WLA will be (mostly) dark during Christmas week and New Year’s week.
By “mostly,” I mean…if there is breaking news or something we simply cannot ignore, naturally, we will make an appearance.
So cruise through when you can.
And we’ll see you after the 1st of the year.
In the meantime, have a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone.
Merry Xmas, Celeste, and Lily wolf dog is absolutely beautiful.
Merry Christmas, Celeste. You and Matt have truly forced exposure and change within LASD through pure professional journalism. You both have shined light, where light has never been. Where it was never meant to be, where they thought it would never be. And the cockroaches are still scrambling. Thank you, Celeste and Matt, you made a difference for decades to come. There is still much to expose, don’t stop.
Alternate caption:
“This is not the collar I would have chosen”.
Merry Christmas Celeste. Thanks for giving all of us a place to vent and express ourselves
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas Celeste. Thank you for all you have done. There is no measure to the positive impact you’ve made. Please, enjoy your time off.
Thanks, everyone. And Merry Christmas back to you.
And, yes, Jim, she put up with the bow, but I can’t say she was delighted. (Perhaps tomorrow we’ll try something else festive.)
My thanks as well, Celeste . Merry Christmas.
John O’Brien
Merry Christmas Celeste – you know you have more than my support for all you are doing to help expose the corruption in the LASD. I think the next red item should be a giant “Kong” or “Jolly Ball” for Lily. I’m sure the bow didn’t last long:))
pls, no reindeer antlers on the wolf……
Merry Christmas Celeste and Matt. You both are angels sent from above to right the wrong in LASD. Enjoy the rest of your day and know you have helped many of those who were not able to have a voice.
Merry Christmas!
Since the blog Meister is away, and there’s no specific topic, I’ll sneak one in 🙂
It was in 1981 when Robert Scheer, EIC of Truthdig, first came to my attention.
I was 25 years old, really starting to come into my own as a as what I felt to be a political freethinker, Reagan less than a year in office, when Scheer published an article in the L.A. times on TK Jones, Reagan’s head of civil defense. The money quote by TK, on the survivability of nuclear war, was this:
: ”Dig a hole, cover it with a couple of doors and then throw three feet of dirt on top. It’s the dirt that does it.”
Mr. Jones seems to believe that the United States could recover fully, in two to four years, from an all-out nuclear attack. As he was quoted in The Los Angeles Times: ”Everybody’s going to make it if there are enough shovels to go around.”
And we were off to the races.
Reply
Celeste and Partners, this is such a awesome blog/website Have a Awesome New Year and hope to see more Indictments. You have emails to ask more questions don’t you!
Celeste and staff – Keep fighting for the poor criminals you protect. I’m sure you and your entire staff believe every convict at MCJ. Has LASD made mistakes in the last few years,yes. Will LASD continue to make mistakes, yes. LASD has approx 18,000 employees. Bad apples will continue to be placed under a microscope by BS reporters like you and the LA Times. The overwhelmingly majority of LASD are good honest cops and arrest bad people committing violent crimes. Actually protecting people like you who find extreme joy in ruining a departments image. Do you have anything positive to say about LASD? Can’t believe I actually visited this ridiculous site. Ashamed I did.
@15, You, sir, are right on the money. I’m embarrassed and ashamed that the whiners who may or may not be department insiders come to this liberal “social justice” site to rag on LASD. For the ones who say they’re “proud old retirees,” let’s have a dose of reality, okay?
In “your day,” you kicked ass and forgot to take names. You were ten times as bad as the kids working CJ in the last decade. What they did is playtime compared to your era. Go ahead and deny it; you’d be lying through your teeth.
And go ahead and whine about the people hiring on today, because in your time 30+ years ago, there were no polygraphs, and psychs weren’t even given to all applicants. Yes, they got phased in and eventually new applicants all took them. The point is, you “old timers” could have dropped off a truckload of cocaine before meeting with your background investigator, tell him you’ve never ever seen drugs, and gotten away with it. Glass houses, gentlemen, glass houses.
@14, if you’re a deputy, please choke yourself. You can’t wait for more indictments? Holy cow, sir. Words can’t even express the contempt I feel for you and the sadness I feel for the young deps who were already indicted and their families.
Gimmiebreak, go troll back to SHQ. I’m ashamed you came here, too. 18,000 good employees don’t need you to stand up for them. Meanwhile, Bandini Baca is still spreading manure. By the way, Einstein, we hurt ourselves the most by turning a blind eye on bullshit. When 2 unions and a host of employee associations don’t say squat, it’s up to us. Besides, the last time I checked, nobody does this job because we expect the media to say nice things about us. Just the opposite, we do the job in spite of what people say. We don’t need approval to do the right thing. It’s called character.
POSTS 15 & 16:
It is obvious from your statements you are lacking in both tenor with the Department and life experience in general. Hopefully, a few years from now, you will realize how full of crap your statements were and how much both Witnessla and the Times articles have done to expose and correct the abuse of power and criminal conduct within the Department. Now go back to kicking that handcuffed suspect and figuring out how to write it.
Sincerely,
“PROUD OLD RETIREE”
@18, did you mean “tenure” with the Department? Wrong, sir. I’m not touting the beating of inmates, just trying to help you old retirees remember what really used to happen and get you off your high horses. And if you got to “retire,” then you figured out how to write it many, many times.
@17, you’re damn right about the character comment. We should already have it, and it damn sure can’t be found on some liberal social justice blog.
Tenure means time on the Department. One day, many years from now, the light bulb will come on. By then you will be a Proud Old Timer. Good luck son!
# 16… With time on, perhaps professional maturity will follow for you. Don’t know what books you have read ( or read to you ) regarding “how it was in the old days.” I was there. I KNOW how it was and your references to ignoring laws and policies is only about 25 K miles off base. Do some real home work and talk to some people who were really there before you start spouting supercilious BS. I stand on my record . Can you say the same.
For some one so critical of WLA, you seem to be a regular contributor/reader.
Name -call the media if it is soft on your pallet, but make no mistake. Without the exposure from the likes of WLA, LASD would continue its downward spiral.
Celeste..Recently read G-Dog and the Homeboys after writing my final project on Homeboy Industries for a literary journalism class at UCI. All Christmas break I have been mildly, well, massively obsessed with the subjects of gang/drug life, and devoured many books about it. I have a personal interest as an ex addict (clean 13 yr. on 12/24)who lurked on the fringes on this lifestyle for many years. I admire your work and would love to connect in some way, shape or form. Hope you enjoyed a swell new year..rock on tiger!!!
As someone not in law enforcement, I always feel a bit of trepidation putting my two cents in regarding the tone of these comments, but bravo to bandwagon, p o r, lol and others, and to WLA for giving guys like these a forum where they can raise a voice that might be considered unpopular in more restrictive environments.
To some others who just got handed their lunch, you put yourself in a bad light when you mock social justice as a ‘liberal’ issue. Rather, it applies to everybody.
@jim, handed my lunch? Nonsense. Some of these guys are distorting the past. To say that deputies today, or even the ones who got caught up in the CJ debacle, use more force than 30 years ago is pure fiction. Was it reasonable and necessary force that was used back in the day? Most of it probably was, but the frequency and intensity was far and away above today.
@proud ole retiree, I’ve got close to 30 years, so I was “really there.” We may have worked together back in the day. HOJJ, maybe.
I think my overall point is, us cops should knock off feeding the media trolls. They only want to feast on our failures.
GPA…. You’re not even close, son. I am speaking of the overall performance of deputies of my generation, not simply custody. Breaking rules at will and covering it with paper as you suggest was not par for the course. Look at some who did just that and where they landed. State prison, County Jail, termination, etc. When you say you have 30 years in, what time frame are you alluding to where “free for all force ” was the soup ‘d jour ? Maybe it was before my time because i hired on in 1971 and, oh yes, there was poly, psych eval etc even in those ancient times. Why are you so critical of a source ( WLA ) which brings forward behavior which has disgraced a once premier Law Enforcement Agency. Have you any idea what other agencies aare saying about LASD ? Stop condeming the source, acknowledge the bad patterns and do something about it All the excuses you make simply add to the problem.