The LAPD Union’s blog asks why the disturbing rise in attacks on police officers—including the LAPD—in a year when crime overall is down. The LAPL does not pretend to have answers but asks for others to enter the conversation. Indeed, it is an important conversation to have.

Here’s a clip:

Chief Beck, speaking on KPCC, said the rise in violent assaults against the LAPD is of great concern. He said he cannot pinpoint exactly why the crimes are on the rise, but thinks it may have to do with new technology that has helped officers get to crime scenes earlier. “We don’t spread police resources like paint, we put them where the crime is,” he said.

“One of the things that’s happened in Los Angeles is that police, because we’ve been able to reduce crime and because our information systems are better and our analysis of those are better, we make contact with a lot of people who are intent on committing violent crime and the means to do that,” said Beck. “When you engage people at the enforcement level at a greater frequency, then you increase the number of forceful contacts that you have.”

A few weeks ago Chief Beck was on KPCC with Patt Morrison for his monthly Ask the Chief segment and he talked about the rise in violence against officers:

“This isn’t just somebody resisting arrest or taking a swing at an officer, or any of that,” said Beck. “This is about being attacked by means likely of bodily injury.”

Beck went on to say that a 40 percent shift to ambush style attacks on officers amounts to a “spectacular change.”

“You have a selected target, you lie in wait, and then you affect the act, and that has happened in an alarming rate across the United States.”

The most immediate example, he said was the killing of an officer sitting alone at a light when a gunman approached his vehicle and shot him to death.

Beck said overall crime is down in L.A., but that the rise in violent assaults against the LAPD is of great concern.

JURORS IN COMPTON GANG TRIAL SAID MEMBERS OF SHERIFF’S ANTI-GANG UNIT LIKELY LIED ON THE STAND

The LA Times’ Jack Leonard has the story. I remember when this arrest occurred and it sounded sour at the time. ** Here’s a clip from the opening:

When Compton jurors recently deliberated the fate of a man charged with possessing a concealed firearm, they thought the evidence was overwhelming — not that the man was guilty but that the Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who testified against him had lied.

Jurors said a video of the arrest and inconsistent testimony from deputies left them no choice earlier this month but to vote for acquittal. The five jurors who spoke to The Times said authorities should investigate the deputies from the sheriff’s anti-gang-unit who were involved in the case.

“These were not minor inconsistencies…. These were outright fabrications,” said juror Ted Rhodes, 28, a construction project manager. “It’ll be an injustice … if someone isn’t held accountable.”

Read the rest. It’s quite interesting.

Here’s a link to the video of the controversial arrest posted on the Times site.

***CORRECTION: Upon additional checking, I found I had confused this case with another controversial case involving the LAPD, which was similar but was ultimately decided in the officers’ favor. The rest of the above story stands—aside from my faulty memory.

NEW STANFORD STUDY LIFE WITH PAROLE IN CALIFORNIA SAYS MOST GET OUT IN 20 YEARS AND DON’T COMMIT NEW CRIMES

The SF Chronicle has the story. Here’s a clip:

The study also found that prisoners who are denied parole must wait an average of five years for their next hearing, up from two years in 2007, mostly because of a new, voter-approved victims’ rights law.

The board is less likely to approve release at an inmate’s first hearing than at future hearings, the study found, and is less than half as likely to grant parole when a victim’s relative attends the hearing.

The report also cited a recent study of 860 convicted murderers paroled in California since 1995. Only five had been sentenced for new felonies since then, none for crimes carrying life sentences, the study said.

By the way, in California lifers (with parole) constitute one-fifth of California’s prison population, a higher percentage than any other state.

LONGFORM.ORG’S GUIDE TO GREAT ARTICLES ON THE ISSUE OF THE DEATH PENALTY

And while we’re thinking about the Troy Davis execution issue, a death penalty reading list from the excellent Longform.org (via Slate)—dating back as far as 1960. Check it out.

COMMUNITY DIALOGUE ON CALIFORNIA PRISON REALIGNMENT THURSDAY, SEPT. 22ND

There is a meeting for the purposes of a community dialogue on California prison realignment–the State’s plan to return people from state prison back to counties.

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 from 6-9pm at Chuco’s Justice Center

Los Angeles County Probation Department Chief, Donald H. Blevins will be to hear from the community regarding “realignment.”

Chuco’s Justice Center is located at 1137 E. Redondo Blvd. Inglewood, CA 90302, on the border with South Central Los Angeles one light west of Florence and Crenshaw.

The meeting is sponsored by the Youth Justice Coalition and the Reentry Task Force.

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

TWO OFFICERS RESCUE WOMAN LOCKED IN A BURNING CAR ON MONDAY

This is from the LAPPL Blog:

LAPD officers are trained to expect the unexpected. A dramatic case in point: Hollywood Area Officers Michael Kim and Jimmy Lam were working traffic control after a Monday morning hit-and-run traffic collision near Santa Monica Boulevard and Western Avenue.

The officers noticed a Dodge Caravan unrelated to the traffic collision stopped at a nearby traffic light; heavy black smoke was coming from beneath the vehicle. After calling the Los Angeles Fire Department, the officers attempted to free the occupant from the van. However, she was unaware of the danger and did not understand what the officers wanted her to do.

But as thick smoke filled the van, the driver finally realized she needed to unlock the doors. Then the understandably frenzied occupant could not free herself from her seatbelt. Officer Kim used his pocketknife to cut her loose; and as toxic smoke and flames engulfed the vehicle, the officers used fire extinguishers from their police car to fight the fire until the fire department arrived.

We join the LAPD in commending Officer Michael Kim and Officer Jimmy Lam for their decisive action and heroism in rescuing the occupant unharmed and containing a dangerous situation.

Yep. We all cheer the quick acting, heroic officers too!

YET ANOTHER ROUND OF 10% TUITION HIKES PREDICTED FOR CALIF. UNIVERSITIES

The LA Times Larry Gordon and Carla Rivera have the story:

Students at the University of California and Cal State University systems are likely to face a second round of tuition hikes this fall in response to deeper funding cuts in the new state budget, officials and student leaders said Wednesday.

Discussions are underway for tuition increases of at least 10%. That hike would come on top of an 8% increase at UC and a 10% boost at Cal State that already are set to take effect this fall.

An early victim of the state budget cuts is a new medical school at UC Riverside. Campus officials said Wednesday they would delay opening the school by a year, until fall 2013.

Student leaders expressed disappointment about their soaring tuition and said that Sacramento is putting the brunt of the state’s budget problems on them. A decade of increases has more than tripled tuition to about $11,000 a year at UC and $4,884 at Cal State, not including room, board and other fees.

Depressing.

THE BOSS RELEASES THE TEXT OF HIS EULOGY FOR THE BIG MAN

Rolling Stone has it. I don’t want to excerpt it because, it needs to be read as a whole. Bruce covers the waterfront.

(And thanks to Kevin Roderick at LA Observed for the heads up on this.)

Dennis Romero at the LA Weekly broke the story. Here’s the opening:

An 18-year-old woman says she had sex with a Los Angeles police officer when she was 17, which could constitute statutory rape in California. She gave LA Weekly a paternity test that shows a 99 percent probability that the officer is the father of her child, born Dec. 11.

Maria Rodriguez turned 18 in July (you can do the math). The officer, reached while he was on-duty this week at the LAPDs Holleneck station, acknowledged that he knows Rodriguez, but said “I don’t want to” talk about the situation.

The LAPD, while also expressing some knowledge of the allegations, essentially had no comment, stating that it’s a personnel matter. In fact, the reason Rodriguez came forward (and this gets a little complicated) …

… is that she says the department targeted the wrong cop in its internal investigation of her allegations.

Now that Rodgriguez is over 18, she has a relationship with another Hollenbeck officer, whom she says has been fired for being the father of her baby, instead of the officer she says is the actual baby-daddy. (Read the Weekly story for the rest.)

Sources close to the LAPD’s union say that the LAPPL is providing legal representation for the alleged father.

So why do we care? Because 30-something-year old cops, or teachers, or any other adult for that matter, do not get to have sex with teenagers. It’s not okay. No matter how mature they look, they are kids. And the adults have to behave like adults. That goes double for adults in positions of authority.

One more thing: in the past few years, I’ve heard more stories of cop misbehavior coming out of Hollenbeck division than anywhere. I’m not talking stats, just my own anecdotal observations. Hollenbeck has some great officers, including some decent division captains who have passed through the place and some excellent homicide detectives. But my entirely personal perception is that there’s still a small but entrenched culture at Hollenbeck that is problematic.

I’m just sayin.’

By the way, It’s my understanding from non-Weekly sources that the Weekly has had the story for multiple weeks but has just now published it. This suggests that they have made sure to check every fact six-ways from Sunday. In other words, what you see on the page is likely very solid.

AND IN A BIZARRELY RELATED STORY: ORANGE COUNTY HAS VOTED TO BAN SEX OFFENDERS FROM SOME BEACHES AND PARKS

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

The law, approved unanimously by the board Tuesday, is the latest in a controversial series of ordinances across the country aimed at limiting where sex offenders can live and visit. It was championed by Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas, who said the idea was to keep sex offenders away from children and families.

“We are setting up a safety zone by keeping parks and recreation zones safe from predators,” Rackauckas said.

But critics immediately expressed skepticism about the law, saying it would be difficult to enforce and appeared politically motivated.

TWO WRONG-HEADED DECISIONS THAT ASK FOR OUR ATTENTION

THE POLICE UNION Vs. THE LA PUBLIC LIBRARIES

I wish this was not grindingly predictable that the LAPD’s union, the LAPPL, would come out against Measure L, the item on the March 8 ballot that would set aside funding for the Los Angeles Public Library system.

In a statement put out Wednesday, union president Paul Weber made the usual dire predictions. Measure L will force cuts in police, fire and public safety, blah, blah, blah.

The LA Weekly detailed the deep and shameful cuts to the LA Public Library system last year in their excellent cover story by Patrick Range McDonald, City of Airheads, which showed that Los Angeles stood alone among big cities in failing to protect its libraries.

Many public library systems — the five biggies are Boston, New York, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles — have faced an ugly two years of recession-spawned budget cuts and trimmed hours. Yet political leaders who control the purse strings for the biggest cities fought and saved their libraries from severe harm.

The city that has not done that is Los Angeles.

Measure L was, in part, a response. Granted, it didn’t help the union’s attitude toward the ballot measure, that it was proposed by Councilman Bernard Parks who, one could plausibly argue, has never scene an opportunity to stick it to the Los Angeles Police Department he didn’t like.

As the LA Weekly points out in a Wednesday night blogpost, Measure L doesn’t raise new $$ but rather sets aside a certain portion of property tax dollars as sacrosanct for the city’s libraries. This kind of ballot box budgeting can be a dicey strategy in that it ties the hands of lawmakers to move all funds around as needed. But given the council’s unwillingness to protect LA’s library system, supporters feel it is necessary, in this instance, for the citizenry to step in.

As Councilman Park’s chief of staff (and son) Bernard Parks Jr. noted,” Public safety already accounts for 70 percent of the city’s general fund.” That 70 percent should be enough. Public safety is important. But it is also important to feed the minds of our children by protecting their libraries.

So to the LAPPL, please sit down. We got this one.

CRIMINALIZING CAMPUS PROTEST

I’ve been meaning to comment on the troubling decision of Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas to bring criminal misdemeanor charges against 11 Muslim Student Union UC Irvine students who heckled and otherwise disrupted the on campus speech of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren.

Salon Magazine has presented the issue well. Here’s a clip from their story.

The Orange County district attorney has brought highly unusual misdemeanor charges against 11 Muslim students for disrupting a speech by the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. at the University of California at Irvine last year, raising questions about the First Amendment and the criminalization of protest on campus.

The case has generated competing free speech claims, with both sides arguing they have the Constitution on their side. Supporters of the so-called Irvine 11, including progressive Jewish groups, have argued that the prosecution is politically motivated because of the explosive nature of the Israel-Palestine issue and because the students are Muslim.

Ambassador Michael Oren came to speak last February at U.C. Irvine, which has been the site of tensions over Israel-Palestine for several years. Members of the Muslim Student Union took turns interrupting the speech every few minutes, calling Oren, who is an Israeli Defense Forces veteran, “an accomplice to genocide” and a “mass murderer.” Each student briefly stood up, shouting a sentence or two, then walked to the aisle and was arrested by police and escorted out. After four interruptions, Oren took a 20-minute break, according to news reports at the time. He was then interrupted another six times before a group of protesters left the lecture hall. Oren then finished his speech.

In response to the incident, the U.C. Irvine administration revoked the charter of the Muslim Student Union for a year and disciplined the students involved. [Ed. note: Which should have been good enough.]

Now, after a year-long investigation that included issuing search warrants and convening a grand jury to interview witnesses, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas has brought charges against 11 students for “conspiring and disrupting a lawful assembly.”

Let me repeat that: Rackauckas, in all seriousness, convened a grand jury and issued search warrants about a campus protest. Your tax dollars at work. How is this a bad precedent? Let me count the ways.

The Jewish Journal reports that a hundred UCI faculty members have called on the OC DA to drop the charges.

I was on Patt Morrison’s show on Monday afternoon along with Deputy Chief Patrick Gannon of the LAPD, a smart guy who is the man who heads up the department’s South Bureau. Also on was my pal, Aquil Basheer, the long time gang and violence intervention specialist who runs an excellent community intervention training program.

The issue was one more look at the fact that around 80 of the LAPD’s gang unit officers have asked to be transferred to other duties because of the requirement for gang and narcotics officers to open their bank accounts and financial lives to the department that will kick in this March.

Some of this stuff is likely nothing you don’t already know since, during the past couple of years of legal battles over the issue, I’ve posted quite a bit about it. Yet, with Patt as the moderator, Monday’s discussion made for a lively half hour of radio, complete with callers tossing in questions of their own. (Some of the callers, I think, decided I was a tool of the police union. Ah, the irony!)

In any case, you can listen to a podcast here. And here you can see what commenters had to say about the show.

Which Way LA? with Warren Olney attempted to answer the above question on Wednesday night’s show.

But before we discuss the most recent developments, it helps to review a little of the history of the matter:

For the last couple of years, LAPD officers working in the department’s gang and narcotics units have been threatening to transfer out of those units if they are forced to toe the line on the financial disclosure requirement that U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess has imposed as part of the federal consent decree that was put in place following the LAPD’s so-called Rampart scandal.

The LAPD’s union—the LAPPL—fought the financial disclosure requirement as long as it could, using whatever legal means it could find including a temporary restraining order.

Finally, however, all means of resistance were exhausted and there was nothing to do but comply—or not.

To refresh your memory: According to the provisions of the federal consent decree, LAPD officers at the rank of lieutenant or below who work in either gang or narcotics details have to sign disclosure agreements documenting all their personal finances and giving the department access to their financial records. The idea is to ensure that these officers are not stealing money, drugs or other “valuable contraband”—a preposterous notion since any bad apple cops who pilfer money from crime scenes, et al, do not run the cash through their Bank of America accounts or their Roth IRAs.

(Here are more details as to how the financial disclosure thing works, its history, and why it is a really dumb idea.)

Earlier this week, the department announced that nearly 80 of the gang unit officers in some of the city’s most sensitive areas had made good on their threat and were declining to work gangs because of the onerous $$$ disclosure requirement. The cops weren’t leaving the force altogether. They would be transferred to patrol or to other duties. But this meant that, as the LA Times reported Wednesday, those gang units were being disbanded and repopulated by new officers—meaning that much experience and street intelligence, was being lost.

This comes at a time when the LAPD’s resources are already being stretched by budget cutbacks and other demands on the uniformed workforce, like the newly downtown jail, which has drained 90 patrol officers, from working the street.

The question that is being asked around town this week is whether the loss of roughly 80 gang officers will reduce the effectiveness of the department’s gang enforcement at a critical time.

Wednesday night on Which Way LA? with Warren Olney, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and union prez, Paul Weber, discussed the issue. (I was briefly scheduled to be on the show should they not be able to secure the chief as a guest.)

Chief Beck did his best to reassure us that everything would be fine, and likely it will, but neither Beck nor Weber are terribly happy about the additional juggling and stress that Judge Feess’s poorly reasoned stricture has caused.

You can listen to the discussion here.

HOW DO WE KEEP LAWBREAKING KIDS FROM RETURNING TO LOCK-UP? LA COUNTY SUP MARK RIDLEY-THOMAS AND CHILDREN’S DEFENSE FUND HEAD MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN…HAVE A 10-PT PLAN

The 10-step plan is part of a 65-page report on juvenile reentry commissioned by Ridley-Thomas and prepared by Children Defense Fund staffers, Michelle Newell and Angelica Salazar, who did much of their research when they were at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

While the report is not definitive, it’s smarter than the County’s purported professionals were able to turn out earlier this year, and features many good moments of analysis plus that list of sensible suggestions.

It is also an excellent place to start a conversation.

Here’s a snippet from its executive summary:

With the largest juvenile justice system in the country, LA County has high rates of youth incarceration. For most juvenile offenders, this incarceration will take place in one of the 19 County probation camps, or residential facilities, and these youth will be released after less than a year and face the challenge of reentering their communities.

Reentry is challenging regardless of the population, but for juvenile offenders it is particularly complicated given the range of developmental changes these youth are experiencing. In Los Angeles, these youth are burdened by high rates of mental illness and substance abuse, low rates of educational attainment and alarmingly high levels of gang involvement. Given these barriers, it is perhaps not surprising that juveniles are currently not successful in reentering their communities. Re-offending rates are high, and while the County Probation Department does not collect much outcome data, available evidence indicates youth outcomes are grim…

Ridley-Thomas and Edelman will be holding a press conference at 1:30 pm Thursday to introduce the report and the 10-step plan. The presser will be held in Ridley-Thomas’s office, in the Hall of Administration, 500 W. Temple Street, LA.

A NEW VOLLEY IN THE BATTLE OVER HIRING MORE LAPD OFFICERS

LA Police Protective League president, Paul Weber, has an op ed in Thursday’s LA Times that explains a bit more about why the union is fighting the mayor’s and Chief Charlie Beck’s collective promise to hire more police officers.

Weber says the department should first use its existing officers more wisely. Here’s a clip.

When the City Council voted to raise trash fees in 2006, the action came with a promise to Angelenos that the money would be put toward expanding the Los Angeles police force to more than 10,000 officers. But even as we’ve moved closer to meeting that goal on paper, the number of officers on the street is being eroded.

Because of attrition, early retirement incentives and mandatory furloughs, the number of police officers doing actual police work is gradually declining, and the problem is becoming more acute.

One huge reason is that the city is no longer paying officers for overtime. There is no way to avoid overtime in police work: An officer making an arrest, say, can’t simply let a suspect go because a work shift has ended….

PS: For the record, I think the department should keep hiring, but let’s not use cops for jobs that non-sworn folks could do cheaper (and just as well).

WWBD? WHAT WOULD BILL DO?

By sheer coincidence, former LAPD chief Bill Bratton indirectly addressed the issue when he was in London consulting with the Brits on policing and gave an interview to some local press:

“In terms of creating safer communities, cops count and policing does matter. But successful policing is not only about making the right investments in law enforcement. You cannot spend your way to a safer community and it isn’t about how much money you spend, or how many staff you have on the payroll.

“It’s about what you do with your most valuable asset - the sworn officer….

(My ital.)

LA’S LIGHT RAIL FIASCO

The LA Weekly’s Gene Maddaus has written a terrific article in Thursday’s edition of the paper that shows LA’s light rail project to be both horribly over budget and a projected 2 years over its deadline for completion.

Oh, yeah, the project’s CEO, Rick Thorpe, lives in Utah, not LA, and is collecting a salary of $334,000. As Maddaus points out, Thorpe, who oversees a staff of 16, makes more than the CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, who is responsible for 8,000 employees (!!!)

A PORTRAIT OF A TWICE ARRESTED STUDENT PROTESTER

Neon Tommy’s Callie Schweitzer writes about 21-year-old University of California, Berkeley senior Ricardo Gomez, who has been arrested twice for protesting in what is “part of a growing student movement fighting tuition increases in the 10-campus system.”

Read the rest here.

9TH CIRCUIT JUDGE THINKS CALIFORNIA MAY BE
ABOUT TO EXECUTE AN INNOCENT MAN

The details are in an unsettling LA Times Op Ed by Alan Dershowitz and David Rivkin Jr.

COLUMNIST/WRITER/MOM MEGHAN DAUM COMES BACK FROM THE BRINK AND TELLS US ABOUT THE VIEW

The LA Times’ lovely, smart, talented, soulful columnist, Meghan Daum, was scarily sick last month and writes about it well in two parts – here and here.

(A lot of us are just very glad she’s okay. We didn’t like that tubed up and skating-the-edge thingy one bit.)

Photo by TIMOTHY NORRIS

On Sunday the LA Times portrayed Meg Whitman as positively loaded with law enforcement and firefighter endorsements, while at the same time suggesting that Jerry Brown had a few wimpy little public safety endorsements at most.

What’s up with that?

This skewed picture emerged in an “Election 2010″ article, written by reporter Catherine Saillant, about the potential influence of the police and firefighters unions and organizations on the California governor’s race. In the print edition of the paper, the article was titled, “These Allies Could Boost Whitman.”

Here are the first two ‘graphs of the piece:

Meg Whitman has repeatedly said she exempts police and firefighters from her plan to switch state workers from pensions to 401(k)-style retirements because they have dangerous jobs.** But analysts say the GOP gubernatorial nominee’s stance is also a shrewd political move.

Police and firefighter unions hold tremendous power in Sacramento and can use their cash and muscle to help a candidate get elected. They pay for hard-hitting TV ads that play up their role as the guardians of public safety. They turn out at campaign events to hector anyone who proposes to mess with their pay and benefits.

Saillant went on to quote experts who said that the cops, firefighters, and other law enforcement groups are perceived as our heroes. (and rightly so). Thus if Whitman has taken some heat due to her agreement to exempt state law enforcement personnel and firefighters from pension cuts, she was likely making a savvy move because, all the fire and cop unions who now endorse her will prove to be valuable assets by putting money and might behind her. And most importantly, they will lend to her their collective heroic and tough-on public-safety image. (Or words to that effect.)

Then the unions who endorse Whitman were listed: The LAPD union, (LAPPL) and the California Statewide Law Enforcement Assn., “a union of California Highway Patrol officers, firefighters and other public safety officials.”

Plus, there was a quote from Ron Cottingham, president of the Police Officers Research Assn. of California, “the largest group representing sworn officers,” which was positioned in such a way that most readers would assume that Cottingham’s organization also endorsed Whitman.

Finally, near the very end of the article, Saillant wrote that: “Brown has secured endorsements from other law enforcement groups and a police chiefs group.” That was it. End of story. And since none of those “groups” were deemed important enough to name, one was left to conclude that, whatever the organizations were, they were small potatoes compared to tough-on-crime Meg Whitman’s big, bad (but heroic) endorsements.

THERE IS ONLY ONE TEENSY-WEENSY PROBLEM with the article’s depiction of the candidates and their public safety supporters.

It is utterly misleading and…well…..kinda false.

Although both candidates have a reasonable list of public safety endorsements, including Whitman’s endorsement by the LAPPL (which carries a lot of weight in So Cal), when the lists are laid out side by side, one sees quickly that more of the state’s largest law enforcement and fire organizations support……..Jerry Brown.

Ron Cottington’s aforementioned 62,000 member organization, the Peace Officers Research Association of California, supports—not Whitman—but Brown.

The 30,000 member California Firefighters Organization supports Brown with a vengeance.

And the 800 lb. gorilla when it comes to exerting influence on California state politics, the CCPOA—the prison guards’ union—supports Jerry (not-your-father’s-moonbeam-anymore) Brown.

(I can’t actually find any firefighters’ group that endorses Whitman, but maybe I’m missing something.)

Moreover, Brown has performed this trick of getting endorsements without promising pension-reduction exemptions.

Below you will find listed the main dueling public safety endorsements according to the candidate’s own websites. (I left out individual endorsements, like LA County Sheriff Lee Baca and former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton, who also endorse Brown, and the Kern County and Sacramento County sheriffs who endorse Whitman.)

(By the way, I noticed that that Brown only lists his “key” endorsements whereas Whitman lists everyone she once passed on the street who said they were voting for her. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

WHITMAN ENDORSEMENTS

Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) - represents the more than 9,900 sworn officers of the Los Angeles Police Department.

California Statewide Law Enforcement Association (CSLEA) – represents 7,000 public safety professionals

California Peace Officers’ Association (CPOA) – represents more than 3,000 law enforcement officers working in local, state and federal agencies.

California Narcotic Officers’ Association – provides training for 7,000 officer/members

BROWN ENDORSEMENTS

California Police Chiefs Association (Cal-Chiefs)
– represents nearly all the police leadership throughout the state.

California Professional Firefighters - represents more than 30,000 firefighters

Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC)- represents 62,000 officers and 890 local public safety associations.

California Coalition of Law Enforcement Associations (CCLEA) – represents 80,000 officers statewide.

California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) – represents 30,000 correctional peace officers

I don’t mean to be critical of Ms. Salliant, whom I assume is a nice person and usually an excellent reporter. But when an election is as close as this one, it would be helpful if the information given to voters by the biggest newspaper in the state was…..you know….correct.

**NOTE: Whitman’s campaign got in touch to correctly remind me that she does not guarantee to exempt state public safety workers from all pension reform, but only from her platform’s 401(k) strategy.

THURSDAY UPDATE: Looks like not everyone at NOW considers the term “political whore,” off limits.

On Thursday, California NOW President Parry Bellasalma evidently told TPM, when asked, that “Meg Whitman could be described as ‘a political whore.’ Yes, that’s an accurate statement.”

Alrighty, then.

Okay, yes, I realize this whole Whoregate thing is the deadest of horses, but it is interesting, in part, because of what it reveals on all sides about political machinations.

And, also, it broaches the subject of the power contained in language.

Plus, it’s been good gossip. And human beings love to gossip. It’s part of how we tell our stories.

Okay, so the latest wrinkle in Whoregate occurred on Wednesday when the LA Times and other media outlets reported that although the California chapter of the National Organization for Women had endorsed Jerry Brown, the momma organization of NOW had not offered any such endorsement.

Until Wednesday—at which time NOW issued a statement giving Brown their support, but making clear that calling women whores—even in a political context—was not one teensy bit okay. It was hate speech, said NOW on its website. Furthermore, it was reported by the LA Times (and a string of news outlets repeated that story) that Now had “demanded” that Brown fire the staffer who said the W word.

So, what would Brown do? I wondered. Obviously, he’d shown a strong disinclination to fire whomever was the guilty party, claiming that the recording was too indistinct to know who said what. (Dude, you were there. You don’t need the freaking recording.)

And then there is the fact that, upon closer inspection, it has been widely observed that the voice in question belongs to a woman, not a man—and a woman who may very likely be Jerry Brown’s wife, Anne.

Obviously, it is not overly realistic to expect the candidate to fire his feminist, lawyer, former business executive wife, for using the W word.

Thus, what did NOW think Brown should do if it was indeed, his wife, who dropped the W bomb?

Weirdly, nobody seemed to have asked this question of NOW.

I decided to call the organization’s DC office to find out what they thought. I reached NOW’s press secretary, a smart and articulate woman named Mai Shiozaki.

Shiozaki had been fielding calls all day and it was a bit after 8 p.m. EST, when I found her, so I got right down to business.

If it was Jerry’s wife who called Whitman a political whore, did NOW honestly expect him to ankle the missus?

Shiozaki sighed. “We’re not asking for the aide to be fired,” she said. “That’s not at all what we meant. We think that if someone on either campaign says it in the future, they should be fired.” Mostly , she said, “we felt this should have been a teachable moment.”

“I’m all for teachable moments,” I said.

Shiozaki and I talked further about the spells that words can cast, for ill and for good, and what did or did not constitute hate speech. (I am more liberal on the topic than she is.) She admitted that she didn’t think the remark was gender specific in the situation with the Brown aide, or in the case of the remark made by Whitman campaign chair, former governor, Pete Wilson, when he called a large swath of the US Congress whores.

But it was still not okay, she said, not at all.

Before we rang off, Shiozaki said she’d send me a new and revised statement of NOW’s position on the matter.

The statement came a few minutes later. It read as follows:

NOW calls on Brown to take a pledge to, from now on, fire any member of his staff who uses this word or any hate speech against women. We also expect Whitman to take the same pledge. What happened last week was a teachable moment, and what we have all come to agree is that the “W” word is offensive, destructive and should be retired for good.

“Retired for good.” Okay, yes. Perfect, I wrote her back. The word should be mothballed. There are other ways to talk about hypocrisy that do not carry the same harmful freight.

Go, teachable moments!

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO APPEAL DON’T ASK DECISION—BUT QUICKLY

The Obama Administration is in a tricky situation. Obama wants to be rid of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. But, now a federal judge in California has ordered an immediate cessation of the policy. Should the DOD comply (which will infuriate large portions of Congress) or should they defend the policy in a higher court?

The AP describes how the administration intends to divide that particular baby:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Wednesday of “enormous consequences” for men and women in uniform if a judge’s order abruptly allowing gays to serve openly in the military is allowed to stand.

The Obama administration may well ask for a stay of the ruling while it appeals. Justice Department officials worked behind the scenes on their response into Wednesday night with no word on when there would be an announcement. The uncertainty of the next step left gay-rights activists as well as the military in limbo over the status of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law.

A day after a federal judge in California ordered the Pentagon to cease enforcing the law, Gates told reporters traveling with him in Europe that repeal should be a question for Congress – and only after the Pentagon completes a study of the impact of lifting the ban, which is due Dec. 1.

Read the rest.

AND WLA JOINS ALL CHILEANS IN THEIR UTTER JOY AT THE RESCUE OF THE MINERS—MILAGROS X 33!

The reporting on…um….Whoregate has been less that stellar, particularly I’m sorry to say, that of the LA Times, which was the media outlet that first received the recording.

This story is already past its prime, but it deserves some clean up.

So let’s review the basic facts:

1. On September 7, a 4:10 minute recording was made accidentally when Jerry Brown didn’t adequately hang up the phone after leaving a voicemail message for Scott Rate, a Los Angeles police union director and political endorsement committee chair for the LAPPL.

2. At the 1:53 minute mark on this recording, someone in Brown’s group said of Meg Whitman, “She’s a whore.”

3. The remark was made regarding what the Brown campaign regarded as Whitman’s willingness to sew up the police union’s endorsement by guaranteeing that she would exempt any state law enforcement and firefighters from the pension reform that both she and Brown have both described as crucial to rescuing California from insolvency. Since Brown declined to make such a guarantee, and Whitman had accused him repeatedly of being beholden to unions, Jerry and some of the rest of the Brown camp had much to say about the issue.

(It should be noted that it is the city, not state government, that negotiates the LAPD’s pension structure. The governor has ways of exerting influence, but has no direct power over the LAPD pensions.)

Nevertheless, the LAPPL’s Scott Rate told me that Whitman’s willingness to exclude cops and firefighters from her pension reform plans was was the largest single reason that the union endorsed Whitman over Brown. (He also cited some other reasons why they preferred Whitman, like the fact that Whitman is pro-death penalty while Brown is not, and that Whitman laid out many more specifics when they met with her than did Brown.)

OKAY, BACK TO WHORE-RELATED UTTERANCES.

4. The “whoregate” recording was handed off to the LA Times late last week, a full month after its creation.

Rate said that the reason for the 30-day plus lag time was that the issue had to go to the union’s “PAC attorney” for vetting to figure out if it was legal for the union to release the recording made without Brown’s knowledge. The PAC attorney decided that it was indeed legal.

(A “PAC attorney” is, Rate told me, as the name suggests, a lawyer who works for the political action committee of which the union is a part.)

Still Rate did not have a explanation for why it took a month for the PAC attorney to answer the legal question, and why the recording seemed to show up just as Whitman desperately needed a change of subject away from the elections previous “gate”— Nannygate.

5. I learned from another source that the timing of the recording’s release was, in fact, orchestrated by Don Novey, the ousted president of the prison guards’ union, who built that union into a monster political power and who now works as the primary political consultant for the LAPPL and the California State Law Enforcement Association. Novey reportedly wanted to release the recording closer to the election, but got talked into last week instead.

Novey was also reportedly the prime mover behind getting the PAC of which the LAPD union is a primary member to inject $450,000 into the campaign in Whitman’s behalf at the end of September, just after Nannygate first blew up.

PUTTING IT IN WRITING

6. Someone at the union—everyone presumes it was Novey-–also released to media outlets a “certified” transcript of the recording, which was transcribed by court reporter named Lori Odell Kennedy of of Kennedy Court Reporters Inc.

(I have my very own copy of the thing, some of which you’ll find after the jump.)

Bafflingly the transcript is riddled with inaccuracies, some small, others more egregious like the fact that court reporter Kennedy clearly and unambiguously attributes the “whore” remark to Jerry Brown—although it is absolutely positively not Brown’s voice saying those words.

7. Unfortunately, the LA Times’ Seema Mehta, who first broke the Whoregate story, did not go back and do her own transcribing or voice analysis but instead dutifully regurgitated mostly what the union gave her in her news report of Oct 8: “Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jerry Brown or one of his associates can be heard referring to his Republican opponent Meg Whitman as a ‘whore.’”

(Granted, at least Mehta included the possibility that the whore blurter was someone other than Jerry. But even that is bothersome as anyone who listens to the thing a few times can easily determine that it is positively not Brown who made the “whore,” remark.)

In fact, closer listening makes clear that the person uttering the “W” word….is not a man at all—but a woman.

SUGAR AND SPICE AND EVERYTHING NICE

8. Of course, if a woman used the word to make a point of political criticism, while it may not be polite, it does somewhat undercut the dramatic cries of vile sexism and the need for the fainting couch.

NOTE: Bill Bradley , writing for Huff Post, first got the gender issue right over the weekend. Then on Sunday, Fox News speculated that the woman in question on the recording is Brown’s wife, Anne Gust Brown—an attorney and former CFO of Gap who is central to his campaign.

(I don’t know Ms. Brown’s voice well enough to know for sure, but the notion is not in the least implausible.)

BUT WHY LET FACTS INTERVENE WHEN A NICE WHOREGATE IS AT STAKE?

9. Much of the text that the LA Times reports (and that most other news outlets have parroted) is also incorrect—but simply adheres to the LAPL commissioned transcript—which suggests that Brown takes in the phrase “she’s a whore” and then contemplates putting out an ad that employs this sentiment.

A nice story, to be sure, but A. it isn’t true and B.it would be something of a psychotic ad strategy, doncha think?

(Hey, what say we call Ms. Whitman a whore in our next 30-second ad buy? You good with that? Okay, good.)

NOTE: For those of you who’d like to check for yourself, go here. Dennis Romero at the LA Weekly has posted a cleaner audio that makes differentiating the words and voices easier. (Thank you, Dennis!

10. So as CalBuzz also noted, this brings up a rather vexing question: Is LAPPL deliberately trying to spread misinformation to media members about Brown’s accidental phone recording?

WHEREFORE ART THOU REPORTERS?

11. And what about the media’s due diligence?

And while we’re on the subject of the horror of calling one’s political opponents “whores,” CalBuzz also dug up the fact that former Governor Pete Wilson, who is also Whitman’s campaign manager, in 1995 called the Congress “whores to public employees unions.”

So was Wilson’s remark also an “appalling and unforgivable smear” and a “despicable slur” against the women in Congress, and “to the women of California”—or America, or whomever—as Whitman spokeswoman, Sarah Pompei, said of Jerry Brown (even though he didn’t use the word, but Wilson did)?

(If so, will Meg be dumping Pete off the campaign forthwith?)

Or do we just figure that Wilson and the still unidentified woman Brown staffer (or wife) were just opining rather coarsely that certain people (Congress/Whitman) were politically beholden to certain big unions, even when they swore they wouldn’t be?

12. There’s a new debate between Whitman and Brown on Tuesday night. It ’twill be interesting to find out if whores and nannies will be at all a part of it.

Okay, below you’ll find the central clip from the LAPPL “certified” transcript and the same clip from my re-translation.

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