LBPD OFFICER WHO STOLE GUNS GETS A JAIL SENTENCE HE’S ALREADY SERVED
By LBReport.com
Former Long Beach Police Department officer Damian Ramos was sentenced Wednesday to one year in Los Angeles County jail and three years of probation for August 2010 embezzlement charges—which is what it’s called when you are accused of taking four guns that were supposed to be booked as property.
Ramos, 33, pleaded guilty in February 2011 to the single felony count of embezzlement by a public officer. When that charge and its mitigating factors—for example, it is considered a non-violent crime—were run through the incarceration calculator, Ramos received one day of credit time for each day served in County jail, meaning he has already completed his jail sentence. However, two of the four guns he took have been recovered. The other two remain missing.
22 Comments
Ramos and his partner were charged with 13 felony counts for stealing guns from the police property room. The DA dropped all but one count in Ramos’s plea bargain. The one year sentence to jail is BS. Ramos was given credit for time served and released from jail immediately following the trial. Ramos’s partner was aquitted.
Meanwhile, the teenager involved in street drag racing on the peninsula was given 17+ years in jail.
How can anyone reconcile those two decisions as justice?
Beyond the obvious differences between the two cases and the futility of comparing them I agree with Mr. Ruehle’s sentiments concerning Ramos. I do not think dropping 12 of 13 counts just to secure a plea on a felony crime committed by a former police officer while he was still employed and on-duty does not seem to further justice at all.
What it does tend to do is to undermine the credibility of our justice system, cause people to doubt that it still serves the greater good, and only gives habitual nay-sayers still more reason to complain.
If D.D.A. Coletta thought he could make all of the counts against Ramos stick then he should have tried Ramos on all of them and let the jury decide. The only plea I would have found acceptable would have been “guilty” or “no contest” to *every* count, the *full* sentence for each count, and then suspend the sentence on six of them, with the remaining time to be served consecutively. Time served on a single count, particularly when the offense was committed by a (then) on-duty cop, just smells so very bad to me.
Strong sentences upon conviction can provide considerable disincentive for others who might otherwise be inclined to commit similar offenses. Extensive plea bargains like this one, especially when they involve breaches of the public trust, would seem far less likely to do so.
i am in a rare moment of complete agreement with greet on this one.
p.s….sorry for the syntax error in the first paragraph. It should read: “I do not think dropping 12 of 13 counts just to secure a plea on a felony crime committed by a former police officer while he was still employed and on-duty seems to further justice at all.”
Hey, Mr. W, may i respectfully suggest that you consider amending the headline here to say “Former LBPD Officer” just in the interests of complete accuracy? : )
Except he WAS a Long Beach Police officer at the time the crime was committed. Furthermore, as far as we know, he is STILL a Long Beach Police officer, unless someone can provide proof otherwise.
The Long Beach Police Department CONTINUES to employ officers proven to have lied in court, been convicted of DUIs, falsely sent people to jail, mowed women down in a cross walks, coerced witnesses and killed people for making the mistake of holding a hose nozzle. What makes you so sure Officer Ramos is no longer being paid by the LBPD?
Thanks for the response on Mr. W’s behalf there, Mr. Ruehle.
While I suppose it is possible that both Messrs. Pearl and Wielenga could be mistaken, the first sentence of the article clearly identifies Ramos as “Former Long Beach Police Department officer Damian Ramos.”
I am simply asking Mr. W if he would consider making the headline fit the content of the article.
See?
The chamber of commerce press release publication has it as “ex-officer”. Surprising, no? The greet is right, however, on the pass.
We all know the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce never makes a mistake.
John B. Greet
June 3, 2011
“While I suppose it is possible that both Messrs. Pearl and Wielenga could be mistaken, the first sentence of the article clearly identifies Ramos as “Former Long Beach Police Department officer Damian Ramos.”
I am simply asking Mr. W if he would consider making the headline fit the content of the article.
See?”
Why does the dumbass shill the greet think Dave Wielenga is one of randy gordons puppets? Takes a lot of nerve to ask something so stupid of a professional impartial journalist!
@ wrong: Your unnecessary insults notwithstanding, I do not think what you seem to believe that I think. Mr. W posted an article that references (and links to) one on the same topic from LB Report. In both articles, Ramos is clearly identified as a former LBPD officer.
All I did was respectfully ask Mr. W if he would consider making the headline fit the content of the article which, by the way, is the direction Mr. Pearl chose to go in the title of the LBR article that Mr. W chose to provide a direct link to.
I never mentioned the Chamber at all, that was Mr. Ruehle.
See?
Takes a lot of nerve to ask something so stupid of a professional impartial journalist!
Hmm…so if I understand you correctly, you believe it to be a “stupid” request to respectfully ask a professional impartial journalist to consider changing a headline to more accurately reflect the content of his article?
Plaxico Burress SERVED two years in prison for shooting himself with his own gun. Michael Vick SERVED two years in prison for fighting dogs. Yet one Long Beach cop get off with time served in county jail on 13 felony counts of stealing guns from the police property room and the other crooked cop was aquitted.
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/plaxico-burress-dishes-on-prison-life-and-future-in-nfl-060911
4 of the guns stolen by those Long Beach crooked cops were never recovered and were probably sold to gang-bangers and will result in future murders.
These crooked cops were entrusted by the public to enforce the law, not break it. Not providing vigorous punishment to crooked cops and not firing them from their jobs as Long Beach police officers only re-enforces repeated misconduct by future police officers.
John B. Greet
June 7, 2011
Hmm…so if I understand you correctly, you believe it to be a “stupid” request to respectfully ask a professional impartial journalist to consider changing a headline to more accurately reflect the content of his article?
greet you are such an asshole. If it were you writing the article readers would probably never be direclty informed that this dirtbag was an on-duty officer when he tarnished the badge.
Of course squealing like a pig about someones previous DUI for the purpose of character assassination is a wonderful thing to some assholes.
greet everyone knows what you are all about. You’re the one who has to live with yourself. Why don’t you just focus on building your second government pension?
Mr. wrong: I see you persist in your habit of hurling personal insults and unfounded allegations whilst cowering behind the comfort of your anonymity. How very honorable, mature, and courageous of you.
I published several articles about law enforcement malfeasance, on and off-duty, during my time as a columnist at LBPOST.com so your implication that I would not have done so in this case is entirely without foundation.
Ramos didn’t “tarnish the badge.” All he did was besmirch his own professional and personal reputation. The department, itself, discovered his thefts, fired him, prosecuted him, and saw him convicted. But all you seem capable of fixating upon is what Ramos did, and not the departments appropriate responses to it. A rather ignorant approach to this topic, wouldn’t you say?
Please cite a single specific time in which I have *ever* discussed someone’s previous DUI for the purpose of character assassination. Just one, Mr. wrong, if you can. But I do not think that you will be able to do so. If you run true to form, I doubt you will even try. I very much doubt it because you seem to find it easier to hide behind a pseudonym and lodge entirely baseless allegations and hurl personal insults at others than to append your true name to your comments and maintain even a basic level of courtesy and respect when addressing others. Mature adults manage to
I encourage you to put aside your personal insults and your unfounded allegations once and for all, Mr. wrong. I encourage you to stop scampering about like a recalcitrant little child, kicking at the ankles of the adults in the room, just because you can.
Set aside your childish and insulting immaturity and try to meet with the rest of us in the arena of ideas in a courteous, respectful and civil manner.
Get back to me, will you, when you can find it within yourself to do that.
Thanks!
Greet, I seem to remember you commenting for several years anonomously until called out by Dave Weilenga.
You bet I did, Mr. Ruehle. And then I realized that if I was going to presume to advocate for a position on a public forum, I should be willing to do so under my full name, rather than only a part of it. That I should be willing to afix my name to any comments I might choose to post. In a sense you could say I sort of matured in that way.
Too bad some others have not yet been able to do the same.
Don’t you think?
greet why in the world you think highly of yourself. I could care less what you think about me…in fact how dare you. You are a nobody, just a fraud and a pimp for those whose testicles you shine for some gain. I don’t, won’t, and never will answer to you, even though you answer to me. The way I like it.
Unfortunately Ramos DID tarnish the badge whether you accept it or not. A sad story. And feel free to ask Big Mike about his important front page news by a paper that cant even spell words properly and publishes ads to look like articles.
Mr. wrong you are mistaken about a great many things.
The badge is not about any one person or any 10 or even 20 people. It represents a department, a profession, and the vast majority of a competent public safety workforce that remains worthy, honorable, ethical, and lawful despite the sometimes despicable acts of a misguided, unwise, unethical, or unlawful few.
Ramos didn’t tarnish the badge because none of his actions in this case were in compliance with the various rules, regulations, policies, or procedures he swore a solemn oath to abide by and follow. Neither the profession, the department, nor the vast majority of the employees at LBPD violated the public’s trust here…Ramos did…and Ramos is now rightly suffering the consequences for his breach of public trust.
No, Mr. wrong, the badge and the important things it represents has survived far more aggregious individual violations of public trust than Damian Ramos has committed. The badge has survived them and will continue to survive them because its reputation is not based upon any one person, but upon the excellent work and the consistently ethical and principalled performance of the vast majority of those who continue to have the honor and privelege to wear it.
So you, Mr. Ruehle, and some others continue to denigrate and try to tear down an entire organization over the bad acts of a tiny percentage of its current and former members. Doing so seems to bring you great pleasure.
I think that is very sad.
Define what you consider a “tiny percentage.” I would beg to differ the percentage is statistically significant.
Let’s see, Mr. Ruehle, I think at your most strident, you posted links to about 15 or so stories of alleged and proven officer misconduct at LBPD. Let’s be generous and call it an even 20 over a period of some 40 years (I think the oldest case you cited concerned the investigation of a murder case in 1971.) 20 instances cited, involving 30 or so police employees in 40 years, or an average of one instance every other year.
Meanwhile during that same period LBPD has employed thousands of professional, ethical and pincipled sworn and civilian employees who have have worked hundreds of thousands of hours, investigated tens of thousands of crimes and answered or self-initiated hundreds of thousands of calls for service.
And in the midst of this incredible number of personnel conducting this incredible volume of police activity, day after day, month after month, year after year, for 40 years…you choose to fixate upon 20 instances of alleged or proven police employee misconduct and then presume to consider your number somehow “statistically significant.”
Besides a healthy dose of courtesy, civility, respect, and humility, Mr. Ruehle, I think you would also greatly benefit from a large degree of perspective.
20 instances into (conservatively) 200,000 calls for service = 0.0001%
I consider that to be a tiny percentage, Mr. Ruehle. Apparently you disagree.
Police employee misconduct is never acceptable and, once proven, should be punished to the most severe degree allowable.
However when it comes to critiquing our professional police employees, sir, I think you paint with far too broad a brush.