By Jenni Karmarkar –
A smaller crowd than expected turned out Wednesday afternoon to hear KFI radio personalities John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou broadcast their show from outside the Fullerton police department.
Organizers of the Fullerton Recall Committee said Tuesday they expected several hundred people at the rally to support their effort to recall Mayor F. Richard Jones and Councilmembers Don Bankhead and Pat McKinley.
Broadcasting from a tent set up on Highland Avenue, John and Ken – who have been vocal proponents of the recall in the wake of the Kelly Thomas beating – encouraged their radio audience to come down to sign the recall petitions.
“Even if you don’t live in Fullerton, come down anyway and just hang out,” the duo told listeners.
Signature-gathers Barry Levinson and Andy Anderson said that by five o’clock, they had collected about 50 signatures.
Fullerton resident Vanessa Martinez said she came to the rally to do her part as a citizen.
“It’s excuse after excuse about what happened (to Kelly Thomas) and it’s not taking any accountability for what happened with their officers,” she explained after signing the recall petitions. “These are grown men who are hiding behind the shield and it doesn’t make me or my kids feel safe. Something needs to be done.”
Chris Badgwell attended because he has a sister diagnosed with schizophrenia and he feels what the police did to Kelly Thomas was wrong.
“Our government is out of control in my opinion…for this guy to get beaten like that, it makes me want to vomit,” he said, adding that the incident has made him more politically involved.
The recall committee has until Feb. 16, 2012 to collect 10,554 signatures, but Levinson said their goal is to get it done before Christmas.
Story by Jennifer Karmarkar/FullertonStories.com
KFI has never been the “voice” of Fullerton. Frankly, people work and are not available during their supposed prime time driving time show to go sign petitions. Now if they are looking for signatures from the wealthy retired and those out of work like Councilman Pat McPension, then I would think this was a good time of day. How about the weekend instead?
Its funny you post that by 6 PM 150 people were there and event organizers expected 200. It really seems like a non story. I think what needs to be reported on is Pat McKinley allowing a a member f his police force to sexually assault women, then writing a book about how to protect themselves. It’s pure comedy. The best part is McKinley stating that the women were the wrong kind of people. So it leads one to believe that only the right kind of people deserve police protection, the rest are free to be assaulted by everyone especially cops.
I am not surprised at all this story was published. I figured it would pop up somewhere. With all the hype on the radio I think many of us were expecting more. I was surprised when I drove by after work that “several hundred” weren’t there. I then went down at 6:30pm and couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything because a handful of people gathered around John and Ken. And yes, there were only a handful.