Anaheim Police Spying Alleged

Former top Anaheim officials asked police to spy on local activists, including a former union leader who now sits on the City Council and the director of a children’s shelter, a retired police captain says.

The councilman, Richard Chavez, who also believes he was a target of the secret investigation, on Wednesday called for an independent inquiry into the alleged police practices.

City officials had acknowledged in 2001 that police compiled information on four Latino activists for an internal report written in 2000. But, in fact, says retired Anaheim Police Capt. Marc Hedgepeth, during the late 1990s and perhaps longer, police were also gathering intelligence on others, including Chavez, who were believed to be political agitators. Hedgepeth is a former commander of the department’s special operations division, which includes the criminal intelligence unit.

Hedgepeth’s whistle-blowing in 2001 about the investigation of the four activists led to the disclosure of the Police Department’s report on it.

Hedgepeth explained his latest allegations in an interview.

Chavez said, “It appears that they conducted internal investigations that were, at minimum, unethical if not illegal. Until we have a full review of the practices, I’m concerned that this could happen again, based on the cultural reality of the past.”

City Manager Dave Morgan and Mayor Curt Pringle said Wednesday that they had no knowledge of any such police tactics.

Morgan will meet with his staff today to consider how to address Chavez’s concerns, and notified new Police Chief John Welter of the allegations, said city spokesman John Nicoletti.

Welter, who was sworn in March 22, has no knowledge of any secret police activity, Nicoletti said. Morgan was not the city manager at the time of the alleged surveillance and also had no knowledge of any wrongdoing, Nicoletti said. Pringle was elected Anaheim mayor in November 2002.

“There are no ongoing investigations happening at this time,” Nicoletti said.

Pringle said he trusts Morgan and Welter to thoroughly investigate the allegations.

“If, in fact, the allegations are true, that’s unacceptable and that’s not the way this city is run today,” Pringle said. “This is the beginning of the investigation. We’re not discounting anything. We don’t have anything to hide. We will do what is necessary to get to the bottom of it.”

A Warning Delivered

Hedgepeth said he recently warned Chavez that he had been the target of police surveillance after watching a televised City Council meeting in which some residents and Councilman Bob Hernandez suggested that Chavez be stripped of his mayor pro tem position for missing a deadline to file campaign financial statements. In the late 1990s, Chavez was a firefighter and head of the Anaheim Firefighters Assn. union, which was in a lengthy and bitter labor dispute with the city. Hedgepeth said former Police Chiefs Roger Baker and Randy Gaston directed him to watch Chavez, which included tracking his union activities and photographing him while he was picketing. Hedgepeth said Gaston, who is deceased, told Hedgepeth he was uncomfortable with the order but said it was directed by then-City Manager James D. Ruth.

Hedgepeth estimated that police spent several hundred hours investigating Chavez.

On another occasion, Hedgepeth said, Baker called him into his office and asked him to find a link between Chavez, the firefighters union and Lorri Galloway, director of the Eli Home children’s shelter and a candidate for City Council in November’s race.

“He wanted us to try to gather evidence that there may have been an affair,” Hedgepeth said. “The manner in which he gave me the directions made me feel that he wanted us to gather dirt.”

Hedgepeth said he asked his officers to look for links but refused to investigate any romantic connections.

Chavez said he was investigated during the labor dispute by the Fire Department’s internal affairs unit for alleged insubordination and his involvement with the Eli Home, which many firefighters volunteered to renovate. The Eli Home was also investigated, during the same general time period, by police and the state attorney general’s office over various allegations, but no charges have been filed.

Galloway said she will also ask the city to probe Hedgepeth’s claims and ensure that police are not spying.

“I feel absolutely violated. Victimized and violated,” Galloway said. “I feel like there has been nothing I have done to deserve this.”

Ruth, now Orange County’s executive officer, adamantly denied knowledge of any spying or secret investigations. He said he neither directed nor participated in any police investigations.

“It never happened, at least as far as I know,” Ruth said. “I have absolutely zero knowledge of it.”

Baker, who left Anaheim last year to become police chief in Des Moines, Wash., said he had “no concept” of Hedgepeth’s allegations and could not respond to them without more specifics.

His departure prompted Latino activist Amin David, one of the four Latino activists targeted in the internal police report and who have all filed suit over it, to say at the time, “Good riddance.”

‘Extremely Unethical’

“We thought this was a singular case all by itself, but this is broader than I certainly ever dreamed,” David said. “It’s extremely unethical. The trust has been set back.... Anaheim should be as squeaky-clean as Minnie Mouse.”

The 36-page police report in 2000 detailed the four subjects’ activities, including an intricate flow chart showing how they were linked.

After disclosure of the report in 2001, the four filed a federal civil rights suit against the city, which was dismissed with the finding that the report’s contents came from public sources. The activists have appealed.

Police resources were used to gather information about people who had not been suspected of any particular crimes, Hedgepeth said.

Hedgepeth and Baker have a history of conflict, in part because Hedgepeth was passed up for police chief and Baker was hired instead.

Allegations of police dossiers on activists are not new.

The ACLU sued the Denver Police Department in 2002 after discovering that authorities were keeping “spy files” on as many as 10,000 individuals and 1,000 organizations, many of whom participated in peaceful protests and demonstrations.

Police photographed license plates, ran checks and photographed residents at public events, said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the ACLU of Colorado.

The suit was settled last year and Denver police agreed to a policy that forbids collecting or maintaining information about how individuals exercise their 1st Amendment rights, unless that information is directly relevant to criminal activity.

Silverstein said the Anaheim police practices, acknowledged and alleged, are a “clear misuse of police authority.”

“If people know that criticizing government policies is going to result in a police dossier on them, they’re going to be more reluctant to exercise and express their 1st Amendment rights,” Silverstein said.