Bakersfield PD - Coatesville PD

The County: the story of America's deadliest police 

Police in Kern County, California, have killed more people per capita than in any other American county in 2015. The Guardian examines how, with little oversight, officers here became the country’s most lethal 

Part one of a five-part series from The Counted 

Seventy-five years after Kern County’s leaders banned The Grapes of Wrath from their schools and libraries, complaining that John Steinbeck’s new book portrayed their policemen as “divested of sympathy or human decency or understanding”, officer Aaron Stringer placed his hands on the body of James De La Rosa without permission. 

De La Rosa had just been shot dead by police officers in Bakersfield, the biggest city in this central California county, after crashing his car when they tried to pull him over. He was unarmed. Now the 22-year-old oilfield worker lay on a gurney in the successor to the coroner’s office where Tom Joad’s granma awaited a pauper’s funeral in the 1939 novel. 

Stringer, a senior Bakersfield officer whose plaudits for once saving a colleague in peril had been overshadowed by his arrest for a hit-and-run while driving under the influence of prescription drugs, reached under the bloodied white sheet and tickled De La Rosa’s toes. Then, a junior officer reported to commanders, he jerked the head to one side and joked about rigor mortis. 

“I love playing with dead bodies,” said Stringer. 

It was only the most remarkable act in recent times by a police officer in this rugged territory, where law enforcement officers have this year killed more people relative to the population than in any other American county recorded by 

The Counted, a Guardian investigation into the use of deadly force by police across the US in 2015.

There is no comparison to the Coatesville PD here. In many ways the Coatesville PD is the opposite of the Bakersfield PD.

But this article hits home for me. 

In 2006-07-08 we had Crips and Bloods and SUR-13 trying to get control of the action in Coatesville. 

The fires saved us.

Coatesville was flooded with undercover ATF and undercover State Troopers to catch arsonists and the the Crips, Bloods and SUR-13 moved out. 

I saw the graffiti, first the Crips on a barn on South Caln Road, Caln Township and in a few months Crips, Bloods and SUR-13 all over Coatesville & Valley Township.

The Coatesville PD "chief" who was a retired Baltimore Housing Authority cop was seemingly unaware of a gang problem in Coatesville. "Chief" Matthews proposed laying off 6 Coatesville officers one of them turned out to be  a lieutenant, Matt Gordon:

Coatesville City Council February 22, 2007 Two hundred police officers and police officials attended that meeting. 

District Attorney Joe Carroll, "I need Matt Gordon back!"
Joe was responding to Coatesville City Councilperson Kurt Schenk. Joe Carroll is a very easy going person. Joe’s hands were shaking as he said this. I have never before or since seen Chester County Joe Carroll as angry as he was that evening:

.

I wrote this:

In my opinion the news that “the money is good again in Coatesville” spread all over the nation. We rapidly had dealers from Philly and New York taking up residence in Coatesville. SUR-13, KOD, Cripps and other gang recruiters came to Coatesville. The guns poured in with them. Gunshots were heard and people were picking bullets out of walls and vehicles almost daily. Armed robberies and muggings, nearly all of them unreported in the press, rocketed up. 

At about the same time the arson began.

FROM:

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2009

Some previous actions of Coatesville Police Chief Matthews and Coatesville City Manager Harry G. Walker:

I heard the AK-47 firing first in the East End and then the West End. knew a woman in the car AK-47 man was chasing. 

I saw the guy wearing the LA Dodgers cap. 

I saw the kids wearing blue. 

I saw the kids wearing red. 

I saw the graffiti. 

I knew about trunk loads of firearms on 8th Avenue passed out to kids. 

I saw kids crossing the street holding their pants so their firearm didn’t drop out. 

I heard the gunshots. 

I knew people who dug bullets from their walls. 

“Chief” Matthews didn’t see it. He was busy in his office writing his memoirs. 

The arson and the undercover State Police and undercover ATF agents almost put a full stop to the drug business in Coatesville (they threw the bags under parked cars in front of the MIdway), and the buyer tied his shoes, you could watch it happening). Mass arrests of SUR - 13 in Maryland helped too. 

What frightening is this:

:FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2015

Does Coatesville City Council President Linda Lavender Norris want Coatesville PD Chief Laufer fired?

Is the undercurrent pushing the people running as write in candidates for Coatesville City Council part of an effort to fire Coatesville PD Chief Laufer and Detective Thompson?

Does Coatesville City Council President Linda Lavender Norris believe that Coatesville Police planted weapons on and near Andre Emmet “Needles” Fiorentino? That Andre Fiorentino was unarmed when two Coatesville, Pennsylvania, police officers opened fire on him? Or is Ms. Norris on a power trip?

For Linda Lavender Norris to fire Detective Thompson, Chief Laufer needs to go first. Chief Laufer will not fire Detective Thompson. 

MORE AT:

Does Coatesville City Council President Linda Lavender Norris want Coatesville PD Chief Laufer fired?

I hope we learned something from the time Coatesville City Council forced out Chief Bellizzie.

I know some people here look to selling drugs to make ends meet but we can't have it both ways. You can't have Coatesville as a drug depot for Chester County and at the same time Coatesville as a vital growing part of the western Chester County community. Coatesville is too small to accommodate both.  Maybe some people don't know it but right now in City Council meetings and behind the scenes we are deciding between redevelopment and Coatesville's continuance as a drug depot for Chester County.