Claremont Honors Officers Involved in Controversial Death

Two Claremont police officers involved in a controversial shooting of a black man early this year, which has prompted weekly protests and a federal civil rights investigation, have been named city employees of the year, officials said Wednesday.

At a holiday party Friday night, the city manager gave the $1,000 awards to officers Hany Hanna and Kent Jacks. Their names will adorn a plaque in the City Council foyer.

In January, during a routine traffic stop on Baseline Road, the 10-year veterans opened fire on Irvin Landrum Jr., 18, after he fired a gun at them, they said. Landrum died a week later.

The district attorney has found that the officers are not criminally culpable, and city officials have defended the officers from the start. But Landrum’s family, some university professors and others have clashed with city officials at council meetings and staged weekly marches, creating a steady stir of contention in the normally quiet college town on the eastern fringe of the county.

Their key complaint is that the city is ignoring what they see as troubling questions about the incident. A sheriff’s investigation into the shooting found that Landrum’s gun was never fired, bore no fingerprints and was last owned by a police chief in a nearby town, a fact that became public just this month.

Landrum’s family charges that the gun was planted by police.

This week, a citizens’ group launched a recall effort against the mayor and a council member, complaining that they and City Manager Glenn Southard have harassed the protesters. The group alleges that Mayor Karen Rosenthal sent letters to college presidents, alerting them about specific professors taking part in the rallies. The group also criticized Councilman Algird Leiga for supporting Southard when he publicly released the criminal record of Landrum’s uncle, who is organizing the protests.

“Rosenthal, Leiga and Southard have sought to silence the critics of the police like bullies,” said Michael Warshaw, spokesman for the group. “Mayor Rosenthal and Councilman Leiga are no longer representing [Claremont’s] interests.”

Southard, who cannot be recalled, has taken a vocal, hard stance against Landrum’s supporters, threatening at one point to shut down the protests for noise violations. He picked the employees of the year.

Neither Rosenthal nor Leiga were available for comment. Calls to Southard were returned by city spokesman Mike Maxfield. He said city officials did not pick the officers to antagonize the protesters, but felt that Hanna and Jacks have done an outstanding job in the face of withering criticism.

“Both of these officers have been called racists and murderers, and had to deal with unbelievable pressure which was completely unfounded,” Maxfield said. “This award is about the quality of work they do, given all the stuff they were going through.”

Southard chose the officers after receiving nominations from city employees, Maxfield said. It was the first year two employees received the honor.

Pitzer College Prof. Halford Fairchild, a protester, called the awards an “escalation of tension.”

“They are trying to bolster the morale of the city and slap us in the face,” he said. “But when I told [Landrum’s uncle] about it yesterday, he laughed. He thought it was funny--in a grim way.”

The uncle, Obee Landrum, did not return calls seeking comment.

Maxfield said there has been an outpouring of support for the officers from the public and in the nominations. He said the decision was not made based on the number of nominations, and did not know which city employee received the most.

He added that the choice of Hanna and Jacks obviously had the potential of fueling protests and showed that Southard was thinking only of the officers’ merit in making his decision.

“If our goal was to make these people go away, why would we do it?” he said.