LA Times columnist Steve Lopez has been apologizing a lot in the last 48 hours.
Here’s what happened.
With homicides in LA spiking and the internecine war raging downtown about who should control the city’s gang programs, Lopez decided to dig up his own anecdotal story about the issue to remind the rest of us what’s at stake here.
In his Wednesday column Lopez writes about his trip to the San Fernando Valley to talk to the valley’s best known gang intervention guy, Blinky Rodriguez.
After visiting Blinky, Lopez goes on to check out a tiny but reputedly successful alternative charter school for at risk kids called the West Valley Leadership Academy. The school is located in Canoga Park and run by a fellow named Paul White. It is here that Lopez starts to go off course.
White has a reputation for running a tight ship. The 25 or so students at the academy have to toe the line or they’re out. But for the kids who stay in, according to the school’s supporters, it can be a life saver.
Unfortunately, along with his good points, White has a bit of a quirk: He doesn’t play well with others and has a habit of railing about how everybody working in gang intervention but….well…. him is doing it wrong. In fact, says White to anyone who will listen, all those other folks are gangster supporters who create “greater menaces to society.”
The gang intervention person who rates highest on White’s menace list? Father Greg Boyle and Homeboy Industries. According to White, Homeboy promotes “racial exclusiveness and ultra-leftist/anti-law enforcement philosophy.”
And that’s one of the nicer things White says.
A few months back, White managed to post a mouth-frothing diatribe at the Huffington Post, that stopped just short of labeling Father Greg evil.
Nevermind that as far as anyone at Homeboy knows, White has never set foot at the place. Where he lacked knowledge, White simply made things up.
During Lopez’ visit, Paul White evidently began dishing out his usual claptrap. And what did veteran columnist Steve Lopez do? Question White on his scurrilous and relentlessly self-promoting statements? (Naturally, White has a book that he’s promoting.) Nope, he just printed ’em. Without qualification. Without fact checking. Without any mitigation.
Here’s the section in question:
He even took a shot at programs like Rodriguez’s and the venerated Homeboys gang intervention operation run by Father Greg Boyle, calling them “gangster clubhouses” that “dignify” gangs.
“The problem is not gang members,” said White, the author of “White’s Rules: Saving Our Youth One Kid at a Time.” “The problem is that we have inane programs and inane people running them,” and solving the problems of gang violence “is not a priority” despite decades of lip service.
Great. So, when we’re hoping to get the turf-battlers at City Hall to stop fighting with each other and do something substantive about the gang violence that blows unbearable holes in our communities, Lopez prints a fact-free slam against the city’s largest and most successful gang intervention program..
Helpful.
When Lopez got a flood of complaints, he thought better of his sloppiness and emailed mea culpas to both Greg and Blinky. Here’s part of what he wrote:
I owe you an apology.
In my column today I quoted a gang intervention guy by the name of Paul White (West Valley Leadership Academy). He has some radical, some good and some half-baked ideas about intervention and prevention. In the column I quoted him saying that some groups, like Communities in Schools and Homeboys, are “gangster clubhouses” that “dignify”
gangs.Naturally he’s entitled to his opinion. But I owed it to readers and to you….to either not use his comment, substantiate it or refute it. In a deadline-editing decision I regret, I did none of that.
That’s exactly what I told my USC journalism students when we discussed the story this week in class. But they’re all college sophomores.
Lopez is usually one of the city’s best columnists. What’s his excuse?
*********************************************************************
NOTE: Lopez took back the criticism.…sort of….here on one of the LA Times blogs.
FULL DISCLOSURE: For those readers who may not know this, yes, I do have a dog in this fight. I wrote the the book on Father Greg and have observed him and Homeboy Industries up close for 18 years.
In the course of that time, I’ve interviewed quite literally hundreds of young men and women who managed to recalibrate the dead-end trajectories that their pasts predicted and fashioned decent futures for themselves— because of the caring of Father Greg’ together with the prevention, intervention and recovery programs available at Homeboy—the job training and referrals, the tattoo removal, the counseling, the anger management, GED classes, the creative writing workshops, and on and on.
I’ve lost count of the former homeboys and homegirls who have told me how they’re positive they’d be dead or locked up if Greg not been there to remind them over and over again that they were worth something, until finally they were able to see the worth in themselves.
If Paul White had ever bothered to visit Homeboy Industries he’d know that.
Ditto, Steve Lopez.
(In case you want to know more about what Father Greg’s Homeboy Industries really does, look here .)
Ouch! That had to hurt.
Steve needs a place on his desk that reads
Given his high profile column, Steve has lots of megaphone to make amends to all, if he choses.
I’m not sure that I agree with you Celeste. I know that’s shocking. It’s the job of a reporter to report facts rather than insert his own judgements or break under pressure of others to change or delete factual information, which was a statement by another in this case. This was an interview–not an editorial.
Your position is similar to saying that a reporter can’t report something negative about Hillary Clinton (if there is anything) unless he tries to refute it or get her twisted side.
Paul White, who made the statements, may share some of my furstrations with so-called do-gooders, who spend time and money (ususally not theirs) to address problems with bandaids rather than solving them with permanent cures.
White may have been a little harsh in his claim, but I suspect that, by discussing the issue further with him, he may have shown that his impulsive statement is not a completely accurate picture of how he feels, or it would have drawn out the reasons why he feels that way–which you did by linking his article in Huffington, which may, in itself, have a little extra sting in it to make a point. I find that most people, including me, will say things to get people to stop and think, although you would find me a little milder in person. It’s a right-brain, left-brain thing. You feel and I analyze.
In any event, the reporter should not censor facts just because you or select others disagree with them. Further, such critical positions from outside can be good and force organizations to look at themselves and become better–or, write critics off as nuts. This should be an opportunity for Father Boyle to consider his costs vs. results and/or to contact the reporter with his side for another article.
This reporter has no amends to make. He did his job. Get off of his back. And, tell your students that reporting facts are okay.
With all due respect to the many good journalists out there (and hopefully most who are responsible for hard news) it would be hard to find a profession – except perhaps politics – where intellectually lazier, less-responsible, more ego-centric people have an equivalent ability to disinform the public. I’m beginning to think that shoot-from-the-hip “punditry” – regular columns, regular guests on talk shows, etc. – needs to be abolished. As the kids would say, it’s totally “random.” Nobody can serve up a steady stream of this stuff without either repeating themselves to the point of absurdity or running on empty while pulling stuff out of their ass. Every time I listen to some half-wit like Cokey Roberts or Juan Williams on NPR, I begin to suspect that one of the job qualifications for “columnist” or “commentator” is being stupid enough to open your mouth without having anything fresh or interesting to say but not so stupid that you can’t at least string a series of sentences together and keep a straight face. Maybe that’s a skill, but it’s one that doesn’t serve any useful purpose. More to the point, these people aren’t even committing recognizeable acts of journalism. They’ve become some combination of stenographers for an array of sources, many of them dubious, and the drunk at the end of the bar who dispenses wisdom at about the same frequency as Maureen Dowd. I have to say that White’s mea culpa is lame – monstrously lame. What does “deadline editing decision” mean other than that this guy doesn’t give a fuck what goes out under his name on a routine day. The people who were slimed in his column do real work and take real risks. This guy makes phone calls, does interviews, scans the news and then writes whatever the hell pops into his head a couple of times a week. Like many others who do “opinion journalism”, he’s taken the seat he’s been given for granted to such an extent that he doesn’t even consistently do what an intelligent high school newspaper editor would do. This increasingly appears par for the course among people who churn out columns or do political commentary for a living. It’s also an admission of a lack of professionalism in a “non-crisis” work-a-day editorial context that would get most people who are responsible for anything more critical and demanding than mowing lawns fired. Actually, if someone did as poor a job of mowing lawns as this guy did writing his column, they’d never get called back. Inexcusable.
P.S. In order to be fair I checked out Lopez recent columns – there’s a doozy on March 4 in which he does a Michael Moore schtick with Villagarosa. Lopez complains that he can’t get a sit-down with the mayor, so he flies down to Texas where LA’s pride is campaigning with Hillary Clinton, rents a car and dogs him on the campaign trail trying to get an interview. I guess this might seem clever and “telling” re: the mayor’s priorities, but I couldn’t help but ask myself if there wasn’t some story somewhere in LA that had Lopez spent an equivalent amount of time and TImes resources might not have served his readers better and helped illuminate some corner of the city that could a bit of attention on the part of an intrepid, motivated journalist.. Ya think ?
“that could use…”
What a shock I agree with Woody, Steve Lopez went to interview and reported on Paul White’s interview.
If Steve Lopez went to interview the head of the KKK and report this story, would we expect to hear from Steve that the KKK leader is all for racial diversity, I don’t think so.
I for one am not a big fan of having “reformed” gang members as mentors for any kid. There is still the acceptance of the “barrio” / ghetto mentality among too many. There are too many family members who just accept their cousin or brother being a gang member. I for one disassociate myself from all losers and I tell them why, and that when they change than they will have my respect. So Blinky’s and his CIS (Cholos in Schools) approach would not be my first approach. I think there are other snakes just like Mario Carona in Blinky’s program.
Celeste, your picture of Lopez looks as though it was taken from a mug shot. I’m surprised that you didn’t have some prisoner numbers under his face.
No wonder that Woody would defend the “liberal media” only when it stoops to his standards of evidence and assertion. This is pretty funny.
Listen to the words of Steve Lopez and his opinion on “stenographer†reporting and the reporting on Iraq war, after time 8:00 minutes.
http://www.laist.com/2007/05/14/steve_lopezs_co.php
‘
What that “liberal media” reported was factually correct without editorializing. Lopez has learned his lesson–never, never cross the left or you’ll pay forever.
LAR – So Lopez should have known better. His comments on journalistic egos and rampant cluelessness confirm what I said earlier.
Woody – if the journalistic standard for “factually correct without editorializing” is to report uncorroborated, essentially defamatory charges by one interested party against another and leave it at that, you’ve thrown journalistic standards out the window. You end up with talk radio. Clearly you’re comfortable with that. And it’s why you come here tossing off mountains of insane bullshit as though it were worth being taken seriously.
As opposed to your slants and deceits and conspiracy theories? If by talk radio you mean Air America, then you have a point. Lopez reported the guy’s thought-out views. Do you whine when Obama’s views are reported and not challenged? It’s scary when the left attacks a journalist for not presenting their side in better light and will go to great lengths to discredit him. What a vengeful bunch.
Woody:
If the media is always left-wing, how come KFI is at the left end of my car radio dial?
Just wondering.
For White to call Homeboy a “gangster clubhouse that dignifies gangs” is hardly “scurrilous.” I read and actually quoted from that article in this blog a couple of days ago, struck by White’s passion and certainty that he could make a difference BEFORE kids got into gangs, and it made sense to me. Of course he has a tiny operation that can’t reach very far, and he acknowledge that.
Homeboy seems to be involved with trying to reform gangbangers after they’ve joined, White’s emphasis was on sports, after school activities that target younger kids just before they joined. It struck me as very relevant to kids like the 13-yr old picking lemons, who has thinking about joining a gang, but hadn’t yet — so his murder may in fact already have been gang-related, according to a relative quoted, but it’s not sure. There seem to be very few programs that work at this truly preventive level, which is where White’s frustration was coming from.
I know that Homeboy is highly regarded by many, incl. the Mayor, who was prominently present at the recent opening of their new facility, but I can see how the name and t-shirts etc., might be seen as “cool” by some kids who take away the wrong message. This sort of comment about Homeboy and Father Boyle isn’t new, and I know it must be upsetting for you as his biggest booster. White clearly wasn’t circumspect, and Lopez has been shooting his mouth off at the Mayor and various city officials, but his column is more opinion and personal impressions designed to stir up emotions than real journalism. It’s probably best to always take whatever he says with a grain of salt. Lopez’s lack of self-restraint has ticked off others before, however, and it’s good he is finally admitting he can go too far.
It’s probably best to always take whatever he says with a grain of salt. Lopez’s lack of self-restraint has ticked off others before, however, and it’s good he is finally admitting he can go too far………………………………………..
And especially those other regurgitating knee-jerk rhetoric ugly, frumpy, homely, dowdy, female reporters of the boomers teaching at our top universities and elsewhere, during the Vietnam/Black Panther era and beyond, enlightening students that everything our government did was for greedy hegemony and blood for oil, views more thoughtful and intelligent people have gotten past, that keeps them “stuck on stupidâ€Â, and who are the sole reason young $ 1,000hr.hookers exist today. Aaahhhhhhh…..
Yup, that sums up your comprehension levels, put that all on your Che/ Castro/ Hugo Chavez/ Ahmedajened’s or whoever he is, fundraising t-shirts.
Who gives a shit what some little cockroach in Oakland like reg, some guy in the OC and people from all over the country (who I’m not otherwise putting in this category, the other regulars are nice and seem to know more about L A than some of our local bleeding-heart liberals) think about what’s going on in L A? (You call yourself L A Res, but don’t know shit about the schools or much of anything, it’s clear. The only one who does is Poplock and he’s been attacked, too.)
Some of us actually live here, are the ones paying taxes for things like these failed gang intervention programs that haven’t worked, pay the ever-increasing trash and Prop S etc. taxes for barely enough cops to keep all-out hell from breaking out, pay for LAUSD schools that may as well be juvenile delinquent training centers, cope with the illegals who’ve bogged down all our infrastructure and ER’s and healthcare centers to the point of collapse, gridlocked traffic because there’s no money for “fixes” or an extensive subway — while the old leftie idiots from somewhere else babble on, marching in brainless lockstep, agreeing on “correct” analyses and solutions they memorized in the sixties.
Not one regular commenter is local, and as Celeste admits, the westside “affluent class” especially don’t care because even the moderate liberals don’t have the stomach to get bogged down into your irrelevant idiocies. Actually, I’m glad the 3 r’s don’t live in L A and don’t vote here — you’re just utterly, totally irrelevant.
Presumably there’s a sizeable therapeutic profession in LA that this bundle of neuroses and bile could consult with…
Origin of the expression “don’t get your panties in a knotâ€Â
There are seemingly many variations of this phrase, such as “don’t get your knickers in a knot†and “don’t get your underwear in a bunchâ€Â. One might wonder; who in the world came up with this? After all, how did she get her underwear twisted in the first place  putting them on too fast? The washing machine did it? Is she walking around uncomfortable and very bitchy with a wedgie, or is she simply having a difficult time putting on her underwear?
These are things to wonder and ponder, when buying a pair of matching knickers for your Che Guevara tee-shirt.
Blind Res, when you figure out that enigma, be sure to post it here. Better yet, write a book about it. Consult reg in Oakland, don’t forget the guys from NY, the OC and Georgia. (Funny, no one actually in L A engages this far-flung group on a blog ostensibly about witnessing L A.)
Because it will be a lot more relevant to the serious issues in L A which actually affect the lives of people here, than the deep and highly speculative and pointless pontifications of a bunch of guys who know less about L A than about the mysteries of twisted knickers.
The one saving grace of you guys: I’m glad Woody pipes up regularly to annoy you all: and watching your vast left-wing conspiracy bang him down when the Presidential race comes down to two parties, will be a bit like it’s been watching Hillary, as the zombie/pop-up doll who won’t stay down. Awe-inspiring.
Oh, and thanks for your collective deep insights into national and international affairs, from healthcare to education, the budget, women’s issues and human trafficking, to of course Iran and Iraq — they’ve been second to none. Once in a great while they even sound almost sensible. Just think, if only Condie and the entire Congress had been taking marching orders from you guys as the kitchen cabinet!
You know, if someone unleashes their rage in my direction, I would appreciate it if there was some reference or context to a comment I’ve made rather than it just be a display of unhinged venom. This person is truly vile – and not terribly intelligent, for all of the protestations of refinement, global experience and haute education. There seems to be a screw loose.
reg, if I had the time and inclination to go back over a year of posts, it could clearly be determined that your vile four-letter epithets and bellicose behavior sprang up first and repeatedly, out of the blue, about comments I made in general. I don’t have the time for this, but Woody can surely attest to it if he cares to. (You’ve also been vile to him, while he’s been remarkably restrained.) You must already have Alzheimer’s or you’re always just so vile it’s normal for you.. I’ve always just made my comments, but your rabid personality can’t handle freedom of expression.
I’ve asked you many times to leave me alone, as I would a rabid little man assaulting me in person; I never engage you unless you attack — talk about “if someone unleashes their rage in my direction.” You’re both too vile and utterly irrelevant to a blog about L A or world affairs in general.
What you constantly deride as “ad hominum” is called first-hand experience, something you lack as well as education, coherent intelligence and manners and civility.
You are indeed a reflection of your formative years.
This started out when I, correctly, pointed out that a characterization you made of Fareed Zakariah in particular was nonsensical. Most recently I pointed out, correctly, that in so far as your venomous comments on Rosa Brooks were based on the assumption that she was a “boomer” you didn’t know what the hell you were talking about. You can’t stand to be corrected and you can’t make a counter-argument based on anything other than self-regard and high dudgeon. You’re the least interesting, most bilously vacuous and rhetorically inflated commenter here. But you keep telling us how smart you are. Pathetic.
This isn’t supposed to be about why you’ve been verbally assaulting me, reg, and it’s boring. But just this thread, it started with L A Res making a gratuitously snarky comment about me in response to a comment I made about the subject of the thread — but him I can take. Then you pipe up, with your usual pointless drivel. You are exactly like Rosa Brooks in that she has no logic behind her rants, but pops off calling her targets “psychotic,” “psychopathtic,” meant for an asylum and so on — just like you do.
In that article Fareed made very laughably inept analogies to try to “prove” why Iran isn’t a threat to our or anyone’s national security — I duly dissected and ridiculed them. Rosa Brooks’ concurrence came with her usual barrage of illogical attacks (she makes Lopez seem an extremely polite logician by comarison, bringing it back to this thread) and you ate it up hook, line, sinker because they support your political bias.
Your brilliant “reply” and counterproof was to launch a salvo of vile, four-letter filled and personally invective assaults at me, like Brooks does at her targets. (She’d probably be more like you if she weren’t edited.) Clearly you think it’s perfectly civilized to personally assault someone who’s made comments not directed to you, but critiquing comments made in a major local paper. As I said, a gratuitous attack at someone whose views you loathe because they take to task the ninnies who whitewash Iran.
When you scream viciously at people in blogs or in person who you don’t agree with, then try to play the victim, you come off as a nutcase in denial as well as irrelevant.
Now, I’ve wasted way, way too much time responding to you on why you started attacking me — why don’t you confine yourself to your utterly irrelevant rantings about world affairs and L A, a city you know absolutely nothing about.
BTW, reg, you once again miss the main point. My intent isn’t to make “intresting” or “amusing” comments to amuse the other commenters here, as you aspire to do with each other. Most of you also seem to bond agreeing with each other, and ganging up on Woody. How “interesting.”
As I’ve pointed out again, not one of you lives in L A or knows the frist thing about it, although it’s called “Witness L A.” Witness being to experience it first-hand, as in journalism, you know, “ad hominems.” (L A Res seems to live in some suburb, while ric taught at USC but lives in the O C, and raised their kids a gen ago when L A was a different world for kids in terms of schools and gangs.
You know, some of the trivial subjects of this blog. The things WE residents and homeowners and parents of young kids IN L A are dealing with and being overtaxed for, by politicians who argue and fret and look for answers in all the wrong places while they ignore the ever angrier middle and upper middle class.
You know, stuff you’re neither fit to opine on or “interested” in.
Nobody gives a shit. Put a sock in it.
proved my point. again.
I haven’t kept up with the comments as I’ve been enjoying the Atlanta weather tonight. A storm with a possible tornado hit the Georgia Dome during the Alabama-Mississippi State game and wrecked a lot of downtown. We’re pretty sure that George Bush is to blame.
Woody,
Since you haven’t kept up with the comments, we are editing story title from;
LA Gang Wars IV: Steve Lopez Throws Down
to
LA Witness Blog Gang Wars IV: WBC Throws Down
From the tornadoes, Georgia got a lot of rain, so Gov. Perdue’s prayer was anwered, and CNN Center took a heavy hit, so Pat Robertson’s prayer was answered.
Los Angeles also has some “Kenard” characters, who can also take down their Omar Little.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/homicidereport/2008/03/south-central-3.html#comments
South-Central L.A.: Ricardo Rivera Jr., 18, a young Latino man, was fatally shot at about 9:15 p.m. in the 300 block of East 80th Street Thursday, March 13. Rivera was standing on the driveway when a 13-year-old youth approached and allegedly shot him. Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics pronounced Rivera dead at the scene. Police later arrested the 13-year-old youth on suspicion of murder that day. He was booked at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall.
Here is my take.
Paul White and the West Valley Leadership Academy has a long standing history of not tolerating gang members crisis or behavioral problems. Its not a school that provides any extensive services to high risk gang kids or to their parents. So, in all truth, Lopez decided to interview one of the least experienced people or specialist in this field. The school has very narrow and strict guidelines, gang members get booted and thrown out ASAP. All and all, when it comes to gang intervention and prevention, Paul White is a nobody in the Valley or in LA period. His badmouthing on Father-G’s Homeboy Industries is so incorrect. G – is not in this game for any political ass rubs or illegal kickbacks. Father-G does not need government money to run his various programs. However, government needs Father-G – because his programs are all working (with no strings attached or media spotlights). When do you see Father-G crying to the LA City Council or County Departments for monetary funding?
Organizations that hires an administration with no gang ties or special connected political interest will always be successful. Your paying people to do a job and not to promote your self greedy individual political bullshit.
An organization that is ran and headed by a person that has his own political and personal agenda should never be funded by LA Tax payers money. This practice has been on-going in LA for quite some time.
The biggest error that Lopez makes is placing that idiot -Blinky from “Clowns in Showbusiness” in the same article with Father-G.
All this guys cares about is getting funded that money that Cardenas is trying to control.
Oh yeah, LA Resident made a good point.
I like to add,
Promoting the “gangster” or “cholo” dress and lifestyle is not part of the Mexican or Latino American experience.
Those that promote this lifestyle and accept this way of life – are all uneducated assholes (that includes Blinky).
Mexicans from Mexico did not invent the cholo or the LA gangbanging world. It has no place in our culture or history – its a unwanted eyesore and totally disrespects what a good law-abiding, educated, or hard working Mexican/American stands for.
I not going to let some ex-felon try to talk to me in a half ass ghetto language that is not accepted in my own house.
Well said, Polock. Thanks for chiming in.
(On your very last point: I like Blinky much better than you do. But, like you, I have problems with many of his methods.)
PopLock,
History of when “reformed” gangsters run gang intervention programs.
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http://www.policemag.com/Channels/Gangs/2007/07/25/History-of-the-Mexican-Mafia-Prison-Gang.aspx
During this period, the Mexican Mafia under the direction of Cadena infiltrated and gained control of numerous community organizations. The League of United Citizens to Help Addicts (LUCHA), Project Get Going, Community Concern, Special Program for Alcoholism and Narcotics (SPAN), and several other narcotic and alcohol prevention programs were systematically taken over and looted to provide money, influence, and vehicles for La EME. The gang used these taxpayer resources to buy drugs and murder its enemies. When Ellen Delia, the wife of Project Get Going director Michael Delia, threatened to expose the corruption to the State Senate, she was murdered in Sacramento. This system of infiltration and takeover of “self help” and gang prevention organizations continues to be one of the Mexican Mafia’s favorite tactics today. They utilize corrupt and gullible politicians, policemen, churches, and attorneys to gain control of these resources.
The Community Concern Corporation and Get Going Project were two programs that were taken over by the EME in the mid-1970’s.
Community Concern was headed by Rafael “Chispas” Sandoval (a street gang member from Hoyo Maravilla and longtime EME soldier) who attempted to legitimize himself by running for councilman in L.A. against Art Snyder. They engaged in heated debates on television and radio and Snyder persuaded the city council to disqualify CCC for $300,000 in federal funds. EME’s infiltration of CCC culminated after two CCC “employees” – Evarito “Little Blanco” Blanco and William “Wild Bill” Robles – were “terminated” by EME gunmen in 1976.
“Chispas†criminal record had somehow been sealed during this political struggle and Snyder succeeded in shedding light on the fact that not only was Chispas a made member but also had celled with Joe Morgan while in state prison. Snyder, whose family would require 24-hour LAPD surveillance and protection, prevailed at the ballot box and “Chispas” was sent packing.
Get Going was in full operation from 1976 thru 1977 due to the efforts of Michael and Ellen Delia.
This halfway house for parolees was allowed to function with a staff that was replaced by EME members as “ghost slots” were created for their employment.
Not only were they being paid for doing nothing but the company cars (which were supposed to take new parolees to job interviews) made the rounds throughout California as “hit cars”.
Over thirty EME executions took place over a ten month period with at least a dozen occurring between January 9 thru February 18, 1977. Many of these were performed by Alfredo “Alfie†Sosa (he later pled guilty to about 4 or 5 of these) who is described by a former EME member in his writings as “the Joe Pesci†of the Mexican Mafia.
Most of these killings took place in Get Going’s company leased cars and one 1977 Pontiac Cutlass Supreme in particular had the dubious distinction of being involved in hits in Sacramento, Hayward, Fresno and Los Angeles. Once again, Alfie was involved in hits in each of these cities with multiples in Los Angeles. I guess you could say he was intimately acquainted with the Cutlass.
It was the execution of Ellen Delia in Sacramento that drew LE’s attention to Get Going and ultimately to the Mob that many in the barrios looked upon as “pillars of the community”.
There’s a Letter to the Editor in today’s L A Times that’s too a propos to pass up mentioning here: Margaret Daugherty writes, “Rosa Brooks’ column is an expression of pure animus toward Hillary Rodham Clinton with no redeeming logic.” (Yes, nicely put — substitute any target/ subject she’s writing about.)
Daugherty concludes, “Wouldn’t it have been better just to put a statement saying, ‘Rosa Brooks hates Hillary Clinton, check this space periodically for updates?'” Yup. Better yet, in a time of budget cuts, the Times should give her space to someone who can make good use of it.
Marc Cooper and Rosa Brooks would make a lovely couple, they have a few passions in common.
Robert Downey Jr is playing Steve Lopez in an upcoming movie…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0821642/