Retiring Anaheim Police Chief John Welter warned public officials back in May
he was “very concerned” high tensions between cops and residents
in Leatrice-Wakefield could spark “more civil unrest.”
By DUANE ROBERTS
Editor & Publisher, Anaheim Investigator.
According to copies of several emails the Anaheim Investigator obtained through a California Public Records Act request, retiring Anaheim Police Chief John Welter told the Mayor and City Council back in May he was “very concerned” escalating tensions between cops and residents in the Leatrice-Wakefield neighborhood, a working-class Mexican community located about one mile Southeast of the Disneyland and California Adventure theme parks, could lead to a confrontation where somebody “will eventually cross the line and get arrested,” sparking “more civil unrest.”
All of the emails in question, which were sent to Susan Ray, an administrator for the Office of the Mayor and City Council, on Wednesday, May 1, 2013, touch upon a “major event” which occurred in that neighborhood the prior evening where the Anaheim Police Department deployed 12 patrol units, including two Sergeants and the Watch Commander, to handle a crowd “watching and yelling” at officers responding to a “disturbance” call. This incident was considered so serious the city activated its “Emergency Virtual Operations Center,” something usually done when a natural disaster, plane crash, or act of terrorism occurs.
In an email Chief Welter shot off about the incident the very next day, he contemptuously dismissed the crowd as being a “group of criminal residents” who feel “they have the right and power to drive the police from neighborhoods.” He complained “[t]hese incidence [sic] of community interference and threats to police have been going on for months now. I predict that someone will eventually cross the line and get arrested. Depending on who, when and where that arrest occurs, it will very likely cause more civil unrest.” In closing, he added: “These actions will only get worse as the criminal element gain power.”
The text of Welter’s email is as follows:
Good afternoon, At the bottom of this email is information on police/community activities that has me very concerned. I covered this situation at our monthly Department Head meeting on May 1. These incidence [sic] of community interference and threats to police have been going on for months now. I predict that someone will eventually cross the line and get arrested. Depending on who, when and where that arrest occurs, it will very likely cause more civil unrest.
I’m bringing this to your attention because of the increasing examples of disrespect and insults to others by many in Anaheim. When a group of criminal residents feels as though they have the right and power to drive the police from neighborhoods, we will have a very difficult time protecting the law abiding residents from escalating violence.
There have been instances of resident interference that prevented officers from engaging in routine activities like impounding abandoned or stolen cars. On one occasion, the resident interference provided an opportunity for a potential criminal suspect to evade police detainment during an investigation.
These actions will only get worse as the criminal element gain power. The law abiding residents will be the true losers in the end. Police will be made to be the ‘murderers’, ‘assassins’, and ‘criminals.’ And certain members of our community will use all of this as a platform to drive their individual agendas.
Attached to Welter’s email was several messages he exchanged with Captain Jarret Young earlier that same day. At 7:38 a.m., the Captain blasted out an email to all high-ranking members of the Anaheim Police Department offering them a brief summary of what transpired in the Leatrice-Wakefield neighborhood the night before. The brouhaha first began when “[o]fficers were handling a call in the alley of Wakefield,” typed Young. It was there, he said, that they encountered “subject on a scooter or bike” who “began yelling and resisting” when they “attempted to detain” him: [read more at Anaheim Investigator]
Interesting findings describing the mood of the Chief, lackadaisical (I had to look this up : lacking enthusiasm and determination; carelessly, lazy) which the spate of fatal-officer involved shooting was partly a product of his own doing. So the man is gone, but what are the other parts that produced the police brutality, and that are relevant to today’s interaction between the police and the community?
Members of the affected community took this piece with interest. Your tone seems a bit on the dismissive side, choosing to zero in on a retired chief and the last paragraph. That’s the gap you need to close.
Duane didn’t even cross-post this here anyway.
He put it on my facebook wall, and he has asked me in the past to cross-post his stuff. What, is he part of the anti-OJ snit-fit now? let me hear from him.
Vern Nelson wrote:
> He put it on my facebook wall, and he has asked me in the past to
> cross-post his stuff.
Although I have no objections to you or anybody else cross-posting anything I write, I was just taken aback that a link to my latest piece appeared here under my name without me logging in!
But since this post accurately conveys what I wrote, it’s really not a big issue to me.
Gabriel, my apologies if my tone seemed a bit dismissive. The mindset of the top APD brass was already reflected in the “hot zones” report. Their e-mails and messages on this neighborhood confirmed it. I was expecting that this investigatory report would’ve opened a debate, similar to the effective one done about the OCHR, questioning the role of the institutions (police, city council, business) in creating/maintaining the marginalization of significant sectors of our community.
I believe I am doing my share of civic responsibility on closing the gap between disenfranchisement and empowerment. It seems to me that you and Duane have taken the unfortunate position of downplaying the efforts being done by some, to close this gap. As this thread is mostly about the role of the police, I invite you to visit the other thread where approaches to solve problems are outlined (the Gadfly thread), where I express my disappointment with the “uncompromising and pure” approach.
Ricardo Toro wrote:
> I believe I am doing my share of civic responsibility on closing the gap between
> disenfranchisement and empowerment. It seems to me that you
> and Duane have taken the unfortunate position of downplaying
> the efforts being done by some, to close this gap. As this
> thread is mostly about the role of the police, I invite you to visit
> the other thread where approaches to solve problems are
> outlined (the Gadfly thread), where I express my disappointment
> with the “uncompromising and pure” approach.
I can’t speak for Gabriel, but I’m a bit perplexed when you claim I “have taken the unfortunate position of downplaying the efforts being done by some, to close [the] gap” between “disenfranchisement and empowerment.”
Ummm … exactly who are you talking about here?
And as for me taking an “‘uncompromising and pure’ approach,” on what matters?
I’m curious now.
Duane, sorry for being late with my follow up. Constructive criticism is absent in your assessment of people who share similar goals to yours but take different routes pursuing those goals. It happens to the OJB editors several times, for example Vern for supporting Lucille Kring, and Diamond for being Diamond….It happens with Los Amigos . We all make mistakes, but when principles override common grounds, then we become fragmented, isolated, less effective in making changes. At the end, those supporting the status quo are the beneficiaries of sectarian practices.
Whether he is or isn’t, the popularity of his posts speaks to the viability of cogent, well researched investigative work as opposed to massive transcriptions of available video complete with over-analytical intellectual fapping.
Since the video isn’t captioned, we’re trying to do our bit for ADA compliance!
Gabriel, it’s admirable in its way that you check your intelligence at the door sometimes out of personal loyalty, but stop doing that. (By the way, I can directly see the relatively popularity of posts here. Duane’s work is sometimes quite popular, and good for him. But of course his level of regular productivity with time-intensive work isn’t enough to maintain a regular blog audience, as we do here.)
Duane does do cogent, well-researched investigative work — although sometimes it’s tendentious and in pursuit of relatively small prey. But he is absolutely welcome here, as are you, and most other writers from across the political spectra.
If you are going to piss on “massive transcriptions of available video,” though, then you are an idiot. (As you are not an idiot, please stop pretending to be one.) You can read a transcript a hell of a lot more quickly than you can sit through a presentation in real time. (People generally won’t do the latter.) You can more readily cross-check and cross-reference information, learning from juxtapositions and contrasts. You can more easily aggregate data and test assertions that you’d like to make. You can copy and paste, and thereby facilitate discussion of, key points. (You can include them in legal documents as well.)
In the case of the Sept. 30 special meeting, you get a very different sense of it when you can see all parts of the elephant together than you do when piecing together a mental mosaic. One thing that becomes clear from the transcript, for example, is that Lucille Kring did not apparently plan to make her superior substitute amendment all along, but at some point in responding to arguments from both Tait and the audience the penny dropped and she realized that requiring a second was completely unnecessary and punitive — and to her credit she suggested what Brandman should have suggested in the first place, thus forcing his hand. You think that’s a small thing? Well, then you’re not paying attention.
I think that you meant to write “over-intellectual analytical fapping.” No, it’s appropriately intellectual — and it’s appropriately analytical. It’s not something that everyone will like, understand, or appreciate — more out of lack of interest than lack of ability — although I think that the writing is raising the historically grotesque level of political discourse in the OC political blogosphere. (There are some admirable exceptions that do likewise; Vern’s work, Ryan’s, and Cynthia’s among them. Occasionally your writing and that of other Weeklings as well. Not always.) If you really find it to be too much for your tender brain, don’t read it. Others, with more interest in the subject matter, certainly do.
(I have to say: it’s truly rich to be accused of “fapping” of any kind by a writer for the Weekly. Do you read your own rag?)
Keep Bloviating this blog to death.
Just because Gustavo thinks that name-calling is a substitute for critical thinking doesn’t mean that you have to do the same.
P.S. We’re in the middle of our best month since January.
Greg Diamond wrote:
> P.S. We’re in the middle of our best month since January
One does not need to review your blog stats to demonstrate that few people pay much attention to what you write. For proof of this, all anybody needs to do is look at the number Facebook “likes” you get for each article you post here. On the average, you get anywhere between zero and ten “likes,” maybe more if you’re lucky. But many of your posts here have no “likes.”
My last Anaheim Investigator blog post was “liked” 188 times since last Monday and was “twittered” 11 times–and that was with very little promotion on my behalf.
I’d like to think that you’re kidding, Duane, but I sense that you aren’t.
I use my Facebook page primarily for keeping in contact with friends from earlier periods in my life. I sometimes post my stories there to make it easier for local friends — the minority of my FB audience — to see them, but I’m not in the business of maximizing FB likes. If you are, then more power to you, I guess. That you measure my FB likes at all is sort of weird; that you extrapolate from that as to “how many people pay attention to what I write” is deeply so. Tell you what, “Investigator”: go ask people in Anaheim if they attend to what I write. Or don’t — if you really think that no one is reading my stuff, then you shouldn’t give a damn what I say.
As an admin here, I can see exactly how many views your articles get — and the same for mine. I won’t embarrass you with a comparison. I could also compare the overall traffic on your blog and this one — except that your blog (and this is the first time I’ve personally seen this happen) doesn’t have enough data to generate a global rank on Alexa.
Of course, a little less than a year ago, we recently had an objective metric assessing the impact of your reach — and we were both surprised that you didn’t do better.
Here’s one difference between us, Duane: I’m happy for what success you have. And here’s another: if you said that based on site metrics your site’s page views are up quite a bit this month, I wouldn’t try to refute it at all — let alone based on Facebook likes.
Not to pile on, cuz I do value the work both of you all do, but I wonder if the folks who “like” Duane’s posts on Facebook are the same folks who, in Gustavo’s estimation, “matter?”
Bloviator writes: “As an admin here, I can see exactly how many views your articles get — and the same for mine. I won’t embarrass you with a comparison.”
Yeah, one’s a cross-post after the original article. The other? A Bloviation. I won’t embarrass you with…logic!
If Duane wants to let me know how many views he gets for each on his blog, I’ll add them together. I highly doubt that many people are not reading them here because they already read them there. For one thing, they’d probably check in to read the comments.
I have to give you credit, though — as promised, you did not embarrass me with logic.
Greg Diamond wrote:
[Extra text deleted]
> then you shouldn’t give a damn what I say.
I don’t give a damn about what you say.
> As an admin here, I can see exactly how many views your articles
> get — and the same for mine. I won’t embarrass you with a
> comparison. I could also compare the overall traffic on your
> blog and this one — except that your blog (and this is the
> first time I’ve personally seen this happen) doesn’t have enough
> data to generate a global rank on Alexa.
Who cares about your traffic data? I don’t rely on OJ blog crossposts to encourage people to visit my Anaheim Investigator blog.
And as for Alexa, so what? I never made the claim the zillions of people were reading everything I type.
As for the OJ blog, neither you or Vern have much to crow about. When I had access to your traffic data, I noticed many “hits” came from persons just doing random searches for certain words. I wouldn’t consider that “readership.”
> Of course, a little less than a year ago, we recently had an
> objective metric assessing the impact of your reach — and
> we were both surprised that you didn’t do better.
Although I recall having a brief discussion with you regarding the metrics of assessing reach, I don’t remember saying anything else beyond that. I do know, however, that I told you the tools used by blogs to measure readership may not be entirely accurate.
The “objective metric” I had in mind was the result of the Anaheim City Council race.
Your belief in your own superior impact is unshakable in part because it’s based on assertions that are unfalsifiable. So fine — whatever gets you to do your part in the struggle is fine. I think that you should be a little less impervious to objective measures and a lot less concerned about tearing others down so that you look bigger, but you’re not going to change your ways.
Your comment about site metrics just suggests that you don’t understand them. A relatively small portion of our hits come from search engines; the list you have in mind just addresses that small portion. Aside from the “encrypted search terms” number, which is an order of magnitude greater than all of the unencrypted terms combined, you get a smattering like this from yesterday:
Double that number above to 44 (to account for a possible long tail of search terms used only once), and you still get fewer than 1/40 of our views for the day — and of course not all of those search terms are, as you claim, “random.” I mention this only because you chose to throw stones based on your having been granted access to confidential information — and you apparently don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about. I hope that your other efforts as an “investigator” are more firmly grounded.
Greg Diamond wrote:
> The “objective metric” I had in mind was the result of the
> Anaheim City Council race. Your belief in your own superior
> impact is unshakable in part because it’s based on assertions
> that are unfalsifiable. So fine — whatever gets you to do your
> part in the struggle is fine. I think that you should be a little
> less impervious to objective measures and a lot less
> concerned about tearing others down so that you look bigger,
> but you’re not going to change your ways.
Ummmm … since when did I have a lengthy discussion with you regarding the outcome of the Anaheim City Council race? Although I welcome constructive criticism on anything I do, you’re the last person I would seek consultation with on *any* matter. I’ve always considered you to be a dishonest political hack.
Getting back to the OJ blog’s traffic stats, I challenge you to post all of the data online. All I know is that when I reviewed them a few months ago (at that time I had access to them), it was showing a steady downward decline in “readership.” The graph I saw implied that less and less people were visiting the website each month.
The ironic thing about those numbers is that it coincided with an increased amount of your bloviating. I realize that correlation isn’t causation, but who knows?
But if you’ve managed turned things around for the better, good for you.
Anyways, it is time for me to go. Have fun playing in the OJ blog sandbox!
Toodle-oo!
We’ve never discussed the outcome of the Anaheim City Council race. I read the election results myself. As I wrote her previously, I was not only saddened by your performance, but was surprised. Having bought into the power of your social media contacts, I didn’t expect you to finish anywhere near last.
Ask Vern about posting such site data. It’s his to do with as he pleases, not mine.
I think I can fairly say that our readership sharply spiked, as it does regularly as interest increases in elections, in October and November of even-numbered years. It usually goes down during holidays, so December was low. It went back up to normal for pre-October 2012 in January. Then when FFFF unexpectedly went dark at the end of the month — taking with it a lot of our referral business — we lost about 25% of our views. That became the “new normal” for a while, but we’ve only had one month as low as February. This month looks like it will easily be our best since FFFF closed shop.
It’s interesting that you think that February 2013 coincided with “an increased amount of my bloviating.” If by that you mean the length and frequency of my articles, you can check that yourself. (Copy and paste my posts into Word to get the word counts.) I’m pretty sure that you’ll find that you’re very wrong — and it’s sort of a sad commentary that you, as an “investigator,” made the accusation without apparently checking.
Be well and good luck. Oh, and as for your “dishonest political hack” comment, your investigations are good but your political judgment stinks.
Bloviator: “Critical thinking” and you go like brevity and your ramblings. Anyone who has anything negative to say about Duane is an idiot supreme—and guess what you are?
Hey don’t you have something Mexican to do? A hole in the wall column or something? Stop coming over here and yapping like a chihuahua.
You certainly do stick up for your friends and admirers, Aska — especially the ones who are in no danger of ever electing someone to office — and there’s something to be said for that sort of tribal loyalty. It’s very good for purposes of careerism, for example. In a supposedly objective journalist and critic, though, it’s really sad. It makes you look like an idiot royale — with cheese.
As for “critical thinking,” I’ll happily debate you — ideally in front of a paying audience, proceeds to charity — about pretty much any policy dispute that we have. I propose that we both wear shock collars that would go off if we engage in any ad hominem argumentation or name-calling. I can easily do without them; within 15 minutes, the series of shocks would lead to your smelling like fajitas. (Probably chicken fajitas.)
Whoops, I’m sorry for deploying wit at you. Very unfair of me. I take it all back and replace it with “I know you are but what am I?”
Hey Gus —
“Chicken fajitas” and “Yapping like a Chihuahua.”
You got to love how these white liberals, who think they have a hall pass just for the sake of being liberal, engage in racial microagressions all the same!
Let me get this straight…Gustavo can literally make a living at racial humor because he’s Meskin…but me I have to comport myself like a P. C. choir boy because I’m only a quarter Meskin.
Not for the first time, I respond F. T. S.
Plus and all, my “yapping like a chihuahua” was based not only on Gus’ race but his diminutive stature and incessant shrillness. I think it was perfect for him.
Sorry, San Echón, I’m a vegetarian — is “fajitas” not the right term for “seared meat strips”? I imagine their smell to be like what you might get from a guy receiving repeated shocks from a shock collar because he just can’t help substituting insults for reason. I’d “Ask a Mexican,” but Gustavo is not a reliable source when he’s taking things personally (which is usually.)
Now Gustavo’s being “chicken” (rather than, say, “beef”) has to do with his likely fearful lack of willingness to test our critical thinking skills against one another in public. Should I make the same offer to you, given that he seems to like to send you out to do the challenging intellectual work?
Hey, maybe you and I can debate on whether Gustavo’s a progressive!
Weak salsa…
Speaking of weak salsa, I’d say that was a no on your challenge, Greg.
“although sometimes it’s tendentious ”
Er, um.
David Zenger wrote:
>> “although sometimes it’s tendentious ”
>
> Er, um.
Laughable, isn’t it?
Back atcha!
Greg Diamond wrote:
> Duane does do cogent, well-researched investigative work — although
> sometimes it’s tendentious and in pursuit of relatively small prey.
The Anaheim Police Department is “small prey?”
Really now?
No, it’s not small prey; I was thinking of your blockbusting reportage on the OC Human Rights Commission. But sure, let’s talk about the APD.
This story: “On Pins and Needles: Departing Welter predicted more “Civil Unrest” in Anaheim.” — It doesn’t take a genius to predict more “civil unrest” in Anaheim. That Welter predicted it — and of course wanted repressive response to it — is like his predicting that in the summer the foliage on OC’s hills would turn brown.
Three months previous to that, you published “Phony As A Three Dollar Bill: How The City Of Anaheim Will Create A Fake Police Oversight Committee” — and three weeks before that you published “Death Knell for Genuine Police Oversight in Anaheim: Council Boosts Office of Independent Review.” I thought that these were good and am glad that you published them. Unfortunately, their combined viewership was about half that of Vern’s “Sirloin or Dog Food? Council prepares to foist Santa Ana-style faux-districting on Anaheim tonight,” which came out the same day as “Death Knell.”
Prior to that, from mid-March to mid-June, you published three articles on the OC Human Rights Commission supposedly being totally in the bag to the APD for various reasons, which I found strained and unconvincing. (Again, this was the “small prey” in my opinion.) Combined, these three had about the same views as Vern’s “The Two Faces of Disney: word vs. deed on Anaheim Districting,” which appeared on the same day as the first of those stories.
So, to the extent that your prey is APD rather than OCHRC, that’s fine. I think that you’re overestimating your impact on them, but I’m still happy to see your contributions. I’d just prefer that you weren’t being an ass about them.
This thread is becoming unnecessarily tendentious.
Hey I really like saying tendentious.
Well there’s a shock.
As I’ve said to you before, I don’t rely on OJ blog crossposts to direct people to my Anaheim Investigator blog.
I could care less what your traffic data says …
Lest we forget: “FAPPING,” as we established here 18 months ago, is the (usually black-magic-influenced) act of running naked and wanking through the streets, as in this tragic incident of Congressman Ed Royce on Commonwealth last year: http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2012/03/can-congressman-ed-royce-be-protected-from-konys-snap-fap-black-magic/
Before anyone ELSE says it, to no one in particular, “I know you are, but what am I?” THERE! So how about filling these boxes with MORE all that “investigative” and ” legal analytical” stuff I HEAR so much about, instead fodder for M.C. to ROTFL.? JMHO.
I think the pond just got smaller.
Are you boys done yet? Good. Now put them away, please, nobody needs to see that. Go find something else to do before I find extra chores for all of you.
Awwww, mommmmmmmm….
Come on, don’t female bloggers have clitoris-measuring fights too? Oh… maybe not…
Perhaps ask (Skally or Willie D(?) for a website suggestion? (Can’t find (whoevers) post about comparative ACA enroll statistics to verify- there goes the joke :(. )
Can’t you all just get along? At least as far as Anaheim and the Kleptocracy are concerned?
Sure. You know what I favor, David. What do Gustavo and Gabriel favor? I mean in practice, not in loose theory.
I don’t know.
But I know there is a common cause. Or at least there should be.
I’ve agreed with that from the start — as have you, Ryan, Cynthia, and other honest conservatives. Politics ought to be what we can do for others. When I see some crack about how a cunical one-line throwaway insult is better for others than a very telling complete transcript of an emergency City Council hearing, though, I have to wonder whether the cause is truly “common.” For some poseurs, the actual cause is always self-aggrandizement.
Duane and GSR ought to be better than that. As for Gustavo — I don’t know whether he actually has deeply felt political ideas that outweigh presenting a public persona where he and his leaders can flatter themselves as being cynically “above the fray.” I wish he were an actual alternative journalist.
So let me get this straight. During the Gaston / Baker / Welter / Quezada reign of terror, I witnessed the following:
The Anaheim PD participating in a conspiracy to harass and intimidate a US born American citizen especially when he resided in the Garden Grove / Anaheim colony / Anaheim Hills area for over 16 years and across 3 separate decades.
Participate in (or aid and abet ) a weapon of mass defamation dropped on the same
Participate in (or aid and abet ) the harassment and intimidation of same in a more vicious manner by criminal civilians
Participate in (or aid and abet) the destruction of same person’s property (specifically his Toyota Camry) courtesy the same set of vicious civilians
Participate in (or aid and abet ) the heinous violation of the privacy of same person’s home
Participate in (or aid and abet ) attempted murder with cop that flees the scene while same person is still pointing in the wrong direction on the Garden Grove freeway
And they at least aided and abetted all of this through their participation in the criminal harassment of same person.
This police department is capable of all of this behind your backs and with your taxpayer money and it’s Chief has the unmitigated audacity to refer to anyone else in Anaheim as criminal.
Raise your hand if you see the problem here.