In court papers filed Tuesday in the Public Records Act litigation over release of the Office of Independent Review Group (“OIR”) Report on the Pasadena Police Department killing of unarmed African-American youth Kendrec McDade, the Pasadena City Attorney’s Office was accused of fraudulently misrepresenting that there was an administrative investigation of the killing when there was no such investigation.
The court papers were filed by attorneys for McDade’s mother Anya Slaughter and Pasadena organizations seeking police reform, who are Interveners in the lawsuit initiated by the Pasadena Police Officers Association which tried to suppress the entire OIR Report.
The Interveners’ attorneys cited portions of the OIR Report whose release they obtained a week ago indicating that the Pasadena PD did not conduct any administrative investigation but rather just “repackaged” information from a previous criminal investigation in what the PD called an “administrative review.” However, the court papers allege, as soon as the Pasadena City Attorney began its efforts to redact the OIR Report, they began referring to the process in Court papers as an “administrative investigation” even though there was no further investigation in the administrative process. The court papers detail 76 times that the City Attorney either submitted “false evidence” or made “false representations” that there had been an administrative investigation. They also attach a June 8, 2015, letter from City Manager Michael Beck in which he refers 10 times to a PD administrative investigation.
The court papers filed today contend that the City Attorney’s calling the process an administrative investigation could not have been an innocent mistake, citing the fact that the PD had called the process an “administrative review” until the City Attorney got involved redacting it and that the City Attorney had to know from having the OIR Report and trying to redact portions of it that there was no administrative investigation because the OIR Report criticized the PD for not doing an administrative investigation.
The papers filed Tuesday ask Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant to reconsider his order that there be any redactions to the OIR Report. The court papers are called a “Suggestion” that the Court exercise its inherent power to reconsider its own orders and argue that the misrepresentations are embedded in the Court’s prior Orders. The Pasadena Interveners’ attorney Dale L. Gronemeier said the Suggestion procedure is an alternative to a formal motion and is rarely used, but that it was appropriate in this case because the Court is intending to make a further ruling on December 1 that releases additional redactions and the Suggestion procedure allows a quicker and less formal method of addressing the City Attorneys’ fraud.
The Pasadena City Attorney is Michelle Bagneris. Deputy City Attorney Javan Rad has been the attorney from the City Attorney’s office who has appeared for Pasadena in the lawsuit. The Interveners who are represented by Gronemeier and Skip Hickambottom besides Anya Slaughter, McDade’s mother, are the Pasadena NAACP, the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, ACT, and Kris Ockershauser, local ACLU activist who is the convener of the Coalition for Increased Civilian Oversight of Pasadena Police (“CICOPP”). The Los Angeles Times has also Intervened and is represented by separate counsel.
