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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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This will not be over until the chief is fired or steps down and her jack booted thug cop posse that ignored the 4th amendment are relieved of duty….


25

We all know they will never be relieved of duty, at most they will just move on to another department and continue their tactics, it’s the government way. Fail at your job just move to another area and continue failing.


13

Will someone please name the Morro Bay officer, he/she clearly provided malicious and false information.


18

Just imagine this scenario. A private citizen (let’s make him a middle-aged, heterosexual, white male with a “TRUMP 2020” decal on the bumper of his Ford F150) with a concealed carry permit goes to the crapper at El Pollo Loco and is obtuse enough to leave his firearm behind.


He then lies to law enforcement about his exact actions once he realizes he left the firearm on the asswipe dispenser.


His permit to carry a concealed firearm would be immediately REVOKED! He would be CHARGED with a crime(s) — likely a felony if Chief Cantrell had her way. He would also be EVISCERATED by the Tribune, KSBY, SLO New Times, etc.


Yet Cantrell herself skates. Crazy! Absolutely nuts! It’s this unfair treatment of people that’s spawning a deep hatred for the privileged class (govt employees) in our society.


You may come out of this with your job intact, Cantrell (at least until you can retire), but you’re an example of the very worst of the aforementioned privileges class.


25

OK, the Tribune website just posted an article announcing that the DA will not charge Skeeter Mangan for “stealing” Cantrell’s lost gun.


I don’t subscribe to the Tribune, and my three free reads for the month are already used, so I haven’t been able to read the article, and that’s all I know for now.


Can someone else advise us what the article says?


3

Here’s is the DA’s actual presser:


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ECNS2kyVUAA27rO?format=jpg&name=4096×4096


0

For some odd reason, SLO Pravda started showing up in my front yard 2 weeks ago. How they throw something so light any distance perplexes this former Tribune paperboy, I think they get out of the car and lay it down gently. They may have me confused with a neighboring business. “While the evidence in this case does support a misdemeanor charge of Penal Code section 485 (bulls**t), after considering the circumstances, I have concluded that it would not be in the interest of justice to charge Mr. Mangan of a crime,” Dow said in a release. Read “it would not be in the best interest of my re-election to charge Mr. Mangan of a crime”.


10

Download The Tribune app on your phone, everything is there for free. Between my 2 reply posts I’ll guess we’ll find out if The Useless Fibune reads CCN.


3

Switch browsers and you can read Trib again for free for a few views.


3

Dan Dow,

Thank you for standing down on, adversely, charging Skeeter for his role in saving lives due to the SLOPD chiefs negligence. Enough harm to others has been caused by this “situation”,already.

You still fall short of justice for real criminals and real victims, unfortunately.

I’ve heard that you are up for re-election. Good luck with that.

A little advise, try standing on your own, without influence from those that seek to bend the rules. You are supposed to represent the people. not the SLO elite.

Maybe you should apply for SLO city attorney or the SLOPD attorney.

Everybody thinks you, act like, you do already.

This story just seems to keep going, doesn’t it?


6

So for argument sake does CPS take away every homeless persons kids? If their homeless aren’t they likely we’ll say a little dirty, unorganized, unable to provide shelter and proper nutrition for the kids? Point being CPS or CW has surely helped somebody along they way. My personal experience says the kid(s) were just another number in a sea of numbers who provided employment for somebody who didn’t really have the time to give two shits. I wont name names, but it was pretty sad watching a stepdaughter be allowed to use drugs, tobacco, and get pregnant while in supposed “supervised custody”


8

Child neglect were the dirty, hungry,lice where does the neglect come in? This is what justifies the incompetent social workers in this county. How many more law suits does it take for the county officials to wake up?


20

It not officials that need to wake up, that’s a lost cause. It’s the voters that need to wake up. A lot of their tax dollars are going to pay for these lawsuits and when their taxes go up or services are cut they may finally vote the crooks out of office.


14

Doesn’t matter how much they lose in lawsuits. It’s not their money, it’s yours.


12

Sad on so many fronts:(

At a time when the national narrative has turned anti Police due to the claim that Police use excessive force and or Gestapo tactics without fear of any type of consequences, we have it happening right before our eyes.

This has been damaging to the poor couple and their children, and the little pooch too:(

But maybe more damaging to all the Police Officers that are truly trustworthy, out trying to do their jobs without the stigmatization of being a Cantrell type Cop!

How can upstanding Police officers ever build back the Public Trust that they so desperately need when these type of incidents keep happening around the nation, and as we can see, even here close to home:(

Has Chief Cantrell shown any remorse for her actions that created the damage that it caused, apologized at all,, tried to help this couple and their children in any way, even offer pay to get the pooch out the pound!!!

You truly learn about peoples character when thing go wrong and how they handle it, Chief Cantrell made a mistake when leaving her gun in a restaurant bathroom, but seemed to make bigger and bigger mistakes in how she handled it afterwards!!!

This could of been a great community moment, in teaching, that yes even police officers are human and make mistakes too, that also, they handle their mistakes in a manner that reflects in a way that garners and maintains the public trust, that we all should expect from the men and women that wear the badge!!!


34

Woohoo!!!

Dow at least showed some character:)

NEWS


No charges filed against man who admitted to taking SLO Police Chief’s gun

No charges filed against man who stole SLO Police Chief’s gun

Posted: 4:24 PM, Aug 17, 2019 Updated: 11:45 PM, Aug 17, 2019

By: KSBY Staff

Los Osos man admits to taking SLO police chief’s gun, turns himself and gun in


No charges will be filed against the man who admitted to taking the San Luis Obispo Police chief’s gun last month after she left it in a San Luis Obispo restaurant bathroom.


Skeeter Mangan of Los Osos turned the gun in a day after it was reported missing.


The San Luis Obispo County District Attorney, Dan Dow, said in a statement Saturday “While the evidence in this case does support a misdemeanor charge of Penal Code section 485, after thoroughly considering all the circumstances, I have concluded that it would not be in the interest of justice to charge Mr. Mangan with a crime.”


Earlier this week , the SLO County DA’s Office received the report from police which asked for a review/filing of charges of grand theft of a firearm, possession of stolen property and carrying a loaded firearm in public.


“It is my sincere hope that Mr. Mangan and other members of our community have learned from this widely publicized situation that failure to take immediate steps to find the rightful owner of lost property is a crime of theft under California law,” said Dow.


In the statement, Dow commends Sean Greenwood, Mangan’s brother-in-law, for contacting authorities after he recognized Mangan in social media posts.


0

Cheyne and Vanessa’s daughter, had one wish, and that was to have her parents at her birthday party, like they have been for all of her life.

CWS, (well within their ability to make this happen), denied the parents request to attend the birthday party. Instead they had to go see their children on a weekday that had nothing to do with a birthday party with nobody else there. no family, no friends, nobody else was allowed to be there.

So, even though Judge Covello, in my opinion, did the right thing after considering what the D.A. presented to him to deny the parents request, which was the whole reason of this extra court session, (to see if the parents could possibly attend the birthday party), CWS denied it.

CWS, these kind of decisions are what make you look bad in the public eye. You get an ‘F’ for effort.

Let’s see, what does ‘CWS’ stand for, anybody know?

How about you ‘CWS’? Let’s see if you remember, ‘ CHILD WELFARE SERVICES’, I wonder what your job is, let’s explore, could it be – ‘WATCHING OUT FOR THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILDREN’? Hmmm? I wonder what this means? could it be, ‘DOING YOUR BEST TO MAKE SURE THAT CHILDREN ARE NOT HARMED’?

Wonder what your decision to deny her parents to attend her birthday party is going to do to this child, long term. Is it going to HARM this child? Do you care ‘CWS’?

Here is an idea, when it is evident, as you well know in this case, that the parents are no danger to the children, step out of the way and think of the children’s well being, mental and otherwise, instead of your false sense righteousness.

CWS, along with the city of SLO and the SLOPD, everything you do here is being looked at. these children are going to grow up. they will be able to legally pursue any wrong doing. all that is happening to them will be documented. Books will be written about this and your role in it, just saying.


DO THE RIGHT THING! be ‘people of character’ ALL of you !!!


47

Sure glad I didn’t vote for Covello, hope to see Dow do the right thing.


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