The police unions in California have become so powerful that they have paid for legislation that makes it virtually impossible to find out anything about individual cops, including the ones that shame their badges and violate their oaths.

In Fullerton we have seen how this curtain of secrecy immediately descended when Kelly Thomas, a homeless man, was bludgeoned to death by several members of the police department. Well, okay, some of these goons were eventually brought to the bar of justice, and they get the same rights as the rest of us, even if it takes a veritable act of Congress to get crooked cops charged with a crime.

Of course the difference between them and us is that if they arrest us for something, our pictures can be plastered all over the evening news, and forensic evidence be damned.

So let us now consider the case of Albert Rincon, poster boy for the FPD Culture of Corruption, and the creep you will nevermore hear McKinley, Jones or Bankhead or Lou Ponsi talk about. Over several years, Rincon serially violated department policy by turning off his DAR and then, according to numerous complaints, sexually assaulted women in his patrol car. Rincon was given “pat-down” training as a corrective measure and sent back out on the streets of Fullerton to molest more females.

The City was upbraided by Federal Judge Andrew Guilford, for its years’ long tolerance of Rincon’s behavior as he denied a summary judgment in a civil suit brought by two of Rincon’s victims. The City immediately settled with the two women for a massive $350,000. And here’s where it gets even sicker, if that’s even possible.

Sometime in October, Rincon left the department. But we are not permitted to know the details. And for that matter we know nothing of the separations of the iPad thief, Kelly Mejia, or the Brady Cop, Vincent Mater.

Were these people fired? Were they permitted to quit? Are they still, or can they become cops someplace else? These things we shall never know – unless they continue the behavior cultivated under the corrupt chiefship of Pat McKinley, and get caught again.

But the case of Albert Rincon deserves special attention. We cannot see what this perverted sociapath looks like, nor know where he went, although such behavior by a civilian would certainly have resulted in a conviction and a life-long sex offender tag. That civilian’s name would be in an index the rest of his life; but not Rincon’s.

For all we know Rincon may already be a police officer in some other jurisdiction, fulfilling his life-long dream of being a cop.

Such is the ridiculous shroud of secrecy and special protections the cops’ politicians have erected for their patrons; the shroud protects all cops, good and bad. And that’s the way they want it.