Romero's departure draws praise
Earlier this week Pomona Police Chief Joe Romero was fired by the City Council there. At least one local family is praising the move, primarily because of remarks Romero made following the murder of Eileen Ponce Orta.
You might remember this story:
POMONA (AP) ― The family of a missing woman found her body in a minivan after police summoned them to pick up the vehicle because it was illegally parked near the Pomona courthouse.
Police said today that Eileen Orta was found stabbed to death on Friday -- three days after her family filed a missing's person report.
The report gave a full description of Orta and the van, and was entered into a national law enforcement database.
When the van was found parked near the courthouse, police told Orta's family to pick it up before it was impounded.
No one apparently checked the vehicle, and it was Orta's mother who found her daughter buried under some blankets.
I received this letter from Tracy Ponce, Eileen's mother, this morning:
GREAT NEWS FOR ME!!!
If you read the article below, you will see that Police Chief, Joe Romero, from the city of Pomona has been fired. My family and I are extremely happy for this because of the way we were treated by the Police Chief and several officers from the Pomona Police Dept. Don't get me wrong, I still have much respect for the department itself because the detectives have been doing an awesome job in my daughter's case, but because of the many sarcastic and negative remarks from the Police Chief and others, I find that karma is in the works here.
Bottom line, Police Joe Romero didn't do his job in regards to my daughter case. He had went on national television and announced, "what more was his department supposed to do when they found my daughter's van, break the windows?" See, if you remember, I reported my daughter missing and in possible danger a day before they found her van. So the Police Department called the next day and told us BEFORE we went to pick up my daughter's van that her van looked "abandoned" because all of the doors were unlocked and all the windows were down, plus they had "searched the van and found no signs of foul play or blood inside", and as you all know, they lied. See, the Police Chief did not review the case to see that the windows were already rolled down before he made that comment. Anyways, I just feel that people who live in the city Pomona deserve an honorable Police Chief.
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CONTRIBUTORS
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| Frank Girardot, Metro Editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers, brings you behind the yellow tape with takes on true crime, cold cases and more. This is also your forum to discuss crime, its impact on your neighborhood and how we cover it. Have any questions or tips? You can leave a comment here or e-mail Frank. |
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Brian Day is the crime reporter for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper group. E-mail Brian. |
I've known Joe Romero for 15 years; he was personally very supportive of me during a difficult time in my career in the late 1990's. Simply put, from my perspective, he's a class act.
I've known him to be nothing but a positive for the community, and I'm saddened that his tenure as Chief of a department he truly loved and respected ended like this. I wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors.
ive seen the above posted response on a number of forums related to the firing of Romero. is the best you can do?
Dog Spot if you think that Joe Romero's statements about Eileen Ponce Orta were "a class act" then I wonder about your own integrity. Your perspective is flawed if you praise a man with clear intent to give out blatantly false information to the press and send out an image of the pomona PD that completely disregards any sensitivity towards victims and their famillies.
If the Pomona PD loved Romero so much, why haven't we heard about any public outcry from its' officers??