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rosemeadreader.com
Thursday, March 3, 2016 - March 9, 2016
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Los Angeles County Sheriffs Patrolling the Streets of Sierra Madre by Night
COMPLIMENTARY COPY VOLUME 20, NO. 9 OPINION
Attorney Says Sierra Madre Cheating Investigation ‘Inadequate’
BY DALE L. GRONEMEIER
Deputies are now patrolling the streets of Sierra Madre in the evening hours.
BY TERRY MILLER It is kind of a watershed moment when a huge agency like the Los Angeles County Sherriff’s Department (LASD) takes over, albeit allegedly temporarily, the night-time patrols for the Sierra Madre Police Department (SMPD). In fact it has been greeted with a lot less fanfare than initially expected. Our friends over at The Sierra Madre Tattler have kind of a very funny way of looking at all things Sierra Madre, so we thought we would share a few of his [John Crawford’s] recent tidbits. And no matter who you
talk to, many people in town do read John Crawford’s blog … here is how the illustrious Crawford covered the first night of LASD patrolling the mean streets of Sierra Madre: “Get out your party hats and cameras and help bring in what could be the beginning of an entirely new era in the storied history of Sierra Madre. Tonight [Sunday] the badly self-depleted SMPD steps aside and the men and women of the LASD begin patrolling the streets of this town. It's been a long time coming, and while the LASD might not have been the first choice of city hall (requests for patrols from practically every other city in the San Gabriel Valley were rejected),
- File Photo by Terry Miller
in the end this could very well have been the best one. Here is how the big event is discussed in the latest edition of the always pertinent and even, at times, transparent city manager's report (www. cityofsierramadre.com/ UserFiles/Servers/Server_212309/File/City%20 Manager%20Report%20 2016-0226.pdf): Sheriff Evening Patrols Begin This Weekend Beginning on Sunday, at 6 p.m., deputies from the LASD will be patrolling Sierra Madre from 6 p.m. until 6 a.m. Please continue to call the SMPD business line at (626) 355-1414 or 911 for emergencies. Sierra Madre dispatchers (city staff) will
be in the station 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the police lobby will remain open 24/7. This week, police staff met the Sheriff Deputies who will be patrolling Sierra Madre, and the deputies are all experienced law enforcement professionals with a minimum of seven years of experience. They received an orientation and went on a general tour of the city. “Some people are happy about this and see it as the first in a series of steps that will save Sierra Madre lot of money while significantly improving public safety services in town. Others have taken it as a personal affront to their rather costly specialness and
are in a bit of a huff. Hopefully they can get past themselves and come to realize that the benefits far outweigh any of the erroneous drawbacks they like to cite. “It must be noted here that the depletion of the SMPD was caused by officers voluntarily resigning and leaving under their own volition. Nobody made them do it. This despite the special relationship some in town claim to have with the SMPD. Apparently that affair has been a one-sided one, and for many members of the police department the opportunity to make a little more dough elsewhere was enough to shatter those mythical bonds. At least for them.”
Whoever conducted the 2011 Sierra Madre Elementary School cheating investigation did not want to find the truth. If the 2011 investigation actually sought the truth, further measures such as interviewing all students and doing erasure detection testing of the test papers would have been used. My rationale for the statement set out below, while perhaps loquacious, remains my view after thinking about it overnight. Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) did not lose or destroy the Sierra Madre test documents like it lost or destroyed the Roosevelt documents. The investigation was plainly inadequate. PUSD should have investigated the case more than the superficial examination it conducted of a few students and accepting the teacher's denial. There was some evidence that the teacher was coaching the students; uncritically believing the teacher's denial was not a best practice for investigations. Minimizing the infraction as limited to only three students was unjustified because it is as probable that the teacher was engaged in systematically coaching students as it was that he or SEE PAGE 16