IN BED WITH THE COPS: Financial records from the City of Anaheim show that since July 2006, OC Human Relations has received $67,955 from the Anaheim Police Department. Of that amount, $22,251, or 33% of the entire total, was disbursed between November 2011 and September 2012 alone.
The Anaheim Investigator has recently obtained copies of emails, invoices, check request forms, and other documents from the City of Anaheim which show that Anaheim Police Chief John Welter approved a special $5,000 payment to OC Human Relations as a reward for “crisis services” they rendered on behalf of the Anaheim Police Department in connection with “Anna Dr. neighborhood unrest and gang member arrests” occurring in July and August of last year.
This payment and others made to OC Human Relations by Chief Welter raises serious questions about what role, if any, this agency might play in the proposed police oversight committee that could be formed by the City of Anaheim. Since there is now proof this organization is dependent on cash infusions from the Anaheim Police Department to do some of its “work,” how can any of its employees be trusted to be fair and impartial in matters pertaining to resident complaints about police brutality and misconduct?
Click on the following link for the whole story:
I find it difficult to believe that this Human Relations Committee would do anything other than try to create peaceful human relations, and it sounds like they were paid to “pacify” the public. but if this is not the case then please let us know.
Sounds like you are correct about questioning the ethics of their involvement with any police oversight commission though.
I don’t see a problem with its working to tamp down tensions in a crisis where another blow-up was almost surely going to harm people like those protesting on Anna Drive.
I do see a problem with being informants, helping to target individuals for police attention,, if that’s what they did. (I can’t tell whether they’re accused of doing so.) That’s a breach of trust that undermines the group’s future efforts if it ever comes out — as the fact of the payment just has.
I see a problem if they were promised payment at the time and didn’t disclose it to the community.
I see a problem with the “optics” of their taking this money now and keeping it. I see a solution, though. Let’s ask a neighborhood association in Anna Drive whether they appreciate that the Commission did — and from what I can tell from here they may well have helped to prevent future violence by police against the residents if Anna Drive, or if they’d prefer to see the money go for some neighborhood improvement project of their choosing.
If they want the Commission to keep that money, great. If not, I thing it would be worth it for all concerned for the Commission to donate it to the traumatized community — and not to accept what looks like “money for services” again out of the public’s notice.
“I do see a problem with being informants, helping to target individuals for police attention,, if that’s what they did. (I can’t tell whether they’re accused of doing so.)”
I believe this is a sequel to Duane’s FIRST “Investigator” story, which DOES accuse them of that:
http://anaheiminvestigator.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/emails-reveal-oc-human-relations-gathered-info-from-anna-drive-residents-and-forwarded-it-to-anaheim-police-chief/
I’m glad Duane went ahead and “cross-posted” his story here; he shoulda done that with his first one; you-all should read ’em both. Meanwhile Duane’s new blog, the Anaheim Instigator, I mean Investigator (kidding), is down to the right on our blogroll under “Other Local Blogs We Like!”