As you know, Father Greg Boyle’s wonderful first book “Tattoos on the Heart,” has just been published. This means that, in addition to his quarter century of work with gangs, LA’s most famous priest is now officially a writer.

Those who attend authors’ panels at the LA Times Book Festival always seem to want to know how each writer writes. What is his/ her routine? How long does it take them to writes something? Do they ever get writer’s block? You know, that sort of thing.

Because all writers do have their quirky methods, and all have their ways of jump starting their resistance to the blank page.

So it was for Greg Boyle as well.

My story about Father Greg and his new memoir appears in Wednesday’s LA Times. It deals with, among other things, the lengthy and sometimes circuitous route the tales that wound up in Greg’s book took en route to printed form.

Here are some clips:

For the last 20 years, Father Gregory Boyle has been writing — and not writing – the book that is his newly released memoir, “Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion” (Free Press: 220 pp., $25). The difficulty was never a lack of material. For as long as I’ve known him, Boyle has been amassing a stupendously rich cache of stories about the homeboys and homegirls who one way or another found their way to his doorstep.

Boyle was already not writing his book when I met him in the fall of 1990. I’d heard that a Jesuit priest operated some sort of gang ministry out of a small Catholic church located east of the Los Angeles River between the public housing projects of Pico Gardens and Aliso Village.

In the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, when Boyle’s gang work was hitting full-throttle, Pico-Aliso was the home to eight active street gangs and, according to LAPD statistics, had the highest level of gang activity in all of Los Angeles. Since the city was, at the time (and arguably still is), the gang capital of the world, this meant that the mile-square parish where Greg Boyle was pastor had within its borders the most intense level of gang activity on the planet.

Finding work that is a true calling is as mysterious a process as falling in love. There were elements in Boyle’s Irish Catholic background that suggested the priesthood. He’d had, after all, a beloved Jesuit priest uncle. And he went to Jesuit-run Loyola High School during a time when, for idealistic adolescents like Boyle, activist priests such as Daniel Berrigan were beacons of authenticity.

Yet there was nothing particular to suggest that the smart, Hancock Park-raised boy with the triple master’s degrees (masters of divinity, of sacred theology and of English) would find himself radicalized by a year among the poor of Bolivia and come home to run the nation’s best-known gang intervention program, surrogate-fathering the kids whom most of the rest of the culture wanted to lock up and forget.

I was curious about what kind of person would embrace such a maelstrom and got myself assigned a profile of Boyle for the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and spent the next six months bungee-corded to his ankle, trying to figure out this priest guy who thought he could make a difference with gangsters.

About halfway through my reporting in 1991, I noticed that what I was witnessing had sprawled beyond what a 10,000-word story could contain. I wanted to write a book. But I needed Boyle’s consent, which was problematic since he’d mentioned that he was working on his own manuscript.

I screwed up my courage and blurted my request. He stared curiously at my distress. “Oh,” he said, “I was really hoping you would ask.” I did not realize until much later that in proposing my book, I had unwittingly given Boyle the excuse he needed to keep not writing his.

Yet, he continued to gather his funny, quirky, redemptive, heartbreaking stories. He told them in homily form in the dozens of jails, camps and juvenile halls where he celebrated mass on Saturday, embedded them in the speeches he gave to raise money for the jobs program that was the precursor for Homeboy Industries (which provides work experience, therapy and the opportunity for once-rival gang members to work side-by-side), unfurled them at panels, hearings and conferences where he tried to convince lawmakers and anyone else who’d listen that the young men and women whom his tales featured were worth much more than the worst things they had ever done and that they should never, ever be thrown away……

Read the rest.

And then, when he’s back in town, do yourself a favor and go to hear him read and speak. (And get the book, of course.)

Three last minute event notices.

Tuesday, March 9, is the release date for Greg Boyle’s new book, Tattoos on the Heart. (Much more about the book itself later in the week.)

There is a book launch party on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. at Homeboy Industries featuring a book signing and reading by Father Greg. The address is 130 W. Bruno St. (Bruno and Alameda, just north of Union Station) I’ll be there, so com’on down!

If you miss that, on Friday, 3/12, he’ll be at Vroman’s. (As for the book, you all simply have to buy it. That’s all there is to it. Not to pressure you or anything, but no excuses.)

HOWEVER TONIGHT, Monday, at 7:30, Dennis Danziger’s class of high school students are reading their work at the PowerHouse theater. 3116 2nd Street in Santa Monica, (one block N. of Rose; one block E. of Main). Details for reservations are here.

AND THEN ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT, Jesse Katz is interviewed about his book, The Opposite Field, with Greg Boyle doing the interviewing, at the downtown library’s Aloud series.

With any luck, I’ll be at all three. So if you show up, say hey.

UPDATE: The essay’s that the Venice High kids wrote and read were remarkable. I’ll put a couple of them up tomorrow.

I just read the AP’s story on 30-year-old John Albert Gardner III, the 30-year-old convicted sex offender who may or may not be responsible for raping and killing 17-year-old Chelsea King.

(Devastatingly, as of this writing, Chelsea King’s body appears to have been found.)

Here’s the part of the story AP that I found of note:

Gardner of Lake Elsinore pleaded guilty in May 2000 to molesting a 13-year-old female neighbor. Prosecutors said he lured the victim to his home with an offer to watch “Patch Adams,” a 1998 movie starring Robin Williams

The girl was beaten before escaping and running to a neighbor.

Gardner served five years in prison after prosecutors rejected a psychiatrist’s advice to seek stiffer punishment, court documents state.

Prosecutors said in 2000 that Gardner’s lack of a significant prior criminal record justified less than the maximum sentence. They also said they wanted to “spare the victim the trauma of testifying.”

Gardner had faced a maximum of nearly 11 years in prison under terms of his plea agreement. Prosecutors urged six years — the sentence later ordered by a judge.

In their 11-page sentencing memo, prosecutors said Gardner “never expressed one scintilla of remorse for his attack upon the victim” despite overwhelming evidence.

Psychiatrist Dr. Matthew Carroll wrote in sentencing documents, “There is no known treatment for an individual that sexually assaults girls and does not admit to it in any way.”

Let me simply those facts: Gardner lured a 13-year-old to his house, then molested her, there beat her.

And here’s how the LA Times described the attack:

In 2000, Gardner picked up an eighth-grader at a bus stop in San Diego County and assaulted her at his house, punching her several times after she tried to prevent him from pulling her pants down.

Gardner “was suffocating me. He had his hand on my mouth, and I couldn’t breathe, and I got pretty fuzzy after he hit me, and I’m not sure if I blacked out,” said the victim, according to the sentencing memorandum.

Moreover, although a psychiatrist strongly advised against it,, stating that Gardner would likely attack others when he had the chance, he was given the lowest possible term the judge and the DA could manage, six years, of which he did five.

The DA said that Gardner had “no significant prior criminal record.” (Define “significant,” would you please?) In other words, Gardner was then a 20-year-old pleasant-looking white guy, living in a nice condo with his nice, up-street mother, and so why give him the full 10-years?

After all, he just sexually assaulted and beat a little girl. And showed zero, zip remorse for it.

Yet, let a 15-year-old—non-white boy—from a poor background, with “no significant prior criminal record” climb into the backseat of the wrong car, with older guys who do a drive by, and he’s looking at 25-to life—even if no one was killed or seriously injured.

But of course, these are cases where the DA manages to attach a gang allegation—deserved or not. In those case, throwing away the key is just fine. Because somehow we view 15-year olds who get in cars with gang members as less redeemable, less important, less somehow human, than 20-year-old upper-middle-class guys who beat and molest little girls.

And while we’re on the subject of our disregard for the well-being of our law-breaking young—as long as they aren’t affluent lawbreaking young—Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Richard Winton of the LA Times, have just posted the latest chapter in their ongoing story on abusive staff within the county’s juvenile probaton facilities.

It seems that of 170 employees of the Los Angeles County Probation Department were determined to have committed misconduct —around half of those cases of excessive force or abuse involving the kids in their care— but all 170 have “so far escaped punishment because there is not enough staff to mete out discipline,” the Times reported.

Right. We’re just too busy to have discipline our staff who have been found to be abusing the probationers.

So we just leave them on the job.

You’ll be happy to know that, according to Winton and Hennessy-Fiske, the LA County Supervisors have now launched an “independent review of the agency’s discipline and internal affairs operations.”

And, why exactly, dear County Sups, did it require the Times’ revelations before it occurred to anybody over at your house to see if this $700,000 agency under your control—that, as the reporters pointed out, “has been the subject of federal investigations in recent years for failing to prevent, report and document child abuse in its juvenile facilities”—was managing to appropriately protect the 3000 kids under its care?

Nevermind. Don’t answer that. There is no good answer.

For any of you who are interested in coming out to see your faithful hostess (that would be me) spin tales—wild and otherwise—about reporting on La street gangs for 20 years, and what it takes for a young man or women to extract themselves from gang life, plus various other related issues, I may be found tonight Thursday starting at 5:30 p.m. at Loyola Marymount University.

Come’on down.

(Here are the details.)

In the last few weeks, a great many news outlets have have run stories on the city’s newest phenomenon—The LA Gang Tour.

The NY Times did two stories, NPR did one, the LA Times also ran two—a news story and an op ed.) Some foreign publications ran the usual Isn’t-California-Strange?-variety articles, and such websites as Truthout, and that of author/blogger Tom Diaz have written about the gang tours with happy abandon.

In fact the NY Times even quoted me on the matter. And then, this week, Diaz quoted them, quoting me, albeit not in the most entirely flattering fashion. (But Tom and I have since chatted via email about the matter.)

It seems, Diaz thought I believed the tour to be a swell idea-–which is how my out-of-context bit of nattering to the NY Times guy made it sound. (NOTE TO SELF: Don’t talk to reporters. They’re clearly a scurrilous and untrustworthy lot. Uh, no, wait…)

Diaz was making the point that, to be truly authentic, some of the stops on any real gang tour ought to include places like the ER, the morgue, and Rancho Los Amigos, the place where all the gangsters with gun-shot-related spinal cord injuries go to be treated, all of which is hard to argue.

I assured Tom that my true opinion of the gang tour thingy (which I expressed to the NY Times guy, who is actually a nice fellow) is that the tour, and the kerfuffle surrounding it, was a bit silly—but that it was unlikely to bring down the empire since the actual tour seemed to have very little to do with—you know—gangs.

Here, for example, is a list of the 11 tour destinations that LA Gang Tour website tells us will let tour-goers be the “FIRST IN THE HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES TO EXPERIENCE AREAS THAT WERE FORBIDDEN…UNTIL NOW! ”

So what are these terrifying pockets of LA’s gangster culture? (You might want to send any children out of the room before reading on.)

They are:

Two jails

One detention center

One sheriff’s station

Skid Row—which, while distressing, isn’t terribly “forbidden,” nor is it gang-related.

The banks of the LA River, the graffiti on which was, regrettably, painted over right before the tour. (Even the tour description admits that this location is more of a movie set than it is a gang hang-out. But it is, in actual fact, a cool place to check out if you’ve never been. ‘Twas sad that the city developed a case of self-consciousness and decided to frantically paint over the cacophony of color.)

The Pico Union Graff lab —A non-profit program that lets kids explore the notion of urban art—aka graffiti et al— in a safe, legal, drug free setting. Nice that the tour is spotlighting it, I guess.

The site of the Symbionese Liberation Army shoot out at 1466 E. 54th Street in LA. Not sure what this has to do with gangs. But thanks to the miracle of Google Street view you too can check out the infamous location from your laptop or iPhone.

Florence Avenue.. Last time I checked, Florence Ave was….well…..a street. That people drive down. Daily. Going to work. And school. (Okay, yeah, I’m sure the tour bus passed by Florence and Normandie, which isn’t gang related, It’s LA Riots-related, but I supposed there’s some I guess.)

The birthplace of the Black Panther Party. Huh? The Black Panthers were founded in Oakland, for God’s sake. Even I know that. (Note to gang tour planners. Wikipedia is your friend.)

That leaves the two semi-legitimate parts of the so-called LA gang tour: both have to do with a drive through Florencia 13’s neighborhood, a gang that is described as being part of the Zoot Suit Riots, which no credible history of that period that I’ve been able to find seems to verify. But, okay, whatever.

Like I said: silly.

And much ado about not a whole lot-–especially since, for the most part, the only people who seem interested in the endeavor are all the journalists opining mightily about the thing.

Now, as you can see, I have added myself to the throng.

It should be noted, however, that the proceeds for the gang tour are, according to organizer Alfred Lomas, being plowed back into South LA communities to create jobs. Since jobs are so desperately needed, it is hard to be too critical of the strategy.

So, as it turns out, yeah, I guess the NY Times quoted me correctly after all. Gang tours? What the heck. I’m for ‘em..

(Photo of Alfred Lomas by Ben Bergman, NPR.)

Around 11:30, at the end of the closed hearing that began at 10 a.m. Alex Sanchez attorney Kerry Bensinger came out of the federal courtroom to talk to Sanchez family and a very, very small handful of supporters, whom he drew into a side room and broke the news. U.S. District Judge Manuel Real had granted Alex Sanchez bail.

One thing that can be said for the staggeringly quirky Real, he continues to surprise. This time the surprise was a good one for Sanchez and family.

The bail amount is set at $2 million. It is to be divided into $1 million in properties, $1 million in surities.

Since Sanchez supporters and family have already gathered $1.4 million in property, and $1 million in surities, “it’s only a matter of the paperwork,” said Monica Novoa, a Homies Unidos board member who is very close to the family and thus was in the room.

Understandably, there will be stringent restrictions, which have been agreed upon but not been spelled out publicly. (There will, for instance, be no contact allowed with active gang members.)

“But any of it’s fine,” said Novoa. “We really feel that this is the beginning of a fair trial for Alex. He’ll be able to see his family, sleep in his own bed, meet with his attorney, and work for his own defense. That’s all we ever asked for.”

As to who was inside the closed hearing, there were assuredly LAPD officers. And there was supposed to be someone from inside City Hall or failing that, someone who works closely with City Hall and who knows the LA gang world and the gang intervention world. (Connie Rice, for example, would be on the latter list.)

I have heard floating rumors that the City Hall someone inside the closed courtroom may possibly have been City Council Member Tony Cardenas.

If true, this makes a great deal of sense. The mayor’s gang czar, Guillermo Cespedes, could have concievably been called in but he’d have had little or nothing concrete to add to the conversation in the way of personal knowledge, as he didn’t take over his post until September (Sanchez was arrested last June) and prior to the gang czar gig, he was running Summer Night Lights thus would have had no reason to deeply interact with Sanchez and the area of town in which the government alleges Sanchez was operating.

There is former gang czar, Jeff Carr, the mayor’s chief of staff. But Carr, while he’d worked with Sanchez and would be deemed knowledgeable, would have been unwise to come down on one side or the other of this very controversy-fraught case because, either way he leaned he would risk alienating a group that is important to the mayor. In short, his appearance, no matter how super secret, would have been a no-win for Carr or his boss Antonio.

Cardenas, however, is arguably the most knowledgeable of the three. He has a long-term professional relationship with Sanchez and other gang interventionists and gang recovery agencies—and with the police— due to his multi-year chairmanship of the Council’s Ad-hoc Committee on Gang Violence and Youth Development. Thus, with the right phone calls, he was in a position to gather some genuine intel from both sides of the argument, plus he likely has a gut take on the case of his own.

Although I have criticized Cardenas plenty of times over the years, I have also known him to, at times, show an unusual amount of moral courage when the cameras were turned off and there was nothing to gain, especially for a politician.

So, while I don’t know if the mystery City Hall person was Tony Cardenas, he would be my pick as the one whom Judge Real would have been wise to call. Had he been called in, I would like to think he would have told what he believed to be the real truth—whatever that real truth might be.

More as I have it.

UPDATE: Both Tom Hayden at the Nation and Tom Diaz at Fairly Civil report that, according paperwork filed in the federal district court, the prosecutor’s witness list has been made public.

Diaz notes that the three expert witnesses made available by the prosecution were:

1. FBI Supervisory Special Agent Robert W. Clark, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Office.

2. LAPD Capt. Justin Eisenberg, Commanding Officer of the Gangs and Narcotics Division.

3. Former federal prosecutor Bruce K. Riordan, now Director of Anti-Gang Operations for the L.A. City Attorney’s Office. Riordan is also Chief of the Gang Division and Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division.

I know little about the first two, but Bruce Riordan in particular was a smart choice. He has a broad base of experience and he is very much a straight shooter. What his opinion would have been on the issues surrounding Sanchez and his bail is unknown.

The identity of the witness or witnesses called by Sanchez’s attorneys remains sealed.

In the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Manuel Real, the latest bail hearing for Alex Sanchez, held took a sharp turn on Wednesday morning, causing Sanchez supporters to bask cautiously in what seemed to be a small but tangible glimmer of hope.

The changed atmosphere at the hearing seemed presaged when Sanchez was ushered into the courtroom in casual slacks and a shirt, rather than the jail house jumpsuit and shackles that have characterized his previous appearances. On the way in, he managed to flash his family a smile that, while it did not exactly make it to cheerful, was clearly striving for upbeat.

At the last bail hearing, Judge Real repeatedly interrupted and corrected Sanchez’s court-appointed attorney, Kerry Bensinger, disallowing most of the material that Bensinger sought to present in order to counter the prosecution’s contention that Sanchez should be denied bail as he was both dangerous and a flight risk. However yesterday’s Judge Real appeared to be in a whole different mood and, while he questioned Bensinger at times, he remained even tempered.

This time around, most of Judge Real’s most aggressive challenges were aimed at the younger of the two government prosecutors, Elizabeth Carpenter, who grew visibly flustered at Real’s sudden change in direction.

Perhaps the oddest moment in the exchange was when Carpenter told the judge that the defendant’s supporters had “publicly stated” that Sanchez “could not get a fair trial” in Real’s court.

Well, what evidence did she have of such a thing? the judge wanted to know. (Cough—this blog and the Nation magazine—cough, cough) Surely the defendant and his lawyer had not stated that?

“No, no,” said Carpenter, back-peddling rapidly, Mr. Bensinger had not made any such statements. “But the defendant’s supporters certainly have, including one who had signed an affidavit of surety.”

(At this, veteran civil rights attorney Jorge Gonzalez elbowed Tom Hayden who, at an earlier hearing, had offered his house as part of a guarantee of bail for Sanchez. Hayden studiously ignored the elbowing.)

Judge Real, however, fastened on to the statement with gusto. “But those are lay people,” he roared. “They don’t know anything about the law!” Appearing fond of his words, Real repeated them. “That’s someone who knows absolutely nothing about the law!”

Then Real fixed Carpenter with a steely gaze. Surely she wasn’t trying to paint the defendant with those statements, he asked her. At that Carpenter backed away from the subject altogether and turned to explaining why Sanchez was a flight risk.

This too, Real challenged.

Well, where exactly would he flee to? the judge wanted to know. Carpenter hesitated. “Where will he go?” Real asked again. After all, Real pointed out, Sanchez had been granted political asylum because of the danger El Salvador presented to him, did the government have any reason to believe he would flee there?

The government did. But in a complete 180 from his hardline view of Sanchez’s flight risk potential at the last bail hearing, Real further questioned the prosecution’s assumption. Carpenter was left muttering something about Sanchez fleeing to South American countries without extradition treaties while the judge looked exasperated.

Yet the most startling incident came slightly later in the hearing when Carpenter was explaining why Sanchez was too dangerous and gang involved to be granted bail and Real again challenged her assertions. Had Sanchez been arrested or had any kind of negative police contact in the years between the asylum decision and the case before the court? Sanchez asked. He had not, Carpenter admitted.

Well, Judge Real said finally, “Isn’t there a possibility that you and Mr. Bensinger can get together and choose someone, maybe the person in charge of gang programs for the City, or someone of like authority with the LAPD who could come in and testify whether they have any evidence of continuing gang involvement by Mr. Sanchez. Perhaps we could arrange for a closed hearing to allow that person to testify frankly without fear of revealing critical information.” [These notes on dialogue are approximate.]

The 40 or so observers in the court tried not to stare open-mouthed.

And with that, Judge Real ordered the hearing to resume on January 13, 2010, at 10:00 a.m. The gavel came down. And that was that.

“What to make of it?” wrote Jorge Gonzalez when he emailed me later. “Who knows? Is the Judge merely making like he is sincerely considering the defense arguments for the appellate courts and the public?” (As a trial attorney, Gonzalez is very familiar with Real and his courtroom habits.) “Maybe, but if he leaves the door open a crack [Bensinger] is obligated to stick a foot in and put forth more positive evidence for him to consider. He will make the case that surely there must be a way that, given certain conditions, the rights of the defendant and considerations of the safety of the community can be satisfied.” It looked like supporters came out of the courtroom cautiously hopeful, he said, “that they might be able to persuade the Judge of the merits of that statement.”

Tom Hayden’s reaction was similar. “Taken literally,” he wrote in his own email after the hearing, “the judge’s order means that the city’s top gang reduction official, Guillermo Cespedes, and a top LAPD gang expert appointed by the new Chief Charles Beck would be asked, or even subpoenaed, to state what they know about Alex Sanchez from the past decade. Since city and police officials have often collaborated with Sanchez in the past, the public record might place them at odds with former CRASH officer Frank Flores, the prosecution’s expert witness.”

But, like Gonzales, Hayden was reluctant to be too optimistic. “There is no predicting whether this represents an unprecedented approach to conflict resolution,” he wrote, “or merely a step by the judge to prove to the critics that he is holding an exhaustive hearing, and armor-plating himself against a future appeal, before denying Sanchez bail once again. ”

And so the all-too-human legal drama continues. Stay tuned.

PS: And, for those of you who are not as entirely riveted by the Sanchez drama as some of the rest of us, take a look at this article on the already controversial UCLA study that contends legalizing undocumented immigrants would boost California’s sagging economy. Anna Gorman reports for the LA Times.

PPS: OMG, how could I have missed this?! Apple has rented a stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in SF on January 26 [changed to Wed, 1/27] for a “a major product announcement.” OMG! OMG! Could it be? An Apple tablet! An iReader! (Cue loud version of Apple boot-up cord along with visual of Apple logo bathed in heavenly shaft of light.)

David Carr at the NY Times is busy making up possible names for the possible thang (which is already possibly named the iSlate).

Hmmm. Must cut down on consumption of food and electricity so that I can afford the doubtlessly absurdly expensive gadget if indeed it is to be introduced in exactly 20 days. (Not that I’m counting.)

(And yes, this is a social justice issue. How could you think otherwise?)

PPPS: Oh, yeah, and the governor gave some kind of speech. More on that later on.

THE ACADEMIC & THE DROPOUTS

I remember several years ago when I watched Dr. Mikala Rahn give a presentation of some research or other that she and her nonprofit educational consulting firm, Public Works Inc, had put together at the behest of the LA Unified School board, at the time she struck me as unusually smart and savvy.

Former school board member David Tokofsky remembers her that way too. “Mikala would get up and talk about something the board had been discussing for weeks, and it two sentences she’d have laid it out. And I’d think, Okay, there. That’s exactly it.”

This is why, Tokofsky says, he has recently taken a consulting gig with Rahn’s newest nonprofit venture, a Pasadena-located continuation charter high school (with a middle school added this past September) designed for young men and women who want a high school diploma but who, for one reason or another have dropped out—or been tossed out—of mainstream public schools.

Rahn calls the school by the plain wrap name of Learning Works.

THE CHASERS

But Learning Works is anything but a plain wrap endeavor. For one thing, in addition to the combination of home study and in-school teaching strategies that Rahn and company employ, the school also has what they informally call their “Chasers”—young academic coaches who do whatever is needed to remove the various barriers that stand between Learning Works’ students and their education. Sometimes this means pounding on a truant student’s door until he or she wakes up, gets dressed and sheepishly follows the Chaser into the car and to the school. Other times it means picking up homework, or helping a student deal with a court case or driving him or her home from the hospital—or from juvenile hall. Sometimes it means just listening to a litany of fear and guilt and trauma and sorrow—so that eventually the hope that lies underneath may emerge.

Rahn started the school after working for Pasadena Unified in that district’s dropout re-enrollment program. When she became frustrated by the difficulties of getting get the district to employ strategies she felt would truly work, she decided to create a non-district school that had the flexibility to meet the dropped-out students needs.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, KPCC education reporter (and pal) Adofo Guzman Lopez ran a terrific two-part story on Learning Works, Rhan, and the Chasers—which you can find here and here.

“The number one binding force though of dropouts is poverty,” Rahn told Lopez.

“We really see ourselves as a laboratory of poverty because every student that I look at is really living some condition of that. They’ve been living independently for years. Whether it’s that the parents don’t exist or in essence the parent lost control years ago.”

In the second of the two broadcasts, Lopez went along with two of Learning Works’ Chasers, Dominic Correy and Carlos Cruz.

Their first stop was to drop off homework for an 18-year-old who’d ignored her studies the last several months. Correy talks to her in a comfortable street tone. “Hi Lawanda, how are you doing today? You got a job? When do you get your first check? You taking us out to eat?”

That tone turned to one that balanced coercion and compassion. “Don’t use work as an excuse on why you not going to come in and why you going to finish your work. You know I love you and we’ve been through everything ‘Wana.”

Chasing involves picking up and dropping off homework, and taking students to court dates and mental health appointments. The idea is to help students overcome the obstacles to finishing high school.

At their next stop, the chasers found evidence that some students have given up trying to jump those hurdles. The student hadn’t shown up to school in a month. Cruz said the boy’s father is in jail and his grandfather was recently diagnosed with cancer. Correy knocks on the door with authority. “Chris, I know you’re in there, man, open up.”

When Cruz called the teenager on his cell phone, the student said he was in Altadena. Cruz didn’t spare any time holding the teen to account for not showing up to school. “I’ve been stalking you for a whole month straight, never answer your phone. You said you were going to have some work done, then when I text you, you don’t answer. What’s up with you, man?”

(By the way, Tokofsky helps by planning inventive learning labs and field trips for the students. For example, last semester he took a group to meet and hang out with a three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, including the court’s Chief Judge Alex Kozinski—a field trip that my grad students would have jumped at. “And they totally loved it,” said Tokofsky.)

GANG INTERVENTION BY ANOTHER NAME

The out-of-the-ordinary approach seems effective.

Right now, Learning Works has 291 students enrolled —nearly all students who otherwise might attend no school at all—and that number is climbing. It operates on a yearly budget of $1.8 million, or $6,200 per student per school year—far less than even the most budget-challenged LAUSD high school. (And, by contrast, an affluent district like Beverly Hills spends nearly $13,000 per student.)

This spring Learning Works staged a graduation ceremony at Pasadena City Hall where the school’s initial class of 44 students collected diplomas, many the first in their family to have graduated high school.

In March, they will partner with Homeboy Industries to open a satellite school inside Homeboy’s office and bakery building in downtown LA.

Rahn thinks the partnership will be a natural fit. “A lot of what the chasers do,’ she said when we talked on Tuesday, is gang intervention by another name. “But it’s intervention with a goal, which is a diploma. I think that’s the point. We don’t just ask them to move away from gangs, we give them something to move toward, which is an education. Homeboy does that with jobs.”

And how does Learning Works get its students?

It’s easy,” Rahn said. “They find us.” She laughed. “The poverty population networks are alive and well. And when word gets around that there’s a place where kids can get help and not be judged….believe me, they come out in droves.”

(Photo by Dominic Correy.)

1. HIATUS

WitnessLA and I will be on hiatus until next Monday, Jan. 4, in order that I may spend some much-needed time focusing on a personal writing project.

From time to time during the week, I will likely put up mini posts. And I’ll tweet whenvever the spirit moves. And if something truly unignorable happens, I’ll reappear. But mostly I’ll be hiding out.

(Feel free to keep up the conversation in the interim, though. )

2. ANDRE BIROTTE SELECTED AS U.S. ATTORNEY: WOOO-HOOO!

It was announced late last week that Andre Birotte Jr., who for the last six years has served as the Los Angeles Police Department’s inspector general, has been tapped by President Obama to become the top-of-the-heap federal prosecutor in Los Angeles—AKA the new U.S. Attorney. This fact has had me cheering loudly all weekend.

(Okay, part of the cheering might have been a result of those Stoli and ginger beer drinks my niece-in-law was mixing on Christmas eve. But most of it was because of the news that Andre Birotte was, indeed, as many of us had hoped, the official U.S attorney nominee.)

Congressman Bobby Scott’s Youth Promise Act, is one of those rare species of legislation: A well written bill. More than that, it’s a well written bill having to do with gang violence reduction, which makes it about as usual as a verified Yeti sighting.

And it’s picking up steam. Over half the members of the U.S. House – 234 Congress members- have signed on as co-sponsors of Scott’s bill.

But, as the Virginia-Pilot reports, there are still naysayers who favor more of the kind of get-tough policies that have not proven to be effective in the past. (Read the article. The V-Pilot does a nice job.)

4. HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES IN THE SLUMS OF ALABAMA

For the third year in a row, Homeboy Industries has sent some of its former homeboy staff to Pritchard, Alabama, to work with young gang members and wannabees in this poorest of communities.

The LA Times’ Katy Newton has produced a stunningly good multimedia package on the trip and some of the personalities.

It is really, really worth your time to watch.

Then, after you finish with the video, click on the essay written by Trayvon Earl Jeffers, a tall, gangly former homeboy with a smile as big as the world who was among the Homeboy group who originally went to Alabama.

Then click on the Homicide Report’s account of Trayvon’s murder.

UPDATE:

4. IDIOTIC FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENT DRIVES AWAY GOOD COPS.

Okay, one more important read I had to add. Joel Rubin and Scott Gold have the story.

Monday night the news was startling. Alex Sanchez’s attorney Kerry Bensinger learned that US District Court Judge Manuel Real had been taken off the case.

Tom Hayden quickly wrote up the news for The Nation. Here is how his report opened:

The gang conspiracy case against Alex Sanchez was transferred to the jurisdiction of a new federal judge today after weeks of community protest alleging bias by Judge Manuel Real. The decision was rendered by a judicial status conference in a closed chamber December 2. Supporters of Alex Sanchez saw the ruling as a major change for the better.

After weeks of protests alleging judicial bias, the gang conspiracy case against Alex Sanchez was transferred to the jurisdiction of a new federal judge.

The new judge assigned to the case is Judge Christina Snyder, 61, appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1997 on the recommendation of California senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. Judge Snyder is a Pomona College alumna (1969) and a Stanford Law School graduate (1972). In an important recent decision, she ruled against California state Medicare cuts in 2008. Little is known about her approach to juvenile justice or police reform issues. She was in private practice for twenty-five years before her appointment to the federal bench.

Alex Sanchez supporters were thrilled.

Certainly the change in judges in no way suggested whether or not legal events would play out in Alex’s favor. But supporters felt it would mean a trial that would hopefully be fair—an outcome that many even outside the Sanchez camp had increasingly come to question should the proceedings stay in Judge Real’s courtroom.

The order to transfer the Sanchez case from Judge Real—which also contained a concurring signature of the new Judge, Christina Snyder, signed Dec. 2—- was filed on December 4, and then reportedly sent to Sanchez’ defense lawyer at 3:07 Monday afternoon.

Then a couple hours later on Tuesday afternoon…..everything changed.

Sanchez’s attorney received a new email, this time from the government prosecutor. Judge Real’s clerk said that Real wanted to keep the case and that Judge Snyder’s signature was “a mistake.”

Hayden sent around an email Tuesday night containing details and reactions. It read in part:

“The turn of events will raise new suspicions about alleged manipulation of the proceedings which began six months ago with Sanchez’ arrest on gang conspiracy charges. Sanchez, a well-known gang intervention worker who helped expose the Los Angeles police Rampart scandal a decade ago, asserts his innocence in the case. He is being held without bail at a federal prison in Los Angeles.

As of 4:30 Tuesday afternoon, no order reversing the transfer had been received by defense counsel, and no explanation offered for the unusual chain of events.

The order surprised and pleased the Sanchez defense team. His supporters, organized as www.wearealex.org, assert that Sanchez is being railroaded and denied any semblance of a fair trial. Sanchez’ court-appointed counsel, Kerry Bensinger, argued in a recent appeal to the Ninth Circuit that the case should be remanded to another judge.

Why the December 4 transfer order was withdrawn less than a day after it was made public will raise questions about the inner workings of the judiciary itself.

Uh, huh. Something like that.

Or to put it another way: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot???!!