Tag Archives: Mike Ramsey Butte County Ca

Why are serial criminals released again and again, only to commit more violent crimes? Ask your county supervisors, ask Mike Ramsey.

7 Apr

I had the news on yesterday evening while I was getting dinner together, and I heard a name I recognized – James Henry Newsome.

Newsome is being sought by the Butte County Sheriff’s office for failure to appear.  He is accused of starting fires – usually garbage cans or dumpsters – including the firebombing of an apartment near Chico State. He was seen throwing “something burning” into the window of the apartment, and by the time Chico Fire arrived on scene the inside of the room he torched was a complete loss.

I used to have a picture posted here –

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2016/05/21/there-is-no-accountability/

the young resident’s bed was completely incinerated, the mattress just gone, the metal frame twisted up into what looked like modern art. Can you imagine what would have happened if the woman had been home that night? 

But this man was released, having been released time and time again.  And now we are supposed to be surprised that he has wandered off to wreak havoc somewhere else? 

Or is he still hiding here, camped out under a tangle of blackberry vines in Bidwell Park, waiting to set your trash can on fire one night? 

Our county supervisors and district attorney are to blame here. Ask your county supervisor why Chico has become a dumping ground for violent criminals, demand that Ramsey spend more money and time prosecuting these people.

We are really to blame for this problem if we don’t demand action from our elected officials. Ramsey, Wahl and Kirk are all up for re-election in 2018, let them know that. 

 

 

Tags: , , ,

Who would have known Feaster was so well connected? Well, that’s the way things work around here – you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours!

21 Dec

What do we know about Paradise police officer Patrick Feaster? 

We’ve seen the films – I tried not to watch, but they’ve played it again and again – the body of a living human being being rolled over by a car and left like a mannequin in the road. A head pops out of the top of the car like a jack-in-the-box, jolts violently, and disappears back into the car. 

Something that bugs the hell out of me is that Feaster never once bends over the woman’s body. I mean, she might have been alive still, needed somebody to say something, comfort her a little. I can’t believe he acts as though she’s not even there. 

It’s a snuff movie, I can’t believe Ch 12 and 7 would just play it again and again. We need to see it? I don’t need to see it – I already know, you don’t want to mess with Paradise police. Ask Robert Funk, whose arm was almost twisted off by Paradise police officer Robert “RJ” Pickering.  Mr. Funk was celebrating his own birthday with friends at his Paradise eatery, when he had to use the bathroom out back. Pickering saw him and said he thought Funk was a prowler. He yanked open the bathroom door and forced Funk out of the bathroom, grabbing his arm and twisting it behind his back as Mr. Funk protested he was the property owner.  I thought that was also incompetence on Pickering’s part. Funk had owned a well-known eatery for years. In a town that size, the cops should know people.  Mr. Funk ended up with a dislocated arm and a pantsfull of his own excrement. He sued the city and won an undisclosed amount, but I just saw RJ in a news piece about a month ago, acting like a spokesman for Paradise PD.

I’ve known little RJ since he was a child, and if anybody had asked me, I could have told them he’s got a suitcase full of problems. But nobody asked me. They really need to do further background checks on these people before they give them the authority to maim, kill or just plain humiliate people.  They should also have to live in the town where they serve, so people know them too.

Patrick Feaster also apparently grew up around here. In fact, he’s very well connected. His dad is with Chico School District – I remembered his name, he’s one of the salaries that adds to the cost of educating your kid, but adds nothing to your kid’s education. But young Feaster has a more well-known relative – former Butte County Supervisor Jane Dolan.

http://m.krcrtv.com/officer-patrick-feaster-wins-madd-award-for-efforts-arrest-drunk-drivers/37022600

This story above is apparently from last year. There is speculation among the comments included in the link that Feaster is getting special treatment, and also that he is too zealous about getting drunk drivers because of the award. I wonder myself – if he saw these folks exit the bar, having been kicked out for being intoxicated and rowdy, why did he let them get in the car? Why didn’t he flash that red light right on the spot? I wonder – did Thomas see the cop car behind him, and lose control of the car? 

And what about the person(s) at the bar, who, knowing Thomas was intoxicated, let him leave in a car? Don’t bars have some responsibility? You’re not supposed to serve an intoxicated person.  It takes some booze for a guy to get that drunk. 

This whole sad affair leaves a lot of questions about how the county deals with their own personnel. We need more outside, non-affiliated oversight here. Butte County is starting to resemble Hazzard County, and Ramsey is starting to look like Boss Hogg. 

UPDATE: This has made a national splash –

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/outrage-police-shooting-drunk-driver-paradise-california-officer-patrick-feaster/

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/12/14/california_officer_shoots_suspected_drunk_driver_in_dashcam_video.html

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/Northern-California-Police-Shooting-Patrick-Feaster-DUI-Suspect-362426641.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/officer-shot-dui-suspect-charges_566b31a9e4b0fccee16e924f

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/mistakenly-shot-suspect-not-charged-article-1.2464035

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-california-officer-shooting-20151219-story.html

 

 

Tags: , ,

There’s a revolving door on the jailhouse at O-ville

20 Dec

You know I hate being negative all the time, it’s nice to have something positive to talk about once in a while. But, I’m a skeptic, it’s hard not to wonder – how long will a good thing last?

Just as I was working myself to a state of total paranoia about crimes in my hood, I see Chico PD has been ARRESTING CREEPS!

From this morning’s Enterprise Record:

“The Chico Police Department made arrest in three separate incidents Thursday night that included burglary and possession of a stolen gun.”

The first arrestee was pulled over for a vehicle code violation early Thursday evening at West First and Walnut. Chico PD officers  also found the man in possession of loaded stolen gun and crank.  The gun had been reported stolen here in town previously this year.

A local man who grew up in Red Bluff and describes himself as “self-employed in Chico”, this guy was just arrested in January of this year for a similar violation – possession of a firearm by a felon, as well as “receiving stolen property not exceed [sic] $950″

Boek was booked into Butte County jail on a variety of weapon and drug charges.”

My question being, why were the charges in January dismissed? 

Why doesn’t the ER ever do the simple homework I just did on this guy – I entered his name here:

http://www.buttecourt.ca.gov/online_index/Search.cfm

I really don’t know if the ER is incompetent or they are just trying to protect the police and DA’s office.

Another repeat offender was picked up later that same night in the same neighborhood as he was “riding a bicycle away from a vehicle with a broken window”  This man was found in possession of bolt cutters – considered a “burglary tool” in the code – and stolen credit cards and “electronics.” 

I’m glad these cops are paying attention, this is just what we need – but this guy was just arrested a month and a half ago for the roughly the same thing – possession of “burglary tools” and drugs – “opiods” – I’m going to guess those had been stolen.

This man was held for just over a month without ever making a plea, and then was for some reason released “o/r” – on his own recognizance – on December 9. He was picked up again just Thursday night, and booked back into jail on Friday, the 18, just over a week after he was released back onto the streets to endanger lives and steal from people.

I must offer my congratulations to his lawyer, a former tenant of mine, Saul Henson.

Thursday night was a busy night for Chico PD! You have to wonder, aren’t there any crimes committed the rest of the week? 

“Police took a report of two residential burglaries Thursday night on the 700 block of Eastwood Avenue and the 1000 block of Cypress Street, both near Ninth Street.

The residents were sleeping during the burglaries, according to a press release. In one incident, a resident woke up and saw a suspect in his bedroom.

The suspect fled in one of the victim’s vehicles. At about 2 a. m. Friday, an officer saw the stolen vehicle on Warner Street near West Second Avenue, according to the release.

Officers pulled over the vehicle and arrested Shilo Squires, 19, of Gridley.

Squires was identified as the subject who was seen in one of the homes. Most of the property from the residential burglaries was in the vehicle, the release said.

Squires was booked into Butte County jail on charges of burglary, possession of stolen property, and possession of a stolen vehicle.”

This is a sad story. Shilo Squires is a kid from Gridley. He has been in trouble in Chico since April of this year, caught driving a car without a license. 

In August he was charged twice in 5 days – first for receiving stolen property. This first case is confusing – actually arrested in July, he was allowed off on his own recognizance. He was rearrested and charged in August, bailed out at $10,000. 

Three days later he was cited for being in the park “after hours.” He was not held, but given a $508 ticket and a court date of September 17 to dispute it. He neither showed nor paid the fine.

Squires had jumped bail by November, the DA issued another warrant for his arrest. He was caught burglarizing these people mentioned above – broke into their house while they were sleeping –  December 18. 

Squires had received “o/r” on his previous charges even though he had prior charges in Butte County, he received bail even though he’d failed to appear several times and warrants had to be re-issued for his arrest. And now they catch him in the act of new crimes.

I can’t help but wonder what the hell is going on at Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey’s office. Here we are, hiring new cops, paying outrageous salaries and benefits for our hired guns, but when they take the perps to O-ville, they encounter a revolving door.

Furthermore we have this situation with Mad Dog Feaster – yes, I’d like to see Mike Ramsey recalled, so we don’t have to pay his frigging pension.

Tags: ,

City councilor blames county DA for “drinking problem” – why should the cops arrest these kids or the college throw them out if Ramsey won’t prosecute?

31 Aug

I am an alumnus of Chico State. I think I finally graduated about 1991 – I didn’t know, you had to apply to graduate, I finished the classes they told me to take and sat around waiting for my
diploma in the mail for about six months before somebody finally told me I had to fill out forms and lay down $75 before they’d officially let me out of that insane asylyum.

I did well enough – “suma cum laude” – had to look that up. I’ll admit, a lot of those ‘A’s were for “apple polishing,” but I was just glad to get the hell out of there.  I had my problems, mostly trying to stay awake in class.  One thing I never did was fall in a puddle of my own puke or get arrested for any bad behavior.

My cousin Charley had lived in town for years, he went to PV High.   When I enrolled at Chico State, our grandmother’s Alma Mater, he was working at Gepetto’s. My first Pioneer week, I went in to have a cup of coffee with him while he was prepping the kitchen before opening one morning. He told me, “go to Gramma’s Teet, I’ll see you there later.” Apparently he’d gone out of the restaurant earlier that morning to take the trash, at about 10 am, and encountered a pack of sorority sisters egging a police car. The cops had pulled over, got out, and were watching the attack from a safe distance. “It’s going to be a bad weekend,” Charley predicted. With that I left for class – some teachers insisted on holding class during Pioneer week, there was a pretty solid divide through the faculty on this matter. Some of them felt the kids should be allowed to have fun, others had tried to fight it for years and gave up. But it seemed all my teachers were holding that thin blue line. I had to go to class, under threat of failure. 

I also needed to pay my PG&E bill, so I headed over toward Salem. Walking back toward the college I encountered my first revelers – I was meandering along Third or Fourth Street, passing a two story house with an upstairs deck, when a beer bottle smashed on the sidewalk a few feet ahead of me. “Oops!” I heard from above. A girl, looking pretty drunk, leaned over the railing to apologize. “Sorry!” she sniggered. At this point, I suddenly realized – my cousin Charley was one of the more level-headed members of our family.  I went to my class, I went home, I loaded my cats in my car, and I headed for my grandmother’s house over in Glenn County. 

Charley came out later, we had the usual “dab dinner” (leftovers), and turned on the news. Oh yeah, that was the Big One. “Student” parties had gone out of control, a riot had broke out in the intersection of Fifth and Ivy. The laundromat on the corner was trashed, a fire started in the street using furniture from the laundromat, and a news van responding to the scene was overturned by rioters. Turns out, that was a good weekend to spend at Gramma’s with the cats! 

I think that was the first time, in modern history, that the students had got that out-of-control. Most of those arrested were enrolled at one or another of our local colleges.  Since then, we’ve had similar but smaller incidents at the beginning of almost every semester. When they “cancelled” Pioneer Week to stop it, Halloween became a problem, then Cesar Chavez Day? 

My grandmother  told me, the college has always been some sort of problem. Back in “The Day,” it was sexual assaults. Yep, back in the “good old days,” men would flock to Chico every weekend to pick up some babes! Some times the babes weren’t so willing to be picked up! And sometimes it wasn’t randy farm boys – it was male teachers and students. My grandmother gave me stern advice about going to male professor’s offices alone, or letting men walk me home at night. “Better to be all knees and elbows,” she’d say, meaning “Run home,” and stay under the street lights.  

So, don’t waste my time telling me what a nice town Chico  was – it’s never been a perfect town, there’s always been problems associated with bringing 15,000 non-residents into your town without doing any sort of background check.

So, this semester we had the obligatory bottle and rock assault on Chico PD. I don’t know how we’d start the semester without it! I don’t know how the cops would get their foot in the door for more funding if they didn’t have these barreled fish to hold up to council as a threat during contract talks. This year, as always, the Chief has made his “Zero Tolerance” speech – oh, I’m so scared Kirk! You say that every year, Muloney said it, they’ve all said it.  We’re still waiting for you to explain what “zero tolerance” means. 

To me, it means, for certain infractions, you only get one chance, and then you’re out. But, looking over the police reports and the Butte County Superior Court case index, you’ll see some people making repeated violations with alcohol. For example, a Chico State student who’d been arrested for “minor driving under the influence” in 2011 was just arrested again at a party on Hazel for “disorderly conduct, alcohol.” He lists his current age as 20, so that’s two violations we know of involving minor in possession of alcohol within the last two years. Why did Chico State accept this person as a student? They wouldn’t get into one of my rentals, and my neighbors are glad to hear that.

I guess either of the colleges would have a problem trying to reject or kick out these kids without a conviction. That’s where Mike Ramsey comes in. I see most of those arrested for “disorderly conduct, alcohol” are transferred to the county jail. But, I can’t find their name in the case index, I guess it takes a while. I will try to do more research.

But, in an e-mail conversation regarding the “community drinking problem,” councilor Sean Morgan told me,  “To the drunk in public comments. Here we are in complete agreement. When someone is arrested for Drunk in Public they are taken to the Oroville Jail, kept overnight, and, are your ready for this???!! Released the next day! No fine. No consequence. The DA won’t prosecute them. Not enough time he says.”

“He” being, I assume, Mike Ramsey.

Wow, that’s a gobstopper – why should the cops arrest these people knowing they won’t be prosecuted? How will the college know they have a police record, that they’ve caused problems in their host town, if the DA doesn’t prosecute these people? 

I mean, real problems for real people. I had a friend who rented a store front Downtown, it had been a dream of hers to revamp and reopen a long-time Downtown landmark beauty parlor. I don’t think she lasted there a year. Twice drunks broke her front window – witnesses said one drunk just tripped and plowed right in, another was shoved by a companion. Both times, the police had contact with the perpetrators, but because there was no arrest or names obtained, and because the repair was under the deductible on her insurance, she had to pay for it herself. That will drive you out of business.  

The police must be too frustrated to arrest these rowdy troublemakers – I notice, they make a big stink about an out-of-control party, but you check the arrest logs for August 24 – 28, and you don’t see very many arrests for that Ivy Street area, or the Hazel Street party recently in the news. According to the news reports, and the video and photos still running on the Enterprise Record website, they should have brought in a net and corralled the whole bunch, dozens of rowdies. I think it’s illegal to hit anybody with a bottle, or a rock, or any projectile, for that matter, but I see no such arrests for that Ivy Street area on any night around the 24 – you look,  maybe I missed them.

http://www.chico.ca.us/Police/documents/WeeklyArrests.pdf

I do see arrests for alcohol related offenses scattered over the last couple of weeks, but alot of those are people well over college age, with occupations like, “Build.com” and “cleans taco wagons,” etc.  You see the pictures, hear the stories – why aren’t more students arrested? 

I also found the arrest records for that “gang” that was hanging around the railroad tracks at night, robbing people. This has gone on as long as there’s been a bike  trail down there, it should be easy pickings for smart cops to bust people like this. Instead they wait until the beginning of the semester, when new college kids are in town, and roust the bad kids in a big raid. Once. Check the names in that story, you’ll also see them in the arrest report. Then check the court index – I found several of those people had been arrested before for similar offenses, some of them involving methamphetamine. Recently, this year. But they’re still out, available to terrorize the college kids? 

We have a real problem with our local law enforcement, and I’d say, since County District Attorney Mike Ramsey is the highest paid and highest placed officio involved, his is the head that stinks. Ramsey’s problem is, he’s a total egomaniac. He thinks he’s Elliot Ness – one year, he used public money to have himself and his staff dressed in period clothing and posed next to some Ness-era cars for a calendar shoot. Dressed up like Elliot Ness. What a crazy bastard. 

And who does this Ness-wannabee protect us from? Oh, gross, egregious environmental violators, like George Scott, of Chico Scrap. George Scott has run salvage operations in this area for years, he’s kept abreast of the ever-changing rules, and I’d say, run a pretty good business. What would you do, bury that old washer in your back yard? We just took an old water heater over there – I guess I just could have told my husband – “put it in the back of the F-150 and drive it over to one of the double-letter roads in Glenn County, roll it out along a rice field…”  What would we do without businesses like Chico Scrap? 

But for some reason, Ramsey has taken on this business, to the point of harassment. Meanwhile, he won’t dirty his hands with “Chico’s Drinking Problem.” 

Ramsey is elected again and again because no attorney from around here with any sense would run against him. Ramsey is a vindictive ass – look what he did to Bill Hill! Took his teenage daughter’s clothes! Run against that guy, and lose to his Democratic party machine, you’re sending out invitations to your own ass-kicking. 

The voters could help by mounting a recall. Needs to happen, not sure who will try it. George Scott already put alot of money into that carpet bagger he ran last time – not that I blame him, who would he have got from around here? I don’t know if he would be interested in financing a recall campaign.  But that’s the only way we will get rid of Mike Ramsey. And he’s the real “drinking problem”.

Tags: , , , , ,