THE GUTSY LESBIAN GIRL, THE CREEPY FAUX PROM, AND THE SOMEWHAT HAPPIER ENDING

A new chapter just occurred in the case of Constance McMillen, the Mississippi teenager who made national news when she was forbidden to take her lesbian girlfriend to her high school prom. (She was also forbidden to wear a tux to the prom and told she had to wear a dress—demonstrating that the school is not only mean and discriminatory, but also fashion clueless.)

Constance did not quietly go away, but challenged the school’s policy. And the ACLU backed her up. (Go, Constance!)

When faced with a possible discrimination lawsuit, Itawamba Agricultural High School got freaked and canceled the official school prom.

After a federal court ruled sorta for McMillen, saying she should have been able to bring her girlfriend, a private prom was scheduled—which then saw fit to adopt the same no-same-sex-dates-or-girls-in-tuxes rules. It too was canceled.

There was still more kerfuffle and prom three—another private prom—was scheduled. It looked like there would finally be a happy ending.

But when McMillen and friend and a couple of kids with disabilities showed up at the local country club for Prom 3, they found that they were alone. The event was a decoy prom. All the other Itawamba promsters were at Prom 4, a private, parent-organized no lesbians invited prom.

When this news broke, a number of writers found themselves thinking really mean thoughts about the kind of adults who would pull such a fantastically creepy stunt.

Finally, this Friday, the AP has reported that Constance and date are invited to a gala dinner dance in San Francisco organized by The National Center for Lesbian Rights and to be held on May 1.

The group is paying to fly Constance and date in to SF and their executive directer has said the NCLR plans to give her “a weekend she’ll never forget. It will make all these other proms and fake proms fade into distant memory.”

Good. Hope so. She’s earned it.

THE MAYOR DITCHES THE FURLOUGHS, FINDS NEW CITY BUCKS, MAKES NICE WITH THE COUNCIL…WHILE CITY HALL WATCHERS GET MOTION SICKNESS & THROW UP ON THEIR SHOES

Is it me or are the rest of you suffering from fiscal whiplash with this latest news?

It seems that—surprise—the city doesn’t have to renege on its bills, or close itself down for four out of every seven days of the week, or dress up in thigh-high bad girl boots to solicit funds on darkened, grungy street corners. (Okay, that wasn’t literally mentioned, but close.) On Thursday the mayor looked again through his figurative sock drawer and found a wad of money stuffed way at the back corner—and we were saved! Saved, I tell you!

Or something like that.

Maeve Reston at the LA Times has the details.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has backed away from his call to shut down some city departments two days a week, using positive news about the city’s budget crisis to downplay a threat that had become increasingly difficult to sustain.

“To all of our surprise, we’ve gotten an increase in revenues of $30 million more from property tax than we expected,” Villaraigosa said Thursday, two days after announcing the move might be necessary as soon as Monday to prevent the city from running out of money.

With the unexpected revenue and the City Council’s budget-balancing moves, “We might not be out of cash after all,” the mayor said.

Uh, Mr. Mayor, we’re really glad it worked out and all that. But, given the events of the past couple of days, we also feel a little bit, you know, jacked around.

Read the rest.

THE LA TIMES WEIGHS IN ON THE FED COURT’S NET NEUTRALITY DECISION

I’ve been meaning to post on this all week. Glad the LA Times spoke up on the matter. Here’s the opening of Friday’s editorial:

A federal appeals court reined in the Federal Communications Commission this week, ruling that it overstepped its authority when it penalized Comcast for surreptitiously disabling a popular technology that let people share files online. But the ruling did not quell the commission’s interest in regulating the way Internet service providers such as Comcast manage their networks. Instead, it set up a potential fight over whether the commission’s regulatory authority should be expanded, either by Congress or the commission itself. We think the best course is for lawmakers to give the FCC clear but limited power to preserve the openness that has made the Internet not just a hotbed for innovation but also the most important communications medium of our time.

At issue is “net neutrality,” which is the idea that companies selling high-speed Internet connections should treat all legal websites and online offerings equally.

Read on. This is a vitally important issue.

Meanwhile, the FCC strikes back after the fed court decision.

Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker Magazine has written the story that I hoped someone would write with regard to the challenge to Proposition 8 that is being heard right now in a San Francisco courtroom (It began last week) but that, as Talbot notes, is almost certain to eventually land in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Talbot writes:

Perry v. Schwarzenegger challenges the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the California referendum that, in November, 2008, overturned a state Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex couples to marry. Its lead lawyers are unlikely allies: Theodore B. Olson, the former solicitor general under President George W. Bush, and a prominent conservative; and David Boies, the Democratic trial lawyer who was his opposing counsel in Bush v. Gore. The two are mounting an ambitious case that pointedly circumvents the incremental, narrowly crafted legal gambits and the careful state-by-state strategy that leading gay-rights organizations have championed in the fight for marriage equality. The Olson-Boies team hopes for a ruling that will transform the legal and social landscape nationwide, something on the order of Brown v. Board of Education, in 1954, or Loving v. Virginia, the landmark 1967 Supreme Court ruling that invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage.

In other words, if Ted Olson and David Boies are successful in getting the Perry case to the Supreme Court and then persuading the Supremes of the merit of the case, they will not simply overturn California’s Prop 8. That, my dears, will be the ball game.

Yet, if the challenge fails, supporters worry quite rightly that it will set back the cause of gay marriage for a very, very long time.

So, what drew conservative, Federalist Society member Ted Olson to this issue? And why has his one-time adversary David Boies joined with him? And why have they launched the case now—when many gay legal rights experts warned against a new court challenge at a time that the majority of public opinion does not yet support it?

Margaret Talbot covers all of this and more. Plus she lays out the legal thinking that has caused Olson and Boies to decide that the time was now, not later.

In addition to reading the article, do check out Terry Gross’s interview with Talbot on Wednesday’s Fresh Air.

(I recommend paying special attention to the legal concept of “strict scrutiny” that Talbot explains to Terry around or a little after the 17:50 minute mark. It is an intriguing term could be critical to the case’s failure or success. )

Even though Talbot is in D.C., she has been following various experts and advocates who are inside the courtroom tweeting and live blogging the fabulously dramatic, character-rich and anecdote-filled case, and then she has blogged her own daily analysis. (Oh, brave new interactive world.)

Much has gone into the formation of this case. And much has been arrayed against it. Margaret Talbot has done us the favor of giving us the case’s background—in the form of the legal and the human details.

[NOTE: The photo above of the cage was taken by Michael Montgomery at Pelican Bay Prison, not at Chino. But the Chino enclosures are thought to be similar.)

After last August’s 1300 inmate, eleven-hour riot at California Institute for Men in Chino—informally known by its location “Chino—CDCR officials congratulated themselves for how well they handled the riot and its aftermath.

Now, Steven Cuevas of LA’s NPR station, KPCC, has uncovered some allegations by dozens of prisoners, made in letters and telephone calls to their families, which suggest that after the riots inmates were kept outdoors in literal cages—enclosures about 20-feet long and 10-feet wide—for days at a time, stripped to thier underwear, without blankets or running water, some of the men needing medical attention.

On Monday’s Airtalk Cuevas will talk about what he has learned and the allegations that prisoners and their families have made to CDCR officials—and now to the press.

Last week, Michael Montgomery of California Watch put up his own report about letters he had read from inmates who recounted the same alarming allegations and more. Here’s a clip:

…Now, inmates themselves appear to be entering the debate, with claims that prison staff inflamed racial tensions, failed to take adequate measures to contain the violence and left many prisoners zip-tied and in extreme conditions for hours after the riot was over.

A new Web site has posted more than 50 letters and comments which it claims are from inmates — most still behind bars at Chino — who witnessed the riots. The letters are emotional and filled with graphic details but are anonymous. Here’s one sample from a man identified only as inmate 1081:

My story is just as drastic as the others. Three nights in a cage with 10 other men. And no water, no restroom facilities. I have kidney problems. It was torture for me.

When Cuevas first went to Chino a month ago to ask officials about the allegations, one official denied them altogether. In subsequent inquiries officials admitted to keeping men in the cages for an hour or so, but no longer.

KPCC has posted an audio montage of the men’s letters—on its website, and they tell a very different story.

There will be much more information to come on this issue. Count on it.

(In the meantime, read some of the letters for yourself.)

Once big question that I know Michael Montgomery is planning to dig into—namely: when did officials know of the allegations and what did—or didn’t—they do about them.

Over the weekend, LA Times’ Sandy Banks wrote a column about the whole, incredibly creepy Kick-a-Ginger day series of incidents that went on at A.E. Wright middle school out in Calabasas.

As is usual, Banks has written an insightful column in which she looks at the issue and the ensuing discussion around the matter from multiple perspectives. Banks also went out to the school and talked to A.E. Wright’s principle, Kimmarie Taylor.

Banks writes of Taylor’s response to her questions about the redhead kicking incidents that left three kids injured, and others badly shaken:

It was “disappointing,” said Principal Kimmarie Taylor, whose Nov. 2 “Note From the Principal” was devoted to the damaging effects of “unkind words, actions or deeds.”

“I don’t think this means we failed,” she said when I visited the campus this week. “They get that bullying is wrong. But they don’t know that’s what they did.”

It seems like a no-brainer to me. You target random classmates, ambush them, taunt them, rough them up. . . . If that’s not bullying, what is?

Good question.

I noticed that in earlier articles about the Kick-A-Ginger/A.E. Wright incidents, it was not principal Taylor, but mostly Las Virgines School District Superintendent, Don Zimring, who was quoted. Zimring also seemed have what felt like an awfully lite take on the incidents.

“The youngsters involved understand that this was not acceptable, and they have made various forms of apology and contrition,” Zimring said.

Okay, well, nevermind that we can be fairly certain that kids from certain other parts of town would soon be having regular chats with juvenile probation officers had they engaged in that some kind of “not acceptable” behavior. But whatever. (And now it appears that several of the boys have been charged in connection with the incident.)

When I read the stories, Zimring’s name sounded familiar to me. In fact it brought up the one and only personal experience I’ve ever had with A.E. Wright middle school. It occurred in late 1995, or early 1996. And it involved a school principle whose name I could swear was the same as the district Superintendent: Don Zimring.

I did a quick Google search. Sure enough, Donald Zimring was A. E. Wright’s principle from 1986 until he was promoted to the district level in 1997, thus making him the principal when my decade-plus old incident occurred.

My memory pertains to the period when I was frantically trying to figure out where to send my son to middle school. (He was at the time a 5th grader at Topanga Elementary.) There were a number of public schools that were a possibility, given where I lived and worked. A.E Wright was one of them.

Read the rest of this entry »

Wichita, Kansas physician, Dr. George Tiller, was one of the three doctors in the U.S. who performed late term abortions. Yesterday, Dr. Tiller was shot to death as he was standing in the foyer of the Reformation Lutheran Church, preparing to serve as an usher. His wife was with the choir downstairs when the killer walked into the church and reportedly dropped Tiller with a single shot. Now there are two doctors left.

The photo above is from last night’s candlelight vigil for Dr. Tiller.

It was not the first time violence was aimed at Tiller. In 1993, he was shot in both arms, and in 1995, his clinic was bombed.

Yet the father, grandfather, husband continued because he believed the services he offered helped women in a time of need.

So who are these women who have late term abortions? A commenter at John Cole’s Balloon Juice tells the story of the dilemma that brought him and his wife to Dr. Tiller for help.

In 1994 my wife and I found out that she was pregnant. The pregnancy was difficult and unusually uncomfortable but her doctor repeatedly told her things were fine. Sometime early in the 8th month my wife, an RN who at the time was working in an infertility clinic asked the Dr. she was working for what he thought of her discomfort. He examined her and said that he couldn’t be certain but thought that she might be having twins. We were thrilled and couldn’t wait to get a new sonogram that hopefully would confirm his thoughts. Two days later our joy was turned to unspeakable sadness when the new sonogram showed conjoined twins. Conjoined twins alone is not what was so difficult but the way they were joined meant that at best only one child would survive the surgery to separate them and the survivor would more than likely live a brief and painful life filled with surgery and organ transplants. We were advised that our options were to deliver into the world a child who’s life would be filled with horrible pain and suffering or fly out to Wichita Kansas and to terminate the pregnancy under the direction of Dr. George Tiller.

We made an informed decision to go to Kansas. One can only imagine the pain borne by a woman who happily carries a child for 8 months only to find out near the end of term that the children were not to be and that she had to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy and go against everything she had been taught to believe was right. This was what my wife had to do. …

There’s more to the story here.

Many Right to Life advocates have sincerely condemned Tiller’s murder in strong terms as the lawless act of terrorism that it was.

However, when Bill O’Reilly does his proforma condemnation of the murder on his show tonight, writes Gabriel Winant of Salon, it will ring as just a bit hollow.

The decision has been handed down, the protests have begun, but one surprisingly cool thing has come out of the expected but wrong-headed and deeply saddening California Supreme Court decision on Prop 8.

The one-cool-thing is the news that—as the the LA Times reported yesterday late afternoon—stupendously bright, hot shot constitutional lawyer, David Boies—the guy who defended Al Gore in Bush v. Gore—has gotten together with another stupendously bright, hot shot constitutional lawyer pal and, together, these too super litigators will be representing two same sex couples to challenge Prop. 8, not in state court, but federal court.

And Boies’ hot shot pal is—-Ted Olson. Yep. That Ted Olson. The guy who represented Bush in Bush v. Gore—and the very same guy who was George W. Bush’s Solicitor General.

Boies and Olson will hold a press conference in Los Angeles this morning to talk more about the case.

Basically, however, the suit asks the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to issue an injunction that would stop enforcement of Proposition 8 and allow same-sex couples to marry immediately, while the case is being decided.

As the LA Times notes, Prop 8 opponents have thus far been reluctant to challenge the initiative in federal court as the federal bench is considered now to be conservative-leaning due to eight years of Bush administration appointments. Even the traditionally liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is believed to have taken a conservative turn in past years.

Yet Olson and Boies sound undaunted—particularly Olson.

“I personally think it is time that we as a nation get past distinguishing people on the basis of sexual orientation, and that a grave injustice is being done to people by making these distinctions,” Olson told Bryon York of the Washington Examiner, Tuesday night. “I thought their cause was just.”

Here’s a bit more from the Examiner.

I asked Olson about the objections of conservatives who will argue that he is asking a court to overturn the legitimately-expressed will of the people of California. “It is our position in this case that Proposition 8, as upheld by the California Supreme Court, denies federal constitutional rights under the equal protection and due process clauses of the constitution,” Olson said. “The constitution protects individuals’ basic rights that cannot be taken away by a vote. If the people of California had voted to ban interracial marriage, it would have been the responsibility of the courts to say that they cannot do that under the constitution. We believe that denying individuals in this category the right to lasting, loving relationships through marriage is a denial to them, on an impermissible basis, of the rights that the rest of us enjoy…I also personally believe that it is wrong for us to continue to deny rights to individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation.”

Technically, the suit Olson has filed is against the governor, attorney general, and other officials of the state of California. Ultimately, Olson said, it’s a question that will be decided in Washington, by the Supreme Court. “This is an issue that will get to the Supreme Court, and I think it could well be this case,” he said.

And here’s a bit more from the S.F. Chron, which also had a conversation with Olson about the matter:

He said that he and Boies, who have become close friends in the years since Bush v. Gore, decided to collaborate on the issue.

“We wanted to be a symbol of the fact that this not a conservative or a liberal issue. We want to send a signal that this is an important constitutional issue involving equal rights for all Americans,” Olson said.

[SNIP]

The lawyers said that by relegating same-sex unions to “the separate-but-unequal institution of domestic partnership,” California is violating the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees equal protection for all.

They cite numerous alleged violations of the federal amendment including singling out gays and lesbians for a disfavored legal status and discriminating on the basis of gender and sexual orientation.

“We believe this is the kind of matter where Americans must come together and recognize the rights of all citizens,” Olson said.

Amazing. In the best possible sense of the word.

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PS: Sheila Keuhl has a very smart take on her blog about how and why the California Supremes got it wrong.

Read it. I think she’s got it exactly right—which, by the way, makes Boies and Olson’s endeavor seem that much more well chosen and important.

UPDATE:

THE RULING: PROP. 8 UPHELD

Very, very sad. But very expected.

COUPLES EXISTING MARRIAGE UPHELD: 18,000 couples—36,000 people— who have gotten married, will remain married.

At least that is one small step for human beings. Yet weirdly, 36,000 people will have a status that no one else in the state is allowed to have.

On the other hand, this means that 36,000 ambassadors will, by their day-to-day example, show how utterly wrong the Prop 8 proponents are with their contention that gay marriage does harm—as these 18,000 couples simply live out their lives and their marriages with no harm to freaking anyone.

It was a 6-1 ruling, Justice Moreno was the hold out.

Equality California is the group that will be getting a new initiative on the ballot in 2010 to overturn Prop 8.

Maura Dolan at the LAT’s LA Now has a good column already up, (it pays to plan in advance; good job, Maura). Best one so far.

In a minute I’ll have a link to the actual ruling, but right now the Supreme’s website is so jammed it’s impossible to get in.

MEANWHILE: “All that all of us are asking for is to be the same as everyone else in the country,” says a lovely woman who is one of the 36,000.

OKAY, HERE’S THE LINK:

If you can’t get in on that link, Howard Bashman of How Appealing, has uploaded a back-up copy. (Kisses to Howard!)

Here is part of one of the opening paragraphs:

…our task in the present proceeding is not to determine whether the provision at issue is wise or sound as a matter of policy or whether we, as individuals, believe it should be a part of the California Constitution. Regardless of our views as individuals on this question of policy, we recognize as judges and as a court our responsibility to confine our consideration to a determination of the constitutional validity and legal effect of the measure in question….

The bottom line is, the court concluded that Prop 8 was indeed an amendment not a revision to the California Constitution.

MORENO disagrees. Here are a few clips from his dissent:

“.. I conclude that requiring discrimination against a minority group on the basis of a suspect classification strikes at the core of the promise of equality that underlies our California Constitution and thus “represents such a drastic and far-reaching change in the nature and operation of our governmental structure that it must be considered a ‘revision’ of the state Constitution rather than a mere ‘amendment’ thereof……..”

[SNIP, WITH MUCH CASE LAW CITED IN THE AREAS I'VE SNIPPED HERE AND BELOW]

The rule the majority crafts today not only allows same-sex couples to be stripped of the right to marry that this court recognized in the Marriage Cases, it places at risk the state constitutional rights of all disfavored minorities. It weakens the status of our state Constitution as a bulwark of fundamental rights for minorities protected from the will of the majority…..

…Equal protection principles lie at the core of the California Constitution and have been embodied in that document from its inception…..

…. Thus, it is not so much a discrete constitutional right as it is a basic constitutional principle that guides all legislation and compels the will of the majority to be tempered by justice. The Iowa Supreme Court, in affirming the constitutional right of gays and lesbians to marry, recently recognized the importance of this promise of equality, stating: “If gay and lesbian people must submit to different treatment without an exceedingly persuasive justification, they are deprived of the benefits of the principle of equal protection upon which the rule of law is founded.”

[HUMONGOUS SNIP]

Proposition 8 represents an unprecedented instance of a majority of voters altering the meaning of the equal protection clause by modifying the California Constitution to require deprivation of a fundamental right on the basis of a suspect classification. The majority’s holding is not just a defeat for same-sex couples, but for any minority group that seeks the protection of the equal protection clause of the California Constitution.

This could not have been the intent of those who devised and enacted the initiative process. In my view, the aim of Proposition 8 and all similar initiative measures that seek to alter the California Constitution to deny a fundamental right to a group that has historically been subject to discrimination on the basis of a suspect classification, violates the essence of the equal protection clause of the California Constitution and fundamentally alters its scope and meaning. Such a change cannot be accomplished through the initiative process by a simple amendment to our Constitution enacted by a bare majority of the voters; it must be accomplished, if at all, by aconstitutional revision to modify the equal protection clause to protect some, rather than all, similarly situated persons. I would therefore hold that Proposition 8 is not a lawful amendment of the California Constitution.

MORENO, J.

(THIS MORNING’S ORIGINAL POST AFTER THE JUMP)

Read the rest of this entry »

Here are three justice stories. One is about a lawsuit challenging bad prison policy, one about bad sentencing policy we hope will soon change, the third is about bad things being required of our LAPD officers.

And speaking of the LAPD, today is the service for Deputy Chief Kenny Garner—which makes it a sad, sad day.

It should also be noted Frank Rich wrote a great column Sunday (in which he improbably quotes from Thorton Wilder’s Our Town), and we’re all furiously keeping an eye on whatever plea deal Bernie Madoff may be likely to get.

Okay, now to the stories:

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COPS UNION STILL FIGHTING FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE (GO LAPPL!)

Thursday before last, February 26, The Los Angeles Police Protective League got bad news regarding their fight against financial disclosure. A federal appeals court ruled unanimously that, according the terms of the federal consent decree (under which the LAPD has been laboring for, what is starting to seem like the better part of a millennium) the LAPD may demand that all gang and narcotics officers fork over all their financial records for review.

The idea of the disclosure requirement is to prevent corruption blad-de-blah, although no one can come up with one instance where corrupt officers were caught through irregularities in their check, savings or IRA accounts. Just take my word for it, this is a stupid, punitive idea. I have plenty of back story on the issue here and here and here, should you not be familiar.

The cops are very much against this unneeded invasion of privacy for, among other reasons, the fact that the LAPD can’t seem to keep confidential information all that confidential.

Recently, for instance, there was the incident last week where around 250 officers’ disciplinary records were posted (oops!) accidentally online. (Worse, the had been investigated and exonerated of misconduct allegations.)

Then there was the issue of the leaked photo of the bruised-faced Rhianna that wound up in TMZs hands.

Still and all, everyone pretty much thought the court decision would be the end of it. The LAPPL had fought a good fight against the odious provision. Now, however, there was no choice but to go along.

But the union and the rank and file it represents, ain’t going for it.

“We are prepared to challenge this in court as far as we can go,” said LAPPL Prez Paul Weber in a statement released late Friday.

Good for them.

PS: In reading the LAPPL’s release, I noted that among their arguments, they cited the fact that the measure is opposed “…by many observers, including the Los Angeles Times and WitnessLA creator/journalist Celeste Fremon, a frequent critic of the department.”

Well….yeah.

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THE BLACK/WHITE REALMS OF ROCK AND SNOW

Willie Mays Aikens, who once hit four home runs for the Kansas City Royals in the 1980 World Series, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for trying to sell 64 grams of rock cocaine—around a quarter of a cup. For him to get that kind of sentence for selling power coke—from which crack or rocks or whatever you want to call the cooked version—one would have had to sell a bucketful.

Pointing to Aikens as an example, Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle, appropriately and righteously calls for the Obama administration and Congress to eliminate the crack/power disparity once and for all. Exactly no one benefits from these outsized sentences. No one. But many suffer. Truth be told, we all suffer indirectly.

Here’s a clip:

Aikens’ case exemplifies all that’s gone wrong because of these federal sentencing laws: The focus on petty crimes. The distortion of priorities in the war on drugs. The lopsided impact on African Americans – the 83 percent of federal crack defendants who are black, though a federal health survey found most crack users are white.

The problems have been documented for years. Now it’s time for a change.

Finally, key congressional members seem to be in a negotiating mood, and the Obama administration wants the crack/powder disparity eliminated. In the last session of Congress, then-Sen. Barack Obama co-sponsored a bill introduced by then-Sen. Joe Biden to do just that.

The same bill is on the table again. HR 265, introduced in the House by Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee, would increase federal penalties for big-time trafficking while reducing them for possession or dealing in trivial quantities of crack – offenses that should be left to state prosecutors or public health officials.

Read the rest. There are more stories, and more illustrations of the sad illogic of this policy.

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SOLITARY CONFINEMENT GOES TO COURT

NPR has the story of Ernesto Lira who was caught with three grams of meth, and he was sentenced to 8 years. It was not his first conviction. Lira had been convicted of other low level nonviolent crimes.

But when he went to prison for the meth, he was sent into isolation in Pelican Bay’s SHU—Security Housing Unit where he stayed in a windowless 8-by-10 cell, and could have no phone calls, no family visits, no programs of any kind.

Read the rest of this entry »

The first round of $$$ settlements—out of the several dozen legal claims that have come out of the May Day melee— was approved today by the Los Angeles City Council.

The Council voted to okay $12.85 million to be paid to a group of plaintiff’s injured by the baton wielding, “less-than-lethal” projectile-shooting officers who waded into crowds of demonstrators, families and journalists on May 1st, 2007, in MacArthur Park.

The May Day incident has thus far resulted in more than 300 claims and lawsuits. The $12.85 million settlement covers 297 individuals who were part of eight consolidated cases filed in federal court.

According to civil rights attorney Carol Sobel, who represented several groups of plaintiffs, the settlement is the largest single payout in a demonstration case anywhere in the country.

This settlement covers nearly all of the cases filed, except the journalists injured, who have separate cases pending in state court.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and U.S. District Judge Howard Matz, also have to approve the settlement, but with the Council giving the settlement its unanimous approval, it is all but certain that Mayor AV and the judge will approve as well.

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UPDATE: I was curious as to how the settlement was structured, so to find out I talked to Jorge Gonzales, one of the attorneys who represented a bunch of the clients.

Jorge said that the attorneys involved arrived at a system in which they sorted claims into five different categories—-ranging from people who were physically injured by police at the high end, to individuals at the lower end who were mostly emotionally traumatized by the situation—-parents with kids who are now having nightmares and that sort of thing—but who did not sustain physical injuries.

Then there was also a special segment of claimants who fell outside of the main five general categories. For instance, Jorge said, there was one woman who was not only struck and injured by police, but as a consequence of being struck had a miscarriage. “She was taken to the hospital on May Day and her baby died the next day. ”

Sadly, the MacArthur Park mess produced two miscarriages.

Other examples of those slotted into the “extraordinary” category included some elderly people whose contact with police that day produced lasting physical injuries due to broken bones and the like.

After assigning a category to each plaintiff, the attorneys then attempted to assign a dollar amount to each category—-with the plaintiffs in the special category assessed individually. Those group numbers were totaled, attorneys’ fees were included, plus a reserve fund for people who might still come forward—and pretty soon one is looking at $12.85 million.

I asked Jorge to give me an idea of what the payout might mean in dollars and cents to an individual plaintiff. While he didn’t want to disclose exact $ amounts, he told me that for a category five person—meaning someone who was clearly physically injured but whose injuries were not as severe as the special group—the payout was likely to be in five figures—say $40,000.

According to Gonzales, the settlement also includes an order that requires the LAPD to make certain policy changes to prevent such incidents from happening in the future.

“But to tell you the truth,” Jorge said. “The LAPD has already made a lot of those changes—in training methods and things like that. Bratton really stepped up to the plate on this one,” said Jorge. “I give him credit.”

The good news is that we have a wonderful new barrier-smashing president.

The bad news is that, despite our nation’s incandescently pride-inducing step forward it appears that one can still find dank little pockets of discrimination where and when one least expects it.

(And this time I’m talking about something other than the very disheartening Proposition 8.)

To wit: Saturday night, as I was finally taking a quiet night off, I happened to check in with our local So Cal news wire, The City News Service.

In addition to the latest news about the Prop. 8 demonstrations (Go 10,000 LA protesters!), I saw a story with this headline:

GYPSY CRIMES.

Geeze, I thought. That sounds sort of prejudicial.

Now please understand, CNS is an extremely respectable organization. . So, assuming I was mistaken about the tilt of the headline, I read rest of the story.

Unfortunately, things did not get better. It opened like this:

Police in West Covina suspect Gypsies may be behind a recent rash of burglaries in the area, using tactics authorities say have been used in the San Gabriel Valley since 1965, it was reported today.

Police allege that Eric Bimbo, 20 and Amy Adams, 20, took at least $20,000 worth of property from five West Covina homes within the past two weeks, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported.

“The way they do what they do follows the same (way) Gypsies have always done it,” West Covina police Sgt. Rudy Lopez told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

[SNIP]

Gypsy tactics, police said, include lottery scams, insurance frauds, psychic reading and burglary rings. These techniques are a part of a nationwide and even worldwide culture that the gypsies have used to take advantage of non-gypsies, said Jon Grow, executive director of the National Association of Bunco investigators.

Grow said Gypsies often [are found] taking 20 times more than the average burglar.

I see. So “Gypsies” are not only thieves. They’re Super Thieves.

The article also goes on to tell us that, “….Gypsy children typically do not go to school, get married at a young age and their life is one that involves continually taking advantage of others.”

How nice.

Now imagine if you will, the word “Gypsy” replaced with, say…., African American or Hispanic or Jewish, Irish , or…fill in the blank.

Then imagine the lawsuits.

But I guess with Gypsies it’s okay to make gross and defaming generalizations.

Wondering what in the world the City News Service was thinking, I called them and got their on duty editor, a very nice person named Harold, who after reading the story, agreed it was “Neanderthal.” It was not written on his watch, he said.

Harold also explained that it was not CNS’s story, that they picked it up from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, and so I might want to call those guys instead.

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