Widespread Police Misconduct Reported at Santa Monica College

JUNE 6 UPDATE: Today, The Siege had a wonderful meeting with Dean Judith Penchansky (SMC Disciplinarian) and student Nehasi Lee in response to a false police report that described me as a “disruptive student” at the May 18 event detailed below.

The dean and I had a frank and honest exchange of ideas regarding my encounters with SMC’s police and her office’s duty to follow-up on any complaint lodged by any SMC staff against a student. She came across as reasonable, a good listener and ultimately acknowledged there was nothing for her office to take action over. Hopefully, as a responsible member of the SMC administration, she will relay to others in a position to care and take action, the concerns expressed about pervasive police misconduct at the college.

NEWS: Truly there are many officers of the law, everywhere, who operate day after day as heroes and defenders of the people, protecting our civil and constitutional rights and liberties. They deserve our continual thanks and appreciation for standing between us and the lawless chaos which would ensue without them. This author, on many occasions, has had reason to express appreciation for an officer’s help, especially those from the Los Angeles Police Department.

But there are others who, putting on a badge, believe themselves to be set apart to bully and abuse (click to witness SMC cops in action), at their pleasure, the very citizens they’ve sworn to protect. Usually this bullying happens to those who remain the most unempowered, either by economic class or by education. Students fit in here perfectly. It’s this small percentage of badge-wearers, committing crimes under the color of authority, who deserve our profound contempt and need to be held accountable under the law.

Some victims, unwilling to passively take the abuse, rise to the non-crime of “contempt of cop” and express their outrage at being brutalized. Such a response to victimization, most assuredly, arouses the ire and retaliatory passions of bad cops. Sadly, SMC has too many of these rogue officers (Malone, Champagne, Trump, Hearn, and Echeverria – just for starters) and SMC seems loathe about addressing the problem.

Curiously, bad cops - clueless to the law - respond as if “contempt of cop” is a crime. And using profanity towards such an officer who is abusive, invariably, results in a heavy-handed response from the offended officer(s), despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling 35 years ago in Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971), regarding the defendant’s wearing a jacket proclaiming, “Fuck the Draft” that profanity is constitutionally protected speech.

Amongst numerous later rulings, in 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451 (1987) additionally held that:

“A municipal ordinance that makes it unlawful to interrupt a police officer in the performance of his duty is substantially overbroad and therefore invalid on its face under the First Amendment. The ordinance in question criminalizes a substantial amount of, and is susceptible of regular application to, constitutionally protected speech, and accords the police unconstitutional enforcement discretion, as is demonstrated by evidence indicating that, although the ordinance’s plain language is violated scores of times daily, only those individuals chosen by police in their unguided discretion are arrested.”

And later in their ruling:

“Although the preservation of liberty depends in part upon the maintenance of social order, the First Amendment requires that officers and municipalities respond with restraint in the face of verbal challenges to police action, since a certain amount of expressive disorder is inevitable in a society committed to individual freedom and must be protected if that freedom would survive.”

Such a lack of police restraint and abuse of student rights occurred at the campus newspaper office of the Corsair on Saturday, April 29, 2006.

At approximately 1:00 pm, in response to an invitation from Aaron Howell (then-online editor and ex-editor in chief from the fall semester), we met at his computer in the office of the campus newspaper, the Corsair. When long-time Corsair photographer Morgan Genser – who arriving minutes later and for reasons unknown, has taken an extreme disliking to me – saw that I was meeting with Howell, he called the SMCPD to have me ejected. At no time did Genser personally approach us to register his concerns.

At 1:10 pm, Officer Hearn arrived and demanded to know from me, “Are you supposed to be here?” When I looked to Howell to explain the situation, Hearn commanded, “You look at me when I’m talking to you.” When I suggested that he would get his answer if he would stop interrupting, Officer Malone arrived and escalated the situation to a new level of hostility. Malone demanded that we produce our identifications, although we are both known quite well by the SMCPD from friendlier encounters.

When Howell took exception to the uncalled-for hostility and disrespect from the officers, Malone declared, “You can speak when I tell you to.” Howell responded with “This is fucked.” Malone quickly walked around me and moved nose-to-nose with Howell and proceeded to verbally browbeat him. A few moments later, after I had been ordered out of the office (I immediately exited to just outside the open door.), Malone continued his verbal abuse of Howell.

When Howell’s exit from the room (which Malone had also ordered) was blocked by Malone, Howell responded to Malone’s rising verbal abuse and unreasonableness by calling him a “motherfucker.” Malone instantly lunged at Howell, threw him against the counter, and handcuffed him. I suggested to Howell to not resist and fully cooperate. Hearn ordered me to leave the building. I immediately complied. (These last five paragraphs are extracted from the formal citizen’s complaint, a remedy detailed in section 832.5 of California’s Penal Code, that I am lodging against the two officers.

If you suffer, or have suffered, abuse from any police officer, you should file a formal written complaint. Do not let the watch commander convince you to merely leave a verbal complaint. Those are easily ignored. The Penal Code requires the agency to launch a formal investigation when receiving a formal written complaint and the complaint usually stays in the offending officer’s career file, affecting future raises and job prospects, as well.)

According to Howell, he was immediately suspended pending a meeting with Judith Penchansky, campus disciplinarian. Now reinstated as a student, Howell is no longer the online editor at the Corsair. Barbara Baird, faculty advisor to the Corsair, expressed that it was appropriate for Genser to call the SMCPD to respond to my presence at the paper, ostensibly student-run. The prime offense, as she described it to me, was that a Corsair “policy,” prohibiting anyone not on the paper’s staff from being behind the counter, was violated. Apparently, Howell, despite the authority and respect he has earned for his service to the paper, had no discretion in the matter to allow anyone but Corsair staffers to meet with him in the office. Having been on the Corsair, myself, last spring when the editors acknowledged me as the “most valuable writer,” I know this policy has historically received selective enforcement, at best.

The Siege, by the way, would be delighted to testify on Howell’s behalf in any litigation he brings against Malone, Hearn, and the college for assault and batttery, false imprisonment, and violating his civil rights.

And a further aside: Not that The Siege recommends it – for a number of reasons – but to tell a cop, “Fuck you,” “Fuck off,” “You are a motherfucker,” or any other such colorful and lively verbiage, is protected speech and is not against the law. Wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with “Fuck SMC Police Misconduct” would be similarly protected. In fact, an officer acting against you for thus speaking is, himself, violating your constitutional rights, SMC’s ill-thought-out Student Code of Conduct, notwithstanding. Furthermore, it’s probable that much of SMC’s Code of Student Conduct is unnecessarily vague and ambiguous, and would not survive a legal challenge before a court of law. But most community college students are too unsophisticated and unempowered to fight such a fight, so the ill-constructed code remains in place – for now.

Suppression of Rights to Monitor Police

During a recent May 18 event, I tried to videotape an Associated Student sponsored performance of “the spoken word” in the public “free speech area” at the Clocktower for some positive coverage to put on The Siege, but SMC officers shut me down. When I redirected my videotaping towards them as I tried to discover the basis for their order, they became hostile and repeatedly threatened me. Professional and qualified officers would have known that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Smith vs. City of Cumming, et al., 212 F.3d 1332 [11CA 5/31/00], stated that:

“The First Amendment protects the right to gather information about what public officials do on public property, and specifically, a right to record matters of public interest.”

Since the May 18 police encounter, many students and professors (including Faculty Senate President, Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein) have volunteered descriptions of their own, and other’s, run-ins and victimization at the hands of the wayward SMCPD. These cases are accumulating without even mounting a formal investigation.

The response of the SMCPD to the May 18 event has been to file a false and defamatory incident report against me with the intention of trying to get me suspended. Penchansky, who claims to have received a copy of the report on May 23 (Her office has a copy, but the SMCPD told me on May 25 it would “take up to 10 business days for them to give me a copy.” Both Penchansky and her assistant, Marilyn Goodrich, saw nothing peculiar in the disparity in access to the report.) is requiring a meeting with me to discuss claims by the police that I was “disruptive, argumentative, and rude.” The video at top, will help readers to determine for themselves the truth of these allegations. There is much more similar footage from that day’s encounters, with the behavior of all parties remaining consistent, and thus further damning for the officers.

It should be known that the publisher of The Siege has worked in a sector of the legal field for over 15 years. I engage officers-of-the-law on a regular basis in my work and over 95 percent of the time find myself expressing appreciation for a job well done. Sheriffs, police, ex-CHP commanders, attorneys, judges and others number amongst my friends. There’s a daily basketball game near downtown where one could play pick-up games with a lot of these folks. Many of these people are terrific defenders of the people. Contempt of cop is reserved for those whose performance under the color of authority is an abuse of that authority and suppresses the rights of people. The Siege has zero tolerance for such behavior.

If you have been a victim of SMC police misconduct and abuse, please write to The Siege at main@thesiegeonline.net. Various legal avenues of redress are being pursued to hold the SMCPD, the college’s administration – under whom the police directly operate – and the board of trustees accountable for the culture of fear and intimidation created by such a police force. Do not allow your victimization go unchallenged. Together we can bring to an end this blight on our community.