REMEMBERING

RED

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Deputies’dispute mayboost lawsuit

BY STEVEN MAYERThe Bakersfield Californiansmayer@bakersfield.com

When a union representing Kern Countysheriff’s deputies sued the County of Kernlast month in a dispute over job benefits, theunion may have unwittingly provided addi-tional ammo to lawyers suing the county in awrongful death case.Attorneys for Chain Cohn Stiles watched

with great interest as the Kern LawEnforcement Association asked the county toaward damages to 12 deputies the union al-leged were wrongly deprived of personal useof their patrol vehicles after an audit foundthey were violating departmental policy bydriving too fast.But can the information found in that law-

suit help lawyers in their wrongful death case?“All of this information is new to me,” said

Family, friendsof BakersfieldSound iconcelebrate hislife and music

In union’s unrelated clash with county, itmay have inadvertently provided detailsabout enforcement of speed policy

WRONGFUL DEATH CASE

Pressuremounts fortech firmsto chip in

BY W.J. HENNIGAN, PARESH DAVE AND TRACEY LIENTribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The White House is in-creasing pressure on the tech industry tohelp rein in terrorism, sending top nationalsecurity officials to Silicon Valley and an-nouncing the creation of a task force to helpprevent extremist groups from using socialmedia to radicalize and mobilize recruits.When Barack Obama addressed the nation

after the San Bernardino terrorist attack, heurged high-tech and law enforcement lead-ers “to make it harder for terrorists to usetechnology to escape from justice.”Although the tech industry says it wants to

help, it’s reluctant to give away private infor-mation and data to government agencies, ar-guing that doing so fosters user distrust andraises the risk of hacker attacks.The newly created Countering Violent

Extremism task force will be led by the de-partments of Homeland Security and Justice

Industry leaders say they want to helpbut are reluctant to provide data togovernment due to privacy concerns

COUNTERTERRORISM

Please see LAWSUIT / A3

Please see TERRORISM FIGHT / A3

BY J.W. BURCH IVThe Bakersfield Californianjburch@bakersfield.com

The atmosphere at the RusticRail in Oildale was more joy-ous than mournful as familyand friends of Red Simpson

gathered to honor the BakersfieldSound icon Saturday.“You won’t find a single person

who has anything bad to say aboutRed,” childhood friend CurtisColbertson said. “He was alwaysfunny and always had a joke.”Simpson died Friday afternoon at

a hospital in Bakersfield. He was 81.A short video posted on Facebook

earlier Friday afternoon showed Redwith his son, David, sitting on a sofa,playing some guitar and enjoyinglife.“Yesterday was a real good day and

it turned out to be a bad day,” DavidSimpson said.

JOHN HARTE / FOR THE CALIFORNIAN

Friend Pat Napier gives David Simpson a hug Saturday evening at the Rustic Rail on East Norris Road. David’s father,country music legend Red Simpson, 81, died Friday. See more photos at Bakersfield.com.

Please see SIMPSON / A3

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“You won’t find a single person who has anything bad to say about Red. He was always funny and always had a joke.”

— Curtis Colbertson, a childhood friend of country singer-songwriter Red Simpson

Country singer and Simpson friend Jimmy Howard left his home in NorthernCalifornia at 5 a.m. Saturday to make it to the planned show, which became atribute to Red Simpson. “I listened to his whole box set driving down, it got mealmost the whole way here,” he said.

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Sunday, January 10, 2016 The Bakersfield Californian A3

but will include staff from the FBI, theNational Counterterrorism Center, and otherfederal law enforcement and intelligenceagencies. In addition, the State Departmentwill establish a unit called the Global Engage -ment Center to work with allies to deter ter-rorists from carrying out attacks overseas.“Given the way the technology works these

days, there surely are ways that we can dis-rupt paths to radicalization, to identify re-cruitment patterns and to provide metricsthat allow us to measure the success of ourcounter-radicalization efforts,” White Housepress secretary Josh Earnest said Friday.The initiative will require a level of cooper-

ation that historically has not existed be-tween the White House and Silicon Valley,which have long been at odds over govern-ment surveillance — especially since the2013 Edward Snowden leaks sparked a panicover privacy. The former security contractorrevealed widespread snooping by theNational Security Agency that the tech in-dustry says it’s still paying for.American cloud computing firms, for exam-

ple, say they’ve lost sales and opportunitiesoverseas over fears the U.S. government willgain access to sensitive information. ForresterResearch estimates the U.S. information tech-nology sector could lose as much as $180 bil-lion in business by the end of this year.Tech firms have also been adamant about

the need to protect consumer data, much ofit shielded with increasingly sophisticatedencryption tools.“The tech community has been pretty

clear it’s not going to give the government afree pass on these things,” said TanyaForsheit, a partner at the law firmBakerHostetler who specializes in privacyand data protection. “I don’t think that mosttech companies are inclined to just give in.”Apple CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly said

that the iPhone maker has never workedwith any government agency in any country“to create a back door in any of our productsor services.”As it is now, Google, Facebook and other

companies say they turn over user data when

law enforcement, courts or governmentagencies send in a legal request, usually inthe form of a subpoena, wiretap or searchwarrant.But not all types of requests require con-

sent of a judge or court. The tech industryhas been lobbying nationwide to elevatestandards, so law enforcement would have togo through more hurdles unless there’s animminent danger.Last year, California Gov. Jerry Brown ap-

proved a law requiring a search warrant, andthus court approval, for law enforcement togather private emails, text messages and GPSdata.But with each terrorist attack and growing

fears over the Islamic State group, the pres-sure on tech companies to compromise willonly grow — especially if access to privatesocial media communications could havethwarted an attack.San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik, for

example, sent at least two private messageson Facebook to a group of Pakistani friends in2012 and 2014, stating her support for Islamicjihad and pledging to join the fight, law en-forcement officials said.As situations like that arise, security ex-

perts said it will be increasingly hard for techfirms to defend profits over lives.Chenxi Wang, chief security officer at

cloud securities company Twistlock and for-mer vice president of strategy at IntelSecurity, urged the White House to consideralternative forms of intelligence gatheringnow that encryption technology has become

so common.“The thing civil liberties activists are con-

cerned about is not the capability to do sur-veillance but rather the abuse of surveillancepowers,” Wang said. “Washington needs toaugment this process so they could have en-cryption surveillance to some degree but stillhave civil liberties enforced.”The task force announcement comes as

Obama’s top national security officials — in-cluding Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBIDirector James Comey, Director of NationalIntelligence James Clapper and others — triedto enlist support from technology and socialmedia companies at a meeting in San Jose.Representatives of Apple, Google and

Facebook attended the meeting, whichsought to find common ground on an issuethat has become increasingly complex.Afterward, Facebook said the two sides

were “united in our goal to keep terroristsand terror-promoting material off theInternet.”“Facebook does not tolerate terrorists or

terror propaganda and we work aggressivelyto remove it as soon as we become aware ofit,” the company said.Earnest conceded there were “compli-

cated First Amendment issues” to discuss re-garding freedom of speech, but he said thetech companies in the meeting were run by“patriotic Americans.”“They certainly don’t have any interest or

desire in seeing their tools and their technol-ogy being used to aid and abet terrorists,”Earnest said.

TERRORISM FIGHTCONTINUED FROM A1

He started the evening off bysinging “Truck Drivin’ Man,” asong his father recorded in 1975.Throughout the evening the

approximately 100 people in attendance clapped, shoutedand danced as Simpson’s bandplayed some of his best-knownsongs.Jimmy Howard, who met

Simpson 2½ years ago and hasrecorded an album of coversongs, sang “My Baby’s WaitingUp There.”“This is the first time I’ve

played it without him downhere,” Howard said.Howard left Fortuna early

Saturday morning to make surehe was at the celebration.“I listened to his whole box

set driving down, it got me al-most the whole way here,”Howard said.Simpson had suffered a heart

attack Dec. 18 after returningfrom a concert tour of thePacific Northwest. Many friends and well-wish-

ers had hoped he was on themend and might even return tohis familiar Monday night gig.“I saw that video they posted

on Facebook at 1 o’clock,”Howard said. “Then at 5 o’clockI’m eating dinner and I get thephone call.”The news of Simpson’s death

was a surprise to a lot of people.“I woke up this morning ex-

pecting to wake up for a baddream,” Colbertson said. “I justcouldn’t believe it.”Debbie Arvizu, a friend of

Simpson’s, said that theturnout of the event was “anhonor.”“He would be happy,” she

said.Arvizu introduced Simpson

to Mario Carboni, who pro-duced his last album, “SodaPops and Saturdays.”“(Red) always invited every-

one up to play with him, itdidn’t matter if they were horri-ble or concert quality,” Arvizusaid. “So Mario got on stagewith him and they hit it off.”After playing together,

Simpson took Carboni to hishouse and their collaborationbegan.“He stole my friend,” Arvizu

said, laughing. “He was a greatguy. He never met a stranger.”

SIMPSONCONTINUED FROM A1

Matt Clark, a lawyer representing the familyof Nancy Garrett, a local woman who waskilled in September 2014 when DeputyNicholas Clerico, responding to a call code 3— with lights and siren — ran a red light at 85mph and slammed into Garrett’s car.While the information Clark is interested

in appears to be a matter of public record,even public information may be worthless ina civil case if an attorney doesn’t know it ex-ists. Fortunately for Clark, the legal action bydeputies, and news coverage of the case,alerted him to the information.What the documents show, Clark said, is,

until Garrett’s death, the Kern CountySheriff’s Office knew deputies routinelydrove at excessive speeds during code 3 re-sponses, yet didn’t effectively enforce itsemergency driving policy.“And because they didn’t enforce it, Nancy

Garrett is dead,” Clark said.Assistant County Counsel Mark Nations

says he hasn’t seen the Garrett lawsuit, butspeaking in general terms, as a federal civilrights case, the plaintiff’s attorney wouldhave to show that Clerico intended to violateGarrett’s civil rights or that the sheriff’s de-

partment failed to enforce driving policy.“In a civil rights case, you have to prove

there was a civil rights violation,” Nationssaid. “This is an automobile accident. Itdoesn’t rise to the level of a civil rights viola-tion.”The crash that killed Garrett in 2014 was

preceded by a call for help from a deputywho was responding to adisturbance at a bar onNorth Chester Avenue andencountered a combativesubject. Clerico was one ofseveral deputies who was re-sponding to assist thedeputy that night when hisvehicle collided withGarrett’s at North Chester

Avenue and China Grade Loop.An audit using global positioning data was

later conducted by the Sheriff’s Office. Itshowed that 12 deputies responding to thebar fight, and, tragically, to the fatal crash,drove at dangerous speeds, some in excess of100 mph.In a letter to the 12 deputies dated Nov. 13,

2014, Sheriff Donny Youngblood informedthem they were subjects of an administrativeinvestigation that found they were each in vi-olation of the department’s emergency driv-ing policy.

The policy is detailed and unambiguous.Even with lights and siren deployed,

“deputies shall not drive a vehicle at a speedgreater than is reasonable or prudent ... andin no event at a speed that endangers thesafety of persons or property,” the policystates.The rule for running a red light or stop sign

is particularly pointed.“When entering intersections against a

traffic control device, or when crossing blindintersections, deputies shall slow their vehi-cles to a point that they will be able to safelystop for any cross traffic that fails to yield theright-of-way. Deputies shall only continuethrough the intersection after clearing eachlane individually.”While the deputies’ union objected to the

speed audit on the grounds that it was done“in contravention of past practice,” it did notexplicitly contest the finding that the 12deputies drove at speeds in excess of depart-mental policy.In a letter to Youngblood “grieving” the au-

dit, KLEA Vice President Jay Winn wrote thatthe use of the audit was an abuse of discre-tion in light of the “failure of the departmentto provide high-speed driving training, in-consistent enforcement of code 3 drivingpolicies, selective implementation of drivingaudits, and selective discipline arising from

driving audits.”Clark noted that all of this correspondence

together is compelling evidence that theSheriff’s Office did a poor job of enforcingthe emergency driving policy, despite a con-troversial incident in 2011 in which twopedestrians were killed by a deputy driving atexcessive speed on Norris Road in Oildale.That incident led to an $8.2 million settle-

ment against the county.Clark was particularly struck by the con-

clusion of the arbitrator in the dispute be-tween the Sheriff’s Office and the union.In its report, the arbitrator concluded that

“the union does not dispute that there was ahistoric pattern of driving at excessive speedswhen ‘code 3,’ that the pattern was hard tobreak or that the suspension of PPV achievedits objective of, to use the union’s phrase,‘shocking’ deputies into driving slower.”Later speed audits showed a more than 90

percent reduction in examples in whichdeputies drove at excessive speeds whiledriving code 3.It’s disturbing, Clark said, that the

deputies’ union is objecting to the speed au-dits even while admitting that they provedhighly effective in reducing violations of theemergency driving policy.“When we saw these documents,” he said,

“it was shocking.”

LAWSUITCONTINUED FROM A1

Garrett

“The thing civilliberties activists are concerned aboutis not the capability to do surveillance butrather the abuse ofsurveillance powers.”— Chenxi Wang, chief security officer at cloud securities company Twistlock.

ABOVE: Saturday’s show at the Rustic Rail, though scheduled,became a tribute to country music

legend Red Simpson, who died Friday. RIGHT: Mario Carboni, who

produced Simpson’s last album, wason hand for the tribute. BELOW: DavidSimpson sings “Truck Drivin’ Man,” a

song his father recorded in 1975.JOHN HARTE / FOR THE CALIFORNIAN