San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Tensions high with Richmond police union, city officials
The thorny relationship between the Richmond Police Department and its union was laid bare during a City Council meeting Tuesday, when the union president slammed the police chief and city manager for refusing to meet with him.
The public outcry comes in the wake of an internal report — made public in November — that described the Police Department as having an “acrimonious relationship” with the Police Officers Association.
Ben Therriault, president of the police union, expressed confusion during the council meeting over a lack of communication between the parties
and said the tenuous situation has left officers feeling unrecognized and undervalued.
“The fact that we haven’t had a meeting about (the report) is troublesome,” Therriault told The Chronicle.
City Manager Carlos Martinez presented the council with the report Tuesday, and he said the findings were mostly accurate, including details about the department’s broken relationship with the union.
Multiple council members, as well as Mayor Tom Butt, repeatedly asked Martinez and Police Chief Allwyn Brown whether they discussed the report with the union, as well as other internal policy changes that the department is considering.
Both men said meetings had taken place but were not specifically about the issues raised in the report. Therriault said those meetings never happened.
The union, chief and city manager were scheduled for a meeting Dec. 13, but it was canceled for unknown reasons. The police union reacted to the cancellation by accusing city leadership of creating a “filibuster” rather than addressing issues in the report, according to emails obtained by The Chronicle.
“I just don’t understand since this has been talked about since October,” Butt said. “You haven’t just had one confirmed meeting so everybody can get their opinions out on the table. Dismissing their request for a meeting is throwing fuel on the fire.”
The report details the Police Department’s toxic work environment and suggests a lack of leadership is partly to blame. More specifically, Therriault said, the issues within the department go beyond the need for a “culture shift.”
Officers have not been promptly paid overtime, and they’ve been forced to sign letters of discipline under penalty of insubordination, Therriault said. Some pregnant officers were denied their seniority perks, he asserted.
Martinez promised the council he would start including the union in meetings with himself and Brown, particularly when it comes to policy changes that the department faces.
“At the end of the day, we are on the same team,” Martinez said. “We are in front of the public dancing this dance. If we are stepping on each others toes it doesn’t look good. It behooves all of us to come together.”
The dispute comes as the family of Rashanda Franklin, who was slain in April 2017 allegedly by her abusive ex-boyfriend, prepares to file a lawsuit saying Richmond police failed to protect the victim after she called for help the night before her death. Brown has said the officers who responded that night acted properly.
That $15 unlimited taco feast and $25 bottomless mimosa brunch found on Facebook might be too good to be true, according to the Santa Clara district attorney’s office.
People frequently purchase tickets to “all-youcan-eat” events advertised in publications and on social media, but some of those gluttonous extravaganzas were never scheduled to occur in the first place, said Yen Dang, a deputy district attorney.
Event organizers instead have been pocketing the money from Paypal and Shopify transactions and then disappearing before diners realize they’ve been duped.
“With social media, people are posting so many pics of their food, and it all looks so beautiful, and people being outside and enjoying the atmosphere, I think that’s the draw,” Dang said. “It’s around the holidays, everybody wants to celebrate.”
Prosecutors first learned of the fraudulent food fests from the California attorney general’s office. A similar scam case involved an Oakland woman who was recently charged by the Illinois attorney general’s office with stealing $30,000 from customers after advertising fake “all-youcan-eat” events.
Dang declined to give a number on how many people had filed consumer complaints with the Santa Clara district attorney’s office, but noted that the office investigates all allegations. Anyone who has purchased a fake ticket should try to get their money back from their credit card company before filing a report with local law enforcement, officials said.
The Teddy Bear Bandit of San Leandro has been stuffed into an Alameda County jail cell, authorities said.
Andre Benny Murphy, 46, broke the window of a downtown San Leandro flower shop with a BB gun on Oct. 11 and stole flowers and stuffed animals, San Leandro police said Wednesday. The burglary was captured by the store’s video camera.
Some of the teddy bears were found at the home of a female friend of Murphy’s in Alameda, according to police Lt. Isaac Benabou.
The burglar struck at 2 a.m. and made off with two armloads of teddy bears, said store owner Rosa Ramos, who viewed video footage of the theft. Each armload included multiple large stuffed bears, each worth $130. That could place the value of the purloined bears at more than $1,000, Ramos said.
Additionally, Murphy allegedly took several armloads of roses, priced at $30 a dozen.
“It was a Romeo kind of thing,” Ramos said. “I guess it’s romantic. But it’s serious. He was carrying a weapon, even if it was a BB gun. Fortunately, he didn’t do it when the store was open.”
Ramos said it wasn’t the first time a Teddy Bear Bandit had struck. Some weeks earlier, the store’s windows were broken with a BB gun, and teddy bears and flowers went missing. On that occasion, the burglar was seen making his getaway on a bicycle, but Ramos said she couldn’t be sure it was the same man.
Police apprehended Murphy on Dec. 14 in Oakland. Tips from Alameda police in connection with the teddy bear stash at his girlfriend’s apartment led to the arrest. “We know that the suspect had given the stolen flowers and stuffed animals to a female friend,” Benabou said. “Now, the Teddy Bear Bandit will have to find other ways to show his affection." Murphy, who was arrested on suspicion of drug possession and forgery, was being held at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin in lieu of $185,000 bail.