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OC Sheriff Faces Cancer Diagnosis, Riordan Pension Reform Nixed, and Green Dot Finalist for Major Fed Grant

November 27th, 2012 by Taylor Walker

OC SHERIFF HUTCHENS SAYS BREAST CANCER WON’T STOP HER

Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens held a press conference Monday afternoon to publicly address her recent breast cancer diagnosis, and to say that she doesn’t intend to let her health affect her ability to perform her duties as sheriff. (We at WLA are sending wishes for Sheriff Hutchen’s full recovery.)

The OC Register’s Salvador Hernandez has the story. Here’s a clip:

“I will be fully engaged,” Hutchens said during a news conference Monday, accompanied by members of her command staff. “And I plan to run for a second term in 2014.”

Hutchens voice cracked as she described details of her recent diagnosis of breast cancer, but said she is intent in being involved in the day-to-day operations of the department.

“I think the best thing for this is to keep your normal schedule as much as possible and keep engaged,” she said.

A resident of Dana Point, Hutchens, 57, said she was diagnosed with breast cancer Nov. 9, about six months after a mammogram had shown no signs of a cyst. The discovery came as a surprise, she said, especially because there is no history of cancer in her family.

“I’m very optimistic about it,” she said. “I really believe it was caught early.”

Hutchens notified employees in the department in a memo Nov. 19, in anticipation that treatment could change her appearance, her schedule and raise questions about her health, she said.

But there will be no change to the department’s command.

“I’m going to be in charge,” she said. “If at any time I felt I could not carry on my duties, I would make other arrangements. That’s not going to be the case.”

By the way, there’s a video of Sheriff Hutchen’s news conference beneath the body of the story, so be sure to go over to the OC Register.

RIORDAN’s PENSION PLAN GOES UP IN FLAMES

It was announced Monday that former LA Mayor Richard Riordan would drop his controversial city employee pension reform, an intended ballot measure for the May 2013 election.

The LA Times’ David Zahniser and Kate Linthicum have the story. Here’s a clip:

Tyler Izen, president of the Police Protective League, said he was not surprised by the collapse of the signature drive backed by Riordan. Izen said the pension proposal, which had been planned for the May ballot, never received the proper financial analysis in the weeks before Riordan began his push to get 300,000 signatures to put it on the ballot.

“The plan proposed by Riordan to close the defined benefit pension system as a way of saving money was both simplistic and costly … for the taxpayers,” Izen said in a statement.

Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents civilian city workers, released a statement from sanitation worker Simboa Wright, who said Riordan and his allies had failed because L.A. voters value the work of city employees.

“City residents weren’t about to let a bunch of billionaires rewrite city policies,” Wright said. “As city workers have been saying for a long time, Riordan’s half-baked plan wasn’t thought out. It died because it was bad for city workers and the city they serve.”

GREEN DOT CHARTER SCHOOLS BEAT OUT LAUSD IN QUEST FOR FEDERAL EDUCATION GRANT

The Los Angeles charter group Green Dot Public Schools has advanced as a finalist for a $30 million Dept. of Education grant. LAUSD had also applied for the grant, but was unable to get the support of their teachers union—a requirement for school districts to be in the running.

It is a rather amazing turn of events that Green Dot has made the cut, in that the applications were primarily to have been open to full school districts. But evidently (and happily) Green Dot’s presentation was a strong one.

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

Green Dot Public Schools, which operates 18 charter schools, remains in the running for a “Race to the Top” grant, the U.S. Department of Education announced Monday. If successful, Green Dot could receive $30 million over a four-year period.

In the application process, districts were supposed to set out a plan to “personalize education for students and provide school leaders and teachers with key tools that support them to meet students’ needs,” according to the Education Department.

But the devil for L.A. Unified was in the details. Participation by the teachers union was required and United Teachers Los Angeles would not sign on, citing concerns that Race to the Top could commit the school system to long-term spending not covered by the grant. Union leaders in L.A. and elsewhere also were concerned such a grant could commit them to the use of student test scores as part of a teacher’s evaluation.

KIDS ON SCHOOL DISCIPLINE: ZERO-TOLERANCE AND RESTORATIVE JUSTICE

The Fresno Bee and kNOw Youth Media partnered to produce a series of first-hand accounts of kids affected by “zero-tolerance” school policies, and alternately, kids who have benefited from restorative justice in the education system.

Here’s fourteen-year-old Jane Carretero’s story:

My name is Jane Carretero and I am 14 years old. Towards the beginning of my 8th grade school year at Fort Miller I started doing drugs, and my mom found out about it.

One day, she and I got into a huge fight and she found a bottle of marijuana in my backpack. It was a difficult choice for her to make, but she ended up calling the police. They ended up taking me in for that.

After three days at juvenile hall, it finally hit me. I remember falling on my knees and I started crying for my mom, and I was like, “Why did I have to mess up so badly?”

When I went back to school, I had fallen behind a lot. A lot of people thought that I snitched them out. Some people even thought that I had gotten pregnant, and a lot of girls wanted to fight me, because they thought I was saying things about them.

The teacher started yelling at everyone, and he turned to me. I said, “You’re yelling at us for no reason.” Then the teacher said, “Don’t talk back to me. I know kids like you. You’re messed up in life, and you’re going to mess up when you’re older, too. You’re going to go off to high school thinking you’re all cool and pretty like that, thinking you’re all hard. And you’re going to get beat up one day by a girl better than you,” he told me.

Posted in Education, Green Dot, LAPD, LAPPL, LAUSD | 1 Comment »

The Conservative War on Prisons, The LAPPL Challenges Riordan to a Debate….and Petraeus (Sure. Why not?)

November 14th, 2012 by Celeste Fremon



CONSERVATIVES GO TO WAR AGAINST PRISONS

In brilliant, must read article for Washington Monthly, reporters David Dagan and Steven M. Teles explain how “Right-wing operatives have decided that prisons are a lot like schools: hugely expensive, inefficient, and in need of root-and-branch reform.”

“Is this,” the authors ask, “how progress will happen in a hyper-polarized world?”

Well, perhaps so. Dagan and Teles do a good job of analyzing how government-drowning antitax activists like Grover Norquist are coming together with evangelicals and formerly tough-on-crime conservative advocates—and, in some cases, even (gasp) liberals—to take some solid steps in the direction of real criminal justice reform, with more potentially on the horizon.

Moreover, it is reform that liberal criminal justice advocates have been unable to accomplish on their own, nevermind that facts, common sense and a host of research was on their side.

Here’s how the story opens:

American streets are much safer today than they were thirty years ago, and until recently most conservatives had a simple explanation: more prison beds equal less crime. This argument was a fulcrum of Republican politics for decades, boosting candidates from Richard Nixon to George H. W. Bush and scores more in the states. Once elected, these Republicans (and their Democratic imitators) built prisons on a scale that now exceeds such formidable police states as Russia and Iran, with 3 percent of the American population behind bars or on parole and probation.

Now that crime and the fear of victimization are down, we might expect Republicans to take a victory lap, casting safer streets as a vindication of their hard line. Instead, more and more conservatives are clambering down from the prison ramparts. Take Newt Gingrich, who made a promise of more incarceration an item of his 1994 Contract with America. Seventeen years later, he had changed his tune. “There is an urgent need to address the astronomical growth in the prison population, with its huge costs in dollars and lost human potential,” Gingrich wrote in 2011. “The criminal-justice system is broken, and conservatives must lead the way in fixing it.”

None of Gingrich’s rivals in the vicious Republican presidential primary exploited these statements. If anything, his position is approaching party orthodoxy. The 2012 Republican platform declares, “Prisons should do more than punish; they should attempt to rehabilitate and institute proven prisoner reentry systems to reduce recidivism and future victimization.” What’s more, a rogue’s gallery of conservative crime warriors have joined Gingrich’s call for Americans to rethink their incarceration reflex. They include Ed Meese, Asa Hutchinson, William Bennett—even the now-infamous American Legislative Exchange Council. Most importantly, more than a dozen states have launched serious criminal justice reform efforts in recent years, with conservatives often in the lead.

Skeptics might conclude that conservatives are only rethinking criminal justice because lockups have become too expensive. But whether prison costs too much depends on what you think of incarceration’s benefits. Change is coming to criminal justice because an alliance of evangelicals and libertarians have put those benefits on trial. Discovering that the nation’s prison growth is morally objectionable by their own, conservative standards, they are beginning to attack it—and may succeed where liberals, working the issue on their own, have, so far, failed….

Read the rest.

LAPD UNION CHALLENGES DICK RIORDAN TO A DEBATE OVER HIS CONTROVERSIAL PENSION REFORM

Last month, former LA Mayor Richard Riordan proposed a ballot measure for the May 2013 election that would change the pension structure for all city employees, including police and firefighters. Without such reform, Riordan says, the city will soon face a cashflow nightmare.

As the LA Weekly’s Hillel Aron described it in his story on the topic:

The Riordan plan does three key things: forces people to contribute far more cash to their own retirement plans; places all future city hires — but not current employees — into a 401(k)-style system mimicking the private sector; and freezes automatic pension increases (now tied to salary increases) if the pension fund investments aren’t doing well.

Naturally the city’s labor unions are dead against the proposed measure, and they have some very valid points—which they fear are being drowned out by the former mayor’s appearances on local talk radio.

And so, on Tuesday afternoon, LAPPL president Tyler Izen challenged Riordan to a debate—-or rather a series of debates—on the pros and cons of the would-be ballot measure, which must have all its signatures gathered by December 7. Here’s a clip from the union’s statement:

“I am challenging Richard Riordan to three debates between now and December 7 because he has yet to offer any independent analysis that supports his wild claims. Riordan has chosen to hide behind carefully orchestrated radio talk show appearances where no challenging or insightful questions are asked, appearances before groups where he knows his ideas won’t be challenged, and well-crafted media releases that lack any pretense of substance,” said Izen.

We hope Riordan accepts.

Certainly some kind of pension reform is needed, but it must be the right plan, not merely something that Dick Riordan jams through because he can, and because it sounds good to a fed-up, and recession-worn public. (By the way, Joe Matthews writes for NBC “5 reasons” that Riordan’s plan won’t work.)

PETRAEUS SCANDAL ROUND UP – WLA STYLE:

Hey, we’re riveted too. So, with that in mind, three quickie stories you might not have seen yet:

1. FRIENDLY FIRE IN THE SPYING SECTOR

The New Yorker’s Patrick Radden Keefe writes about what happens when the “Surveillance State takes friendly fire.”

2. GOV’T REQUESTS FOR DATA GO UP, POST SCANDAL, SEZ GOOGLE

Over at Wired Magazine’s Threat Level blog, the Threatistas note that post-Petraeus scandal Google has released stats showing an uptick in government requests for data.

3. HOW TO TELL IF YOU’RE INVOLVED

Back to the New Yorker again, Andy Borowitz helpfully explains how you can tell whether or not you are involved in the Petraeus scandal. (In case you’re concerned.) For instance, according to Borowitz, these are some questions that a CIA Public Information Officer recommends that you ask yourself:

“Have you ever met David Petraeus? Have you ever received and/or sent shirtless photos of an F.B.I. agent? Have you ever exchanged e-mails with Jill Kelley? Under five thousand pages of e-mails and you’re probably O.K., but anywhere between ten thousand and fifteen thousand pages of e-mails could potentially mean you’re involved in some way….”

Posted in LAFD, LAPD, LAPPL, prison policy, Propositions, Right on Crime | No Comments »

Youth Justice Round-up: Infographics, SF Juvies Reject Outdoor Exercise, Growing Up in Prison…and More

October 5th, 2012 by Taylor Walker

NEW TROUBLING JUVENILE JUSTICE INFOGRAPHIC

Despite recent juvenile justice victories—SB9, and the Supreme Court’s ruling against mandatory life-without-parole for juvies—there is still a long road ahead for youth advocates. Campaign for Youth Justice has created an excellent infographic illustrating the harsh reality of kids in the adult justice system.

The Chicago Bureau’s Lorraine Ma has the story. Here’s a clip:

Almost five years ago, Missourian Tracy McClard’s 17-year-old son, Jonathan, was tried, convicted and sentenced as an adult for a shooting that seriously wounded the victim. While incarcerated in an adult prison, Tracy McClard said, her son suffered from abuse, depression, and ultimately took his own life.

McClard, who said she believes all kids deserve a second chance, created the National Youth Justice Awareness month where non-profits, community organizations and families would gather to raise awareness about how youth are treated in the adult system.

In October – which McClard is hoping will turn into a nationally recognized month to assist juvenile offenders – there will be various events to mark the effort. There will be, among other things, service days, 5K walks and film screenings across 20 states in the country to generate support and, backers hope, give speed to recent gains made by juvenile advocates.

Just this year, the United States Supreme Court ruled it was not legal to sentence juveniles to life in prison without the possibility of parole in homicide cases. That built on earlier decisions where life without parole was ruled out in non-homicide cases and where death was taken off the books for all juveniles no matter the charge.

The rulings were widely seen as a nod to the notion that children’s minds are not developed to the extent that adults’ are, and that imposing some adult sanctions on youngsters, even in the most heinous of cases, was cruel punishment.

MAJORITY OF KIDS IN SF JUVIE SYSTEM AVOID OUTDOOR EXERCISE

Surprisingly two-thirds of kids in San Francisco’s Juvenile Justice Center don’t enjoy spending time exercising outdoors according to an anonymous survey conducted by the SF Youth Commission, although an hour per day is the state minimum. Advocates were perplexed and concerned by the results, which they suggested may point to a larger problem of depression and other emotional issues.

The Bay Citizen’s Trey Bundy has the story. Here’s a clip:

Of the survey’s 53 respondents, only 10 said they participated in outdoor exercise every day. When they did participate, nearly a third reported spending less than an hour outside.

The survey comes after months of debate between the San Francisco Youth Commission – which conducted the poll – and the Department of Juvenile Probation over whether detainees get enough fresh air, sunlight and exercise to satisfy state regulations. By law, detainees are entitled to one hour of outdoor “large-muscle” exercise each day.

“It’s pretty clear that young people are not getting their hour a day outdoors,” said commission director Mario Yedidia after reviewing the survey results. “The culture of the institution seems like it’s not really encouraging of outdoor exercise.

Despite the survey’s findings, Chief of Juvenile Probation William Siffermann has insisted for months that the hall is in compliance with all state regulations. “Some kids don’t want to go outside,” he said at one point, “and I can’t force them out there.”

[SNIP]

Youth commissioners said that the lack of interest in outdoor recreation indicated in the new survey results took them by surprise.

“The results were not what we were expecting, but they speak to the gravity of the situation,” said Paul Monge-Rodriguez, a 23-year-old youth commissioner. “Kids at this age should want nothing more than to go outside and engage with their peers.”

The results demonstrated the hall’s need for more recreational programs, he added.

“There’s a limited number of recreational activities to fulfill the state’s large-muscle exercise requirements,” he said. “The survey shows there’s a lot of basketball, but it’s like being offered the same one meal every day, and people get sick of the lack of variety and lose interest.”

COMING OF AGE…BEHIND BARS

Richman Em was sentenced to 50-years-to-life at age 15 after a fellow gang member shot a man during a car theft. Now Em is 21, and at the request of Youth Radio, has written a letter about the direction his life has taken, and what it has been like to grow up behind bars.

Youth Radio has Em’s story. Here’s a clip:

Richman Em was 15 years old when he was sentenced to 50 years-to-life in prison. According to testimony during his trial, Em’s friends decided to steal a car at a carwash while Em stopped in to use the bathroom. When Em returned and his friends told him of the plan, he allegedly responded, “It’s on you if you want to do it.” But he was wrong — because Em was in a gang whose members were about to commit a violent felony, what happened next affected him too.

Em watched as his friends approached the driver of the car, demanded keys and money, then shot. Em didn’t fire a bullet, but he was still convicted of “felony murder,” a legal provision that in California means a person can be charged with first-degree murder even when the act itself is committed by an accomplice.

Today Em is 21 and housed at the California State Prison in Corcoran. Youth Radio reached out to him as part of our coverage of the national legal battle over long juvenile sentences.

Here’s a clip from Richman Em’s response:

The neighborhood I resided in and the school I was attending in the 9th grade was fraught with gang activities and slight racism. I was oppressed by Hispanic kids often based on my ethnicity. Because Asian and Hispanic gangs were rivals. So I began to acquaint with people who I felt had my best interest at heart. But then so much came with that and I began to feel stuck and obligated. My world would begin its downward spiral from there.

Hanging with these people, later on they would forcefully urge me to be a part of them. I would later down the line find out I had a son on the way. So I switched schools and stop going around my current peers, but they would catch up with me and told me if I stoped (sic) coming around, then it was going to be “onsight” with me. Meaning physical altercation every time I crossed paths with them. So I gradually went back. So my mom had a plan to ship me off out of state with relatives, but it became too late.

The memories that stick out to me as a teen (are) being a kid lost of his true identity. Not knowing anyone to confide in, who’ll understand the impasse I was in. Always having to look over my back walking home from school. (They) stick out to me because they (were in) a period in my life being a kid and fearing the future. It was (an) everyday internal struggle.

My feeling at the time of the robbery was a combination of fear, powerless, and disbelief. It wasn’t something I consented to, or anticipated. So when it occurred a shocking fear ran through my body.

[SNIP]

Also I want people to know that we are more capable of change (than) what people think. So “to life” imparted to a kid is a heartwrenching dilemma. Being separated from family, and a life of normalcy forever. That hardship really changes a person. It’s not a slap on the wrist, our reality become(s) one with these concrete (walls) and to feel that “this is it,” “this is my whole life,” I only lived 15 yrs. (B)asically, it’s an indescribable pain.

UNLIKELY OPPONENTS OF PROP 34

And having nothing to do with youth justice, The Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL, the LAPD union), which is against Prop 34, has found a quirky well of fellow opponents among certain death row inmates. The prisoners’ reasoning is that if Prop 34 passes and the death penalty disappears, those condemned to death would lose access to guaranteed state-funded habeas corpus lawyers.

The LAPPL blog has the rest. Here’s a clip:

Now an attorney who has represented a number of death row inmates explains in a San Francisco Chronicle story how convoluted legal procedures surrounding capital punishment in California have caused most of the death row inmates to oppose Prop. 34 as well.

A recent survey by the Field Poll and the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley found that 42 percent of likely voters would repeal the death penalty while 45 percent would retain death as a punishment. Thirteen percent of likely voters are still undecided, giving interest groups on both sides of the measure incentive to press their cases through Election Day.

If Prop. 34 were to pass – and it is our fervent desire that it not – current death row inmates would have their sentences reduced to life. In the process, they would lose access to state-funded lawyers for habeas corpus. Habeas corpus allows inmates to challenge their convictions or sentence for reasons outside the trial record – typically, incompetent legal representation, misconduct by a judge or juror, or newly discovered evidence.

Therein lies the reason some death row inmates are urging would vote against Prop. 34 – had they not lost the right to vote when they were convicted.

Impressive infographic courtesy of Campaign for Youth Justice’s Jason Killinger.

Posted in Death Penalty, juvenile justice, LAPPL | No Comments »

The LAPD Union Reads WLA & Changes its Tune on SB9—At Least a Little

August 23rd, 2012 by Celeste Fremon


No. The LAPPL leadership isn’t suddenly clasping SB 9—the Juvie LWOP reform bill—warmly to its collective bosom.

But, in response to our post yesterday, it has removed the biggest errors from its pitch to members and others, to contact Governor Jerry Brown and urge him to veto the legislation in question.

We appreciate the union’s willingness to make the correction and to do it so quickly.

IN CASE YOU’RE UNAWARE OF THE KERFUFFLE, TO RECAP:

Tuesday night, the union sent around an email to its members and friends hectoring them to urge Jerry to veto SB 9, the bill that would give some people sentenced to life without parole for crimes they committed when they were teenagers, at least the slim possibility of one day getting to leave prison before they die.

Inmates who had committed certain kinds of particularly horrific murders—those involving torture or the killing of a peace officer, firefighter or public official—would be excluded from even the possibility of eventual parole, no matter how remorseful and rehabilitated the inmate, or how steller his or her behavior in prison over the decades.

However, when the LAPPL powers-that-be sent out their initial pitch against the bill on Tuesday night, their big selling point was the notion that SB 9 would result in the release of cop killers. They even detailed the particularly vicious shooting of a detective by someone they insisted that SB 9 would set free.

Of course, the bill allows for no such thing. If anything, it strengthens the certainty that no kid killers of police officers will ever be released for any reason.

WitnessLA called them out on this (and some of their other statements) in a story Wednesday morning.

We felt the issue was important. On one hand, we didn’t think Jerry would veto the bill. But we do know he is very mindful of his relationships with the state’s public safety unions. Thus we would hate to have had him get a flood of anti-SB 9 emails—based on a lie.

And so we were heartened when, on Wednesday mid-morning we heard that, having read our story (and likely noted that LA Observed and others linked to it), the LAPPL got upset at the news of its mistakes.

As a consequence, we heard, there was a flurry of unhappy phone calls, et al, in and around the union’s offices. Finally it was decided; they’d remove the statements in question from their online pitch.

There is some overheated prose remaining, plus some arguable inaccuracies here and there. And the union still opposes the bill.

But they are now doing so far more honestly.

And that’s always a good thing.

Photo of Sutter Brown courtesy of Sutter Brown

Posted in juvenile justice, LAPD, LAPPL, LWOP Kids | 2 Comments »

LAPD Union Uses False Claims to Urge Brown Not to Sign the Juvie LWOP Bill

August 22nd, 2012 by Celeste Fremon


On Tuesday evening the LAPPL—the LAPD’s Union—sent around a falsehood-ridden statement urging its more than 9,900 members to contact Governor Jerry Brown and ask him to veto the recently passed SB 9, the bill that, if enacted into law, will mean that some of those who were given life sentences without the possibility of parole when they were juveniles as young as 14-years-old, will now be able to eventually apply to have a court review their sentences, which may or may not result in the possibility of one day being paroled.

In other words, the union didn’t just oppose the legislation in their message (a stance with which we would vehemently disagree, but could at least understand), they lied shamelessly about why their members ought to actively try to get the governor to veto it.

The biggest and baddest lie is trumpeted in the sample letter the union proposed that LAPD members send to Brown where they wrote that, if the bill was signed into law, dangerous cop killers could be let out.

This bill will allow murderers (juveniles at the time they committed their crimes and sentenced to life without parole) who killed police officers to ask the court for a resentence.

In their cheerleading message that went out Tuesday night, the LAPPL even went even further and named a specific inmate who had murdered a police officer as a potential parolee under the bill:

People like Jimmy Siackasorn, a dangerous felon who was sentenced to life in prison for the 2007 murder of Sacramento County Sheriff’s Detective Vu Nguyen

The above would naturally concern cops and their families—if it were in any way true.

But it isn’t. Not a word of it.

SB 9 specifically excludes anyone who either tortured their victims or killed a peace officer or a firefighter. Those people stay locked up. Period. Full stop. No exceptions.

But why bother with pesky facts when inflammatory exaggerations and outright falsities work so much better?

(You can read the wording for yourself in the most recently amended version of the bill here.)

LAPPL’s letter to its members also says:

All of these criminals were convicted of first-degree murder, or multiple murders, with special circumstances.

No, that isn’t true either.

As Human Rights Watch has pointed out, approximately 45 percent of youth offenders serving life without parole were convicted of murder but were not the ones to actually commit the murder. Yet kids can be convicted and sentenced to life-without-parole under California’s felony murder statute, which holds someone responsible for a murder that occurs as part of a felony, even the kid didn’t plan or expect a murder to occur.

That means that the tragically foolish fifteen-year-old who stayed in the car while a 21-year-old homeboy jumped out and ran down the street and shot someone, can go away for life too.

Nationally, 59 percent of juveniles sentenced to life without parole are first-time offenders—without a single crime on a juvenile court record.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

This is so very wearisome and infuriating.

Here’s what Byron Williams of the Oakland Tribune wrote about SB 9 last summer, after it had been once again defeated by exactly this kind of fear-mongering and illogic.

Senate Bill 9, sponsored by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, was hardly an apologist for heinous crimes committed by youth. It merely would have given offenders sentenced as minors to life without parole a chance to request a parole hearing.

Beyond the cacophony, fear and emotion that drive so much of the state’s reactionary public policy, SB9 would have returned a small measure of sanity to the corrections system.

Supported by child advocates, mental-health professionals and civil-rights groups, the legislation would have provided an opportunity, after many years of incarceration, for review and resentencing for youths sentenced to life without parole.

It called for specific criteria and an intense, three-part review process that would result in the possibility of a lesser sentence for those offenders who have matured and proven themselves to have changed.

Moreover, it would have curbed the alarming trend of the state locking up minors and throwing away the key.

California is second only to Pennsylvania as the state with the most youth serving life sentences without the possibility of parole.

The governor’s a very, very smart guy. Let us just hope that he doesn’t fall for the union’s mendacious attempt to bully him into rejecting a law that is composed out of decency and common sense.

If he capitulates to the LAPPL’s irrational wishes—which benefit exactly nobody, not cops, and not public safety—our collective decency will be diminished.

Posted in juvenile justice, LAPD, LAPPL, LWOP Kids, Sentencing | No Comments »

Cougar-Killing Head of Dept. of Fish and Game Replaced, State Parks Audit Accelerated…and More

August 10th, 2012 by Taylor Walker

HEAD OF DEPT. OF FISH AND GAME LOSES JOB AFTER KILLING COUGAR

The Dept. of Fish and Game Commission voted Wednesday to replace the department’s current president, Dan Richards, seven months after he shot and killed a mountain lion on a hunting trip in Idaho.

KPCC’s Julie Small has the story. Here’s a clip:

California banned the practice decades ago, but Idaho and other states allow it. Richards has defended his actions as “legal” and proper.

But animal activists and dozens of state lawmakers said as head of the agency that enforces California’s wildlife laws Richards showed “poor judgment.”

Pictures of Richards crouched over his kill that circulated on the Internet didn’t help his case. He further incensed critics when he told KFI’s John and Ken Show the mountain lion tasted “like pork loin.”

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE MEETS TWO NEW COUGAR CUBS

Richard’s actions are a sharp contrast to last week’s happier news: two mountain lion cubs were found in the Santa Monica Mountains. They were tagged by the National Park Service and released near their den in Malibu. You can read more about the cubs on the NPS website here.

AUDIT ON CA DEPT. OF PARKS AND RECREATION TO BE SPED UP

Last month’s discovery of a hidden $54M surplus in the supposedly cash-strapped CA Dept. of Parks and Recreation caused CA officials to order an expedited audit of the department, Wednesday.

LA Times’ Chris Megerian and Christine Mai-Duc have the story. Here’s a clip:

The review, to be conducted by the state auditor, will examine a hidden $54-million surplus discovered in parks accounts last month and an unauthorized program allowing employees to trade in unused vacation time for more than $271,000 in cash.

“It’s a victory for transparency in state government,” said Assemblywoman Beth Gaines (R-Rocklin), part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers who had pushed for the audit.

The parks money, which had been stashed away for at least a dozen years, was found as the state was soliciting donations to keep as many as 70 parks open amid a budget crisis. Some local governments that forked over money to keep parks open have demanded it back, and lawmakers are concerned that the accounting scandal will create a rift between the state and a community of parks supporters.

HOLLYWOOD INTERSECTION TO BE NAMED AFTER OFFICER IAN CAMPBELL

The intersection of Carlos and Gower in Hollywood will be officially renamed after fallen LAPD Officer Ian Campbell, 49 years after his tragic murder, which became the basis for Joseph Wambaugh’s novel The Onion Field and the subsequent movie.

Here’s a clip from the Los Angeles Police Protective League’s press release:

A dedication ceremony to unveil the sign will be held at Carlos Street and Gower Street in Hollywood at 1:30 p.m. [Friday]. The case known as “The Onion Field” remains one of the great tragedies in LAPD history. On Friday, Officer Ian Campbell will be formally honored, while we keep his partner, Karl Hettinger, in our thoughts.

[SNIP]

Ian Campbell and Karl Hettinger were assigned to a detail from Hollywood station known as a felony car. On March 9, 1963, both officers were in plainclothes and driving an unmarked police car. Their task was to identify and apprehend persons involved in street felonies such as car burglaries and liquor store robberies. The officers stopped a car containing two ex-convicts, Gregory Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith. The suspects “got the drop” on the officers and held them at gunpoint. The suspects demanded the officers to surrender their revolvers and that was done.

The officers were then taken by gunpoint and forced to drive out of town. When the foursome reached southern Kern County, they proceeded off the road to the middle of field where onions were being grown. The two felons believed they had violated the “Lindbergh Law” and thought they would be facing the death penalty when captured. As such, when all four were out of the car, Powell shot Campbell in the face. His own weapon malfunctioned, so Powell used one of the officer’s own handguns to kill Campbell while he was lying defenseless on the ground.

[SNIP]

Ian Campbell was a bagpiper. Bagpipes were played at his funeral, and have been at the funerals for all LAPD officers killed in the line of duty since then. Out of this horrible murder was born a lasting LAPD tradition.

LA COUNTY DA HOPEFULS FACE OFF IN FIRST DEBATE

Tuesday night the two LA County district attorney candidates, Jackie Lacey and Alan Jackson, squared off in their first debate. Thursday, Lacey announced that she had received the endorsement of Kamala Harris.

KPCC’s Frank Stoltze has more on the debate.

First photo from Western Outdoor News. Cub photo credited to the National Park Service.

Posted in California budget, District Attorney, LAPD, LAPPL | 8 Comments »

Rise in Assaults on LAPD Officers…Life WITH Parole in CA…New LASD Trouble

September 19th, 2011 by Celeste Fremon



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

Posted in crime and punishment, criminal justice, LAPD, LAPPL | No Comments »

Heroic Officers, University Tuition Hikes, & Springsteen’s Eulogy for Clarence

June 30th, 2011 by Celeste Fremon



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.)

Posted in LAPD, LAPPL | 2 Comments »

Did an LAPD Officer Get a 17-Year-Old Pregnant & Ask Her To Get Abortion?

April 8th, 2011 by Celeste Fremon


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.

Posted in LAPD, LAPPL | 3 Comments »

LAPPL Predictibly Opposes Measure L & OC DA Criminalizes Campus Protest

February 10th, 2011 by Celeste Fremon



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.

Photo by Jebb Harris, Orange County Register

Posted in academic freedom, art and culture, LAPPL | 13 Comments »

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