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Early next week we’ll post the much-promised next installment of Matt Fleischer’s series of reports on the dysfunction inside the LASD and its causal affect on the problems of inmate abuse plaguing the jails.
(And, yes, we’ll explain the photos above, one of which is comparatively recent, the other vintage, both have bearing on our story.)
In the meantime, read the LA Times’ fact-meets-fiction report about how the sheriff’s deputy charged with smuggling a heroin-stuffed burrito into a courthouse jail, was a character in the reality TV show about the LASD training academy.
I can hear Baca now, “Those guys were just having a good time and it was a long time ago.” Wrong. It’s NOW. Tanaka and friends drinking beer on and around a police car, throwing gang signs representing “their” station, and Chief Cecil Rhambo in UNIFORM. Wow. Pattern and practice.
Really disturbing. What is going on with the hiring in law enforcement today? There’s no way to weed out guys like this? It’s as if Barbrady from South Park handles the recruiting for law enforcement in Southern California today.
Barbrady: “So, tell me about yourself.”
Applicant: “I like to kick it with my homies, smoke blunts, smash on beezys, and rat pack anybody that disrespects me or my homies”
Barbrady: “You’re hired! Welcome to the force!”
Obviously some people are going to go into law enforcement just for the salary and benefits, and some of them are going to take shortcuts and let their temper get the best of them because they never had the fortitude, or perhaps even the simple maturity and patience, to be public servants in the first place. It was nothing more than a gig to them. And it turned out the gig was harder than they thought. It’s real work, that requires dedication and even a substantial amount of skill, even if just mere people skill. Now they’re lashing out. I think a lot of teachers fall into this same trap. Reminds me of the talk that the janitor has with the principal in the The Breakfast Club.
But how did it get to this point? Police officers gang banging? It’s almost 3rd world. Maybe it is. Maybe it’s just one of those indicators of an empire decaying into impoverished ruins. The line between cop and criminal diminishing.