This morning I received a note from the father of Tyler Rushing, the man who was shot by a security guard and finally killed by Chico police when he was found inside a Downtown business late at night.
“There has been 28 fatal “Officer Involved Shootings” during the years Michael Ramsey has been the Butte County DA and he and his team have likely spent thousands of hours, at taxpayer expense, to investigate these fatal shootings. Three killings in 2017, including my son. The DA will be assigning his team to respond to any legal challenge. It seems that the DA is extremely cavalier with his use of taxpayer dollars.
Chico Police Department Sergeant Scott Ruppel, has chosen to retire, announced in December, 2017, with a very lucrative pension, rather than cooperate with an Internal Affairs Investigation for strangling a restrained suspect in August, 2017. The taxpayer will have to pay this substantial pension to an officer, age 51, for the rest of his life.”
I wasn’t there, and the video footage I saw on the news was confusing and useless, so I don’t know what happened that night. I only know, Scott Ruppel actually did retire abruptly when faced with an internal investigation, and is currently being charged with assault for another incident that happened while he was still with the force.
According to a story from North State Public Radio, “The [assault] charge was filed Wednesday [Dec. 20, 2017] against Sgt. Scott Ruppel by Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey. Ruppel served for 20 years on the force, prior to his abrupt retirement Sept. 14. Ruppel was scheduled to appear before internal affairs investigators the same day. [for the shooting of Rushing]“
Wow, I had no idea these investigations were voluntary, and I also wonder why Ruppel was still on the force to strangle a guy in December when he had retired “abruptly” in September.
There’s things I’ve witnessed that made me want to confront members of Chico PD or even Butte County sheriff, but my husband always says, “you want to end up like Ellen Burstyn in ‘Requiem for a Dream”?
So you ask me how I feel about these incidents, I don’t know what to say. We have horrible cops, and a piece of crap DA – Ramsey once used county money to have a calendar made for his office, in which he and his staff dressed as the Elliot Ness gang and posed with antique cars. You think he gives a crap about the taxpayers’ money?
But here’s the thing – he keeps getting elected. So do the same trolls that hire our police chief. Whose fault is that?
I’m sorry for Tyler Rushing’s family. I’m sorry for the Phillips. It makes me sick what happened to their kids. But aside from an open war against the cops, the only resolution I see is elect better people, get more citizens involved in government, and push for better behavioral health services.
Right now, we have too many people collecting salaries for doing nothing, and too many citizens who believe they don’t have time to do anything about it. Apathy is a sickness, and it spreads like the flu.
I swear, if I could just get five more Chicoans to attend meetings of various agencies, pay close attention, write more letters to the editors of the paper and comment on this blog about what is actually going on instead of what they think is going on, things would change around here.
Don’t wait until it’s your kid.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
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