Holy cow…they’re done.
The most impactful Blog in Orange County is going on a long, if not permanent hiatus per this mid-afternoon post from Tony Bushala. Tony and colleagues like Travis Kiger, and a host of other anonymous posters and commentors spent the last few years turning Fullerton on its ear with their activism and coverage of city politics that ran circles around the mainstream media and set a standard that the rest of us admired and, frankly, envied.
The FFFF played a national role in revealing the murder-by-cop death of Kelly Thomas, a homeless man with mental issues. Three BAD cops are no longer on the Fullerton Police force (and likely destined for jail) due to FFFF’s diligence and the copious reporting they committed to the blogosphere. They caused the retirement of Fullerton’s feckless police chief and revealed plenty about this gang of nasty, violent cops that often ruled the city with fists and billy clubs. Tony and Travis were frequent guests on KFI’s John and Ken Show — that’s rare, and even rarer that they convinced this drive-time program with over one million daily listeners to come down to Fullerton for multiple events spawned by the Thomas killing.
Tony announces his recall plans to last year’s Fullerton City Council
Photo credit: OC Weekly
They succeeded in ousting an utterly worthless City Council majority in a rare recall election, and replacing them with three intelligent, responsible citizens who managed to turn their city, at least for awhile, away from the dark side. As long-time followers of Orange County politics, we always appreciated FFFF’s exposures of some of the smarmier actors here like Curt Pringle, who they often exposed and pinned with the permanent label of “Mayor for Hire”. Schnooks like Tom Daly, Dick Ackerman and Brett Barbre were also frequent, and deserved, targets of their commentary and fact finding.
We won’t speculate why FFFF is shutting down (but thankfully not deleting its extremely valuable content as it makes for excellent research material). Art and I have known Tony for years, and have been privileged to be invited to his home to participate in the great Grover Cleveland events that he and Steve Greenhut hosted.
But, good Blogs are damned tough to do, and especially stay relevant over time. Tony obviously spent plenty of time and his own money in making FFFF what it was, and he and his folks monumentally succeeded as the local focal point that brought so much attention to what had been one of the worst City Councils and out-of-control Police Departments in Orange County. They’ll never be forgotten for that.
Thanks FFFF, for setting the bar so high.
==================== UPDATE ======================
Here coverage of FFFF’s shutdown from the Register and OC Weekly:
Tony and company fought the good fight. They certainly deserve a break now.
I am glad we started this blog when we did…
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Actually, maybe I am in the minority, but I found the blog to be hostile in the name of cashing in on the death of Kelly, while sweeping under the rug the fact that his father put a green light on him, giving permission to law enforcement to dispose of Kelly in any manner convenient to them, and never once did his ‘law enforcement’ father followed though on the advice of numerous health professionals toward getting help for kelly. Including the advice of the neurological staff who were often called to deal with Kelly’s mental problems when he was routinely brought into emergency after passing out drunk in a puddle, nearly to drowned, and similar catastrophes of neglect. I knew Kelly and I know his mother, both lovely people. The real predators are not the fired cops, they never enabled Kelly toward the tragedy that evolved. Frankly, those were good cops, who got the unfortunate message that Kelly was disposable as far as his dad was concerned. Look, I know it sounds too harsh to be true, but objectively speaking, those were good cops who took a fall for the system that allows people to be disposed of by bad cops, like Kelly’s dad. He was a sheriff, fired, and more recently an instructor for the PD, in Martial Arts. Lay the blame where it belongs, those were good cops. The truth has been the elephant in the room for too long, Nancy Wood
Good cops don’t beat innocent people to death.
A good law enforcement officer who was cognizant of Kelly’s mental illness history would have not harassed him, baited him, and then ultimately killed him in a barbaric thrill kill frenzy. I know because my brother is Kelly Thomas. My brother was diagnosed with the same illness many years ago, and we have witnessed police response to his situation on a few occasions. Most have been benign. I will say that the law enforcement attitude has changed immensely over the past twenty years or so, for the worse – unless they have been CIT trained. I have taken my brother into my home at great personal expense, and I don’t mean just financial…precisely so that he would not suffer the same horrific fate that the unfortunate young Kelly did.
When I first learned of what happened to Kelly, just a few days ago, I was sick. After delving into the story, I also concluded that someone “greenlighted” his destruction. His father? Or someone in Fullerton government (at the time) and business community? Recently I have read so much commentary in support of Kelly on YouTube, the blogosphere, Facebook. One of the thoughts that stay with me in the aftermath of this nightmare scenario of American failure is, if so many support Kelly in death, where was the support for him while he lived?
Ms. Wood wants to point the blame squarely on Kelly’s father. If he was as neglectful as she claims, why did Kelly call out to him repeatedly while he was being torture/killed? The young man’s horrible death was due to a SYSTEM failure. For example, the mental health professionals that Ms. Wood cites…why did none of them follow up on Kelly, knowing full well the scope of his vulnerability. Kelly’s life and death is a testament to the lack of response, indifference, and contempt that society at large holds for the mentally ill.
In the end he turned out to be a martyr for a cause. God love him and the many like him.