lapd – Page 2 – J.T. the L.A. Storyteller

LAPD officers Now Face a Crucial Choice: To stand with policies as they are, or stand for a change, even in their own ranks

June 4, 2020November 24, 2022 J.T.Leave a comment

(Pandemic in Los Angeles: Day 78)

As of 2018, according to Police Chief Michel Moore, Black, Asian and Latino police officers make up at least 60% of LAPD’s force in Los Angeles.

However, the Board of Directors for the police union, known as the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which works to “protect, promote, and improve the working conditions, legal rights, compensation and benefits of Los Angeles police officers,” is made up of nine officers, including just one Black woman, two white women, and six white men.

In other words, the board is not an accurate representation of what the majority of police officers in L.A. look like, and by extension, what their values are, as well as where they may see room to work along with members of the community in Los Angeles for the betterment of the public good.

The board of police commissioners, on the other hand, which “sets overall policy while the Chief of Police manages the daily operations of the Department and implements the Board’s policies or policy direction and goals,” is slightly more representative, but might be said to still fall short of “a fair share.”

Made up of five mayor-appointed representatives, overseeing a police force where 60% of officers hail from Black, Asian and Latino communities, one could expect these groups to have, say, three out of five seats on the board.

Instead, two white women and one white man take up 60% of the board seats, while one Black man, and one Latina woman account for 40%. In a democratic country, numbers like these suggest we still have a ways to go before achieving an actual functioning democracy.

It’s therefore a good time for every LAPD officer to ask themselves: In the best case scenario, what might the future of policing look like in Los Angeles? For whom should police work, and how?

If there was ever a time for departments, organizations, and individuals everywhere in America to reflect on their own practices and representation, clearly that time has now arrived. And if there’s going to be any meaningful process of change and perhaps even reconciliation, these are just a few key questions to start with.

J.T.

To subscribe to jimbotimes.com, add yourself to the list HERE.

To the Board of Police Commissioners in Los Angeles: Your Time Has Come

June 2, 2020June 9, 2020 J.T.3 Comments

(Pandemic in Los Angeles: Day 76)

The following is a statement edited for publication on the site and delivered by yours truly to the Board of Police Commissioners (BOPC) in Los Angeles, in what would turn out to be eight hours’ worth of public comments for the meeting this past Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020.

LAPD COMMISSION:

I want to echo all of the Black & Brown voices who have made themselves heard at this public meeting thus far.

I want to commend the public for their bravery in speaking against this police and military state that we are seeing unfold across our city and across cities all over America.

To the board:

You have a chance to be on the right side of history by standing against the militarization of the state in response to working class communities marching for an end to genocidal practices against Black and Brown bodies.

Even before the protests, you were already overseeing a caste system in the L.A. County Jail with a daily population of more than 17,000 people, where Black people make up 29% of that jail system while making up less than 9% of the population in Los Angeles.

You, the board members, have a chance not to stand with the fascists. You all heard the president just yesterday declare war against unarmed Black & Brown people, even while only a few days earlier he praised armed white militias for standing for liberty against covid-19 restrictions.

Mayor Garcetti originally said he would not be calling the National Guard. An hour later, he called the National Guard. You’re closer to fascism than you would like to think.

You all need to call for the national guard to LEAVE. They’re armed with M-4 assault rifles and intimidating our community and you are standing by, doing nothing.

You need to call to disarm the LAPD right this second, who, in line with police departments across the country, are battering and injuring unarmed civilians.

You’re closer to fascism than you think.

You have enough blood and injuries on your hands already, but you still have a chance to scale all of this down before it gets worse.

If you think today’s meeting has been long, just wait until the summer when more than 2.5 million people are out of work and looking into their city’s budget, and into the leaders and representatives tasked with overseeing the interests of the people.

Finally, consider that you live in a city where more than half of the population speaks a language other than English at home, yet you offer no captions for non-English speakers.

How much do you really want to hear from your city?

J.T.

To subscribe to jimbotimes.com, add yourself to the list HERE.

By Escalating the Police State, Mayor Garcetti Is Officially L.A.’s First White Supremacist Mayor of the 21st Century

May 30, 2020January 23, 2022 J.T.Leave a comment

(Pandemic in Los Angeles: Day 73)

History now records that every injury inflicted on defenseless protestors in L.A. this week comes from a mayor whose billion-dollar police force could bulldoze and bully unarmed citizens protesting the modern-day lynching of Black bodies only so much. Even after an annual budget of more than a billion dollars for weapons and training for this force, to still call for Governor Newsom’s support to smother free speech and the right to assembly in Los Angeles says a lot.

At this critical moment in our nation’s history, by calling the National Guard to intimidate and arrest defenseless protestors, Mayor Garcetti is now the first white supremacist mayor of L.A. in the 21st century, no better than a “Proud Boy” thug in Atwater Village claiming “defense” of white supremacy as his uniform glorifies blood spewed from Black & Brown skin.

If that sounds like an exaggeration, consider that the mayor’s curfew and call for the national guard on Saturday night comes less than 12 hours before the president’s designation of the so-called “ANTIFA” (abbreviated from ANTIFASCIST) association as a “terrorist group,” despite providing no evidence to support the claim that the group, which is known as a loose coalition of anti-racist activists, engages in anything related to terrorism.

That is, unless the official policy of the state is that any movement against white supremacy is so offensive to whiteness it must be deemed “terrorist.” The open-air prison is now in plain sight. Enter prison warden Garcetti.

But the mayor’s decision to escalate police reinforcements rather than deescalate their numbers doesn’t just place him in the company of Donald Trump. It also comes at a time when mayors across urban cities in the United States have a choice to either stand with their fellow citizens in calling for an end to Jim Crow policies for Black and Brown bodies, or stand against them, supporting only an extension of those same policies. Just one of these choices historically costs Black and Brown civilians in the United States their lives. Garcetti has chosen the latter.

Consider also that the mayor, like Governor Newsom, certainly calls on the federal government to support the state and L.A.’s economic shortcomings this year due to reduced tax revenue. So why can’t they stand with L.A. calling on the state and federal government to stop sanctioning the killing of unarmed Black people?

Additionally, I encourage every reader in Los Angeles to consider the following:

Exactly what gives Garcetti the right to escalate police forces at this time? And why is L.A. City Council not convening during these hours to veto the mayor’s invitation of the national guard to our city? What expertise for crisis management has Garcetti shown during seven years of shoving & arresting unhoused citizens instead of sheltering them? And how competently has his team performed during just the last two months in which they’ve failed to house even 3,000 of L.A.’s 15,000 most vulnerable unhoused residents?

Moreover, L.A. City Council’s failure to convene at this time also reveals the body is weak outside the realm of green lights for real estate tycoons, with its council-members sitting disparately at this time and apparently without prior knowledge of any of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s orders. This is a clear example of what democracy does not look like.

J.T.

To subscribe to jimbotimes.com, add yourself to the list HERE.

How arrests in our community stoke memories of collective trauma

May 10, 2020February 25, 2023 J.T.2 Comments

(Pandemic in Los Angeles: Day 53)

On the drive back home the other night I found myself behind the steering wheel looking for a parking spot. It must have been just slightly past 7:30 pm. When I made the turn onto my street-which rarely has an open space but which I gave a shot anyway-I was struck by an unnerving sight: a police car parked in the middle of the street, its doors wide open, situated behind another car a few feet away that sat idly and without any passengers inside. I slowed down to survey what was going on. It was an arrest.

I slowly lifted my foot off the break to ease the car forward, when through the windshield I saw one of two police officers taking to a young man who looked to be somewhere in his early twenties, in a baseball cap and face-mask, and with his arms behind his back, presumably just moments away from being placed into the patrol car.

Less than ten feet away, I saw the second police officer pinning another young man likely in his early twenties in a baseball cap against the wall of the apartment complex a few feet removed from the curb. The police officer was searching him. From my open window on the passenger’s side, I could hear the young man pleading with the officer to ‘take it easy,’ that it was all an overreaction.

Ages ago when I was fifteen years old, a similar experience befell me and a group of other young folks in the neighborhood. But even if our experience at the hands of the Rampart police department was an anomaly, or something extraordinary, today I wouldn’t be able to count how many times over almost thirty years in the community I’ve seen police cars in the neighborhood just like the other night, escorting young people into custody more often than not.

I’m not alone in that sight. After maneuvering my car fully past the scene, I continued toward opposite side of the street from where I entered to try my chances for a curb elsewhere. A couple of minutes later, a few blocks away from home, I found a spot and quickly pulled my car alongside. I thought that would be the end of it, and that the police would just be gone by the time I walked back over. But some ten minutes after I first caught sight of the arrest, on turning the corner onto my street, things had barely moved an inch. The young man against the wall was still there, while the other was no longer in view, presumably inside the police cruiser. There were a few neighbors out, some walking their dogs, but none of us were exactly in the mood then for our usual polite greetings then.

As I paced forward, closing in on the gate outside my building meant literally getting physically closer to the arrest. I sped up my pace then, but found myself wrought by feelings of embarrassment for the young men, and feelings of inadequacy with myself for simply walking away, for not speaking up to ask what was going on and why they had to place these young men into handcuffs like that.

I asked myself if I should photograph the scene, if only to create a citizen’s record of the arrest, but decided against it. I understand it’s already humiliating enough to be subjected to the will of a police officer. A photograph of the event, which can be shared widely and haunt one for years, is all that less necessary.

Making my way past the gate and into the building, as sunset edged along the sky to leave the street with evening, I realized mom would be home soon. I thought of calling her to warn her about the miserable spectacle outside, but decided against that too, figuring the arrest would conclude just before she turned the corner with her cart along the sidewalk.

Turning the knob and stepping into my living room brought little reprieve. I took a set and sought anything to distance myself from wracked feelings, a simple distraction to shake it off my mind. But a few minutes later, I heard the familiar sound of mom’s cart rolling through the hallway. On arriving outside the door, she let the cart go roughly against it, which made a loud thumping sound, and which was unusual for her. On opening the door, I could see that mom was shaken. The arrest had lingered on and she saw everything; it brought back a trove of memories for her too.

J.T.

To subscribe to jimbotimes.com, add yourself to the list HERE.

LAPD will receive nearly 1.9 billion dollars next year while housing & community investment will lose millions

May 7, 2020May 9, 2020 J.T.2 Comments

(Pandemic in Los Angeles: Day 50)

In East Hollywood, walking through the neighborhood these last few days has led me to realize it’s going to get significantly more polluted over the next year, especially since the mayor has announced a budget for 2020-2021 with a reduced amount set aside for certain basics like clean-up & graffiti removal due to COVID-19. This column reviews just a handful of numbers taken from the mayor’s proposed budget for 2021: Exhibit A: Summary of Appropriations.

In fiscal year 2020-2021, the Bureau of Street Services, for one, which oversees street walkability and safety, including management of street trees and the urban islands where many of L.A.’s encampments can be spotted, nearly 32 million in pay-cuts from the previous year will leave the bureau with a total of $167.6 million for services in 2021.

Similarly, for the Housing and Community Investment department, a resource for L.A.’s renters and property owners alike, including for complaints or forms to report abuse, its budget will be slashed by almost 9 million for a total of $81.1 million through 2021.

Transportation, meanwhile, which runs and maintains services such as the DASH buses that particularly serve L.A.’s elderly population, will lose $6 million, operating on a budget of $180 million during the next fiscal year. Other investments on the local level, such as Neighborhood Empowerment, or funding for the Neighborhood Councils around which local citizens organize for their communities, will also have their budget reduced by over half a million, to operate on just $2.8 million for 2021.

But while these services, which for years have been under-resourced and over-worked, will have to make due with less the following year, the Los Angeles Police department will actually receive a pay-raise of 122.6 million, amounting to nearly $1.9 billion in payments from the city’s budget through 2021.

To place that into perspective, even L.A.’s Fire department will see only a third of LAPD’s pay-raise, with an increase of 44.6 million to operate on a budget of $732.2 million dollars through 2021.

Years ago, I remember getting together at least a couple of times with the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council, when it still organized neighborhood clean-ups once a month. Groups used to cover at least 3 – 4 blocks picking up trash and beautifying the neighborhood; gloves, brooms, rakes, large plastic bags, massive dumpsters, and a truck or two available for hauling were all provided by teamwork between various groups such as the neighborhood council, Mitch O’Farrell’s office, and more. It was literally some of the closest I’d ever felt to some of the city’s local leadership, and after a morning’s worth of the activity, I can still remember thinking how I could only want more of my peers alongside me for such work in the neighborhood, if only there was more support for it.

In the years since those days, there have been less clean-ups, and–as any local can tell you–definitely more encampments throughout East Hollywood. With budgets like the one proposed by the mayor’s office above, I fear the trend will continue down this way; the Los Angeles City Council will review the proposal during the next few weeks before it’s approved, and The L.A. Storyteller will continue close behind to report back.

J.T.

To subscribe to jimbotimes.com, add yourself to the list HERE.