To MANNY FERNANDEZ,HOUSTON BUREAU CHIEF @ NY TIMES, re YOUR ARTICLE re FREDDY GRAY & QUOTE OF BERNARD MELEKIAN:

To MANNY FERNANDEZ,HOUSTON BUREAU CHIEF @ NY TIMES, re YOUR ARTICLE re FREDDY GRAY & QUOTE OF BERNARD MELEKIAN:
Manny, I remember encountering Bernard Melekian when he was chief of Pasadena Police Dept (assuming this is the same person). I had an excessive force lawsuit against Pasadena police for the way they mistreated me (left me with lifelong chronic pain,in part,because the handcuffs were too tight) (I did not have a criminal record,and this was not an arrest for criminal activity but was at the scene of a traffic incident where the other driver ran the red light & hit me;but the cops went ballistic on me when I disagreed that it was my fault...not to mention that the police are not supposed to make a determination of fault in such cases). Anyways, the chief was called to testify about the handcuff policy (or lack of) and what I remember most clearly is him growling & yelling at me when questioned that "The handcuffs aren't made for comfort". He didn't even try to weasel his way around the fact that they intentionally use handcuffs to cause pain & injury to people they don't like. (I was a teacher & a seminary student at the time;and a "white" person,year 2000). During that legal process,it also was revealed that they erased the dispatch tape (they claimed the specific section pertaining to me had "malfunctioned"). That's just a few of the perversions in my case. I don't know how you came across Bernard Melekian as a person to talk to about police behavior,but when he was Pasadena Chief he was anything but sympathetic towards victims of excessive force,at least not me (and Pasadena does NOT have a very commendable record in this regard then,or recently).
-Frank Vonder-
*****
"Freddie Gray's Injury and the Police 'Rough Ride' "- NYTimes.com
"...determining exactly how Mr. Gray was injured
will be a focus of the investigation. Even if it
happened in the van, it does not necessarily
point toward an intentional rough ride, a ritual
experts said was at least several decades old.
"I never saw it, but I've heard about it," said
Bernard K. Melekian, the undersheriff of Santa
Barbara County, Calif., and a former director
of the Justice Department's community-
oriented policing office. "My sense was that
that kind of behavior had long been gone/..."
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/us/freddie-grays-injury-and-the-police-rough-ride.html?referrer=