research turned up documentation that on November 14, 1995, the first time the SMPD allowed my request to look at ‘six-packs’ or photo line-ups, I identified Israel Hardin as a possible suspect. No police follow-up took place at the time. In fact, I was able to confirm that no one from SMPD questioned Israel Hardin about the ‘Southside Rapes’ until 1999.”
The investigation of the rapes turned out to be one of the most expensive cases in the Santa Monica Police Department’s history, Pomer said.
The Santa Monica Police Department was unavailable for comment Monday.
Three months ago, the district attorney’s office asked Pomer and the elderly woman whether they wanted to go to trial against Hardin, who is currently serving life imprisonment on another case.
But they couldn’t recognize Hardin because it had been six years and he had put on weight. Pomer asked Santa Monica police for a photo of Hardin that was near the time of the rape. Hardin had a long rap sheet with the department and Pomer figured a photo would be on file. But police declined the request, as well as the district attorney’s office. Pomer went to Hardin’s defense attorney, who showed her a 1995 photo of Hardin, which turned out to be in the line-up, Pomer said.
It didn’t help that the investigator in charge of Pomer’s case was Detective Linda Brown, who is now serving 11 years in state prison for assault with a deadly weapon. She attacked a fellow police officer that she was having an affair with a few years ago.
“If the SMPD had promptly re-examined the shoddy police work of Linda Brown in 1995, after I had made a formal written complaint to the chief and internal affairs citing her incompetence they would have discovered this lead and the case may have been closed long ago,” she wrote in the letter to council.
But what really upset Pomer was the reaction she got from city officials when she expressed her disappointment in the police department and its investigation. “... shortly after an 82-year-old woman was raped by the ‘Southside Rapist’ while her elderly husband was locked in the trunk of their car, I spoke before the (Santa Monica) city council pleading for changes in the SMPD handling of rape cases,” Pomer’s letter reads. “At that meeting, my concerns were mostly dismissed as ‘hysterical’ as council member after council member fell over each other (one in tears) to praise the SMPD’s hard work and verbally attacked anyone who criticized the police. The immediate response by city government and the SMPD was to close ranks as opposed to seriously addressing the issues raised.”
Now Pomer and the elderly rape victim are raising the issue again. They both are expected to speak in front of the council tonight to ask how much has changed within the police department in the past six years and how will the next Santa Monica citizen with complaints against the police department be received by the council.
Specifically, Pomer wants a review process set up that would have an outside entity evaluate the current process, including how the SMPD interacts with the Santa Monica Rape Treatment Center and other groups that have expertise in responding to assault victims.
“Don’t people have a right to know that things have changed?” Pomer said. “We need to know that we can be safe in Santa Monica.”
In her letter to city council members, Pomer indicates her reason for bringing the issue to light six years later.
“The city and the SMPD can go forward and do better in the future. To do that competently, they have to know where they failed in the past.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 11, 2001. Read the original PDF.