DHS looks at mandatory background checks for committees

Desert Hot Springs wants to require background checks for anyone looking to volunteer on a commission or committee. This after it was discovered an applicant had served time for making terrorist threats at Missouri State University.

Christopher Suttles is now living in Desert Hot Springs under a different name, Itai Cardona. As Cardona he applied to head the city’s forming Human Rights Committee. As Suttles, he threatened to eliminate minority groups on campus.

“That was really a bombshell for us,” said Desert Hot Springs Mayor Adam Sanchez. “Now that the information has come out, that has really elevated the need for us to have a process in place to screen applicants and so that we can pick the right people,”

Itai Cardona now lives in Desert Hot Springs and is administrator for the Desert Hot Springs Human Rights Committee page on Facebook.

Christopher Suttles, is the same man. He pleaded guilty to emailing threats in 2007 to “eliminate” minority groups on Missouri State University campus including homosexuals, blacks hispanics and jews. A crime he served 120 days in jail and 5 years of probation.

Cardona, as he is known now, has proclaimed the head of the Desert Hot Springs Human Rights Committee, a committee that has yet to be officially formed.

“We never appointed this particular individual so we suggest that we put an ordinance on the books that require that all of our volunteer commissioners and committee members submit to a criminal background check,” said City Attorney Steven Quintanilla.

The proposed ordinance was discussed at length during the recent City Council meeting but the issue was tabled until it could be studied further.

“So the question lies how far do we want to go as a city council and what are our responsibilities when a background check is done?” said Council Member Scott Matas during Tuesday’s meeting.

Right now the ordinance would only require the background check, it would be up to the council member making the appointments to decide whether or not to factor that in to their selection process.

“The fact that being that there is so many people interested in the city, we just want to be able to create a process where everybody has an equal opportunity to apply and at the same time we have a screening process in place,” said Sanchez.

“We have a lot of shady people who live here, I think that if some of them wanted to volunteer for something that they want to get back at the city with it’s a good way of doing it,” said resident Jeff Freiberg.

Desert Hot Springs Police did investigate Cardona, that case has now been closed and no charges will be filed.

We did reach out to Cardona for comment on this story through his mailing address, Facebook and email, but he did not respond to our requests.