The Votes Are In!
2023 Readers' Choice is back, bigger and better than ever!
View Winners → 
NAACP Calls City Attorneys’ Office ‘Two-Faced’
Pasadena Independent Sep 23, 2015
by
share with
On Disclosure of McDade Shooting Report
The Pasadena Chapter of the NAACP charged that the Pasadena City Attorney’s office last week “is speaking out of both sides of its mouth” on release of the Office of Independent Review Group (OIR) Report on the 2012 shooting of the unarmed African-American youth Kendrec McDade.
The NAACP’s criticism of the City Attorney’s Office arose because of the revelation that its Deputy City Attorney, Javan Rad, obtained an order from the Court of Appeal for the purpose of appealing that Court’s recent determination that the City over-redacted the OIR Report.
The City submitted in the trial court a copy of the Report redacting 20% of it, contending that the redactions were necessary to protect the privacy rights of the police officers who shot McDade; the Court of Appeal decided that the City over-redacted by including OIR criticisms of the City’s police administration. The Court of Appeal set out the City’s overredactions in a sealed Appendix A to its opinion that will be released when the case returns to the trial court. On Wednesday, the NAACP’s attorney, Skip Hickambottom, received a copy of a Court of Appeal Order obtain by Rad that allows him to review Appendix A in order to make “the determination whether the City of Pasadena shall petition the California Supreme Court for review of this court’s opinion.” Hickambottom explained: “A petition for review is the method to appeal to the Supreme Court. The Court’s order allows Rad to review Appendix A solely for that purpose.”
Gary Moody, President of the local NAACP Chapter, issued a statement blasting the City Attorney’s Office for even exploring an appeal of the decision. “The City Attorney’s Office is out of line in considering appeal. Ever since Judge Chalfant told the City Attorney’s office a year ago to ‘stop playing games,’ every spokesperson for the City – including the City Attorney’s office – has claimed that the City wants disclosure of the OIR Report to the maximum extent permitted by law. Before the Court of Appeal decision was issued last Wednesday, the City Attorney’s Office claimed its redacted Report constituted disclosure to the maximum extent permitted by law; the Court of Appeal smacked down that false claim by determining that the City Attorney’s Office over-redacted to protect the police administration. The City Attorney herself told a local newspaper after the Court of Appeal decision came out that she was “pleased” by the decision and awaiting guidance on how much of the Report she can release. It is two-faced for the City Attorney to claim she is pleased while her chief deputy takes steps to appeal the Court of Appeal decision. Consistently with the representations over the last year of the City Attorney and all of the City leadership that they want disclosure to the maximum extent legally permissible, the only thing the City Attorneys’ Office should be doing is preparing to fight the police union’s probable attempt to appeal the Court of Appeal decision.”
Hickambottom said: “The City Attorney’s Office is in a conflicted position on the Court of Appeal decision because it made the redactions that the Court of Appeal criticized as not based on the officers’ privacy interest. While most of the City leadership appears to be supporting the maximum transparency permitted by law, the Court of Appeal decision caught the City Attorney’s Office with its hand in the cookie jar by its over-redactions covering-up criticisms of the City’s police administration. It now has an incentive to appeal the Court of Appeal decision to keep its own questionable conduct from coming out into the open.”
As of today, City has decided not to appeal.
More from Pasadena Independent
