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Couple caught in SLO chief’s gun fiasco granted visitation

August 16, 2019

Cheyne Orndoff, Princess, and Vanessa Bedroni reunited a few days earlier.

By KAREN VELIE

The couple swept up in the search for the gun that San Luis Obispo Police Chief Deanna Cantrell lost in a restaurant bathroom is being allowed to see their children again. [Cal Coast Times]

Cheyne Orndoff and Vanessa Bedroni shared a birthday cake with their 8- and 9-year-old daughters after the ruling by Judge Timothy Covello allowed them contact with the children.

Orndorf and Bedroni’s children were taken from them after police failed to find the chief’s gun during a warrantless search of their home. Failing to find the gun, police then reported the couple to Child Protective Services because they found the couple’s home dirty. They were arrested on charges of child neglect.

The children were taken from the home and the couple was subject to an order denying them the right to phone or see their two daughters. A Tuesday hearing in Covello’s chambers involving the prosecution and defense attorneys resulted in the modification to the protective order.

Chief Deanna Cantrell

The family’s ordeal began on July 10 when Chief Cantrell left her Glock 42 pistol on the toilet paper holder in the bathroom of an El Pollo Loco restaurant. The gun is banned for sale to the public in California because it has been deemed unsafe because it has no external safety and has what is known as a short trigger pull. The Glock has been blamed in a number of deaths including that of a Florida police officer.

A surveillance video showed a clean-shaven man entering the bathroom after Chief Cantrell left. A Morro Bay officer saw the video and said the man shown was Orndoff. However Orndoff has a full beard and mustache.

Police descended on Orndoff’s home, and asked his permission to search his house even though several officers noted he looked nothing like the suspect, Orndoff said.

Orndoff said no, saying that he was not at the restaurant and he did not take the chief’s gun. Detectives Jason Dickle and Suzie Walsh declared because he was on probation they did not need a warrant for a search, Orndoff said. The police then searched the house but failed to find the gun.

Ordoff was not on probation.

His brother, Cole Orndoff, had stolen Cheyne Orndoff’s identity and passed himself off as Cheyne as he committed crimes. In 2017, officers arrested Cole Orndoff for drug related offenses and for impersonating his brother Cheyne Orndoff.

A few months later, Cole Orndoff pleaded no contest to five misdemeanors charges including a count of impersonation. Judge Craig van Rooyen sentenced Cole Orndoff to time served and three years informal probation, according to court records.

In logging the probation of Cole Orndoff into the county criminal justice information system, it appears that either an employee of the superior court or of the district attorney’s office wrongly listed Cheyne Orndoff as the defendant and not the victim.

After SLO police officers raided the couple’s home, they put their daughters, then 7 and 9, in foster care, and arrested them for child neglect because of a dirty house.

Last weekend, the couple was reunited with Princess, the family’s dog. Princess was seized and put in the pound when the couple was arrested and their children taken.

Since Orndoff was mistakenly entered into the county criminal justice information system, a string of errors and violations of his and Bedroni’s rights have occurred.

During the arrest, Orndoff said he was not read his Miranda Rights.

In California, arrestees are required to be arraigned within three days. Even though Orndoff and Bedroni were arrested on July 10, they were kept in jail until their arraignment on July 15.

Because the search on their home was conducted without a warrant and the fact that the man suspected of taking the gun was clean-shaven while Orndoff was bearded, it is likely the couple’s attorneys will argue that anything found in the home, including photos police took inside the house, were obtained illegally, and as such would not be admissible under the exclusionary rule.

In an attempt to raise money to make repairs at their home and to help cover legal expenses, the couple posted a plea for assistance on GoFundMe.


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Folks,


Shame on Heidi Harmon, Deanna Cantrell, Christine Dietrich and the rest of the lousy SLO Progressives! This case exposes the whacky progressives to be hypocrites, and Shane Ordoff DOES NOT deserve to have his rights violated like this.


There comes a time when, as freedom loving citizens, we must unite to stand up to confront government evil, and we are past the time when we can just sit by and watch our freedoms slowly snatched from us. The whacky SLO Progressives have gone too far with this case, and NO ONE can rest easy if they are allowed to violate the rights of this family.


If the charges are not completely dropped, and an apology issued, I say we form a ‘Pitchfork Patriots’ militia, and confront these authoritarian progressives with force if necessary. Harmon, Cantrell, Dietrich, etc. have pushed the whacky ideas on us for too long, and it is time for them to go. It is wrong to sit idly by and watch this family destroyed by government jack booted thugs, so let’s act to protect democracy.


If you see them in public, confront Harmon and let her know what you think of her poor leadership. Confront Dietrick and Cantrell as well. DO NOT give the SLO Progressives a free pass on their abuse of our constitutional rights, the 4th amendment is supposed to protect Cheyne Ordoff.


The Democrat Party is perfectly happy abusing the rights of citizens.


46

Get out and tell them yourself, or are you afraid? It’s not meant to be an offensive question, or some sort of shame game, it’s a question that should be asked of any person that puts out the partisan ass chit you do, Mjd.

You call out these “progressives” (Rightly so too!) while ignoring the one person that could and should put this fire out? What’s that all about?!!! Nothin’ but partisan ass chit that has no place in this conversation!

Call out your man there Mjd, call out to Dan Dow to do the right thing! Do it publicly, loudly, letting him know you voted for him and you expect him to do the job you elected him to do, to seek out justice.

Don’t back down, don’t let fear steer you away from doin’ the right thing. Show all of us how to do this the correct way, Bubbha!

When you decide to take to the streets with your Demand of Dow let me know, I’ll get my NORML flag out and join ya, what da ya say?!!!


5

Folks,


Our ‘friend’, A-T-F, apparently misses the whole point here that so many bloggers have made: that it is wrong for these so-called ‘progressives’ to use government as a club in denying the constitutional rights that Cheyne Orndoff and family are guaranteed. The whacky left-wing mayor, Heidi Harmon, has been silent on this case, (but publicly protest in favor of those filing phony asylum claims on our southern border) the police chief, Deanna Cantrell, has led the effort to arrest a non-involved family in a cynical ruse to protect her job and tattered reputation, and the SLO City Attorney, Christine Dietrich, has been quick to bless this whole sordid affair, constitution be damned.


Notice how these phony progressives talk a big game about standing up for the oppreseed and downtrodden, but they themselves are the oppressor!


It is becoming apparent that these left-wing nut jobs are only too willing to attack working families right here on the Central Coast, and its gotten to the point where we will have to stand up and resist their unconstitutional bullying and cowardice. The Cheyne Orndoff case is a perfect illustration of just how far these people will go, and what they are willing to do to advance their cause. Do not rest easy, for you and your family can be next to fall victim.


Speak truth to power. 27-1


9

You sound like a SLO version of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, reroutin’ your fearful leaders bullchit to infuse it into your fear mongering horsepatucky! Again, no mention of Dan Dow, wonder why? Are you on Dow’s payroll, or what?

Lions, tigers, bears, oh my…..


-2

As someone who has voted for more than four decades and not yet once for a Democrat … you LOST me at the last line. Get rid of every Democrat in the county and you’d still have the same problem because culture has evolved such that most Republicans are right on board with the fundamental concepts of government involvement and supervision, they just differ in the details.


Consumers have bought the media’s phony war between Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals — a growing minority in voters — when the real conflict is in two places: among R/cons and D/libs themselves, each party and movement rife with inner cracks, fights, and divisions …


… and the rift between the R/D complex and at least a plurality if not a majority of Americans who seek to reduce government, Federal in particular, as a solution to problems, but have zero party or movement that actually DOES so, although both parties claim the upper moral ground. National and LOCAL!


4

Never mistake me for a Democrat, Mjd, but … wasn’t it a REPUBLICAN who started the EPA, one of the most tyrannical and abusive government agencies around???? Wasn’t it a REPUBLICAN who created Homeland Security and the spectacle of WWII veterans being nearly strip-searched in airports by the kinds of creeps who WANT the job of feeling down perfect strangers at airport screens? Wasn’t it a REPUBLICAN who launched the first state-run insurance “care” in Massachusetts?


The Republican party is as capable of abusing the rights of citizens. Sorry to be the one to break it to you. It’s about POWER. The goal is to reduce, minimize, the POWER of government availed to ANY elected official, not to vote for one party you think will wield that power less tyrannically!


4

The Democrat Party has been taken over by the Progressives. Remember President JFK’s famous statement? “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” The Democrat Party has left its base. So sad.


-1

I have to ask, did the Chief, any detectives, patrol officers, probation personnel, animal control , Child Services, anyone, have the kindness or empathy or consciousness to even say, “I’m Sorry, we were wrong?” Or did they do the usual, yell, bully, push around and assume you are lying?


59

The power these non-elected bureaucrats wield is truly terrifying. If CCN had not gotten involved anything could have happened to these people. Were they able to get their dog back? or is that an old picture?


49

Their dog is back, however, princess is different, she is traumatized, she now stays close to both Cheyne and Vanessa, princess perked up quite a bit when she was with the children though.

The whole family is traumatized. This thing is still out of control.


32

Fourth Amendment to the Constitution: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.


SLO PD’s likely position: Exigent circumstances – “circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to believe that entry (or other relevant prompt action) was necessary to prevent physical harm to the officers or other persons, the destruction of relevant evidence, the escape of the suspect, or some other consequence improperly frustrating legitimate law enforcement efforts.”


45

Any word on puppy dog? somebody please tell us they have their beloved pup back.


18

It says in the article they were reunited with their dog last weekend.


20

princess is back with the parents.

thank you


5

Folks, as we continue to monitor this situation, let’s consider this:


“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

–Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents 82-83 (1770) in: Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 1, p. 146 (Liberty Fund ed. 1999).


That actual quote of Burke is also commonly condensed as “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”


Either way, what Burke was referring to was the unfortunate existence of those in general society, as well as those in public service, who are either too oblivious to see evil at work, or who do actually see and understand the evil in front of them but are too cowardly to try to do anything about it.


Let’s continue to demand justice in this matter. Justice for Skeeter Mangan, justice for Cheyne Orndoff and Vanessa Bedroni, and justice for the citizens of San Luis Obispo County.


And, perhaps even more importantly, let’s not allow this saga to grind to its inevitable conclusion until those who have created this fiasco in the first place are held fully accountable.


63

Amen to that.


37

Just how much is this quota appointed police chief going to cost the public? People have rights when these rights are violated they sue as they should. The public is paying big money for these in incompetents.


54

Since when is law enforcement qualified to judge when a house is “dirty” enough to remove children from parents?


How dirty WAS the house?


If it was only as plenty disastrously dirty as some homes I’ve known … where despite chaos in their homes that drove me nuts at the time, the slob parents raised productive, good kids who are NOW valuable members of the community … how wrong I was, how arrogant I was to judge what the results would be but weren’t! But I was much younger then … apparently the SLO PD is run by extremely arrogant young people who haven’t learned a thing about life.


It is LONG PAST time to put the evil tyrannical hysterical and incredibly arrogant and aloof SLOPD behind bars and into a “dirty” cell that they are punished for not keeping clean enough for our standards.


63

We can’t lose sight of the fact that there was no legal reason to enter the residence in the first place, so the house’s interior condition and content was really no one’s business… and that’s double for the cops.


72

You are absolutely right.


The fact that this was a search without a warrant is ’nuff said and enough to have the whole SLO city circus run out of town on a rail, PRONTO.


It is so amazing that in a town classically dominated by a political faction that claims exclusive ownership of tolerance and being non-judmental…

… so screamingly embraces close-mindedness and judmentalism …

… whereas the limited government anti-tyranny faction accused of being intolerant and judmental is the one most likely to embrace “live and let live,” which means that if you don’t like the way your neighbor arranges his/her legal, peaceful, civil priorities, paints his house, landscapes his yard, upgrades his property … then you move somewhere else.


Today’s “tolerant, non-judmental enlightened progressives” regress to being wholly judgmental and rigidly limited in how they interpret the world, using government tyranny to force people into abandoning their own legal and peaceful priorities in order to submit to the tyrants’ government priorities.


35

This fiasco is more about protecting the chief (who just happens to be very politically tight with the powers that be) than it is about judging this family. Scapegoats were needed to take the heat off the city’s top cop, and unfortunately an entire family as well as the gentleman who removed the gun from the restroom filled the bill. City officials should realize they’ve lost this battle–heck even The Trib can see that.


39

I had to call social services about a family “situation” last year. There was a lot going on but in talking to the social worker two things stand out from the lengthy conversation. I was told that often even though parents are alcoholics or drug addicts that doesn’t necessarily make them bad parents AND when I flat asked, “So what you are telling me is basically you won’t step in until something terrible…bodily injury or worse happens to the child?” The response was “basically, yes”. There was a lot of documented neglect and unfit parenting going on and social services did NOTHING. So, I find this story so incredibly wrong on so many levels and felony charges are just the icing on the cake.


47

I am surprised that you met an honest and wise social worker, and happy to hear of it. What one person regards as requiring “stepping in” may VERY WELL be wrongly judged and end up being much worse for the kids and the family than the “neglect” perceived by someone with totally different standards, expectations, and priorities. Like I say, at my age now I understand HOW MANY very excellent and productive people were the products of homes that TODAY would be torn apart and dismantled because of imagined “neglect” the way well-meaning but arrogant do-gooders want to do.


When social workers see REAL laws being broken — assault, fraud, robbery, rape, kidnapping, breaking of contract, etc. — THEN they can step in. But until then, it is best to remember that children are EXTREMELY resilient and you’d be amazed to see how wonderful the most woebegone kid can grow up to become … as well as what a creepy louse a kid raised by parents who met all the proper government standards, often IS.


17

Sue the living daylights out of the PD, the county, the city and every police officer who was involved in this horror. 7 figures. Massive money. Sue!!!


68

They should sue; but as well they should enlist the feds to pursue civil rights violations. Make those police and their bosses face federal charges,jail time and loss of employment. They caused this, force their skin in the game.


64

Need a lot of money to file a suit.


9

If an attorney thinks there will be an adequate settlement or award no money is needed to file a suit, the attorney will take the case on contingency, meaning they get a cut of the settlement/award, typically 30%. If there’s possibly 7 figures out there the attorneys will come a calling.


9

Doc, the problem with suing is the city will settle for millions that you and i Have to pay. The guilty people involved will pay nothing.


12

True, but nothing talks louder than money. Sometimes suing is the only way to achieve change.


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