Bryant Slams Policeman Seeking Recall : Campaign: Pomona Councilman C. L. (Clay) Bryant is criticized for inappropriately speaking of purported use of psychiatric services by the head of the Pomona Police Officers Assn.

Detective Raul Camargo, president of the Pomona Police Officers Assn., which is backing an effort to recall Councilman C. L. (Clay) Bryant, accused Bryant on Tuesday of invading his privacy by alleging that Camargo has been under psychiatric care.

At a City Council meeting that was broadcast on cable television Monday night, Bryant charged that Camargo has cost the city $20,450 “for his regular trips to the shrink in Irvine” and called him “a psychiatric case.”

“I told you I was going to take the gloves off and I’m doing it, because I’ve had enough of what’s going on over there,” Bryant said.

Camargo attended the council meeting as part of a group of police officers who sought to question council members about their Oct. 17 firing of Richard M. Tefank as police chief. Camargo left the meeting before Bryant began his personal attack and would not comment on Bryant’s allegations.

But, he said, he is asking his attorney to look into Bryant’s invasion of his privacy. He said Bryant appears to have received confidential information.

“I don’t know how he got access to those files,” Camargo said. “I feel my privacy has been invaded.”

Camargo said he will not be intimidated but will continue to work as a detective assigned to the gang detail, to circulate recall petitions in his off-duty hours and to lead the Police Officers Assn.

“I will continue my business as usual,” he said.

Attorney George W. Shaeffer Jr., who represents the Pomona Police Officers Assn., said he has asked for a transcript of the council meeting to determine what legal action to take.

Meanwhile, Mayor Donna Smith, who is also backing the recall, strongly criticized Bryant’s comments about Camargo. “I definitely viewed that as an invasion of privacy,” she said, adding that she fears Bryant has opened the city to a libel or slander suit. “The city is going to be the one to pay for that,” she said.

Smith said she does not know where Bryant obtained his information about Camargo, or whether what he said is true. “We are not privy to that kind of information,” she said.

The mayor said Bryant has been driven to desperation by the recall effort. “He’s running scared,” she said, “and the result is that he’s going to make use of anything he can.”

Just last week, Shaeffer, who represents separate associations of management and rank-and-file officers in the Pomona Police Department, sent a letter to the council warning against any moves to discharge police officers without cause and due process. The letter was prompted by reports that the council fired Tefank after he refused to fire other officers.

Smith, who was the only dissenter in the 4-1 decision to dismiss Tefank, said there was a list of seven mid-rank officers the council wanted fired. Other council members said they did not have a specific list but did want Tefank to shake up management of the department.

In his letter, Shaeffer said employees were disturbed by “very bizarre statements and actions” from the council, citing specifically a meeting with police officers shortly before Tefank was fired. Shaeffer wrote that Bryant told the officers that he “would like to see Sgt. Gary Elofson killed, disemboweled and hung.”

Bryant denied making the statement but said he did say that Elofson and Camargo should be fired. “I have reason to detest Elofson,” he said, explaining that his anger dates to 1984 when Elofson arrested him for drunk driving, a charge that was later dropped.

Bryant scoffed at the suggestion that he had invaded Camargo’s privacy, saying the public has the right to know if a police officer is seeing a psychiatrist at public expense. “It’s public money we’re spending,” he said. “There’s no invasion of privacy.”

He said he obtained his information from city reports on insurance and workers’ compensation matters. Further details he aired at the meeting, he said, “were told to me by three cops.”

The Pomona Police Officers Assn. and the Pomona City Employees Assn., which represents about 130 clerical and blue-collar workers, have endorsed the recall.

Thomas M. Ramsey, supervisor of field services for the parent union of the Pomona City Employees Assn., said the group supported Bryant at the March City Council election. But he said the decision to fire Tefank, and reports that the council had tried to force Tefank to fire others, raised concerns that caused the employee group to join the recall effort.

Sgt. Kevin Rogan asked the council Monday night to explain its decision to fire Tefank. He said it appears that the council dismissed Tefank because he wouldn’t fire seven officers without having a reason to do so.

Council members did not respond directly, but Councilman Tomas Ursua said the council simply told Tefank that “it was time for a change.”

He said council members receive complaints every day from residents who are frustrated and distressed by the problems in the city, including its ranking as “the murder capital of the San Gabriel Valley.” Whether making a change in the management of the city is going to solve those problems, he said, is something that can only be determined by time.

Councilwoman Nell Soto said the city has been plagued by “a lack of vision” for 25 years and that problems have piled up to the point where young people are dying in the streets from drive-by shootings and other violence. Noting the city has had a record 40 homicides so far this year, she said, “We have on our hands a massacre-type of situation.”

“We need tough law enforcement,” she said. “We need something. Everybody in the city ought to take stock of themselves.”

In the most dramatic statement at the council meeting, Police Sgt. Joe Romero, who holds a Medal of Valor, made an impassioned plea for the council to put aside personal attacks.

“Let us each attack problems and not personalities,” he said. “Let us each pursue progress and not power. Let us each place a higher value on performance than paybacks.

“I am dismayed when I see politicians acting like policemen and policemen acting like politicians,” he said. “People are best served when politics and policing are kept separate.”

Romero concluded by putting his Medal of Valor around his neck, saying he was wearing it for dedicated police officers, the people of Pomona “and most of all for Chief Richard M. Tefank.” The audience, including council members who had voted to fire Tefank, responded with a loud ovation.