EDITORIAL

More Fallout in the Pasadena Police Department

There is an old joke about a man who brings an ant into a bar. As he starts talking to another patron, he begins to brag about the ant he has trained. He says it took years and lots of meticulous work but he got the ant to do tricks that dogs and other animals are well known for learning. The ant can stand on his two hind legs, he can roll over on command, and he was proud of the work he had done.

All of a sudden the bartender walks by and seeing the ant he immediately uses his thumb to crush him. End of the story. All of the time, work and effort that the man had put in has gone down the drain. This is the same old story as what happened to America when George Bush took over from Bill Clinton. Our economy, our peace, and our world position got crushed.

This reminds me of what is going on in the city of Pasadena’s Police Department. Chief Bernard Melekian (currently acting Pasadena City Manager) worked hard to build a fine police force. He has overcome racism as far as I can see. I can see this because I have represented various Black Pasadena Municipal employees over the years. Their stories come to me sometimes as their attorney, and sometimes as a newspaper publisher.

I have seen Melikian deal with employees fairly when there was a problem and not let it stop their progress within the police force. You got what you earned under Melekian. If he plays favorites and holds grudges, I haven’t seen it. Now, like the bartender, Chris Vicino has stepped in as the acting role of police chief and is busy crushing the image, reputation for fairness, and efficiency that Melekian has built up. It appears that he is replacing all of that with what appears to be a bold, open brand of racism, favoritism and punishment for those who he doesn’t like.

Vicino is best known as the cop who put Michael ZinZun’s eye out with a flashlight in a display of excessive force against a Black man. He comes to the position of chief with that as a strike against him. However, most people who even knew about that were willing to let it go. But now that the stories of his bombastic style are out, the door is open for everything he does to be examined with the ZinZun affair as a backdrop. In one recent instance he has suspended a Black Lieutenant for allegedly doing a favor for another Black officer on the department’s command staff. The favor was supposedly to help that officer get one of his children into a summer program of some sort where they are recruiting Black kids because not enough are involved.

Not only did Vicino suspend the Lieutenant but found a basis for going after the other Black command staffer. In effect, he got two "brothers" with university degrees and years of experience on the force with one strike. Vicino seems to have forgotten the history of the department includes hiring husbands and wifes, sisters, brothers, fathers, daughters and sons. It seemed race does still matter with him, in spite of the great work that Chief Melekian has done. When will the race based double standard stop?

Interestingly enough the Pasadena Weekly has printed another incidence of apparent unfair treatment of a Filipino employee who served as Vicino’s assistant in its’ July 17th issue. That article mentions an anonymous letter, dated July 2, 2008. Now another letter has surfaced with more if the same allegations. That employee has been on a suspension since January.

I wonder how long the Black officers who have been punished for making Vicino unhappy will have to give up their career. More importantly, how many more Black, Brown and Filipino career employees will lose their careers because of Vicino? Sounds to me like (in Obama’s words) "It’s time for a change." I hope that we will not lose the progress Melekian has made in the Pasadena Police Department.