Less than a mile from where Sgt. Ron Helus was mortally wounded Nov. 7, 2018, in the line of duty at Borderline Bar and Grill, Thousand Oaks Police Chief Tim Hagel met with community members Wednesday at his regularly scheduled “Coffee with the Chief” event at a coffee shop on Moorpark Road.
A man approached holding a Make America Great Again hat and introduced himself as a former law enforcement officer. He asked Hagel to respond to reports that he had put the kibosh on a charity flag football game bearing Helus’ name because he was opposed to Republicans speaking there.
Hagel said that much of what has been reported is not accurate. For starters, he said, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office did not cancel the event; it simply said it would not be participating. Hagel said the event organizers promised that a “media storm” would follow after he gave them the news Sept. 17, just three weeks before the Ron Helus Blue Bowl was to be held Oct. 6 at Newbury Park High School.
The event that honors fallen police officers nationwide has since been canceled.
Hagel, Helus’ one-time partner, choked up as he told the man he was willing to lay down his life to protect the citizens of the community, regardless of their politics or religion.
“Right here, 130,000 of us are healing,” he said. “This organization has the whole country to go do what they want to do, and we wish them well.”
Hagel doesn’t deny telling Mike Randall and Rosemary Zore of the Robert L. Zore Foundation, organizers of the event, that “this is not Trump country” and that he felt some of the individuals invited to speak did not “represent the fabric of the community.”
The chief said the sheriff’s office did not want to be part of any political-leaning event in the name of Helus, left or right.
Football fundraiser
In the spring, Randall and Zore contacted the sheriff’s department from their home in Naples, Fla., with an offer to put on a 7-on-7 flag football tournament to raise funds for Helus’ wife and son, Karen and Jordan, and to create a scholarship in Helus’ name.
Created in 2018, the foundation is named for Zore’s father, a Miami police officer who was killed in the line of duty on Christmas Day 1983. To date, Randall and Zore have hosted two Blue Bowls.
After the sheriff’s department agreed to the event, Randall and Zore flew to California for a meeting with Capt. Don Aguilar and Karen Helus to discuss particulars.
“Karen was so excited,” Randall told the Acorn. “She goes, ‘I can’t believe what you guys are doing. This is amazing.’”
Players began signing up at a cost of $600 per team. A few sponsors signed on and donations rolled in. The Thousand Oaks Police Department and Newbury Park High School advertised the event on Twitter and Facebook.
Then came September
Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub said Hagel approached him to say the event was “turning into something that it wasn’t originally represented to be.”
“So we started looking at websites and some of the background on this organization, and they had very little history as a nonprofit,” Ayub said.
In fact, the foundation, as of Wednesday, had not registered with the California Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts and had not received tax-exempt status from the Franchise Tax Board, a requirement for out-of-state nonprofits that intend to collect donations in the Golden State.
Ayub said that when he signed on to speak it was only supposed to be himself and a couple of other “local leaders,” including Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin and possibly U.S. Rep. Julia Brownley.
Among those added to the list between Aug. 2 and Sept. 14: actor Scott Baio, a Trump supporter, and attorney Ronda Kennedy, Irwin’s GOP opponent in last year’s Assembly race. Singer Joy Villa, an outspoken supporter of Trump and law enforcement, had been invited to sing the national anthem.
The sheriff said he came to believe the foundation carried a political bent and had alternative motives.
“And it doesn’t matter what direction that is, right or left, it’s just not something that should be part of a tribute to a fallen officer. To me it’s about that officer’s service and the family,” Ayub said. “There’s certainly political issues surrounding the violence that took place here (at Borderline), but that’s not something I want our office to be involved in.
“The way it looked to me, (the event) wasn’t designed to pay tribute and honor the memory of Ron Helus, but that it was designed to elevate the status of this nonprofit. I feel like I was misled. This certainly wasn’t what I envisioned for this event as it was laid out to me. I thought it was a just a charitable football game.”
Anti-Republican?
Randall told the Acorn it was the sheriff and Hagel who made things political, not the foundation.
Randall said he likes to have both Republicans and Democrats take part in the Blue Bowl because “we believe in uniting both sides.”
“This is never, ever a political event,” Randall said. “No one speaks on politics.”
He said things didn’t go sideways until the addition of Kennedy on Sept. 14, prompting a text message from Hagel that read, “Some really serious issues with the event,” and later, “Yeah (it’s) all about the speakers. Some serious local political issues.”
Kennedy, an attorney from Oak Park who moved to Ventura County in 2017, ran against Irwin for the Assembly last year, losing by 28,000 votes. She’s since announced she’s challenging Brownley in 2020.
“We put Ronda Kennedy on the website on Sat., Sept. 14. We get the call from Chief Hagel on the 16th,” Randall said. “It’s pretty clear what their motivation was.”
Randall said Kennedy was recommended to him by Ventura County Republican Party leadership. He said county Democrats didn’t respond.
“They (VCGOP) thought it would be a good opportunity to have an attorney, an African American woman . . . and we want to unite everyone together and cross everything over, and we invited Ronda Kennedy,” he said.
“This wasn’t just about local and national leaders; this is about influential speakers, influential people . . . that’s why we have Scott Baio. Scott Baio went to the same church as Ron Helus.”
Randall said he believes Irwin encouraged the department to back out over the addition of Kennedy.
Irwin did not deny that her office reached out to the sheriff with concerns. At no time did she give any orders, she said.
“I chose to withdraw after the sheriff’s department declined to participate and it became clear to me that self-promotion was being put before our community and before honoring Sgt. Helus,” Irwin said in a statement.
Verbal warfare
In the days since the sheriff’s decision to exit the game, Randall and Zore have blasted Ayub, Hagel and Irwin in press releases, on social media and on YouTube, alleging corruption, abuse of power and racism.
When asked whether he believed the sheriff’s department and Irwin didn’t want Kennedy there because she is African American, Randall said,
“In my honest opinion, absolutely they didn’t want her there because she’s black; 1.8% of your community is African American, so it’s right there.”
Randall went on to call Hagel a “liar” and Ayub a “joke,” saying they’re trying to spin the story when they knew all along that the Blue Bowl was more than “just a football game.”
“So who’s running the damn sheriff’s department? Jacqui Irwin or Sheriff Ayub?” he said.
Ayub said the foundation’s words and actions since the department pulled out have been confirmation that he made the right decision.
“Suggesting that the sheriff’s office was a puppet of Jacqui Irwin? And that Tim (Hagel) is some kind of anti-Republican villain of the community? It’s a smear campaign and it’s pure baloney,” Ayub said. “If you know Tim, he’s one of the nicest guys on the planet, maybe a little too nice in this case.”
Mayor Rob McCoy, a Republican and supporter of the president, said he stands behind the sheriff’s decision to exit the Blue Bowl.
“As a city, we have no interest in allowing our tragedy to be consumed by political positioning,” McCoy said. “I stand firmly behind the decision of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office.”
Reporter Dawn Megli contributed to this article.