We contacted Anaheim gadfly William Denis Fitzgerald the day after he was arrested on misdemeanor assault and battery charges at the last Anaheim City Council meeting after making salacious remarks during public comments. He finally responded last night with his side of the story, and we reprint it below (any edits are due to formatting issues).
Failure to Enforce Private Person Arrest:
I am an elderly person and was assaulted and beaten by three middle age men in public during an Anaheim Council Meeting on December 9, 20l4.
I have severe arthritis in my lower legs caused by three pins/rods (internal fixation) from a military parachute landing (PLF) that shattered my legs over 40 years ago. The arthritis significantly increases pending stormy weather, as was the situation at that time. I always come early to meetings and sit in an aisle seat in the less crowded back I always ask anyone entering the same row of seats, as long as other seats in the row are available, to leave the adjacent seat vacant. This allows me the ability to massage my lower legs during lengthy council meetings.
At approximately 3 PM, a female, (later identified as the daughter of Anaheim Council Member Gail Eastman), and her female friend, came to sit in the same row as me in the back of the council chambers. When she sat next to me, I asked her to take a seat further down the row since many were vacant. She complied.
At about 4PM, I left my seat for about 5 minutes to speak during public comments. My presentation was critical of Council Person Gail Eastman because she did not perform her duties to protect Anaheim from the harmful effects of fireworks. In addition, I spoke about how her husband had assaulted me (no contact) at the previous council meeting.
After speaking, I returned to the same aisle seat and noticed that Gail Eastman’s daughter and her friend had left, leaving the next six seats to my right vacant. Then about 30 seconds after I sat down, a large male, about 45
years old (who was later identified to be Council Member Gail Eastman’s son), came from his seat in one of the front rows, moved in front of me, stepped on my right foot, and sat down next to me pushing my right arm off of the arm rest. When unexpectedly touched, I pushed my arm back as a reflex, against Council Member Gail Eastman’s son. I then ask Eastman’s son to take one of the other vacant seats. He stood up and started to do so. I knew something was wrong since why would a large person take a seat next to another large person when many other seats were available?
At about the same time, another male, (smaller and about thirty years old*), was later identified as the son of some of Council Member Gail Eastman’s best friends. He also came from one of the front seats, and entered the row of seats I was in. It appeared that he was blocked from moving on by Eastman’s son. That person then somewhat sat on my lap and appeared to be trying to pass gas. Then a few seconds later, I received a rabbit punch to the back of my neck I then instinctly stood up to run away. As I was trying to Ieave, a security guard and an Anaheim PD officer (about 5ft 10, 185 lb) approached me from the back of the room. I asked him to take me to the lobby, he said OK. He asked me if I was willing to press charges (PC 837),I replied yes.
Once in the lobby, it took about 20 minutes for a special Anaheim officer to arrive to write the report. He appeared very young, I thought he was new and needed the experience to write the report since he was consulting with the Anaheim police chief and/or assistant chief.
At that time, I assumed that he was preparing my private person arrest request. Later, when he had me sign a citation of charges, I assumed that there were counter private person arrests by the other parties. Late the next day I was informed that my request for private party arrest had been ignored. Today, Thursday, Dec 11, it was verified that my request for a private person arrest had been ignored.
*Some have indicated that the assailant that I believed to be about thirfy years old because he had a long white beard, was in fact the 73 year old father.
In addition to his statement on the arrest, Fitzgerald provided a draft of his public comments for the city council meeting on December 23, two days before Christmas. Council member Kris Murray will now bear the brunt of Fitzgerald’s rants (we provided this as a public service to Mayor Tom Tait so he can find his gavel). I have to wonder if the Tait-bots, especially Cynthia Ward, would speak out against this “sacred” (to use a word Tait uses) speech to criticize Fitzgerald for the general offensiveness of Fitzgerald’s words should be regarded by women? If, for example, Fitzgerald were to use the words “slut,” “whore” and “bitch to describe Mrs. Tait, or Ward herself, just how would the clown car respond.
Criticism of Murray for changes to Anaheim’s Utility policy is certainly fair game. Demeaning, insulting and potentially slanderous terms are not
Here’s what Fitz plans to say (whether he does or not, depends on possible reaction to these words, peer pressure, or common decency that Fitzgerald seems to lack).
Anaheim Public Comments, December 23, 2014, DRAFT
About a week ago, the Disneyland controlled Anaheim City Council lead by the Disneyland Bitch, Kris Murray, sent out Christmas presents to all Anaheim homeowners. The Christmas presents were Notices of a significant increase in residential homeowners’ utilities bills, while giving large commercial users, including Disneyland, Rate modifications that will results in significant reductions in their utilities bills.
The Notices were written in double talk, with stafements so misleading, only a “Nuclear Engineer” could decipher the true meanings within the Notices.
To confuse the majority of Anaheim residents who are Latino, the Notices were sent out only in English to all of the Spanish speaking homeowners.
To approve or prevent this utility measure, an election of all Anaheim property owners will be conducted in a very deceptive manner. A vote against this utilify measure must be made by a written formal protest. To vote to approve the utility measure, a property owner needs to do nothing. All property owners who do not send in a written formal protest will be considered as a yes vote, voting for the measure.
Disneyland, who controls the Anaheim City Council through their slut, Kris Murray, has made it virtually impossible to defeat this utilily measure by written protests. Property owners who do not vote are considered yes votes.
The Disneyland whore, Kris Murray, may try to deceptively state that it is the fault of the members of the Anaheim Utility Committee, not the city council, that have produce this measure that benefits Disneyland and damages Anaheim residents. Do not believe Kris Murray since the city council appoints the members of the Utility Committee and has the power to override the committee’s actions, such as this utility measure.
The only way to stop Disneyland’s continuing financial rape of Anaheim would be to recall their whore, Council Member Kris Murray. But considering Disneyland had spent about $700,000 already this year to reelect Kris Murray, Anaheim residents could never match the financial resources of Disneyland to mount a successful recall.
Anaheim has once again been screwed by Disneyland and Kris Murray.
this creep is one horrible excuse for a human, he needs to attend mandatory anger management classes followed by house arrest for no longer than 22 months and then have have his privileges for attending council meetings revoked…The courts may want to consider having him castrated…we don’t want any more of this type of animal roaming the streets of any town…
I forgot to mention that perhaps his anger comes from his wife leaving him for his best friend…which in itself is astounding that he had a wife and a friend…In all this freak is a menace to society and is a dangerous angry little man….
Gail Eastman has three sons, no daughter. That is just one of the out and out lies in this narrative, and there are MANY. I was there and saw the entire thing start to finish. Fitzgerald was the attacker, he tripped up and pushed a gentleman trying to get out of the row where Fitzgerald sat on the end. When will the mayor invoke the “disruption of meeting” condition and have this dangerous nincompoop removed?
I’ll be honest. I typically err on the side of the First Amendment. I shudder over pretty much every attempt to stifle someone’s free speech rights, even if I strongly disagree with that someone’s speech.
Now with this being said, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Denis Fitzgerald enjoys crossing the line. Hasn’t he already jumped head-first into trouble by engaging in homophobia and racism when delivering his council rants? Does he really have the “right” to hurl such vitriol at fellow Anaheim residents at City Hall?
There’s no doubt in my mind that the reason the police didn’t bother with Fitzy’s citizen’s arrest (which probably never crossed his mind until he had to sign the one sworn out against himself) is because the police realized the math didn’t add up: three men, per Fitzy, beat and assaulted him, yet he claims he received only one “rabbit punch” and he doesn’t even know who delivered it (neither does anyone else, for that matter). How can you arrest three men for delivering only one punch?
One thing Fitzy needs to be reminded of is that everyone in Council chambers has as just as much right to sit anywhere they please as he has the right to spew out his hate speech every two weeks. Too bad, so sad, they want to sit there. And while I had to laugh because it can only be true in this man’s twisted mind, is now illegal to “pass gas”? Oh wait a minute, what Fitzy’s referring to in these instances is bad social manners, something I’m surprised he knows anything about.
And where in Fitzy’s “side of the story” is his knocking down the (let’s set the record straight) sixty-seven year old man? Since no one’s mentioning any names, I won’t either, but this man who was knocked down is one of the gentlest souls I’ve ever met, good natured, kind (with foot problems of his own, BTW), who just wanted to sit down! Was he a friend of Gail’s? Yessirreee. Considering that portion of the meeting was specifically to honor Gail Eastman and thank her for her service on the Council, I’d guess that 95% of the people in that room were her friends!
And dear Fitzy, after berating both Gail and her husband in the most foul language he could come up with, then proceeded to attend the reception in her honor. It defies the imagination what size cojones this man has.
Whoever coined the phrase “I may not like what you say, but I defend your right to say it,” never had to listen to this sorry excuse for a human being; I bet they’d change their minds.
so per Fitzgerald, Murray is a white supremacist now….but what standard is that not slander?
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.