Santa Ana police union President John Kachirisky is raising concerns about city council members’ decision to hire outside investigators to launch a probe into police officers that threw a man from the front hood of a police cruiser to the street and beat him.
While Kachirisky said in a Thursday evening Instagram post, that “the incident captured on video on October 1st involving two of our members has raised serious concerns for the Santa Ana Police Officers Association,” he also took issue with city council members public comments on the controversy.
“Some went as far as to call for the immediate termination of our members before the established investigative and due process procedures have been completed,” he wrote. “Such statements are inappropriate and undermine the integrity of a process that is designed to establish the facts and ensure accountability based on evidence.”
He also criticized elected officials’ unanimous decision before an internal investigation was done calling it unprecedented, adding the public remarks of some of them calling for the officers to be fired were inappropriate.
“There is a longstanding process in place for investigating allegations of misconduct involving Santa Ana Police Officers. Contrary to recent commentary, our members are afforded due process,” reads the statement.
“The City Council’s decision to immediately refer this matter to outside investigators, before the established internal process has run its course is unprecedented and raises serious concerns about the council’s confidence in the department’s existing policies and procedures.”
Kachirisky added, “blanket statements about the Internal Affairs process, in our view, inaccurately and unfairly characterized the safeguards already in place.”
His statement comes days after Councilman Johnathan Hernandez publicly said police officers shouldn’t investigate themselves.
“I want to be very clear that when there is misconduct, police should not investigate police. They always, for some reason, never find anything wrong,” said Hernandez, whose previous city council campaign was opposed by the police union, at Tuesday’s meeting.
Kachirisky’s concerns also come in a town where the police union typically spends heavily on local elections and where residents often demand police accountability and raise concerns over excessive use of force but city officials seldom publicly discuss police violence.
That silence changed this week, when elected officials spoke out about the violent arrest of Florentino Lopez, a resident, and called for an independent probe – including elected officials backed by the police union – all ahead of the November election.
The decision came days after a video of the arrest went viral on Instagram showing Lopez bent over a police car with his arms behind his back arguing with two police officers before one of them threw Lopez onto the street.
One officer then punched Lopez repeatedly in the head as another police officer joined in and held Lopez’s legs down before two more police officers showed up and helped restrain him.
According to his criminal complaint, Lopez was charged with and pleaded not guilty to resisting and deterring an executive officer, resisting and obstructing officers, unlawfully being in the roadway and smoking marijuana on the grounds of school, youth center or day care.
Lopez is also on probation for a hit-and-run, carrying a loaded gun and reckless driving.
His complaint lists the last names of the officers involved – Officer Casillas and Officer Benavides – but city officials did not confirm their first names when asked earlier this week.
At Tuesday’s meeting city council members voted unanimously behind closed doors to release the names of the officers involved and release body-worn camera footage of the arrest “if it is legally determined that great bodily injury occurred as a result of the use of force incident.”
Hernandez publicly criticized OC District Attorney Todd Spitzer for costing taxpayers millions of dollars and failing to hold police accountable, calling on him to drop the charges against Lopez and to investigate the police officers in question.
“Any officer who thinks that they are above the law and that they can brutalize Santa Ana residents, they deserve to be fired,” Hernandez said.
“They shouldn’t work here.”
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org.
