings, the arresting officer, had been at the detention center and there were efforts to convince Kristen to plea bargain. Each time I visited her, on July 16th, 21st and 27th, she appeared sedated. That is when I began to learn the truth about what happened and I told [local reporter] David Buckley.”
On August 9, 2016, during public comments, the Needles community became aware of the general matter concerning alleged violent arrests being made by deputies during the Needles city council’s review of the cost of its contract for law enforcement services with the sheriff’s department. Allegations surfaced at that time about the deputies’ use of unnecessary force. Press accounts thereafter widened knowledge of the events surrounding Kristen Arthur’s brutal arrest to the rest of the county. A close examination of the incident report and arrest records shows that Kristen did not match the description of the suspect in the original vandalism report, which deputies used as a pretext for her arrest, which in turn led to the so-called “battery” on a peace officer.
Evidence available to the Sentinel suggests the battery, a bite and scratch, was Arthur’s impromptu defense against the arresting officer’s hand entering her mouth after she was pulled out of the patrol car by her hair and was flung harshly to the pavement with her face pushed into the gravel, her pants were pulled down, and she was prodded in the rear with a blunt object. When a hand came toward her mouth, she said, she did what she could to defend herself and bit it in defense, after which she turned herself over to a supine position. Next, the male deputy sat on her, straddled her stomach and tased her twice in the sternum until she was quivering. She admits to raising her hand to his face in defense and scratching him because she couldn’t stand the pain anymore. She was then punched in the face by the officers, turned over, and handcuffed with her hands behind her. Bruises were observed on Kristen’s face two months later when she was finally allowed to see visitors.
On August 19, 2016, the public defender requested a bail or “own recognizance” hearing which was scheduled for Wednesday, August 24.
At that August 24 hearing, the original deputy public defender, Eric McBurney, who in the court room before the judge entered had publicly characterized Kristen as a “shark” calling her “Jaws,” was replaced by deputy public defender Mark Shoup at the hearing. Geoff Canty, the chief public defender in the Victorville office, was also present in the court room, assisting Shoup.
Shoup argued before Judge Charles Umeda that the deputies had engaged in a violent arrest of Kristen, who did not match the description of the suspect – a male with a baseball cap. He said that Kristen had served over the amount of time that she would have had to serve if arrested for vandalism and that the arrest was made under false pretenses. He said that the deputies tricked her into getting into the unit and then drove her to the scene of the vandalism, accused her of the crime and then engaged in force to effectuate the arrest. He requested that Arthur be released without the posting of bail, on her own recognizance, to her mother and grandmother with whom she resides. Shoup told Umeda that Kristin is a lifetime resident of Needles with no criminal history, that she is 24 years old, and that she was an exemplary student at Palo Verde College studying criminal justice and that Kristen’s grandmother is a retired probation officer for the tribe.
In response to the district attorney’s office’s suggestion that Arthur had manifested some form of psychological peculiarities, Shoup argued that any such issues Kristen may have apparently resulted from recent events having to do with her recent pregnancy and childbirth, coupled with the violent arrest she underwent. He said there is no reason to believe that she is a danger.
Deputy district attorney Paul Levers refused to stipulate to Arthur’s competency, and argued that releasing Kristen is a public risk.
Shoup argued that one psychiatrist, identified as Dr. Jose M. Muinos, had interviewed Arthur on May 11 and determined that she was competent to stand trial. He also said that another psychiatrist, Dr. Patricia Kirkish, had written a preliminary report based upon the findings of Kristen’s loud speech during the initial hearing and the arrest report prepared by the deputies. He said the Kirkish findings were inconclusive because Kirkish had never personally interviewed Kristen. Shoup argued that there were extenuating circumstances during the arrest that caused Kristen to behave in a manner that is unlikely to ever happen again. “Kristen has been in custody for three months, which is more time served than if she would have actually been convicted of the offense of vandalism,” Shoup said.
The Sentinel has learned from Shoup that at a prior hearing, Judge Umeda had ordered Dr. Kirkish to interview Arthur. Upon traveling from Pasadena to Rancho Cucamonga to conduct the interview, Dr. Kirkish was not allowed to interview Arthur because the deputies had Kristen in lock down in a padded cell of what is referred to as the “ZZZ” ward because, they claimed, Kristen was suicidal. Kristen described the cell to the Sentinel, saying it was “very cold,” and that she had been “stripped naked and provided only a flimsy blanket and a thin mat to sleep on.” Why the deputies did not allow the psychiatrist to examine Kristen to determine if the inmate was truly “suicidal” as the deputies asserted is subject to future inquiry and deposition.
Her mother told the Sentinel, “The bruises and tears she suffered from being beat up by the deputies were still visible at the time the doctor was supposed to visit her. We were not allowed to take pictures or have a camera in jail. There are no booking photos,” Yazzie-Arthur said. She claimed that even after 60 days when she and Kristen’s grandmother were finally allowed to visit her at West Valley Detention Center, they saw the evidence of the violence: Kristen’s bruised face, her hair torn out and the brown mark from the taser. The Sentinel observed, 90 days later, the spot on her sternum where Kristen asserted the taser rays entered her body.
After an extended time in chambers with regard to Arthur’s medical condition, Judge Umeda would not release her on her own recognizance, due to deputy district attorney Paul Lever’s incessant assertion that Kristen’s “competency” is in question, that she could be a risk if released and that she needed to see a psychiatrist.
The judge did however order the bail be lowered from $250,000 to $50,000 and ordered Kristen to be seen by a dentist and interviewed by the psychiatrist, Dr. Kirkish. Throughout the proceedings, Kristen sat quietly in the courtroom.
Another hearing has been tentatively scheduled for September 12 pending a report from the psychiatrist as to whether Kristen is competent to stand trial.
Public defender Shoup informed the Sentinel that the district attorney’s office’s insistence that Arthur’s competency to stand trial be proven by a second opinion from another psychiatrist has kept Kristen from having a trial at all. The judicial system is “frustrating” said Geoff Canty, chief deputy public defender in Victorville. He told the Sentinel that Kristen has been denied a trial because of questioned competency, yet roadblocks and delays were put in place to keep her from proving her competency. If Dr. Kirkish cannot schedule the interview, the hearing will be delayed again. From other sources, the Sentinel learned that Kirkish is now on vacation in New York. Canty explained that at this time, the charges of assault and battery (the bite on the arm and the scratch on the face) are suspended until the competency hearing is complete.
Canty said that if Kristen is found competent, a case of assault and battery against a peace officer will go to trial and the public defender will argue that anything Kristen did was in self defense during an unlawful arrest. If she is found incompetent, she will not stand trial and she will likely be sent to Patton Hospital where most female suspects and criminals who are rendered incompetent or insane are destined.
On Friday, August 26, Kristen Raquel Arthur was, at last, released on bail raised by her grandmother, Christine Sanders Armstrong. “This was not a matter of ‘competency;’ this was self defense,” Armstrong, a retired tribal probation officer, asserted. Armstrong informed the Sentinel that she will seek a Native American psychiatrist for a third opinion if Kristen should be found incompetent by Dr. Kirkish. “Kirkish is a white woman from Pasadena from an entirely different culture and environment than Kristen,” Armstrong said. “We are Navajos and we have our cultural differences—often those differences manifest in misunderstandings with regard to actions and reactions in certain circumstances. With respect to these cultural differences, if this case can’t get to trial because of a ‘competency’ issue, we will request the court to grant a Native American psychiatrist from the Navajo nation to review Kristen’s case and interview her. We know Kristen is fine mentally—it’s the rookie deputies being sent to Needles that we wonder about.”
Indian Country Today Media Network has expressed interest in Arthur’s case as well as one involving her brother, Trevor. Trevor Arthur has a pending federal civil rights case against the sheriff’s department. In Trevor R. Arthur v. John McMahon, et al. it is alleged that Trevor was twice falsely arrested without probable cause. In the first unlawful arrest on May 31, 2012 he was charged with 11-counts of arson with a $550,000 bond with no evidence or witness testimony linking him to the crimes. He was released on June 4, 2012 and then arrested violently again on February 24, 2014 when he was sideswiped by a patrol car while he was jogging on a public street. The impact of the vehicle effectively immobilized Trevor Arthur. Thus incapacitated, he was arrested without having his rights read to him or being informed of what the charges were. He was choked in handcuffs outside the Colorado River Station in Needles. He was beat up and his face was bleeding. The incident was videotaped. Factual evidentiary details were omitted from the incident report and his booking photo was altered to cover up the fact that his face was brutalized. The charges against him were later dismissed. Local reporter, David Buckley refers to the incident as the “Photoshop case.”
Kristen’s release provided her with a chance to see a medical doctor and contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She was taken to the Parker Indian Hospital in Parker, Arizona where she was diagnosed with moderate urinary tract infection and pain. The hospital contacted the local law enforcement, Colorado River Indian Tribal Police, and they took a report.
According to a counter complaint filed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Wednesday August 31, by Delrae Christina Yazzie Arthur, unnecessary force was used in making the arrest which occurred when Kristen Arthur was walking home on a hot summer night in Needles, a soda in her hand from the Circle K store several blocks from her home in the Fort Mojave Indian “village.” A clerk at the store was named as a witness.
Kristen’s declaration included with her mother’s complaint states that deputy April Jennings pulled the department’s unit up in front of Kristen Arthur, blocking Kristen’s path. The deputy began questioning Kristen, asking her why she was out so late. Kristen responded by saying she was going home. Deputy Jennings offered to give her a ride to her home. Kristen got into the squad car and sat in the rear seat behind the deputy, she said. “I just wanted to cooperate” she told the Sentinel, expressing her reason for accepting the ride.
Instead of taking Kristen home, the complaint states that the deputy took Kristen five blocks away to an alleged crime scene in the parking lot of the Best Motel and “66 Bar” where sergeant Paul Bader was waiting in his patrol car. While Kristen was locked in the car at the crime scene, deputy Jennings began accusing her of vandalism, asserting that Kristen’s shoeprint matched that of the suspect. The complaint states that “the landscape around the Best Motel and the outbuilding where the window was reported vandalized is covered in pavement, sidewalks and decorative gravel atop hard packed dirt along the perimeter of the buildings. It would be difficult to ascertain a shoeprint from this terrain.”
“I never got out of the patrol vehicle for my shoeprint to be compared or examined. I was never told I was being placed under arrest,” Kristen declared. Nor was she read her Miranda rights, deputy public defender Mark Shoup told the Sentinel.
Shoup also informed the Sentinel that Kristen was “coaxed” into the car under “false pretences” and that “the point of Kristen’s arrest was when she was detained in the squad car and not allowed to move freely, not necessarily when she was handcuffed.”
Kristen’s declaration continues: While she was in the parked car at the crime scene, “Deputy Jennings told me ‘We need to talk.’” Under duress the complaint states, Kristen was cooperative until unnecessary force was used upon her person. Kristen did not provoke what came next, she and Shoup maintain.
“Without justification, I was brutally grabbed by the hair on my left side and pulled out of the patrol car,” Kristen Arthur said. “Simultaneously with sergeant Paul Bader they slammed me to the ground on the right side of my face onto the pavement. My face was pushed onto the pavement and gravel surface…in the prone position my pants and underwear were pulled down. I was probed from behind by deputy Jennings with an unknown object….I remember something being brought to my face and laughter. I bit the first hand that came in close proximity to my face. I turned over into a supine position and sergeant Bader sat straddling me. He shoved a taser into my sternum area and began tasing me for a long period of time. My body began to involuntarily shake. I think I was tased about two times for about 10-15 seconds at a time. I did not want to be subjected to anymore pain. I reactively utilized the only protection measure I knew. I clawed to his facial area. They beat me with their fists and turned me over and handcuffed me. I remained exposed from the waist down when I was later transported to the Colorado River Station and subjected to more humiliation. I was able to cover myself after the handcuffs were removed later.” Kristen told the Sentinel that she was required to walk into the police station with her pants down below her knees, making it difficult to walk.
The complaint states “Kristen admits to defending herself…the injuries inflicted by Kristen were defensive and protective in nature…at no time did she make an offensive advance or attack toward the deputies…she was transported half nude to the Colorado River Station….there was no attempt or effort by the deputies to cover the exposed portion of her body.”
For over 100 days, Kristen Arthur, whose baby was nine months old when she was forcefully separated from her, was confined to a cell at the West Valley Detention Center with bail set so high – at $250,000 – that her family could not raise the funds to bring her home. “The sheriff’s office restricted my daughter’s visitation and telephone communications by categorizing her as an ‘ultraviolent felon’ for her first arrest,” the complaint states, quoting Delrae Yazzie Arthur.
According to the complaint, Kristen suffered from pain as a result of the arrest after her hair was yanked out, her sternum twice tasered, her breast smashed and bruised, she was beaten, her face was bruised and neck, her teeth were impacted and she was prodded in the anus by deputies who arrested her on a false pretense.
“No one was aware of my injuries except the sheriff’s office. In my booking photo, the injury to the right side of my face was covered with my hair by a deputy. I did not receive medical treatment until about a week later. I never made my court appearance in person until my injuries healed over. My first arraignment was via video,” she stated.
Her complaint continues, “From that time on I was mandatorily given medication and was told it was to help my train of thoughts. If I did not take them I was logged for bad behavior. I was deemed ‘ultraviolent’ during my incarceration at West Valley Detention Center.”
The complaint states that Kristen was never officially declared incompetent or diagnosed with any mental illnesses. Upon her release, her mother states “Her behavior was noticeably uncharacteristic…she was lethargic, catatonic and emotionless. She appeared to be under the influence of unknown drug(s).” Kristen said that “From around May 18, 2016, I have been taking 2-pills in the morning and 4-pills in the evening. They were administered by jail officials per Doctor Tang to ‘help me align my thoughts better.’ I overheard them mentioning the identity of one as ‘Xyprexa’ but I am ignorant to the other pills. I was mandated to take them or the staff would log bad behavior.”
Kristen also asserts that while in West Valley Detention Center, “I was assaulted by multiple deputies twice while sleeping. I protected myself from those unwarranted attacks. They confiscated several of my personal items including my record of the chain of events of abuse and officers involved. I made multiple complaints and questioned my arrest with other deputies at all levels of command. They would say yes ‘sergeant’ or ‘lieutenant’ and mock me. I was told by different officers about seven times on different occasions that I made bail and to pack up. At first I did pack. Then I began to realize that I never made bail but it was a joke for the deputies.”
According to the complaint, “I have not been seen for any ailments that I notified the court and detention staff of. I am experiencing acute pain in my lower back area and lower abdominal area…I never saw my second court appointed therapist while incarcerated. I was never taken to the dentist ordered by the court three times…my teeth also hurt.”
Arthur’s family managed to find the funds to post bail three days after bail was lowered to $50,000. On Friday, at 5:00 pm August 26 bail was posted and after 107 days, Kristen Arthur was released, on Saturday, August 27, at 11:55 am. “I inquired multiple times throughout the wait on her release” Yazzie said. “I was told by one deputy that she was being cleared medically by detention medical staff and other unfounded delays. I later learned that Kristen was notified 20-minutes prior to her release.”
Finding a bondsman had been no easy task. “We finally found one who would work with us” Yazzie said. “From August 24th, when the judge lowered the bail, to August 26th, I contacted three bail bondsmen to have my daughter released. All three were negotiated but were suddenly canceled after the bail bondsmen placed a call to West Valley Detention Center. On August 26 we made arrangements with John Nieves from Remedy Bail Bonds. Nieves later stated that during the initial call to West Valley Detention Center to gather information on Kristen, an unknown detention center employee warned Nieves multiple times that Kristen is an ‘Indian from the reservation,’ near the ‘stateline ‘and was a ‘flight risk.’ Nieves was told that she is ‘the last person who he should be bailing out…’”
“Remedy Bail Bonds was great,” Delrae chimed. “Nieves said that he had worked with the San Manuel tribe in posting bail with good results and so did not agree with the attitude of the jail keeper.”
“Neives admits that this is the first case in which he has been professionally questioned,” the complaint states.
The Arthurs believe that they have been targeted for intimidation by the Needles Substation of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. The disparate treatment they have suffered, they informed the Sentinel, is largely prejudicial against minorities and retaliatory stemming from the Arthur’s knowledge of a long-term cover up by the Needles Sheriff’s Department with regard to other crimes not brought to justice, committed by white power brokers in the community.

By Carlos Avalos
Two Fontana Police Department officers have filed a civil suit against the Fontana Police Department, alleging wrongdoing, racism, nepotism, and negligence on the part of the agency that employs them.
On June 30, 2016, David J. Moore Sr. & Andrew Anderson, represented by attorneys Bradley C. Gage and Milad Sadr, filed a lawsuit in San Bernardino Superior Court against the City of Fontana, alleging discrimination, retaliation and failure to take corrective action.
Despite the sensitive and explosive nature of the charges, a litigative process yet awaits Moore and Anderson, and it is an open question as to whether Gage and Sadr can marshal the proof to establish that the level of acute racism referenced in the complaint actually pervades the Fontana Police Department. The outcome of the case is likely to hinge less on the reputations of Moore and Anderson and the decorations they have accrued than the showing of whether they have actually lived up to the ideals inherent in the blue uniforms they wear and the badges pinned on them and whether their fellow officers against whom they have made allegations can do the same. Complicating this weighing of evidence and fact is that the culture of the “thin blue” line that is thought to separate the law abiding members of the community from the elements of society who would prey on them mandates loyalty and an ethos in which police officers do not speak ill of their colleagues and are obliged to both look the other way and cover up transgressions on the part of police officers if and when they occur. In this context, the foibles of humanity which infest those in uniform – the passions, ambitions, vices, venalities, arrogance, prejudices and impulses often result in mistakes – are very likely to play out before a jury.
The lawyering to be done in this case is equally important. Bradley C. Gage and Milad Sadr, the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, are respected civil rights attorneys in California with combined earnings of almost 1 billion dollars for their clients.
The law firm of Best Best & Krieger, which represents the City of Fontana, is one that represents 45 municipalities in Southern California and which has a reputation for ruthlessness in exploiting the power of government over other entities.
Gage told the Sentinel that he and Sadr did “not take on this case to lose.”
Anderson and Moore’s complaint for monetary damages, accompanied by a demand for a jury trial, consists of three key elements.
According to the suit, the Fontana Police Department is comprised of about 189 sworn officers and has never had more than four African American officers on the force at any given time, despite African Americans comprising more than 10 percent of the city’s population. Even though Hispanics comprise nearly 70 percent of the city’s population, about 15 percent of the FPD’s sworn officers are Hispanic. In contrast, the surrounding cities of Ontario and Rialto, which have similar populations to the City of Fontana, employ more African Americans and Hispanics as sworn officers than the city of Fontana.
The suit alleges that former chief of police Rodney Jones and the command staff at the Fontana Police Department condoned the mistreatment of minorities, and the department has an extensive history of unfair hiring practices and mistreatment against minorities. Many minority citizens who have had contact with Fontana Police Department officers have complained about excessive force and mistreatment.
The suit maintains that throughout his career at the department, Moore has heard other officers call out “nigger” in the locker room. The suit further states that within the culture of the Fontana Police Department, African Americans males are often referred to as “BAMAS” and African American females as “BAFAS”. This is short for Black African Male and Female. On occasion when a problematic incident involving African Americans occurred, Fontana Police personnel would tell Moore that the incident involved, “your people.”
The suit alleges that many times after an aggressive incident involving hostile or an aggressive African American, Moore has heard several employees say, “They acted like a bunch of wild monkeys.”
The suit maintains that issues or complaints involving minority citizens impacting the Fontana Police Department were often referred to Moore, duties that were added to Moore’s work on top of his actual assignments. Fontana Police supervisors have routinely made the comments to Moore such as, “They’re your people,” or “You should understand them,” according to the suit. White Fontana police officers would also, according to the suit, specifically request Moore to handle complaints made by African American citizens. The suit suggests that all officers in the department should partake in responding to the complaints and problems in the city which arise from the municipality’s predominantly minority population.
Inherent in the suit’s delineation of Moore being called upon to handle the situations that arise concerning Fontana’s African-American and Hispanic elements and to defuse potentially explosive situations growing out of circumstances pertaining to the city’s minority population is the consideration that the department was relying upon Moore more often than on his fellow white officers. This underscores that most of the Fontana Police Department officers and personnel who are white do not want to get involved with any type of encounter with the minority residents they are supposed to protect and serve if they do not have to.
Corporal David Moore is a decorated officer with the Fontana Police Department. Moore was the department’s officer of the year in 2002, and had been named officer of the month four times, in 2002, 2006, 2008, and 2010. Moore was nominated school resource officer of the year in 2006, and he received the department’s award of excellence in 2007. He was awarded the robbery homicide award in 2008. To date Moore, has earned six grand theft auto pins for the apprehension of car theft suspects while on patrol. Moore received the Noble Award from the National Organization for Black Law Enforcement Executives in 2003. Corporal Moore was also recognized by the National Latino Peace Officers Association in 2003; that same year Moore was recognized by the governor for outstanding arrest and crime prevention. Moore also achieved the Senator’s award and Assembly District 62 award. In his 15-plus year career, he has not had one write up or excessive force complaint brought against him. David J. Moore is of mixed race, African American and Caucasian.
Andrew Anderson is a decorated police officer, as well, with many awards and commendations. Anderson has been twice named officer of the month, received the department’s 2005 robbery and homicide award, and received the department’s excellence award, among other commendations.
Throughout Anderson’s career at the Fontana Police Department, he has constantly heard the Fontana Police Department personnel including supervisors make derogatory comments about Hispanics, who have been referred to, according to the suit, as “wetbacks and beaners.” In the Department, Hispanics are referred to as “pink panties,” which is a racial slur based upon Hispanics asking officers or dispatch if they speak Spanish. In the Fontana Police Department station, the department hangs photographs of white officers giving sobriety tests to Hispanics and other minorities being detained.
There is not a single picture on the wall at the Fontana Police Department station that shows a Fontana Police officer detaining a person of white descent; rather, according to the suit, whites are depicted in ways that accord them higher regard and respect.
According to the suit, in 1994 an African American male murder victim was discovered behind the Kentucky Fried Chicken enterprise on Sierra Ave in Fontana. A cop while at the scene of the murder thought it would be funny to place a piece of chicken in the deceased victim’s hand, to make it look like he was stealing chicken from the restaurant before he was killed. A photograph was taken and this photo was circulated around the department for years.
This behavior by a Fontana Police Department officer or officers would potentially have been prosecutable as a felony under PC 141, which pertains to the planting or tampering of evidence, which is an obstruction of justice crime. In the specific instance of the deceased man at KFC, tampering with his body could be viewed as tampering with evidence.
In this case, the tampering with evidence was done as some order of a joke or prank, intended to be taken in a comical spirit among police officers. This conduct by a Fontana Police Department member or members was also potentially prosecutable as a violation of the California Health and Safety Code Section 7070.5, which states that every person who knowingly mutilates, disinters, wantonly disturbs, or willfully removes any human remains in or from any location is in violation of the law.
In 2006, according to the lawsuit, recently retired lieutenant Bob Morris gave an electronic Martin Luther King doll to retiring lieutenant Tim Newsome. The doll was designed to play the “I have a dream speech.”
Morris did this as a prank, knowing Newsome was a bigot and wanted to get a rise out of him and see his reaction, the suit propounds. When Newsome opened the present and saw it contained the MLK doll, he said “get this shit out of here” and violently threw the doll against the wall, damaging the voice mechanism, according to the suit. Lieutenant Morris picked up the doll and tied a noose around its neck and hung it from the ceiling rafter inside the crime prevention unit. The doll hung there aimlessly making grotesque noises, according to the suit.
The lawsuit states that In December of 2003, Black Crime Free Housing Liaison Ernestine Jones was assigned to the department’s “multiple enforcement team,” the MET unit. Former police chief Rodney Jones set up various Christmas decorations inside the office. Jones placed a Black Santa Claus just outside Jones’ office with a Christmas tree. As a joke, Billy Green and several other MET officers covertly misappropriated the Black Santa. The officers created a wanted flyer which read, “Wanted for Rooftop Burglaries,” according to the suit.
In 2012, according to the suit, Moore was at a baseball game, seated in front of numerous other Fontana Police Department officers. When Moore began speaking to a woman, Sergeant Brian Binks yelled to the woman, “Why are you talking to that silverback when you could be talking to me.”
Throughout his career former Chief of Police Rodney Jones sent emails throughout the department addressing himself as “Adolf,” according to the suit.
Currently, Corporal Moore is assigned to the most difficult and politically sensitive cases such as Acute Political Emergency (“APE”) cases. It is alleged that several of these APE cases are racially charged. If these cases are not handled properly with the utmost care and correctness, it could cost the investigator his or her career. Other corporals in the department are not assigned to these cases. This has led to the perception that the department’s upper chain of command is engaging in some “strategic planning” to better the chances of corporal Moore making a mistake and being terminated, according to the suit.
The lawsuit states over the past several years, Fontana’s Police command staff has been drawn almost exclusively from the Special Enforcement Detail (SED), which is reportedly part of then-captain and now-police chief Robert Ramsey’s seven year plan. His goal was to hand pick the future command echelon of the department, according to the suit. Currently there are 19 white members and one Hispanic. There are no African American Members.
In 2002, Corporal Moore applied for a Special Enforcement Detail position. Moore scored extremely high on the SED promotional process. According to the suit, when his results were announced, Moore was told by a member of the department’s upper ranks, “Wow, you will be the first.” Subsequently, lieutenant Robert Doyle informed Moore that he was not selected for SED because it was determined by the department’s command that Moore “didn’t fit.” Instead SED chose white officers with less experience and training.
The suit states that there have been consistent rumors that SED members studied Nazi related literature and kept white supremacist paraphernalia at work.
The suit alleges that in 2003, Moore submitted a memo requesting a position in the narcotics unit after he effectuated several major drug busts, including taking down a meth lab, but his request was denied. In 2004 Moore attended the required training for a K-9 position and assisted with K-9 drills each week, Moore submitted interest for this position. Again he was denied, according to the suit.
In 2004, when Anderson sought to become a field training officer, the field training sergeant, Liam Coughlin, told Anderson that he lacked the requisite experience. Yet several white officers were selected who had similar or less experience, according to the suit.
The suit states that in 2005 Anderson submitted a memo of interest in the gang unit; Anderson was passed over by less experienced officers. The suit also claims the same thing happened to him when he applied for the narcotics unit. In 2007, Anderson was selected for the narcotics unit corporal position. At that time, Anderson was the only applicant.
The suit states that Anderson and Moore have made several complaints and remarks about the lack of minorities and women in the organization, especially at the sergeant level and above. Moore and Anderson believe that this lack of minorities in the upper hierarchy at the FPD is not a mistake but a calculated decision made by them to keep the “good ol’ boy” network that has characterized the department intact.
The suit claims that Fontana Police Department utilizes a promotional process that requires candidates to privately lobby their superiors for the position they are applying to; supervisors only chose the officers they favor to relinquish information about the test and answers to those officers.
On numerous occasions, Moore and Anderson have taken tests for advancement to the position of sergeant, and on many occasions Moore and Anderson have done extremely well on the tests, according to the suit. What has been reported is that they have narrowly missed the cut. They have not been provided with a copy of their test results to see where they made a mistake, according to the suit. A Latina officer, characterized by some officers as well qualified, was preparing for the corporals exam and encountered several white special enforcement detail officers studying test material that she was not given, though she attended the same test preparation symposiums, according to the suit. Most of those who pass are white. The suit highlights the fact that Moore and Anderson have noticed the lack of diversity and disparate treatment of minority officers seeking advancement within the department.
When the Sentinel asked Anderson for a statement about the pending lawsuit against the city of Fontana, he curtly responded, “You are wasting your time,” indicating he would not speak with the Sentinel about anything to do with the Fontana Police Department.
Moore, too, said he did not appreciate the tenor of recent articles by the Sentinel and statements by its reporters with regard to the police department. “Although I am going through this situation with the city and my department, I do not like how you have been badmouthing the department. I have no comment,” Moore said.
A moment later, he relented. “You can quote me on this: A man, police chief, sergeant, or captain may move a man or fellow officer. But even for those who move a man or who become kings or men of power, a person’s soul is in their keeping alone. When a person stands before God, they cannot say but I was told by others to do thus, or that virtue was not convenient at the time; this will not suffice.”
Corporal Moore has been with the FPD since 2003. Anderson has been with the department since 2001. Combined between the two officers they have worked under chiefs of police Frank Scialdone, Larry Clark, Rodney Jones, and current Chief Robert Ramsey. They have also worked under the supervision of mayors Mark Nuami, Frank Scialdone and Acquanetta Warren.
With the allegations of unchecked racism at play in this civil lawsuit, a question running through the community is whether the allegations are true, and if so, whether they represent a set of isolated incidents or a larger reality that impacted on the careers of officers other than Moore and Anderson.
On August 18, 2016, Best Best & Krieger attorneys Howard B. Golds and Joseph Ortiz on behalf of the City of Fontana filed a demurrer and motion to strike a major portion of the lawsuit. In that motion to strike, Golds and Ortiz contest some of the assertions made by Moore and Anderson and, while appearing to concede the accuracy of others, suggest they are not relevant to the plaintiff’s underlying claim.
“This case is about two police officers of the City of Fontana’s defendant police department, (FPD), that ascribe departmental scrutiny of their work and their inability to obtain promotions to institutional racism,” the motion to strike states. “Plaintiffs David J. Moore, Sr and Andrew Anderson have filed a suit limited to three causes of action, 1) discrimination, 2) FEHA retaliation, and 3) failure to take corrective action. Thus, the issues before the court should be focused on the elements of those causes of action. Unfortunately, however, the complaint meanders through twelve pages of general allegations rife with unsubstantiated rumors and inflammatory statements in many cases completely unrelated to any element of the alleged causes of action. The irrelevant and inflammatory issues broadly range in scope from the specter of 1950s Klu Klux Klan activity, unsubstantiated rumors of white supremacist tendencies of a chief of police who retired before either plaintiff was employed and the shooting of Tyisha Miller by Riverside Police Department officers, to name but a few. Further, in an apparent attempt to cast coworkers as villains, the plaintiffs include random statements related to asserted police violence and investigations wholly unrelated to the causes of action. For instance, plaintiffs identify a sergeant as having come from Riverside Police Department and without even tying the sergeant to the incident assert that he was involved in the racial aftermath, whatever that means, related to the racially charged Tyisha Miller incident in Riverside. Likewise, plaintiffs identify a highly ranked Hispanic officer and then gratuitously indicate that he was involved in a questionable shooting of an African American. No effort is made to tie these apparently random inflammatory statements to a theory related to the causes of action. It would be a profound waste of judicial resources to litigate these spurious claims. Given the irrelevant and inflammatory nature of these offensive allegations, defendant respectfully requests that the court order plaintiffs to file a clean pleading free of such matter.”
Specifically, Golds and Ortiz want the statement that the “Fontana Police Department was founded in the 1950s when the KKK was very active in Fontana” removed from the suit language. They further ask that the assertions that “Former chief [Ed] Stout is rumored to have SS lightning bolts tattooed on his back and Swastikas on his forearms” and that sergeant Bob Moritz and Darren Robbins had knowledge about Stout’s alleged Nazi-themed body art taken out of the suit as well. Further, the motion to strike deems the lawsuit’s assertion that recently departed police chief Rodney Jones worked closely with Stout and was mentored by him as irrelevant. So, too, do Golds and Ortiz deem that section of the suit pertaining to the 1994 incident in which a police officer placed a piece of chicken in the hand of an African American male murder victim and that Jones, then a detective, was the lead investigator on the case as irrelevant and inflammatory. Reference to the incident relating to lieutenant Bob Morris’s presentation of an electronic Martin Luther King doll to retiring lieutenant Tim Newsome and the subsequent defiling of that doll should likewise be removed from the suit, according to Golds and Ortiz, as should also be excluded mention of the Christmas Season 2003 incident in which Billy Green absconded with the black Santa Claus doll crime free housing liaison Ernestine Jones had and used it to design a flyer which implied the black Santa Claus was “Wanted for Rooftop Burglaries.”
Additionally, Golds and Ortiz want the court to excise from the civil complaint the reference to the language about sergeant Brian Binks referring to Moore as a “silverback” when a group of officers were at a baseball game. The motion to strike also characterizes the lawsuit’s claim that “for years there were consistent rumors that SED [Special Enforcement Detail] members studied Nazi related literature and kept white supremacist paraphernalia at work” inflammatory and irrelevant, along with the language that “Moore’s son joined the FPD [and] after initial success under his first training officer Moore’s son was routinely scrutinized and demeaned by other officers especially sgt Keith Zagorin.” And the motion says that there is no probative value to the lawsuit’s narrative “which states sgt Zagorin had issues with women and minorities throughout his career [and] before lateraling to FPD Zagorin was a member of the Riverside Police Department [where] Zagorin was involved in the racial aftermath of the Tyisha Miller shooting in 1998.”
Miller was a 19-year old African American woman who was sleeping in a car with a handgun in her lap and was shot and killed by Riverside Police Department officers after they awakened her.
Golds and Ortiz are asking the court to deem irrelevant the suit’s claim that “After investigations [into the Miller shooting] were launched and the involved officers terminated, Zagorin was among the officers who shaved their heads in solidarity and used racial jokes such as ‘It’s Miller Time.’” Further, Golds and Oritiz are seeking a finding that the language “in 2009 Zagorin shot and killed an unarmed Hispanic male which resulted in a financial settlement with the decedent’s family” and that in “2010 Zagorin was the sergeant on scene during a questionable shooting in the city of Fontana where they shot a man with 120 rounds and killed him” should be removed from the lawsuit.
The motion to strike says that the suit’s mentioning that “Eventually Moore’s son was let go by FPD” and that when Moore met with chief Rodney Jones to discuss the situation, Jones said “I did not want to hire your son initially but he was such a good applicant I had no choice” but that Jones acknowledged “your son is a great young man he could work anywhere just not here” has no probative value to Moore and Anderson’s case.
Golds and Ortiz also maintain that the suit’s claim that the ranking of a Hispanic officer, Raul Fileto, on top of sergeants list despite Fileto having “less time on the force and experience than Anderson and Moore [and that] Fileto was involved in an extremely questionable shooting of an African American male which resulted in a financial settlement between the city and the shooting victim” should be excised from the suit.
Golds and Ortiz said there motion to strike was being made pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure sections 435 and 436, which, they assert, “allows the court to strike out any irrelevant, false or improper matter inserted in the pleadings or all or any part of any pleading not drawn or filed in conformity with the laws of this state. The defendant seeks the cited language to be stricken as irrelevant or legally improper since the allegations inappropriately and impermissibly exceed the scope of the causes of action within the complaint and are gratuitously derogatory.”

Sixteen charter schools in San Bernardino County are in violation of state law, most notably by discriminating against low-performing applicants, ones who are foreign-born and without documentation or who are challenged by the English language, the American Civil Liberties Union and SoCal and Public Advocates charged in a report released last month.
The San Bernardino County charter schools that are in some way out of compliance with the rules by which they should operate are, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and SoCal and Public Advocates, the Academy for Academic Excellence, the Academy of Careers and Exploration, Alta Vista South Public, ASA Charter, Casa Ramona Academy for Technology, Community, and Education, Competitive Edge Charter Academy, Grove Charter Academy, Independence Charter Academy, Mojave River Academy, Mountain View Montessori Charter, New Vision Middle, Norton Space and Aeronautics Academy, Provisional Accelerated Learning Academy, the Public Safety Academy of San Bernardino, Riverside Preparatory and Soar Charter Academy.
While charter schools are educational entities that function outside the strict parameters of the structures of school districts, they function under the aegis of a sponsoring school district using taxpayer funds. As such they are mandated to make an unbiased provision of the educational services they provide to all students within their jurisdictional purview. But, according to the ACLU, 253 of the state’s 1,228 charter schools utilize exclusionary enrollment policies. The ACLU and SoCal and Public Advocates in their report titled Unequal Access: How Some California Charter Schools Illegal Restrict Enrollment charge that the charter schools make exclusions based on academic performance, discriminate against English learners, require pre-enrollment essays or interviews, impose requirements that discourage undocumented students and have illegal parent or guardian volunteer requirements.
The report states that “The original vision of charter schools in the 1990s was to provide new opportunities to improve the quality of education for thousands of students living in under-resourced communities. However, charter schools can also heighten existing inequities. Through admissions policies that exclude vulnerable students by erecting various barriers to entry, charter schools have the potential to create a two-tiered system of public education. We believe charter schools are viable only if they are open to all students.”
The report continues, “Although charter schools may be privately controlled and receive non-government funding, they are part of California’s public education system. The California Constitution requires that all students, whether they choose to attend traditional public schools or charter schools, have equal access to educational opportunity. Like other public schools, it is illegal for charter schools to select which students to enroll.”
The report states, “These practices disadvantage certain groups of students, including legally protected classes such as English-language learners, students with disabilities, and immigrants, among others, by deterring or outright precluding enrollment. These exclusionary policies violate the California Education Code, the California and U.S. Constitutions, and state and federal civil rights laws.”
In many cases according to the ACLU and SoCal Advocates, the illegal practices are occurring in the open.
“The fact that the websites, handbooks, and other public materials of so many schools contain plain violations demonstrates a clear failure of accountability,” according to the report. “The entities that authorize charter schools, which include the California State Board of Education, county offices of education, and local public school districts, are responsible for ensuring that charter schools follow all laws and abide by the terms of their charters.”
While the ACLU has no enforcement authority or status as a state agency, it possesses a stable of attorneys who are empowered to summon charter schools or the districts sponsoring them into court by the filing of a civil action, which upon successful litigation could result in the charter schools and academies being force into compliance by a verdict or court order.
In San Bernardino County, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, Grove Charter Academy has excluded student applicants based on academic performance; the Public Safety Academy of San Bernardino and Soar Academy engaged in exclusion based upon pre-enrollment essays or interviews; Competitive Edge Charter Academy has imposed illegal parent/guardian volunteer requirements; Riverside Preparatory, Provisional Accelerated Learning Academy, Norton Space and Aeronautics, New Vision Middle, Independence Charter Academy, Mojave River Academy, Mountain View Montessori Charter Academy, Casa Ramona Academy for Technology, Community, and Education, the Academy for Academic Excellence, the Academy of Careers and Exploration, Alta Vista South Public, and ASA Charter utilized requirements that discourage undocumented students from applying for admission.
In reaction to the report, the nonprofit California Charter Schools Association, which represents charter schools throughout California, stated, “We agree with the ACLU and Public Advocates that charter schools must be open to any student interested in attending, and no student or group of students should be excluded or discriminated against as a result of enrollment and admissions policies at any public school, including charter public schools. We are encouraged that the report identified a small number of charter schools which have the most clearly exclusionary practices based on academic performance. We believe there is an urgency to work with these schools to make changes immediately to these policies to ensure that students are not unlawfully excluded from applying or being admitted to the charter school program.
The California Charter Schools Association goes by the acronym CCSA.
“While we do not agree with the ACLU or Public Advocates that all essays, interviews and requests for student documentation for enrollment are per se discriminatory or exclusionary, CCSA will encourage our members to revise the language of their policies concerning essays and interviews, and to better describe the options available to families for enrollment documentation to ensure that there is not even a perception of bias or discrimination in admissions and enrollment processes,” CCSA said. “We are encouraged to see that progress has been made on reducing the number of charter schools with policies requiring mandatory volunteer hours or donations as a condition of enrollment.”
CCS’s statement continued, “CCSA agrees with the overarching principle that serves as the basis for a new report from the ACLU and Public Advocates, and does not support the adoption of policies by charter public schools that discriminate against any group of students. CCSA also agrees with the report authors that there is no need for changes to California charter law as a result of the findings. Instead, the appropriate solution is to address the issues by providing additional guidance and communications to charter schools, districts and counties across the state from CCSA and the California Department of Education. However, CCSA does not agree on all areas of the report.
“CCSA believes the types of policies identified in the report have different levels of urgency in terms of their impact on students,” the statement continues. “The report found only 22 schools (approximately 2% of California’s total 1,228 charter schools) have academic policies that exclude low academic performers. We believe that academic performance policies are the most urgent to address. We do not agree that all policies (e.g., essays, interviews or requests for student documentations) are per se discriminatory or exclusionary – there may be a perception of bias or discrimination, they may have been poorly drafted, but there is not necessarily evidence that they are intentional in their exclusion. For example, we disagree that auditions for performing arts schools are not permissible but we do advise that charter schools not implement them in a way that discriminates against groups of students unfairly. It is important to keep in mind that many charters are started by teachers and parents who often write their petitions and policies, many times without aid of legal counsel.”
CCSA implied that abuse of the state educational code is not limited to charter schools.
“Limiting the report to charter schools was a missed opportunity to provide the bigger context that all public schools, including district/traditional public schools, should be held to the standards that this report has applied to charter schools,” the CCSA statement propounds. “All public schools should be held to the same standards and policy makers and the public should be provided with the information about how well all public schools are meeting these standards.”

Twelve candidates will compete in the historic Highland City Council race in November, the first such election to feature by-district match-ups after a series of legal challenges ended in a court ruling that the city must ditch its at-large elections and adopt a ward system. In District 1, Jesus Chavez, Jorge Heridia and Ray Hilfer will vie against one another.
Tony Cifuentes and Anaeli Solano will go head to head in District 2. Penny Lilburn, an incumbent and holdover from the at-large system, is unopposed in District 3. In District 4, incumbent John Timmer has attracted challengers Frank Adomitis, Christy Marin and Rusty Rutland.
Larry McCallon, another longtime incumbent, will need to get by Jerry Martin to remain in office.

Local chiropractor Dean Kerr, a Second Amendment advocate, recently wrote to Assemblyman Freddie Rodriquez. Kerr’s missive follows.

The Honorable Freddie Rodriguez
California State Assembly,
52nd District Office
1160 Seventh Street
Chino, CA 91710

Dear Mr. Rodriguez,
I am writing to express my concerns for misplaced leadership in the state government, more specifically, the laws directed at the law-abiding citizens concerning their access to adequate means to defend themselves.
In signing the last round of ridiculous bills, Governor Jerry Brown said they would protect the law-abiding citizen by imposing new taxes and limits on their access. What an oxymoron!
The gun laws currently effective in California are in conflict with the U.S. Constitution. Let me ask you, what does the phrase “shall not infringe mean to you? Does it infer exceptions or additions or bogus interpretations? I think not. It is even contrary for public safety. Hitler used this when he disarmed the German people in the 1930s, while giving local police military hardware, such as armored vehicles, machine guns and light tanks. Hitler did this in the name of public safety that ultimately caused 10 million plus deaths. Where are we headed? Ann Coulter has offered that, history for the Democrats begins every day when they wake up, as the reason they are doomed too repeat the past. Do you find this true?
I realize that national leadership, under the illegal regime of Barack Obama has repeatedly asserted the goal of making the United States a communist state. While socialism is a religious philosophy, communism is mandatory socialism based on control of resources (i.e., water, gas, electricity, etc.). This is not America. This is just one of the many Failed Eurasian Theocratic Socialist States. This in not the direction for America, but the direction for chaos and revolution as it has been everywhere it has been tried. Seems there is no shortage of tyrants who think it will work – this time.
Repeal the gun laws that are based on emotion and not statistics and logic, because criminalizing the public is ill-advised.
Sincerely yours,
Merland Kerr, D.C.

JOSHUA TREE— Residents in the rustic community of Joshua Tree are girding themselves for what is likely to be the ultimate effort to stop Terra Nova LLP’s proposed Altamira 248-unit housing development on 150 acres near Friendly Hills Elementary School.
The project, variously known as Altamira, YV 105 and Terra Nova, will be surrounded by a wall and will be gated at its street entrances. The property upon which it is to be sited was originally owned in part or whole by the Hoffman Family Trust, based in Orange County.
The zoning on the property, consisting of Section 33 and most of Section 34, was intensified in the early 1980s, reaching a density of 4.2 units per acre, pursuant to a 25% density bonus because of plans to develop it for senior citizen exclusive housing.
After the county’s land use services division gave Terra Nova LLP go-ahead on the less-intensive 248-unit plan earlier this year, a group of Joshua Tree residents and business owners, maintaining the county planning staff did not comply with the Joshua Tree Community Plan and elements of the development code, filed an appeal of the project approval to the county board of supervisors.
Of issue is that the urbanization of Joshua Tree, a destination for travelers worldwide who sojourn to the Mojave Desert and Joshua Tree National Park, will damage the area’s tourist trade, a major economic feature of the area.
The property to be developed includes some densely desert forested land that is as, or nearly as, resplendent as other visually striking landscapes in the Mojave.
Joshua Tree is an unincorporated county community between the incorporated municipalities of Yucca Valley and Twentynine
Palms.
The appeal of the project approval will be heard during the board of supervisors meeting September 13, and will involve a video hook-up between the community government center on White Feather Road and the board of supervisors meeting place in the Robert Covington Chambers at the county administrative building in downtown San Bernardino. Local residents will be able to communicate by videoconference with the board during the hearing in allotted three minute speaking periods.

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
I have no sympathy for lawbreakers. I’m a law and order type of guy. And it goes without saying, of course, that I am a Republican, one of the first order, a Tory, a Bonapartist, a practitioner of realpolitik, a dyed-in-the- wool conservative. It thus surprised me when, within the last fortnight, a few of my friends and acquaintances, ones I know are like me Republicans, what I thought were conservatives tried and true, rather rudely mixed it up with me when I nonchalantly pronounced that I was in favor of Proposition 62 and opposed to Proposition 66. These are the two statewide measures touching upon the death penalty. You would have thought I had killed someone myself, so outraged were my fellow conversationalists with my position…
Proposition 62 would essentially eliminate the death penalty in California, replacing it with life in prison without parole. Proposition 66 would do the opposite, streamlining for prosecutors the procedures they must follow, and lowering the bar they must mount, to obtain the death penalty in those cases where they are seeking it…
Upon my enunciation of my position, I was startled to hear from the others their size-up of me: I had gone renegade and was now a liberal, they said. This astounded me. It actually offended me somewhat. I consider my position to be the truly conservative one. Killing people seems pretty damn radical, if you ask me. What I was hearing threw me so much that I began probing into my ear canals on either side of my head with my little fingers to see if perhaps they were stuffed with a buildup of earwax to the point that I had misheard. As best as I can analyze it, their position was trifold: 1) Some people merit being put to death; 2) The legal process and all of its serpentine complexities provide those who should be killed with an interminable set of protections and legal delays that allow them to elude justice and the fate they deserve; and 3) warehousing these homicidal psychopaths in our prison system for the duration of their natural lives is an unacceptable burden on the taxpayers…
To the simpleminded, I suppose, these points seem cogent. Yet I detect an incoherence, an illogic, an inconsistency running right through this reasoning. Mind you, these are the same people, who like me, will drone on for hours and hours about the level of incompetency in government. Yet at the drop of a hat, they are willing to turn over to an office, ministry or agency of the government the authority to ascertain whether one of their fellow men is guilty and whether that guilt merits capital punishment. These same people are continuously disputing the wisdom, judgment, fairness, and competence of governmental taxing, or fining or regulating or permitting authorities. Such are issues of importance, no doubt, but of nowhere the near the gravity of executing someone. Yet they have seemingly no qualms about granting government officials the power to engage in the ultimate and irrevocable show of authority…
I have been called a lot of things, but it has been some seven decades or thereabouts since I was last called naïve I understand that there are some very bad people among us, ones with no regard for life and decency as most of us do. I recognize that these people are a danger to us. I believe we have the legitimate moral authority to protect ourselves from such people. That, however, does not require that we kill those people. That comes dangerously close to putting us in the same category as those we would execute…
Proposition 66, in making it easier to execute the guilty, would simultaneously make it easier to convict the innocent and, indeed, execute the innocent. Proposition 66 would change death penalty procedures by removing legal and Constitutional safeguards by limiting death row prisoners’ ability to present new evidence of their innocence once they are convicted, greatly increasing California’s risk of executing an innocent person. When did eroding Constitutional principles become a conservative imperative? If the People of California find an innocent man guilty and execute him using deliberate and methodical means, does that make us collectively, with malice of forethought guilty of murder and deserving of execution ourselves, individually?
Oh yes, what about the burden on the taxpayers, the constant and never-ending drain on the public treasury to keep these criminals, the lowest of the low, with all the necessities of life, shelter, food, medical care, clothing, and suitable diversions and to have safety and security measures in place so they cannot escape? Despite my own personal wealth, I am an advocate of frugality when it comes to the administration of our government. I think our public money should not be squandered so that it can be husbanded to do truly great things in the name of the collective, to elevate our community, our society our municipalities, our region, our state and our nation. It angers me to see our money wasted. But some things come at a price. It is not sympathy for lawbreakers that impels me to not consign them to eternity, but rather respect for myself and all of us together, our universal humanity. Bearing the cost of imprisoning our criminals rather than doing the most economic thing and killing them is the price of having a civilized society…

Jacob Victor

Jacob Nash Victor was born on April 2, 1835 in Sandusky County, Ohio, the son of Henry Clay Victor & Gertrude Nash.
Jacob received his education in the public schools of Sandusky, and was apprenticed to a printer as a very young man. At the age of twenty he took up railroading, going to work with the “Mad River” railway, the first railroad line in Ohio. He remained with this company from 1855 until the outbreak of the Civil War. He was not conscripted as a soldier, having been deemed ineligible for military battle because of asthma. Instead, for three years he was in charge of military railway construction under General James B. McPherson. He later served under General Tecumseh Sherman in Georgia in a similar capacity in the closing year of the war, and was present during Sherman’s march to the sea through Georgia. After the surrender at Appomattox, Jacob Victor moved to Kansas City, where he was in charge of the Pacific Dispatch, a fast freight line then with International & Great Northern Railway of Texas in Houston and Galveston. In the 1870s, while yet employed with International & Great Northern, he came to New York, where he met and married Elizabeth Blackwell Burlew, a native of Syracuse and a descendant of an early American family. They would eventually have three children, Hugo, Royal and Lenore.
While with the Great Northern Railway of Texas, he sojourned frequently to New York, where, as a civil engineer, he studied the progress in railroad construction technique and was involved in the corruption and competition connected with railroad expansion to the Pacific Coast.
While in New York, his health broke down. To recover, Victor in 1881 accepted a position in Colton with the California Southern Railroad, a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, initially as a freight agent and then as general manager of operations.
Then 46-years-old, Victor was at the seeming end of his railroad career.
Over the previous two years, San Bernardino County surveyor Frederick T. Perris had been assiduously lobbying Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway officers to construct a line from San Diego northward to San Bernardino to be augmented with the extension of the line up the Cajon Pass and then north to junction with the Atlantic & Pacific-Santa Fe line at Waterman, i.e., present day-Barstow. While Perris was making his entreaties, a dispute had arisen over the Southern Pacific Railway’s refusal to permit other railways to cross its tracks. Perris’ efforts paid off, convincing AT&SF officials, who were itching for a route to effectively break the Southern Pacific Railroad’s monopoly on transportation into Southern California, to brave the engineering and grading challenges.
Victor, an expert on trestles and bridges, was chosen to oversee Perris and other engineers brought in to supervise the Chinese coolies who laid the track. As the general manager and chief engineer of the California Southern Railroad, Victor incorporated a “Y” track into the two sets of tracks to allow free standing locomotives to turn around and reattach themselves to assist long and heavy trains up the grade to the Cajon Summit. In 1884 the California Southern Railroad reached San Bernardino, but the same year Nash encountered a devastating, though temporary setback, when roughly 30 miles of track were swept away by floods. By 1885 the track was rebuilt and extended through the Cajon Pass.
Victor designed the bridge across the Mojave River. Though the bridge was destroyed in the flood of 1938, the granite abutment to the bridge is still in use and stands as the oldest structure in the Victor Valley.
Once the track had reached the Summit, Victor was kept on as the superintendent of desert construction, a $1,750,000 undertaking to connect the rail at the top of Cajon Summit with the A & P Railroad at Barstow.
The railroad activity near the crossing of the Mojave offered enough activity and business for a small town to form there. It was initially called Huntington. Victor’s home in Victorville was located at 8th and D streets and was known when it was owned by Mrs. Jennie Mae Richardson in the 1940s as the Hillcrest Lodge. By the late 1880s the area around his home came to be known as Victor. In 1911, the U.S. Post Office, to distinguish Victor, California from Victor, Colorado, against the will of the local population, renamed the town Victorville. Following the completion of the railway to its eastern connection an arrangement was effected with the Santa Fe Railway under the management of C. W. Smith.
After the Santa Fe absorbed the California Southern in name as well as in fact, Victor retired in 1888 and moved to Chino, where he was elected to the board of supervisors as the representative of the county’s Fourth District. He served for three years as board chairman during his tenure on the board, which lasted from January 5, 1891 to January 7, 1895.
Victor came onto the board during one of the most contentious times in San Bernardino County history. This bitter division resulted in the creation of Riverside County on February 23, 1893. The contention included a need for a new courthouse and the ambitions of several communities to become a county seat. Two supervisors, G.W. Garcelon and W.H. Glass, resigned fom the board on December 9, 1891 and in their places J.C. Turner of Victor Valley and William H. Randall of Highland were appointed.
As a railroad engineer, Victor recognized the natural threat of flooding and was an expert in repairing flood damage. Consequently, when the heavy storms or flash floods ruined any bridge structures, Victor insisted they be replaced with steel. As a result, the railroad bridges spanning the Mojave River in Daggett and Victorville, the bridges over Lytle Creek at Mt. Vernon and at Fourth Street, a bridge west of Cucamonga and others were constructed or reconstructed soundly and most are still in use today
In 1898, the Victor family settled in San Bernardino. It was there that Jacob Nash Victor died on October 3, 1907. He was survived by his wife, Elizabeth and their three children: Hugo Victor, then the Santa Fe Agent at Williams, Arizona; “Rolbo” Victor, a member of the law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell in New York City then residing in Yonkers, New York; and Mrs. H. Star Giddings, the former Lenore Victor, also of Yonkers, New York.

The loggerhead shrike (Lanius ludovicianus) is a passerine bird, present in San Bernardino County, particularly in and around the San Bernardino Mountains. It is endemic to North America.
The loggerhead is nicknamed the butcherbird after its carnivorous tendencies. It consumes prey such as amphibians, insects, lizards, small mammals and small birds.
The Loggerhead shrike is a medium-sized passerine. “Loggerhead” refers to the relatively large size of the head as compared to the rest of the body. It measures approximately 9 inches from bill to tail. The wing and tail length is about 3.82 and 3.87 inches long, respectively. A Loggerhead weighs on average 50 grams, just under two ounces, with a range of 45 to 60 grams for a healthy adult shrike.
The adult plumage of the Loggerhead Shrike is grey above, with a white to pale grey breast and black tarsi and feet. The bird possesses a black mask that extends across the eyes to its bill, unlike that of the similar but slightly larger northern shrike. The wings are black, with a distinct white patch on the primaries. The tail is black edged with white and the bird’s irises are brown. The beak is short, black, and hooked, and contains a tomial tooth to help tear into prey.
It is difficult to determine the gender of an adult loggerhead shrike in the field, as they are sexually monochromatic. However, several studies have reported sexual dimorphism in plumage and size traits. Juveniles possess a paler gray plumage that is subtly vermiculated.
The western subspecies of the bird predominantly breeding on the mainland in California is Lanius ludovicianus gambeli.
The bird requires an open habitat with an area to forage, elevated perches and nesting sites. They are often found in open pastures or grasslands and appear to prefer red-cedar and hawthorn trees for nesting. The hawthorn’s thorns and the cedar’s pin-like needles protect and conceal the shrike from predators. It may also nest in fence-rows or hedge-rows near open pastures, and requires elevated perches as lookout points for hunting. Open pastures and grasslands with shorter vegetation are preferred by loggerhead shrikes as these increase their hunting efficiency. Longer vegetation often requires more time and energy to be spent searching for prey, so these birds gravitate toward areas of shorter vegetation.
Although Loggerhead Shrikes are passerines, they are a predatory species that hunt during the day. They primarily eat insects, but also consume arachnids, reptiles, amphibians, rodents, bats and small birds. The size of prey ranges from 0.001 gram insects to 25 gram mice or reptiles.
They are not true birds of prey, as they lack the large, strong talons used to catch and kill prey. Instead, they are patient hunters that stalk prey by hawking and diving from elevated perches. By scanning their vicinity from a perch instead of flying, the shrike does not exhaust its energy during the search. Preferred perches are approximately 13 feet off the ground, and are usually outer branches of trees or telephone wires. In winter, prey availability is low due to the shrike’s preference for insects and poikilothermic prey; during this time, shrikes may be energetically stressed and underweight. Insects are consumed in mid-flight, but vertebrates usually require more handling time and therefore more energy. Due to the shrike’s small size in proportion to the size of its prey, it must rely on specialized adaptations to facilitate its hunting. The powerful, hooked beak of the loggerhead shrike allows it to sever the neck of a small vertebrate. Larger prey are subjected to impaling, in which they are pushed down into a sharp projection, such as a thorn or barbed wire. The bird can then tear off flesh by using the projection as an anchor. The shrike may also use the thorn to fasten and store its food to return to at a later time.
The motion of impalement appears to be instinctive, as parent shrikes do not demonstrate the behavior to their nestlings. However, a young shrike must experience impaling prey upon an actual projection during a critical developmental period; otherwise, it will not learn to use the instinctive impaling action upon an actual projection. Kleptoparasitism has also been observed in nature, in which the shrike chased down another bird and stole its recently-caught prey.
Loggerhead shrikes are monogamous birds, and begin breeding during their first spring. During this time, the male performs a courtship ritual that occurs in flight. He dances erratically in the air, flying rapidly up and down and occasionally chasing the female. He presents himself to his potential mate by fanning out his tail and fluttering his wings.
Females may respond to the fluttering display with begging notes, similar to those of juveniles begging for food; this encourages the male to feed her.
The bird breeds in semi-open areas. It nests in dense trees and shrubs. There is an increase in average clutch size as latitude increases. Shrikes begin incubation after laying the second to last egg, resulting in asynchronous hatching. Incubation, on average, lasts 16 days. The female lays four to eight eggs in a bulky cup made of twigs and grass. Once hatched, nestlings are fed by both the male and female parent. Average fledging period is about 19 days. Young may then remain nearby and dependent on adults for up to four weeks. After that, they begin to forage independently. Oftentimes, nestlings do not survive long past hatching. In the case of dead nestlings, adult shrikes may eat or discard their bodies or else feed them to their remaining young. The oldest recorded age of a Loggerhead Shrike was 12 years and 6 months.
Their vocal range is broad and varied, and has been described as harsh and jarring. The shrike’s notes include squeaky whistles, shrill trills, guttural warbles. The trills sung by males during breeding season vary in rhythm and pitch. When alarmed, a shrike will produce a “schgra-a-a” shriek while spreading out its tail feathers. Nestlings will make “tcheek” and “tsp” sounds shortly after hatching. During courtship feedings, females may ask for food with “mak” begging notes; conversely, males emit “wuut” or “shack” sounds to offer food. The male emits a territorial, harsh shriek, while the female’s song is pitched lower and softer than the male’s. Generally, the male is far more vocal than the female.

By Grace Bernal
The big news with young people is that the fantastic sneakers are coming in a new language. The sneaker is like an important handbag! Today they are super decorative and colorful, and no longer are they a man’s thing because women are doing sneakers, too. There are sneakers with interesting architecture such as high tongues, but the neat ones to me are the sparkly, metallic, and textured colored sneaker. Another feature are the thick bold bumper soles that come with sneakers of today, making the fresh new look comfortable and fashionable. The added feature of the heeled sneaker is the height it gives the wearer. You can do just about anything in today’s sneaker because they are looking more and more dressy and they are ready to go to work in, a concert, and many events for that matter. The sneaker can definitely add definition to your outfit. Have fun sneaking around in whatever sneaker you choose.

“I like sneakers. I guess I could call myself a collector.” Mike Shinoda