Above photo: Ron and Kathy Thomas embrace Monday after two Fullerton police officers were found not guilty in the death of their son, Kelly. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times / January 13, 2014)
The father of Kelly Thomas told reporters Tuesday that he viewed a jury’s decision to acquit two Fullerton police officers in the beating death of his son as one setback in a “prize fight” in which there are still “several rounds to go.”
About 100 people gather at the Fullerton Transit Center to protest the not-guilty verdict in the case against two former Fullerton police officers in the death of Kelly Thomas, who died five days after being beaten.
Two former Fullerton police officers were found not guilty Monday in the beating death that was captured on film, and charges against a third officer will be dropped.
Ron Thomas, Kelly’s father and a former sheriff’s deputy, said at a news conference that the verdict was in no way the last word.
“I look at this like a prize fight,” he said. “It’s not over, we still have several rounds to go.”
Thomas appeared at the news conference with attorney Garo Mardirossian, who said a civil case the family was planning to bring would expose another jury to far more testimony. He and Ron Thomas argued that prosecutors, led by Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas, were hamstrung by a court ruling limiting jurors’ access to a “full case” against the officers.
Although Rackauckas “gave it his best,” at a civil trial “there will be a different result,” Mardirossian said.
Demonstrators gather Monday night in Fullerton near the site where Kelly Thomas was beaten by police in July 2011. He died five days later.
The verdict in the criminal case came after nearly three weeks of testimony from 25 witnesses in an often-packed Santa Ana courtroom. At the heart of the trial was a 33-minute surveillance video, synced with audio from recorders worn by officers.
Asked what he would ask jurors given the chance, Thomas said: “I would want to know how they came to the not-guilty verdict. I’m puzzled and I think that’s a fair question.”
Monday night, dozens of people gathered at the Fullerton transit depot not far from where Kelly Thomas was beaten by police in the summer of 2011.
Laura Eimiller, a spokeswoman for the FBI‘s Los Angeles field office, said the agency opened a civil rights investigation into the case in 2011. Now that the state court trial has concluded, she said, “investigators will examine the evidence and testimony to determine if further investigation is warranted at the federal level.”
As supporters hug, Kathy Thomas sits in a chair outside the Santa Ana Courthouse on Monday after two Fullerton police officers were found not guilty in the murder of her son Kelly.
Mardirossian said that, depending on what federal officials decide to do with the case, the family plans to file its civil case in six to 12 months.
Even so, Ron Thomas said, “it’s all about the criminal case.”
“I will not stop until we get justice for Kelly,” he said.
Open Letter from Ron Thomas, father of Kelly:
Dear Members, Friends, Community Leaders, Advocates and Concerned Citizens,
The name of Kelly Thomas should reverberate in our minds and ears for years to come. There are lessons to be learned here and it is incumbent on us to learn them.
1) Police Officers must be trained to interact with the mentally ill and the homeless. A mentally ill homeless person is four times more likely to interact with law enforcement than a mental health provider. (The LA County jail is the largest inpatient psychiatric provider in the US.) So long as police departments are our first responders for the mentally ill, they must be trained to do it correctly. Training is available. To be clear the officers that need training are the first responders; the street cop. Management, probation officers and others should be trained but that is a secondary need.
2) Mental illness and homelessness are not problems that we can spend our way out of. We have resources available and virtually unused. The first of the underutilized resources is the family. Families are systematically excluded from the treatment process. Families need education; they need to know how to best support their family member and they need to know how to advocate for their family member. Who, after all, loves this person more? Who will be most committed to their health and stability? The family will be there for support long after the mental health professionals move, are promoted, transferred or retired.
The second underutilized resource is the faith based community. 50% of the people with a diagnosable mental illness never seek treatment from a mental health provider. Many of those seek treatment from their pastor, priest, rabbi or imam. Most of these leaders are not trained to work with the mentally ill. Education is needed everywhere. Mental illness is a psycho-biological disease of the brain. It is progressive. The sooner it is treated the better.
3) Mental illness is a disease about which we must speak and speak openly. 25% of the population will have a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetime. 5% will have a serious mental illness. These numbers are staggering. There is much that can be done but the disease must come out of the dark and into the light. If the spirit Kelly Thomas will take our hands and lead us into that light, his life will have been well lived and we can all learn the lessons offered
NAMI Orange County wants nothing more than to learn the lessons offered by the life of Kelly Thomas and his family. This tragedy could have been avoided.
Steve Pitman
President, Board of Directors
NAMI Orange County