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Puliafito 8/25
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Local union takes activists to task for questioning officer’s actions
Aug 24, 2017 | Pasadena Weekly
By Andre Coleman
The treasurer of the Pasadena police union took local activists to task last week at a meeting of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee after it was suggested that an officer intentionally covered up information in a high-profile drug overdose case. -
USC Graduate Student’s Body Found in Dorm Room About a Week After His Death
Aug 25, 2017 | KTLA5
By Melissa Pamer
The body of a 24-year-old student found in a USC dorm room had been there for up to a week before his death was discovered, authorities said Thursday.
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Local union takes activists to task for questioning officer’s actions
Aug 24, 2017 | Pasadena Weekly
By Andre Coleman
The treasurer of the Pasadena police union took local activists to task last week at a meeting of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee after it was suggested that an officer intentionally covered up information in a high-profile drug overdose case.
Activists and community members have been claiming that officer Alfonso Garcia should have made an arrest on March 6, 2016, after answering a call for service at the Hotel Constance, located at the corner of Colorado Boulevard and Catalina Avenue.
In that case, Sarah Warren, 21, was rushed to Huntington Hospital after she overdosed on gamma hydroxyl butyric acid, also known as GHB, or the date rape drug.
Neither Warren nor her companion, former USC Dean of Medicine Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito, were arrested or issued citations for illegal drug possession or use. Puliafito was later fired after his double life of drugs and excessive behavior was exposed in a series of stories published by the Los Angeles Times beginning on July 17.
After investigating the incident, Garcia failed to write an incident report. The report was later written in June 2016 after the Times began asking questions about the incident.
After the story was published on July 17, city officials released details about the incident, including a timeline of Garcia’s movements during the investigation and audio and written interviews.
City Manager Steve Mermell said the willingness to share the information “shows the city of Pasadena is open and transparent.”
According to written reports, Pasadena Police Officers Association (PPOA) Treasurer David Llanes criticized the city for revealing that Garcia had been disciplined for not writing a report. City officials admitted the officer was disciplined but never revealed the nature of the disciplinary action or his full name.
“It’s ironic that [people] are blasting the police and are trying to criminalize a situation where the individual needs help,” said Llanes.
“In the eyes of our members this is National Enquirer news,” Lanes said of the incident involving Puliafito. “She got the help. We made sure she got the help she needed.”
Garcia was a rookie police officer at the time of the incident involving Puliafito, according to Pasadena Police Chief Phillip Sanchez, who said Garcia had received additional training after it was discovered that he failed to file an incident report.
GHB is commonly used in sexual assault crimes and very quickly leaves victims confused and weak, sometimes unable to move. In many cases, victims suffer memory loss.
Garcia recovered 1.6 grams of methamphetamine at the Constance, but no arrests were made because the owner of the drugs could not be established.
Garcia properly collected and preserved the evidence at the scene, said Sanchez.
Six hours after the overdose, Puliafito showed up at Huntington Hospital. He left the facility with Warren and the pair went back to the hotel, Warren told the Times.
“This report is untransparent,” said local attorney Dale Gronemeier. “It is evasive and it is a whitewash and we need an independent investigation because this doesn’t cut it.”
“The whole incident doesn’t pass the smell test,” said local ACLU member and police critic Kris Ockerhauser. “There was no effort to interview his girlfriend after she was released from the hospital.”
Ockerhauser called for an independent investigation of the incident. So far, no plans have been announced for an outside probe.
Ockerhauser and several others renewed their calls for civilian oversight of the Pasadena Police Department.
“The only person that looked into this is you,” Ockerhauser said to Sanchez.
“If they were black, would everyone have gone home without being arrested?” Joyce Perry asked the committee. “Are you applying justice equally across the board?”
The possession of methamphetamines is currently a misdemeanor and the incident most likely only would have generated a citation, according to Sanchez, who also cited the Good Samaritan law prohibiting overdose victims and people who report overdoses from being arrested.
Last year, the department did not make arrests in more than 20 overdose cases, according to Sanchez.
“Part of what was in the officer’s mind was this probably falls under the Good Samaritan law,” Sanchez said. “And there is likely not going to be an arrest or citation for what was found in the room.”
Sanchez said the rookie officer was still on probation with the department at the time of the incident. Sanchez reiterated that the officer should have written a report.
“Our policy says a report should be taken,” Sanchez said. “The Good Samaritan does not supercede our policy.”
Sanchez said that since the incident he has reminded all officers in the department to file timely incident reports.
The department has more than 20 new officers that have been hired to fill the void left by retiring veterans and others that left the department after going years without a raise.
The PPOA represents all corporals and officers on the force and serves as their bargaining unit in talks with the city.
In the past, the PPOA has worked to block the release of information to local residents regarding police officer shootings.
In 2007, the department filed an injunction to prevent then-Pasadena Police Chief Bernard Melekian from releasing the names of the police officers that shot Leroy Barnes during a traffic stop in Northwest Pasadena.
Barnes was a passenger in a vehicle stopped by police on Mentone Avenue. When police approached the vehicle, Barnes refused to take his hands out of his backpack and a struggle ensued in the backseat of the vehicle. After Barnes rolled out of the vehicle with the weapon, police opened fire and shot him. Barnes was shot 11 times.
In 2015, the PPOA staged a lengthy battle to prevent the city from releasing a report filed by an outside group on the performance of two police who fatally shot Kendrick McDade.
McDade was shot and killed in March 2012 after a caller claimed that McDade and another teen robbed him at gunpoint at a taco stand on Orange Grove Boulevard. Unlike Barnes, McDade was unarmed.
The union lost both cases, and the released reports revealed that officers had violated procedure in both incidents.
“That officer did his job to the best of his abilities. In an age when we are decriminalizing the use of drugs, the use of marijuana, you are criminalizing the police,” Llanes said of the incident involving Puliafito.
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USC Graduate Student’s Body Found in Dorm Room About a Week After His Death
Aug 25, 2017 | KTLA5
By Melissa Pamer
The body of a 24-year-old student found in a USC dorm room had been there for up to a week before his death was discovered, authorities said Thursday.
The man’s body was discovered Wednesday afternoon after a maintenance worker detected a strong smell coming from a dorm room at Seaver Residence Hall, according Los Angeles Police Department Detective Jose Ramirez.
The victim was identified as Jacob Kelley, a first-year student in a master’s program in medical physiology. The dean of the medical school named Kelley in a letter to the USC Keck School of Medicine community.
“It was with great sadness that we write to inform you of the passing of a member of our Keck School community,” Dr. Rohit Varma wrote.
The young man had been there for five to seven days before he was discovered, the LAPD detective said. It’s not clear how he died.
The residence hall is at 1969 Zonal Ave. on the university’s health sciences campus in north Boyle Heights, several miles from the main USC campus.
The county coroner’s office, which has taken over the case, said only that the individual was a white male of unknown age who was found “slightly decomposed.” The body was discovered about 2:18 p.m. Wednesday, coroner Assistant Chief Ed Winter said.
Kelley’s family has been informed, Varma said.
An autopsy is pending, Ramirez said.
An LAPD spokeswoman initially referred calls about the case to USC’s Department of Public Safety, where Assistant Chief David Carlisle said the death did not appear to be a “criminal thing.”
The Daily Trojan first reported the death.
The medical school has been in the spotlight in recent weeks after the Los Angeles Times reported in mid-July that the former dean, a top fundraiser named Carmen Puliafito, was allegedly a habitual drug abuser who partied with criminals and prostitutes. Puliafito resigned in March 2016.
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