ARE WE THERE YET?

While waiting for elections results on Tuesday night, LA journalists found lots of ways to amuse themselves:

For instance, the folks over at Zócalo posted two Q&A sessions with Garcetti and Greuel that asked all the right questions. We highly recommend reading them both in their entirety, but here are a few notable exchanges—first from the Garcetti interview:

Q: Obama said he has only two colors of suits, gray and blue, in order to eliminate choices. What suit colors do you have?
A:Oh my gosh. I’ve got blue suits, I have gray suits, I have black suits. And I believe I have, like, a brown suit. Twice as many choices but half as many suits.

Q: What animal fills you with terror?
A:I think it’s the chupacabra. I don’t know if it’s out there, but if it is, that frightens the heck out of me.

…and then, from the Greuel interview:

Q: What weapon would you choose if a zombie apocalypse came to L.A.?
A:I have no idea! [An aide says she doesn’t have to answer the question.] I think if a zombie apocalypse came to L.A., I’d probably run. That’d be my weapon. I’m not sure there’d be anything I could do to defend myself.

Q: When did you last laugh?
A: Just now. When you asked about the apocalypse.

Among the most entertaining election commentaries of the evening, not surprisingly, were from Twitter. Here are some of our favorites:

‏Gene Maddaus (LA Weekly) @GeneMaddaus
Well I’d say this mayor’s race is about complete. IBEW boss Brian D’Arcy just gave me the middle finger from his 2nd floor office window.

‏Gene Maddaus (LA Weekly) @GeneMaddaus
D’Arcy’s staff said they were calling the cops 20 minutes ago. Where are they?

Gene Maddaus (LA Weekly) @GeneMaddaus
Well I did my best. Here’s video of me shouting a question at Brian D’Arcy’s rolled-up car window as he drives away.

Frank Stoltze (KPPC) ‏@StoltzeFrankly
@ericgarcetti supporters gather outside the Hollywood Palladium for his election night party. #lamayor pic.twitter.com/MdcpLC1DDO

Frank Stoltze (KPPC) ‏@StoltzeFrankly
@ericgarcetti father Gil feeling optimistic at the Hollywood Palladium. #LAMayor. pic.twitter.com/Fy23jp7d4d

Steve Lopez (LA Times) @LATstevelopez
Vote-counting systems that are more efficient: pigeons fly votes downtown, Mr. Ed scratches hoof once for Greuel, twice for Garcetti

Steve Lopez (LA Times) @LATstevelopez
can anyone take a picture of the vote-counting abacus city clerk uses?

Steve Lopez (LA Times) ‏@LATstevelopez
i’m watching kcal 9. the bear stealing garbage is very efficient. can we get him to count votes in the l.a. city election?

Alice Walton (KPPC) ‏@TheCityMaven
The @Wendy_Greuel DJ is now playing the Jackson 5′s “I Want You Back” … which I think means @Villaraigosa has taken over the playlist.

David Zahniser (LA Times) ‏@DavidZahniser
MT @TheCityMaven reports that the @Wendy_Greuel party just put on Journey

AND IN OTHER NEWS…THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SEIZES FOX NEWS REPORTER’S PHONE RECORDS

WitnessLA finds this newest development in the DOJ’s spying on journalists tale utterly chilling.

The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza has the story. Here are some clips:

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that, as part of the investigation of [an alleged leak by a former State Department contractor named Stephen Jin-Woo Kim], Obama’s Department of Justice seized e-mails from [Fox News' reporter James Rosen's] personal Gmail account. In the search warrant for that request, the government described Rosen as “an aider, and abettor, and / or co-conspirator” in violating the Espionage Act, noting that the crime can be punished by ten years in prison. Rosen was not indicted in the case, but the suggestion in a government document that a reporter could be guilty of espionage for engaging in routine reporting is unprecedented and has alarmed many journalists and civil libertarians.

The document uncovered today suggests the government seized “call detail” records from Rosen’s work and cell phones, which would show whom he called, who called him, how long they spoke, and the times of the calls. The document suggests that the government was seeking only the subscriber records for the two White House numbers targeted, information that a government source said would include the name of the official who used the specific line.

[BIG SNIP]

Rosen declined to comment on the case. Asked if the phone numbers of any reporters had been targeted in the Kim investigation, a spokesperson for Fox News said they were not familiar with the new information regarding Fox’s phone records and directed The New Yorker to a statement released yesterday by Michael Clemente, the executive vice-president for News at the cable channel: “We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter. In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

PLAY CONFRONTS “ZERO TOLERANCE”

In Sacramento, an innovative community play titled ZERO dramatizes the affects of zero tolerance policies in schools. In her excellent blog, ACEs Too High, Jane Stevens takes an in-depth look at the process of creating ZERO (which was put on by the Black Parallel School Board and funded by the California Endowment), and the surprising effect it has had on viewers.

Here’s a clip (but go read the whole thing):

The first time they performed the play, it was for legislators and their staff members in the State Capitol. “I thought only 20 people would show up,” said Pinkston. “The room was packed — 70 people watched.” And the buzz began.

“I know that a lot of the people were taken aback,” said Bradley. “People don’t realize how bad it can get. It was touching to me because people seemed to really care about the situation, because that gave us hope for change.”

In August 2012, by the time they presented the play at the Guild Theater, so many people had heard about the play that tickets were sold out.

“The play shows how the teachers and administrators are under constant pressure to perform,” said Pinkston. “They’re under siege. They’re forced to get rid of the kids they don’t want to teach. Parents don’t have a lot of time and attention to work with kids, because they’re working two or three jobs. So, the community has to take some ownership about what’s going on.”

At the end, the students, teachers, parents and community members in the audience were gripped with sadness and frustration at the heavy odds against James, the main character. “This whole experience has been humanizing,” said White. “The play’s a microcosm that what actually happens in schools.”

Half of the 200 people in the audience filled out comment cards. More than half felt the play had challenged or changed their opinion. Some of the comments:

*We must come up with a different way to deal with discipline in school. Suspension is the not the answer.”

*I plan to push harder to start this conversation within my school community and advocate for a shift toward supporting each other and developing strengths-based schools.”

*I am willing to challenge the rate of suspensions at my school.”

*I will support legislation to fund schools & change school discipline to provide restorative practices & social-emotional learning for school community.”

*I am a middle school teacher (34 years)…. I have “James” in my classes. James deserves every bit of help; however, standing in front of the class looking out, I see 34 other students waiting for me to do something with disruptive students. The school do not have the personnel to work “deeply” with James. I talk to parents after school for hours, but during class, I have to educate the non-James.”

ELECTIONS: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE VOTE

MAYOR:

WLA hasn’t made an endorsement in the mayor’s race, and we’re not going to do it now.

We know and like both Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti and can make a strong case for either candidate, both of whom we believe will also grow on the job. We have respected friends and colleagues who are maniacally in favor of one over the other—some choosing Eric, others lining up behind Wendy.

We know the LA Times has endorsed Garcetti. But we hope you’ll take the time to make up your own mind—which ever way you finally lean.

If you’re still trying to decide, LA Weekly’s Gene Maddaus “Five Key Differences..” rundown on how the two diverge provides some helpful food for thought.

CITY CONTROLLER

We favor Ron Galperin over Dennis Zine.

We think Zine’s a good guy, personally, and we like that he occasionally rides his Harley to Sturgis for the big bike rally in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

But we think Galperin has the right skill set and temperament to be a very good, pro-active controller—which is, after all, the point.

CITY ATTORNEY

Mike Feuer not Carmen Trutanich—please!

Feuer is smart, has the chops, and will be good.

Trutanich, while not without talent, is vengeful, mendacious, power-hungry and seems bizarrely unclear on the law when selective dis-clarity happens to serve his personal purposes, all of which we see as….you know… problematic.

PROPOSITIONS C, D, E, & F

These are the propositions that propose different schemes for regulating the sales of medical marijuana, which is long overdue.

Here’s the short form: YES ON D……NO on the rest.

For the long form, read what the LA Times says or the LA Weekly.

Among other things, D has the best shot at passing, and if the voters don’t pass one of these puppies, the City Council may try to shut down all the dispensaries, which is a very bad idea.

AND IN NON-ELECTIONS RELATED NEWS….

ZEV YAROSLAVSKY INTRODUCES A MOTION FOR JAIL RENOVATION TO BETTER HOUSE MENTALLY ILL INMATES

At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors’ meeting, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky will introduce a motion as an “alternative concept for the replacement of Men’s Central Jail,” which would replace one of MCJ’s towers with a facility designed to house mentally ill inmates.

Evidently Zev was fed up with the various billion dollar jail building proposals that the sheriff keeps pushing, so came up with a different angle with the idea of jump starting a fresh conversation about the jails facility issue.

Here’s a clip:

Instead of demolishing all of MCJ and constructing a replacement facility for the general inmate population, a better approach could be to demolish one tower of MCJ and replace it with a medical/mental health/substance abuse Integrated Inmate Treatment Center designed to serve inmates with mental illness, co-occurring substance abuse and specified medical conditions. Initial studies show that by consolidating all relevant inmates in this Center, sufficient beds would be opened up elsewhere in the system to house the County’s remaining inmates. The proposed Integrated Inmate Treatment Center would be designed to meet the needs of this inmate population and could result in better and more humane outcomes for these prisoners as well as a more cost-effective solution to the problem of housing the general jail population.

Initial reviews of this idea show great promise. Studies show that recidivism on
the part of mentally ill/dually-diagnosed inmates can be substantially reduced through intensive treatment programs.

The ACLU responded to Yaroslavsky’s proposal with some suggestions of their own (detailed in their letter here: Yaroslavsky Mental Health Motion). But mostly, as So Cal ACLU Legal Director Peter Eliasberg put it, “…we appreciate the fact that the supervisor has started the conversation.”

We do too.

MERRICK BOBB’S NEWEST REPORT ON THE LASD LOOKS AT THE SHERIFF’S GANG ENFORCEMENT STRATEGY

On Monday, Special Council Merrick Bob introduced his bi-annual report on the Sheriff’s Department. This particular report focuses on gang enforcement since, although crime in general is down, gang violence still remains a pressing problem affecting LA’s communities.

You can find the report here: 32nd Semiannual Report 5-20-13.

We’ll likely return to discuss this report further in the next few days,

But, for now, suffice it to say that we appreciated the report’s analysis of what effective, targeted gang suppression looks like, versus ineffective gang surpression—which only serves to alienate the community, wrongly criminalize some gang members, and, in excess, can actually cause crime to rise. This smart outline will, we hope, be viewed by the department as valuable feedback as they hone their gang policing methods.

Where we differ a bit from Bobb’s report is that we’re not at all that sure about the notion that, in addition to smart, targeted, strategic—and community-respecting—surpression (policing), that the LASD should also be engaged in gang prevention and intervention.

The report is, of course, dead on when it points out that, historically, we’ve learned that gang surpression alone, doesn’t lower gang crime. Every study tells us that we need the prevention/intervention/reentry pieces for violence reduction and community health.

With this in mind, certainly it’s essential for law enforcement to be cooperative with those agencies that provide prevention, intervention and reentry programs, et al —places like Homeboy Industries, Communities in Schools, Homies Unidos, and Aquil Basheer’s BUILD Youth Empowerment Academy, and others. However, it’s not the job of the cops to offer those services themselves.

We’d rather see the County instead carve out some money to help the intervention/reentry folks, since they are the people actually doing—and equipped to do—that work.

All this is a longer discussion. But that’s the short form..

SUPES TO HAVE CLOSED SESSION TO REVIEW CANDIDATES FOR NEW INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR THE LASD

On Monday, at 9 am, the LA County Board of Supervisors will meet in closed session to interview candidates for the position of Inspector General—IG—for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s department.

As you may remember, among the main recommendations made by the Citizen’s Commission on Jail Violence in its final report delivered last September, was the appointment of an independent Inspector General (IG) and the creation of an Office of the Inspector General (OIG) with “broad authority as well as adequate staffing and funding to review Custody issues and concerns.”

In making its recommendation, the Commission laid out what it saw as the problems with the existing oversight systems, and the new structure the commissioners felt should be put in place in order to be effective.

[You can read the CCJV's whole section re: existing oversight and the recommendation of the appointment of an OIG starting on p. 177.]

In past months, a private consulting company has been conducting the search for the IG candidates.

The lack of community input in the search has disappointed many—including Jails Commission member Reverend Cecil Murray, as he expresses an a letter to the LA Times.

However, as one Supes’ insider pointed out, in that a lot of the best qualified candidates are still working elsewhere, a public selection process is impractical.

We are unlikely to find out much if anything after Monday’s meeting, but the fact that the Supes now have a pile of candidates to review, is a welcome step forward.

AS FOR THAT OTHER CLOSED SESSION, CALLED AFTER THE TANAKA INTERVIEW….

After multiple conversations this week about Tuesday’s closed session –which was hastily called after the interview with Paul Tanaka appeared in the LA Times—we’ve learned that, basically, the meeting served to give the board members a chance to talk about what actions, legal or otherwise, they might need to take if something drastic happened at the LASD (like, say, bigtime indictments, or some unusually horrific revelation).

And, in response to a rumor going around among some of WLA’s commenters, not to worry, there is no indication that the board is going to start appointing committees to investigate the department, or some such crazy and redundant action.

NEW STUDY FINDS THAT CALIFORNIA HAS THE MOST WORKING POOR IN THE U.S. AND DOES A PARTICULARLY LOUSY JOB OF PROVIDING EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES NEEDED TO CLIMB OUT OF POVERTY

A new report released Wednesday finds that California has the most working poor in the nation, and that the state does an ineffective job of providing educational opportunities to boost the low-income workers to economic security—even though California has the 9th largest economy in the world, and is in great need of a well-educated work force.

“Economic security should not be out of reach for people who are working hard when higher education can be a viable pathway from poverty to prosperity,” says the report, commissioned by The Campaign for College Opportunity, in partnership with the Women’s Foundation of California and Working Poor Families project. “But there must be a will for reform and investment in the state’s higher education system. If left unaddressed, the state’s future outlook is threatened.”

Wisely, the report doesn’t just detail the bad news, but outlines a series of recommendations for reform that it says are “within reach.”

THE NEW YORKER’S AMY DAVIDSON WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON MICHELLE KNIGHT, AMANDA BARRY AND GINA DE JESUS

These two comparatively short narratives (here and here) on the three abducted and finally rescued women aren’t likely to tell you something that you don’t know. But Davidson’s strong, good prose counterweights the horror of this story with the humanity of the women. Here’s a clip:

How many times since August, 2002, did Michelle Knight think that she was going to die? When it became clear that Ariel Castro, who had offered her a ride, was not taking her home, but to a basement in his own house? The first time, or the hundredth time, she was tied up with the chains and rope the police found there, or when, as she said, according to press accounts of the initial police report, Castro raped and beat her? Another prisoner arrived, and then another; did that make her own life seem nearer or farther as it became clear, in glimpses of vigils on television, that the city was looking for them but not for her? Or was it the first time, or the second, third, fourth, or fifth time, that she realized that she was pregnant, and then, as she also reportedly told police, watched what happened to her body as Castro systematically starved her and hit her in the stomach until she miscarried? In 2006, according to the report, Castro told her that he would kill her if the baby about to be born to Amanda Berry, whom he had also held for years and raped, died. As Knight, along with the third prisoner, Gina DeJesus, helped with the delivery, in a inflatable pool set up in the house, it looked as though that might happen: the newborn girl stopped breathing. Knight breathed into her mouth, and they both lived.

Read the rest here. and here

TWO SHERIFF’S DEPUTIES RESCUE PICO-RIVERA MAN FROM BURNING APARTMENT

KTLA has this story of everyday heroism in which two LA County Sheriff’s deputies rescue a man, incapacitated by smoke inhalation, from his still smoldering Pico Rivera apartment.

Click here for the video.

HEARTBREAKER AS LA AIRPORT POLICE OFFICER DIES AFTER RUNNING MEMORIAL 5K FOR FALLEN COLLEAGUE

Brian Sumers of the Daily Breeze has the story. Here’s a clip:

A Los Angeles International Airport police officer, who felt ill on Wednesday after running in a 5K race to honor an officer killed while on duty, died late Thursday afternoon, Chief Patrick Gannon said.

Anthony Edwards had been taken to Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center on Wednesday, where doctors discovered a heart problem, Gannon said. He had just finished the run, which raised money for the Tommy E. Scott Scholarship Fund. Scott was killed in 2005 when a man jumped into his patrol car and took off with the officer clinging to the door. Scott was decapitated when he struck a fire hydrant.

“We were honoring one guy – Tommy Scott, who had given his life for this city – and then the irony of it was that an officer who was honoring Tommy passed away himself,” Gannon said. “It’s hard for everyone to get their arms around this. ”

Gannon said Edwards was in his mid-40s. Another police source said Edwards had been with the airport police for 12 years.

MORE ON THE ALLEGED LAPD RACIAL PROFILING AND THE KIDS WHO WERE CUFFED

Tuesday night, there was an open forum at USC to discuss the break-up of an off campus party by more than six dozen LAPD officers, which has now become a high profile incident. Students, faculty, city and county officials and LAPD department members packed into a campus ballroom for the follow-up to several demonstrations and meetings this week regarding allegations of racial profiling by the LAPD against USC students of color.

If for some reason you missed the original story, last Friday night,, after responding to a simple noise complaint, seventy-nine officers, some in riot gear, made six arrests as they shut down a USC party attended predominantly by African Americans. Meanwhile, just across the street, LAPD officers handled a similar noise complaint against a group of mainly white party goers in what was reportedly a considerably more peaceful fashion.

Police maintain that the crowd at party two went inside and turned down the noise when asked, while many members of party one did not and an unspecified numbers threw objects at officers.

Among the students arrested was the first party’s host, Nate Howard, a bright and charismatic USC communications major who, in addition to being a student leader, is also a correspondent for mtvU, the creator of a production company called Brave Entrepreneurs, and has just shot a pilot for his own talk show. Several of the other kids arrested also turned out to be campus leaders.

Feeling unjustly profiled, amid the chaos, the party-goers began tweeting, Facebooking, and videotaping the LAPD encounter. Within hours, they had flooded various social media platforms, and organized a campus sit-in for the following day to raise awareness about what they characterized as unequal treatment by the LAPD that they insisted was not an isolated event.

Here’s a raw video of the 79 police officers (yes, the party-goers counted) taken by a student who had attended the party:

(NOTE: According to a source close to the department, there is an video, unreleased as yet, of officers in a radio car being hit by bottles and/or rocks.)

And another of an impassioned Nate Howard at the campus sit-in, at one point reciting what soon became the demonstrating students’ new call phrase: “We are scholars! Not criminals!”

During Tuesday night’s forum, attendees live-tweeted in a big way, and #USChangeMovement started trending. Here’s a link to the whole feed, but here are some of the tweets that stood out to us:

Frances Wang @FrancesWang_
Friday night, I told an officer that he arrested USC scholars who will change the world. He laughed. Little did he know. #USChangeMovement

Evelina Weary ‏@evelinaweary
Alumni: “Why was DPS not the first responder if this was a DPS registered party?” #uschangemovement #stopracialprofiling

Frances Wang ‏@FrancesWang_
Sarah, the host of the “white” party: “These students weren’t treated with respect, my house was treated with respect.” #USChangeMovement

Neon Tommy ‏@neontommy
“This meeting is a waste of time if you don’t go out to the community and engage your neighbors.” #USC #uschangemovement

Neon Tommy has an update from the forum. Here’s how it opens:

Los Angeles and campus police officials told dozens of students, who said they were victims of racial profiling by law enforcement, that authorities have concluded a strong response to a house party last weekend was not based on the race of students involved.

“We’ve looked at this really thoroughly, and there is no indication that it was race-based,” Los Angeles Police Capt. Paul Snell said Tuesday night. “Irrespective of what happened, what I would like to focus on is how we can move forward. Neither LAPD, neither DPS, neither the citizens of Los Angeles want this to happen again.”

And here’s another clip:

One was arrested on suspicion of interfering with police activity. The five others each face a misdemeanor charge. USC police chief John Thomas said he had previously been in contact with one of the students arrested, 20-year-old Rayven Vinson. He said seeing a photo of her being handcuffed hit him personally.

“This is about trust in the Department of Public Safety,” he said. “This is about you having trust in the department that’s providing protective services to you.”

L.A. Police Deputy Chief Bob Green called that first booking number devastating, saying there’s often little hope after that.

USC police chief Thomas said the university is working closely with police to make sure the students arrested are treated fairly. USC’s outgoing vice president of student affairs Michael Jackson said he’s advocating that the city attorney’s office drop the charges. Capt. Snell said the investigation is ongoing.

Here’s a short profile video of Rayven Vinson, one of the students arrested:

This next one is a first-hand account of yet another bright and well-spoken student from Santa Monica College, Anthony Stewart, who was detained Friday night:

We have a feeling this story isn’t going to go away soon. We’ll be keeping an eye on it.

MANY LATINOS AFRAID TO REPORT CRIMES, SURVEY SAYS

Latinos in LA and other cities are less likely to report crimes due to amped up immigration law enforcement and the threat of deportation, according to a new survey by the Lake Research Partners.

LA Times’ Brian Bennett has the story. Here’s a clip:

About 44% of Latinos surveyed said they were less likely now to contact police if they were victims of a crime because they fear officers will inquire about their immigration status or the status of people they know. The figure jumps to 70% among Latinos who are in the country unlawfully.

“There is fear that is really widespread,” said Nik Theodore, an associate professor of urban planning and policy at University of Illinois at Chicago and the author of the study.

The report, “Insecure Communities: Latino Perceptions of Police Involvement in Immigration Enforcement,” is based on a telephone survey of 2,004 Latinos in Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago and Phoenix. The results are scheduled to be released Tuesday.

CA SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS LOCAL RIGHT TO BAN POT DISPENSARIES

The CA Supreme Court ruled Monday that state law cannot stop cities and counties from banning medical marijuana dispensaries.

Here’s a clip from the AP story:

In a unanimous opinion, the court held that California’s medical marijuana laws — the nation’s first and most liberal — neither prevent local governments from using their land-use powers to zone dispensaries out of existence nor grant authorized users convenient access to the drug.

“While some counties and cities might consider themselves well-suited to accommodating medical marijuana dispensaries, conditions in other communities might lead to the reasonable decision that such facilities within their borders, even if carefully sited, well managed, and closely monitored, would present unacceptable local risks and burdens,” Justice Marvin Baxter wrote for the seven-member court.

MCJ MAKES IT ONTO WORST LOCKUPS LIST

In other news (and not all that surprisingly), Men’s Central Jail takes the number five spot on Mother Jones’ list of America’s ten worst lockups.

Photo used with permission from Twitter user and USC forum attendee @RiniSampath.

LA COUNTY SUPERVISORS CANCEL TRAVEL TO HAVE CLOSED DOOR MEETING ABOUT LASD CONCERNS

There was to have been no Board of Supervisors’ meeting this Tuesday, because the Supes were scheduled to take their once-a-year joint trip to Washington DC instead. However, after last week’s LA Times interview with former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka in which Tanaka engaged in what can best be described as a verbal assassination attempt against Sheriff Lee Baca, the majority of the Board—Don Knabe, Gloria Molina, and Mark Ridley-Thomas—cancelled their respective trip plans and decided maybe a meeting was called for after all.

Or at least so we’ve heard. The meeting is to take place behind closed doors, so you and I won’t be able to observe first hand.

The agenda for Tuesday’s hastily planned meeting indicates the subjects up for discussion are “department head performance evaluations,” plus ” Significant exposure to litigation” and “Allegations regarding civil rights violations in the County jails.”

However, sources close to the board suggested that, more than anything, this meeting is about what Tanaka said, what the Feds might or might not be planning to do, what it all portends for the future of the department, and what actions—if any—might soon be required of the Supes given the storm around the LASD that is rapidly quickening.

We’ll let you know as we know more.

VALLEY FEVER FLARES IN CA PRISONS, JUST AS JERRY BROWN TELLS FEDS THAT CA’S PRISON HEALTH SYSTEM IS IN TIP TOP CONDITION

The AP has the story on this largely-hidden epidemic that endangers inmates in certain CA lock-ups. Here’s a clip:

As many as 3,000 prison inmates in central California deemed to be at risk from a potentially lethal lung disease may need to be moved to other regions under an order from a court-appointed federal overseer.

The directive, issued on Monday, marks the latest effort to stem cases of valley fever, or coccidioidomycosis, at two prisons where the disease was found to have contributed to the deaths of nearly three dozen inmates from 2006 to 2011.

But it could complicate court-ordered efforts to reduce overcrowding across California’s prison system, the nation’s largest…

And then here are a couple of clips from a more detailed story by John E. Dannenberg of The Prison Legal News:

In the past three years more than 900 of the 5,300 prisoners at California’s Pleasant Valley State Prison (PVSP) in Fresno County, plus 80 staff members, have contracted coccidioidomycosis, a fungus commonly known as “valley fever.” Over a dozen prisoners and one guard have died from the disease. Valley fever forms in the lungs, where inhaled fungal spores colonize.

The soil-based fungus, which is indigenous from California’s central valley down to South Texas, most often causes symptoms similar to the flu (and in the process confers lifelong immunity); however, in two to three percent of cases it metastasizes. Once it gets into the bloodstream it is often fatal.

Although valley fever has occasionally infected archaeologists digging in Utah’s Dinosaur National Monument and drug-sniffing dogs along the Mexican border, its statistical prevalence in California prisons is troubling. California reported 3,000 cases of valley fever in the general population in 2006, of which 514 were diagnosed at PVSP alone. This 17% morbidity rate among prisoners is astounding. Further, from a mortality standpoint, 12 deaths in 900 prison cases equals a 1.3% fatality rate – double the community rate of 0.6% (based on 33 deaths in 5,500 infections reported in Arizona in 2006). Put another way, if the general population had the same mortality rate as prisoners, there would have been another 38 valley fever-related deaths in the community.

[SNIP]

The high infection rate at PVSP (and to a lesser degree at other central valley prisons) has been correlated with two other factors: 1) importation of non-local prisoners and 2) prisoners with compromised immune systems. This has translated into a high rate of serious valley fever cases among HIV-infected prisoners from Los Angeles, many of whom are susceptible under both factors. As a result, prison officials have been preemptively moving such vulnerable prisoners from PVSP to other areas in the state…

YOUTH ADVOCATES HAPPY WITH JUVENILE JUSTICE FUNDING IN OBAMA BUDGET—BUT WILL THOSE SECTIONS PASS?

Youth Today has a column by the very-smart Liz Ryan of the Campaign for Youth Justice about the sections in the president’s budget that youth advocates see as the most crucial—namely the funding it provides for the 40-year old Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) that, in this go-round, focuses on three areas:

1. Keeping “status offenders” from winding up in the juvenile justice system. Status offenders kids who’ve done things that are against the law only because of their age—things like skipping school, running away, breaking curfew and possession or use of alcohol.

2. Getting kids out of adult jails and lock ups, whenever possible

3. Reducing the disparate treatment of youth of color in the juvenile justice system.

Here are the details.

LAPD & LASD LICENSE PLATE READERS KNOW WHERE YOU’VE BEEN, PRIVACY GROUPS SUE FOR INFO ON TRACKING PRACTICE

The idea that law enforcement may be compiling databases on the whereabouts of non-lawbreakers is making a lot of people jumpy, and has caused the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation to demand that both the LAPD and the LASD fork over information about how the data is being used.

Both Dennis Romero of the LA Weekly and the AP’s Tami Abdollah reported on the matter.

Here’s a clip from Abdollah’s story:

Two privacy rights groups questioning law enforcement’s use of automated license plate readers asked a judge Monday to order the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to provide more details on how they use the technology.

The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a writ against the city, county and its law enforcement departments after waiting more than eight months for a complete response to public records requests.

The groups are seeking one week of data collected by the readers, which are usually mounted on police cars and scan thousands of license plates in an officer’s shift. The readers – which collect the license plate numbers, the time, date, GPS location and a photo – alert law enforcement to stolen and wanted vehicles.

“If you’re not wanted for anything, it doesn’t do anything,” said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Sgt. John Gaw, who works in the advanced surveillance and protection unit. “It does collect that information, it does put it in our database, and we’re able to go back and review that information if you’re wanted in some type of criminal investigation.”

Privacy advocates are worried that about the growth of such law enforcement databases often outside the public’s eye and with little public oversight or information. They say the readers create a database that essentially tracks movements of innocent people, often long before any crime has been committed. But officials contend that the readers are a valuable piece of technology that helps solve crimes and simply speeds up and automates what would have been a slow, painstaking manual process only a few years ago.

SUPES VOTE TO GIVE SHERIFF ASKED FOR $22 MILLION FOR PATROLS

At Tuesday’s LA County Board of Supervisors’ meeting the board voted to give the sheriff’s department $22 million to help shore up the LASD budget. The money is reportedly slated to pay for officers to adequately patrol the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County—namely the areas that the sheriff’s department is legally obligated to patrol. (But why quibble.)

Christina Villacourt of the Daily News has the story on the board’s vote. Here’s a clip:

….Short on cash at the beginning of this year, Sheriff Lee Baca reduced patrols in unincorporated areas but not in cities and agencies where his department is contractually obligated to maintain a certain level of service.

An audit revealed residents of unincorporated areas ended up having to wait 17 percent longer — a minute more — for deputies to respond to their 9-1-1 calls, compared to people in contract cities and agencies.

At a tense board meeting, Supervisor Gloria Molina accused Baca of “stealing” from unincorporated areas to serve contract cities and agencies.

Baca restored the patrols by pulling dozens of deputies out of gang enforcement and other units and sending them to monitor unincorporated areas.

Speaking of audits, wasn’t there going to be some kind of audit of the LASD budget when this whole thing came up a month or so ago? Or did we all just get tired and forget about that? (I’m just curious.)

MORE BAD PRESS FOR PASADENA PD AROUND THE TRAGIC DEATH OF KENDRIC MCDADE

The Pasadena Star’s Brian Charles continues to vigorously report on this hydra-headed story of alleged Pasadena Police misconduct, misadventure and, in the case of Kendric McDade, a series of tragic mistakes—or worse. Here’s a clip from the latest sad wrinkle.

In the final moments of his life, Kendrec McDade was handcuffed and “began to twitch” on the ground after being shot by two Pasadena police officers, according to a civil rights lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court.

McDade, a onetime standout football player at Azusa High School, tried to talk to officers as he lay dying, the lawsuit reads.

Instead, Pasadena police officers left McDade handcuffed in the street late Saturday night “for a protracted period of time without administering first aid,” the lawsuit filed by McDade family attorney Caree Harper reads.

The 19-year-old Citrus College student died later at Huntington Memorial Hospital.

Pasadena police spokeswoman Phlunte Riddle denied that McDade was left to die, but would not comment on the specifics of the case.

Named as defendants in the lawsuit are Pasadena police Chief Phillip Sanchez, Officer Mathew Griffin, Officer Jeffrey Newlen and detective Keith Gomez. It seeks unspecified damages.

Read the rest. And note that off to the right side of the story there are links to Charles’ other stories.

ERICA AGUILAR OVER AT KPCC reports that one of the officers involved investigating the McDade shooting is already being investigated for a hefty string of allegations of misconduct.

Here’s a clip from her story:

Pasadena’s police chief said he’s investigating two officers on accusations that they intimidated suspects and witnesses. One of those officers is a detective investigating the officer-involved shooting of Kendrec McDade.

Pasadena police shot and killed 19-year-old McDade in March after they said he reached for his waistband. Police say they thought he had a gun because of a false emergency call, but McDade was not armed. Keith Gomez, a corporal with the Pasadena department, is looking into the incident.

Last week the Pasadena chapter of the NAACP filed a complaint with the police department alleging that Gomez intimidated a suspect and witnesses and manufactured evidence in a 2006 murder case he investigated.

“Sometimes officers may do things that are inappropriate,” said Joe Brown, the chapter president, “and there appears to be sometimes patterns that certain officers are using that are really going over the line.”

A ROUND-UP OF THE SUPREMES AND DOMA

Here’s a clip from Adam Liptak at the New York Times writing about the justices’ doubts about DOMA.

The Supreme Court appeared ready on Wednesday to strike down a central part of a federal law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman, as a majority of the justices expressed reservations about the Defense of Marriage Act.

On the second day of intense arguments over the volatile issue of same-sex marriage, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who most likely holds the decisive vote, returned again and again to the theme that deciding who is married is a matter for the states. The federal government, he said, should respect “the historic commitment of marriage, and of questions of the rights of children, to the states.”

That suggests that he is prepared to vote with the court’s four liberal members to strike down the part of the 1996 law that recognizes only the marriages of opposite-sex couples for more than 1,000 federal laws and programs. Such a ruling would deliver federal benefits to married same-sex couples in the nine states, and the District of Columbia, that allow such unions.

If the 1996 law stands, Justice Kennedy said, “you are at real risk with running in conflict with what has always been thought to be the essence” of state power, which he said was to regulate marriage, divorce and custody.

All four members of the court’s liberal wing questioned the constitutionality of the law, though they largely focused on equal protection principles rather than on the limits of federal power.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for instance, said the law effectively created “two kinds of marriage: the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage.”

David Souter and David Savage of the LA Times also think that the liberal justices and Justice Kennedy are in favor of striking down DOMA. Here’s a clip:

The Supreme Court wrapped up a second day of arguments on gay marriage, as Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and the court’s liberal justices appeared headed toward striking down the part of the Defense of Marriage Act that denies federal benefits to legally married gay couples.

Kennedy repeatedly said the states, not the federal government, have the primary role in deciding who is married. The question is “whether the federal government has the authority to regulate marriage,” he said.

Meanwhile, the court’s four liberal justices said the 1996 law is flawed and discriminatory because it treats married same-sex couples differently than other married couples.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she too found the discrimination troubling. Some couples can have “full marriage” under the law, but others who are gay are left with “skim-milk marriage,” she said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the law creates two classes of married couples. “You are treating married [gay] couples differently,” she said. “You are saying that New York’s married couples [who may be gay] are different than Nebraska’s,” she said, even though both are legally married under state law.

She questioned whether the government “can create a class they don’t like — here homosexuals –and … decide they get different benefits on that basis.”

The ATLANTIC WIRE has a transcript of Wednesday’s hearing that is nicely laid out so your eye can skip over the less interesting parts, in order to read and assess what the SUPREMES said for yourself.

LOS ANGELES SUPERVISORS (THANKFULLY) DECIDE THAT BACA’S $1 BILLION JAIL-BUILDING PLAN NEEDS MORE STUDY

As we reported on Tuesday morning, the planned discussion of Sheriff Baca’s nearly $933 million plan to build a new, state-of-the-art jail to replace the bad old Men’s Central Jail, was abruptly yanked off the meeting schedule when the LA County Supervisors indicated they intended to vote on a motion to table the building plan pending further study.

The motion that passed unanimously by the Supes—proposed by Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Gloria Molina—ask for a study of the matter that included the following:

*A description of existing facilities, number and types of beds
*A profile of the existing inmate population by classification;
*A trend analysis that projects the need for beds by security classification type over the next ten, twenty and thirty years
*Jail Plan options and related assumptions which include
one-time and on-going funding needs; including State funding options
*A timeline/delivery schedule, which includes swing space during construction.

The building proposal, which was remarkably similar to the plan put forth by Baca and County CEO Bill Fujioka in January of last year. And that plan was tabled pending further study too. Now a year later, a slightly tweaked version of last year’s was about to be marched out—even though it appeared to have made little or no use of last year’s James Austin analyses of how best to handle the county’s inmate population and what kind of facilities were needed.

We know the sheriff has a habit of pushing for more money for this and that, whenever it is possible, but what’s the CEO’s excuse?

KPCC’s Rina Palta has a story on the issue. Here’s a clip:

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca’s proposal for a nearly $1 billion jail construction project needs thorough evaluation by an outside entity, the county Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday.

Supervisors directed the county’s CEO to commission a study of current jail needs and what they might be over the next 20 to 30 years.

Baca’s latest proposal for replacing downtown L.A.’s Men’s Central Jail with a more modern facility calls for reopening the shuttered Mira Loma jail to house women, and moving men into the Century Regional Detention Facility—the current women’s jail. Baca’s proposal also calls for building two new towers on the site of Men’s Central Jail.

[SNIP]

Peter Eliasberg, of the ACLU of Southern California—which called Men’s Central “nightmarish” in a 2009 report—agreed that it’s time for the old jail to go.

“Men’s Central jail is a disaster. It needs to be closed,” Eliasberg said.

But he said the “parade of proposals” that have come before the supervisors regarding the county’s jail needs have lacked a fundamental component: planning.

“One minute they’re telling us the jails can hold 21,000 people,” said Eliasberg. “Six months later, they’re telling us they can hold 14,000 people.”

Eliasberg said the county “has not done the basic studies” of the the current jail capacity and the projections for how many inmates the county system will need to house in the future, especially considering the sheriff’s plans for alternatives to incarceration.

PS: Baca said this week that, rather than tear down Men’s Central Jail, which was the plan last year, he’d like to repurpose it to use for his Education Based Incarceration program, a strategy that—if at all practical—we rather like.

DO YOU KNOW HOW YOUR BILLIONS IN REALIGNMENT TAX $$ ARE BEING USED?

In April, Stanford’s Dr. Joan Petersilia and her team of researchers, will release a study that looks at California’s $4+ billion Realignment plan to see what is effective and what isn’t, and how the various counties were spending their millions of state tax dollars.

In this this Huffington Post essay Michael Santos hints at some of the things the Stanford team found.

Here’s a clip:

…AB 109, or Realignment, was a legislative response to judicial decisions concerning health care in state prison. Jurists found California prisons were hopelessly overcrowded. The only remedy that would allow California prisoners to receive adequate health care required the state to reduce its prisoner population by tens of thousands of people.

The legislature and Governor Brown responded with Realignment. The AB 109 legislation was designed to lower prison population levels by diverting certain offenders from state prison to serve their sanctions in the county jail or on county probation. Qualifying for the Realignment sentencing meant the offenders were non-sex offenders, non-violent offenders, and non-serious offenders, referred to as non-non-nons, or NNNs.

Many people on parole would also receive different treatment under Realignment. Rather than being sent back to state prison for technical violations, people who violated conditions of their parole (but did not violate new laws) would be sanctioned to the county system rather than to state prison.

[SNIP]

Realignment operated under the ostensible theory that county officials might be more inclined to work toward preparing low-level offenders for law-abiding lives. The AB 109 legislation provided county officials with the funds to implement evidence-based practices that have been shown to reduce recidivism.

[However when Stanford researchers looked at how the counties spent their millions, they] …”found that only 12 percent of the total first-year allotment for Realignment funds across the state was given to community service providers that provided treatment programs and services.

The Stanford analysis also found that about 35 percent of all the allocated AB 109 money was earmarked for probation and sheriff staff salaries. That was the average, though. Some counties, like Sacramento, allocated a much higher percentage of AB 109 spending for traditional law enforcement operations. According to its published AB 109 budget, Sacramento County received $29,988,198. The Sheriff’s Department scored with $20,040,553 of those funds, but it only allocated $500,000 for “inmate services,” a measly 2.5 percent. Like most counties, Sacramento allocated the lion’s share of its AB 109 funding for traditional law enforcement services…..

Read the rest.

By the way, this story in the Union Democrat by Sean Jannson paints a depressing picture of how one of California’s counties, Calaveras, squabbled unpleasantly over their realignment $$, getting very little done, and leaving public safety to fend for itself.

DO WE NEED LEGISLATION TO “HIT THE RESET BUTTON” ON ZERO TOLERANCE RUNNING AMOK?

This week, the attorney representing the 7-year-old Maryland boy, who may or may not have bitten his pop tart into the shape of a gun, announced plans to appeal the child’s suspension so as to get the pastry biting black mark off the kid’s record.

Columnist and radio producer Lynda Bekore writes in the Huffington Post that, in light of this sort of idiocy, which admittedly seems of late to be running rife through the countryside, we may need some legislation that lays down some common sense ground rules to prevent schools across the nation from doing harm to kids with whacked out, fear-based zero-tolerance policies.

In other words, sadly, we may need government overreach to prevent school overreach.

Here’s a clip:

For any student, the stigma and shame of a school suspension can be emotionally life-altering; for older students, suspensions become part of their permanent record, adversely affecting their chances of acceptance to college.

Most principals would usually not choose to suspend a student for anything but egregious misconduct, or repeat bad behavior, instead opting for discipline more appropriate to that specific student or situation. But their hands are tied by the extreme limitations of zero tolerance imposed by their school boards, who themselves feel constrained by a litigious culture that demands expensive retribution for any perceived slight to another child’s precious self-esteem.

We can all throw our hands up in the air or shrug our shoulders, and tsk, tsk the silliness of “other” people’s narrow-minded lack of good judgment, or we can try to make it stop. Maryland State Senator J.B. Jennings recently introduced a bill, The Reasonable School Discipline Act of 2013, which calls for clearer disciplinary guidelines at specific grade levels for behavior that is not directly physically violent, such as nibbling a pastry into a gun, or talking about shooting bubbles from a Hello Kitty bubble gun.

JAILS, JAILS AND MORE JAILS

Tuesday’s LA County Supervisor’s meeting is pretty much the Lee Baca/Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Show. Or so it would seem from glancing at the day’s agenda.

First up will be the recommendation by the County CEO, Bill Fujioka, and Sheriff Baca, that the board approve the first steps in building a $900 million new jail to replace the decrepit, dangerous, and hard to manage, Men’s Central Jail—a facility that everyone agrees has to go (although the sheriff wants to keep and repurpose at least part of the thing as a place to house his education based incarceration program).

Exactly what needs to be build or not built to best handle the county’s inmate population is where the disagareements begin.

UPDATE: THE JAIL CONSTRUCTION DISCUSSION WAS JUST PULLED OFF THIS MORNING’S AGENDA AND REFERRED BACK TO THE CEO. (WISE MOVE.)

Instead, the Board chose far more appropriately to discuss a motion (authored by Sups. Molina and Antonovich) hiring an independent consultant who will provide the Board with a “comprehensive report regarding the Jail Plan within 60 days.”

The motion specifies that the report would be required to delve into, at a minimum:

*A description of existing facilities, number and types of beds
*A profile of the existing inmate population by classification;
*A trend analysis that projects the need for beds by security classification type over the next ten, twenty and thirty years
*Jail Plan options and related assumptions which include
one-time and on-going funding needs; including State funding options
*A timeline/delivery schedule, which includes swing space during construction.

The motion passed unanimously. (Go, Supervisors!)

After that, the supervisors’ meeting will feature a bunch of reports and discussions about what goes on inside the jails, including another progress report on the implementation of the Jails Commission’s recommendations.

Also on the table is the $22 Million that the CEO and the sheriff think that the LASD should be given in order to pay for patrols in the unincorporated areas—which we learned were being given short shrift when an audit of the matter was presented in January. (One would think, as we mentioned last time this topic came up, that the cost of policing the unincorporated areas would be first place to which the sheriff’s would allocate resources, since that particular policing assignment is the department’s most basic reason for being. But….oh, never mind)

More after the meeting.

GROUNDHOG DAY:THE CUSTODY VERSION

The main item on the agenda to watch, of course, is the outcome of that proposal for nearly $1 billion for new jail construction that the CEO has recommended be moved to the first steps, planning stages.

What is perplexing in the matter is the fact that, over a year ago, a very similar proposal was floated by the sheriff and the CEO, giving this proposal a Ground Hog Day-esque quality. At the time, the board asked for an analysis of the real need—or lack thereof—for such a massive expansion of the county’s custody facilities, an analysis that specifically took into consideration such existing pieces of research as the excellent and exhaustive Vera Institute report on the jails and jails population (which, incidentally, the the County commissioned), and the James Austin report, which at the time, was still a month or two away from delivery. The idea was that those reports and any other information of relevance, would be factored into any plans for facility renovation, closure, or building. [For text of Austin report go here.]

I could be wrong, but it does not, off hand, appear that Fujioka and the sheriff have, indeed really made much if any use of those reports—although Baca does talk about alternatives to incarceration for some inmates, which echoes Austin.

But stay tuned.

In the meantime, below you can read the common sense memo from the ACLU about what kind of course they think might best be followed in terms of handling the jails population. The memo outlines a plan (using real math) that Men’s Central Jail could be closed altogether and the jail population could be safely redistributed between existing facilities, without spending $933 million on a snazzy new custody complex.

Here’s the memo itself: Memo BOS re Jail Plan 02192013

MONDAY’S PRESS CONFERENCE AND TWO INTRODUCTIONS

The Sheriff already had a good day on Monday, in his half-hour or so press conference in which he introduced his new big hires—Terri McDonald and Ted Sexton. [See video above.]

The first up was Terri McDonald, the former undersecretary of the California Department of Corrections, who has come on to the department as the new Assistant Sheriff in charge of custody, to take over the long-troubled jails.

McDonald is extremely experienced in custody management, and appears to be a pleasantly no-nonsense person, who handled herself at the press conference with what seemed like the right mix of new-guy humility, and don’t-mess with me seasoned confidence.

Ted Sexton, the longtime sheriff of Tuscaloosa County, who will head the LASD’s Department of Homeland Security, which includes oversight of a number of areas, including the controversy-haunted Aero Bureau. Sexton has a good CV for the job, having served as assistant secretary for state and local law enforcement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for a couple of years. Plus his oldest son, James Sexton, already works for the department, meaning that the new Chief likely has a better feel for the unstated currents in the department than would most people coming in from the outside.

Sexton didn’t have a chance to talk at the press conference as most reporters were asking questions only about the jails, which either Baca or McDonald fielded.

We hope and presume there will be plenty of time for Sexton to take the mic in the future.

DO GOOD, AVOID EVIL

On Wednesday afternoon, the Chief of LA County Probation, Jerry Powers, sent out a short and pithy “Honesty Directive” to all of the department’s 6100 employees. It said, in essence that lying and stealing would not be tolerated.

Now, under ordinary circumstances, one would assume such strictures would be implicit. But inside the nation’s largest probation department matters are still not ordinary. Thus Powers found that, for a certain percentage of his staff, it was better to state this sort of thing outright.

Since he took over as head of the troubled department in December 2011, in addition to grappling with the new responsibilities brought on by AB 109, Powers has been focusing his reform efforts on some of the basics. He’s hired some fresh, new people at the top of his command staff, and has been cooperating with other law enforcement agencies to arrest law-breaking employees—totaling around 50 staff arrests, at last count. Most recently, Powers has gotten permission from the Board of Supervisors to hire some more Internal Affairs investigators and lawyers, to make sure that allegations of staff misconduct are investigated quickly and efficiently. (In past years, cases were allowed to languish uninvestigated, in frightening numbers.)

And now there’s the directive.

Here are its high points

“The mission of the Probation Department can only be carried out with the expectation of honesty from all employees at all levels….”

All dishonest acts committed during the course of employment will be considered a violation of this policy.

The following are some examples of some situations where, if an employee is dishonest, discipline may be warranted. (This list is not intended to be exhaustive.)

*Falsification of time records
*Written, oral, or electronic communications
*Responses to questions during investigations and or inquiries. Deliberate omission of relevant information will also be considered to be dishonesty
*Leave requests (abusing leave policies to obtain time off while not ill or injured)
*Pilfering department property for personal use (regardless of the value)
*Using departmental funds or equipment, such as vehicles, for unauthorized personal use.

The directive makes clear that failure to follow the aforementioned rules will result in discipline, including possibly termination.

And, just so there’s no misunderstanding, employees are going to be required to sign the thing in order to acknowledge that they’ve read it.

HONESTY, PART DEUX

This isn’t Powers’ first go round with the honesty issue.

In late November of last year, Powers sent out a message to all department members, this one in video form, explaining that the directive was coming and why:

“There appears to be a small fraction of our workforce that doesn’t feel that honesty is an essential trait of being a peace officer or working for a law enforcement agency,” Powers said in the video. “We’ve had too many instances where staff have filed fraudulent reports. They’ve been dishonest in reporting whether it’s use of force, time card fraud, workman’s comp issues. Please understand that honesty is at the core of what we do. If we’re not seen as an honest agency, if we’re not seen as an honest officer we can’t do the job that we’re required to do to keep these communities safe and the citizens safe.

THE RETURN OF THE LEMONS

After the directive was released on Wednesday, I spoke to Powers and asked him why such an obvious sounding set of instructions was needed. He laughed momentarily at the question—then turned serious.

“We found we hadn’t communicated very precisely on some of these issues.”

For instance, Powers said, it wasn’t clearly understood that, when someone made a verbal or written report on misbehavior by another employee, that one was obligated to be rigorously truthful. Staff tended to cover for one another.

“So what would happen,” he said, “is that we’d terminate an employee for wrongdoing, and our terminations would be overturned by the civil service commission because of inaccuracies on the part of the witnesses.”

So he was putting everyone on notice that, in the future, lying about one’s actions—or about the actions of a fellow employee—would not be tolerated.

Powers paused. “See, I don’t want to terminate a bad employee and then have to take them back because I haven’t communicated to everyone what our expectations are.”

He gave an example.

“A kid in our of our facilities will say, ‘A staff member beat me up.’ But then four staff members, three of them witnesses, will tell investigators that nothing happened, or that the kid was resistant and force was needed. But then when each of the four staffers are isolated, typically one will crack and say, ‘Here’s really what happened.’” And suddenly it becomes evident that the kid was telling the truth.

“But then the civil services panel will say, ‘Well, since the witnesses changed their stories, we don’t know which time they were telling the truth.’

“I understand we need that process when we’re talking about taking someone’s career away,” Powers said. “But honesty should be foremost in your activities. I want us to be seen as leaders in the field. But for that to happen, we need to be a more professional organization.”

UNION BLUES

The main union representing probation officers, AFSCME Local 685, was reportedly part of the process of hammering out the exact wording of the directive and, according to probation department spokesperson, Carol Lin, the union signed off on it.

However, when asked for a comment on the matter on Wednesday by KPCC’s Rina Palta, the union issued the following statement:

“The Department’s Honesty Directive is, almost entirely, a reiteration of existing policies and is more likely to generate employee complaints about management actions than net any new employee discipline,” the union said. “It is another example of current management that is overly focused on the small number of employees with conduct issues, while ignoring the overwhelming number of rank and file Probation Officers who work hard every day to provide vital probationary services and protect the public’s interests essentially without management’s assistance.”

One can certainly understand that the decent people in the department who are simply trying to do their jobs are tired of hearing about those who aren’t.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happens when a ghastly amount of misconduct has, for years, been allowed to flourish inside a large public agency, as has been the case with LA County Probation. It’s rough on the good people.

(For a few of the most recent accounts of flourishing wrongdoing, check reports here and here and here.)

Thus it would seem, simply from a practical perspective, that the union’s anger would be better served aimed at the probation employees who are still engaged in lying, stealing, kid-slugging, and so on, rather than at the guy who’s trying to put a stop to it.

HOUSECLEANING AND HIRING

Powers reiterated that, in order to build a good department, there will need to be some painful housecleaning—which will also include tightening up the hiring standards, including thorough background checks, when taking on new employees.

“There are tons of people in LA County with Master’s degrees who really want these jobs, because they genuinely want to do this work.” When probation next hires, they can cherry pick, he said.

“Look,” Powers said finally, “If everybody’s just honest and takes care of business, then we can have a great department. This is all just part of the process.”

Here’s a copy of the Honesty Directive if you want to read the text for yourself.

FOUR—NOT FIVE—SUPERVISORS WRITE A LETTER

Okay, when we last left the cheery topic of LA County Probation, the county’s probation-chief-eating union heads, and the agency’s head guy, Chief Jerry Powers, were engaging in a spitting match via the medium of dueling letters to the board of supervisors, all of which we covered here.

Now WitnessLA has acquired a brand new letter that the Supes have written back to the unions telling them, in essence, to get a grip and cooperate with Chief Powers.

However, while four of the Supervisors signed the letter, Mark Ridley-Scott did not. But we’ll get to that part of the story in a minute.

(Here’s a copy of the letter: Letter from Supervisors to Unions )

AGAIN, THE BACK STORY

To refresh your memories about the cause of the spitting match: Powers was complaining to the board at a Supes’ meeting last month, that—due to restrictions imposed by existing contracts with the four probation workers’ unions—-he couldn’t hire the needed number of probation officers to fill 248 still-open slots that must be filled to handle the additional parolees who, because to the provisions of AB109—AKA realignment—are daily landing on the County’s probation case loads for supervision, rather than in the care of state parole.

In response to Powers’ public complaints, the unions wrote a rather nasty letter to the Supes in which they expressed their “collective outrage,” and accused Powers of causing “a public safety crisis” to “circumvent our union contracts.’ Powers complaints were nonsense, the union people said (although their language was not anywhere near as friendly as mine). There were plenty of trained and experienced probation employees ready and willing to be promoted into those AB109 positions.

There is reportedly only one problem with that POV: with a few exceptions, most of those who would be appropriate—from a civil service perspective—for those promotions, are working in the county’s deeply troubled juvenile probation camps, which are understaffed to begin with, and assuredly cannot afford to lose any trained and competent personnel.

THE NOT-SO-FAR-AWAY BAD OLD DAYS

It’s important to recall that LA County’s probation camps are a bare three years away from the scandal-a-week days when they had personnel written about in the LA Times for goading kids into engaging in “gladiator fights’— a sort of LA County juvenile probation Fight Club. AND during that same 2010 period another 18 staffers were charged, according to the Office of Independent Review’s Michael Gennaco, with crimes including cruelty to a child, sex with a minor, prostitution, assault with a deadly weapon, resisting an officer and battery. (Sadly, I have only named a few of the that year’s horrors.)

While the camps and the halls have improved at least marginally since then, according to the report by federal monitors last fall, there is a depressingly long way to go. To be specific, the feds report that the camps still have staff that can’t manage to stop slamming kids against walls, making young probationers assume stress positions as punishment, can’t keep kids reasonably safe from aggressively pounding each other, and can’t keep adequate track of what kid is being given what medication and has received what mental health services.

In our own digging around, we’ve heard even worse reports of staff misconduct.

Yet, as we said, it’s better than it was. Thus the camps cannot afford to have any of their frail progress threatened.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Please allow me to make it clear—as always—that there are many wonderful, dedicated, honorable, talented people who work for LA County probation, people who give way more than they are asked to do on a daily basis. Some are people I know personally. But it is not their good work that is at issue here.)

THE STAFFING ISSUE

Of course, the staffing issue wouldn’t be a problem if Powers could replace some of those staffers promoted out of the youth camps and into the AB109 positions with nice bright-eyed and bushy-tailed applicants with master’s degrees and an affinity for kids—even law-breaking kids. That’s what Santa Clara County Probation does to staff their much lauded juvenile facility, the James Ranch (where kids are helped, rather than slammed against walls). But, according to union rules, the positions must only be filled from within, usually by the next people in the food chain, who are, by definition, less experienced and less trained, and who may or may not have a talent for working with youth.

To add to it all, as we mentioned before, the camps are already understaffed—a problem caused, in part, by the fact that an insane number of those working for probation are not actually….you know….working. According to last year’s report on the agency by the Office of Independent review, 400 of the agency’s 5,630 employees are on some type of medical leave, “Another 353 employees are … on modified duty.” I’ll do the math for you. That means more than 13 percent of Probation’s workforce are not, at least at the count last year, on the job full time—or at all.

THE BOARD WADES IN

To get past this depressing, multi-directional logjam, Powers would like to have the option of hiring some people for the AB 109 positions from the outside—like say laid off parole officers. The unions replied that hell will freeze over first, or words to that affect. Powers then responded by writing his own outraged letter to the Supervisors.

Union supporters further reacted by, behind closed, accusing Powers of being a union busting carpetbagger who’s made no effort to get along with the collective bargaining units, has no commitment to LA, and only took the job to up his retirement rate.

At the same time, Powers supporters called the union leaders power-hungry thugs who make running a functional department all but impossible.

And so, finally, the board waded into this melee with its letter, which was at least some kind of positive move.

“The Board wanted and needed to make it clear that if the union had a beef it was with the Board and not with Jerry Powers,” Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky wrote to me in an email. “We brought Jerry in to turn this very troubled department around, and he is doing exactly what the Board has asked him to do. The Board majority is committed to fixing the Department from within through assertive and urgent reform, but to be successful, the department head must have the authority to make the necessary changes.”

Well, yes. It stands to reason that someone has to hold the tiller of the ship; otherwise it will simply continue to run aground.

As we’ve observed earlier, Powers— while frankly less visionary in his outlook than we would like) —seems, at least, determined to clean up the place and make it behave with a modicum of professionalism. For instance, last year Powers got rid of some of the worst of the agency’s supply of bad apples, resulting in the arrest of around 40 department employees this year—which was more than either of the two previous administrations managed to do. (Yes, you read right: 40 employees arrested.)

SO WHY NOT SIGN THE LETTER?

Since the board’s letter to the union heads seemed like a positive move in the face of a bad situation, I asked Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas why he’d chosen not to sign it.

I knew that Ridley-Thomas is considered, by his critics, to be perhaps too beholden to the unions, which contributed heavily to his election campaign, and thus be reluctant to criticize them. On the other hand, no other supervisor’s office has been more active in pushing for intelligent reform in the county’s juvenile probation facilities. Moreover, he has repeatedly called for the Department of Justice to come in and slap probation with a federal consent decree, which would, by definition, trump a host of union rules and objections.

“I’m concerned that a battle between labor and management portents a set of problems I hope we can avoid,” he said when I broached the question. “I think a more constructive role for the board is to challenge both the Chief Probation Officer and the bargaining units to work out a way to work together for the good of the youngsters in those camps and halls. To pick one side over the other does not facilitate consensus.”

Ridley-Thomas also said that he believes a first step would be to look for a clear statement of mission, and a set of “deliverables” from Powers—specifically having to do with a plan to reduce recidivism among the AB109 adult probationers, and to articulate “a mission that is fundamentally tied to rehabilitation” regarding the juvenile facilities.

“Both sides have to get back to a mission that they can agree upon before we can move forward. And they both have a obligation to find a way to work together. To me, nothing else is acceptable.”

SO WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE US?

We at WitnessLA are definitely for some kind of aspirational goal setting at LA County Probation. Otherwise it seems like we’re left solely with a law enforcement agency, and not a particularly interesting law enforcement agency, but one whose highest calling is to prevent further crimes and/or misbehavior—by either its probationers or, frankly, its staff.

So where are we, exactly? Will the supes letter promote forward movement by giving Chief Powers the backing he needs to lead the department out of its newest morass, as Zev Yaroslavsky hopes? Or will it simply further the fight, as Ridley-Thomas fears?

And how do we get Powers and company to come up with some kind of achievable 10-point plan—or whatever—that places rehabilitation, and lowering recidivism rates at the top of the list of goals. You know, where are our “deliverables?”

THESE AND OTHER QUESTIONS REMAIN

So stay tuned.

AND IN OTHER NEWS….LASD UNDERSHERIFF PAUL TANAKA SAYS THE ENTIRELY WEIRD STORY OF CAMBODIA-SHIPPED BULLET-PROOF VESTS IS MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Sandy Mazza at the Daily News has the story. Here’s a clip:

A Los Angeles County supervisor is seeking a “rigorous” re-examination of a decade-old issue in which the city of Gardena acted as an intermediary for the Sheriff’s Department to sell ballistic vests to Cambodia.

The sale was scrutinized at least twice in the past 10 years because it was so unusual but, despite appearing convoluted, nothing illegal or improper was found.

This week, after recent news reports again questioned the transaction, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas called for another audit of the purchase.

Former Sheriff’s Department Assistant Sheriff Larry Waldie negotiated the sale, according to Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, who is the current mayor of Gardena.

At the time, Cambodia was rebuilding its country and police force following Khmer Rouge communist party rule, Tanaka said. The Cambodian foreign consulate asked Waldie if it could purchase 473 ballistic vests that the department would not use because they were either expired or used, he said.

Tanaka was in his second year as a Gardena city councilman and was also the sheriff’s chief of administrative services. Waldie asked for his help because he didn’t believe Los Angeles County could sell directly to a foreign country, he said.

FORMER STATE SENATOR GLORIA ROMERO SAYS OPEN UP POLICE DISCIPLINE RECORDS

Romero’s Op-Ed ran in the OC Register. Here’s how it opens.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck channeled a significant public policy implication from Christopher Dorner’s murderous rampage when he announced he would reopen the investigation into Dorner’s 2009 firing from LAPD. Beck’s words were haunting: “I hear the ghosts of the past of the Los Angeles Police Department. I hear that people think that maybe there is something to what he says, and I want to put that to rest.”

To do that will mean that the Legislature must revisit the damaging 2006 California Supreme Court decision in Copley Press Inc. v. Superior Court of San Diego. On a technicality, the court all but cemented secretive police operations. Ultimately, information on misconduct under color of authority – and any resulting discipline – must be a matter of public record.

I know this issue firsthand. In 2007 I introduced Senate Bill 1019, written to rectify the harm of the Copley decision and restore public access to information, which had been California’s practice for decades.

The Copley Press, then the publisher of the San Diego Union-Tribune, sued over the decision of the San Diego County Civil Service Commission to close the hearing of a county sheriff’s deputy appealing a termination notice. The commission also refused to explain why the deputy was fired.

After the Copley decision, police discipline records throughout California that had previously been open to the public, including LAPD boards of rights hearings, were sealed. Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office bowed to the political pressure of the police lobby and mandated full closure of hearings. Los Angeles was left with, for all intents and purposes, a police force that dealt with its own members in secret.

FROM JUVENILE PRISON TO JUVENILE JUSTICE LAWYER

This story by Meredith May in the San Francisco Chronicle is a redemptive delight.

A group of incarcerated teenage boys at the O.H. Close Youth Correctional Facility in Stockton slouch in plastic orange chairs, arms crossed, scowling at their tie-clad visitor, whose lecture will eat into their TV time.

Francis “Frankie” Guzman, a 32-year-old lawyer and recipient of a prestigious Soros Justice Fellowship to advocate for juvenile justice, gets right to the point.

“How many of you read ‘Lord of the Flies’? It’s like that in here, right? But which one of you is leading? Do you really want to follow that guy?”

Guzman speaks like he knows what he’s talking about, and the boys, ages 14 to 17, take notice. There’s a perceptible shift as they sit up a little straighter.

Guzman knows exactly what it’s like to wear khaki pants every day and sleep in a cell. When he was 15, he and a friend stole a car and robbed a liquor store at gunpoint in Southern California, resulting in six years behind bars inside the California Youth Authority.

It was the culmination of a childhood defined by tragedy in East Oxnard, an enclave of farmworkers and day laborers where gangs, family and community had blended together over the generations, blurring the lines between loyalty to the street and to the self.

“Kids don’t make smart decisions,” Guzman said. “But ultimately, you are not the worst thing you have done. The weakest thing I did made me the strongest person I am today.”

Read on!

AN INSANE INCIDENT WITH A TEN-YEAR OLD AND A SQUIRT GUN

Donna St. George at the Washington Post has the story of the 10-year-old arrested for his toy gun on the school bus.

MIDDLE SCHOOL BOOBIES BRACELET CASE GETS A SECOND HEARING BY COURT OF APPEALS

We are very pleased to note that the Boobies Bracelet case gets another hearing Wednesday! This time by the entire 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Maybe the court, like me, simply is amused by writing it: (Boobies Bracelet, Boobies Bracelet, Boobies Bracelet. Ahem, sorry.) Nah. More likely, the court is concerned with the First Amendement issues the case represents.

Anyway, rather than having me explain the case, read the story for yourself here at The Daily Call with a story by Peter Hall.