Bill Bratton Charlie Beck LAPD

WWLA on Which Way LA? KCRW 89.9, Tonight at 7 pm


I’ll be discussing the LAPD’s handling of the aftermath of the fatal shooting
by an LAPD officer of Manual Jamines on Thursday night’s Which Way LA? with Warren Olney. The show begins airing at 7 p.m. and is on KCRW 89.9 FM.

FYI: I was on the 10 minute segment called Reporter’s Notebook, which should be on the air….hmmm…likely around 7:30….or at 7:50. I’m not entirely sure. (Which Way LA? is always taped earlier in the day.)

Whether or not I added substantially to the public dialogue on the matter is for y’all to determine. But have a listen, and let me know what you think.


PS: One thing I didn’t get to say in the segment is that, on Wednesday, in a bit of news unrelated to the Westlake shooting and demonstrations, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s department gave out three medals of valor. One of those medals was presented to Deputy Clay Grant Jr. who, as the LA Times reported it, managed to talk down a knife-wielding woman at Target, earlier this year, without having to fire his service weapon.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca awarded his department’s highest honor Wednesday to the deputy who stopped a knife-wielding woman in a slashing rampage at a West Hollywood Target store earlier this year.

Deputy Clay Grant Jr. was shopping for paper towels on his day off in May when he came upon the bloody scene. The woman ignored his initial demands to drop her two knives — dashing across the store’s aisles. Grant was praised for not firing his Beretta service weapon, eventually convincing the mentally ill woman to disarm with his words.

Mr. Jamines presumably did have a knife. (Yes, the new witness who says he didn’t is a bit troubling, but let’s assume for purposes of discussion that he had that knife with a 3-inch blade). But he was drunk and staggering, by most accounts. So why didn’t the officer fire a non-killing shot?

Look: I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to be a police officer who, in the course of work, frequently confronts violent people in the street. But, I do wonder why the officers in this instance, couldn’t have chosen a course more like that taken by Deputy Grant.

I’m just asking.


PPS: You can listen live to KCRW here. The podcast of the show may be found right here.

24 Comments

  • I guess you had to be there Celeste to make an accurate determination on why the officer fired. Fire a non-killing shot at a moving target? Hard enough to hit someone moving at all much less making sure it’s a “non-killing shot”. I was involved in a shooting where we hit a suspect 5 times (probably came at me with a flower or some other type of plant life) including a 45ca. round to the chest and still had to fight the guy to take him into custody. He lived yet another shooting resulted in a leg hit which the suspect bled out from due to it going through his femoral artery. You just never know going in what the result might be of a shooting.

  • # Sure Fire Says:
    September 10th, 2010 at 12:22 am

    I guess you had to be there Celeste to make an accurate determination on why the officer fired.

    …………………..

    Same goes for you, Charles Bronson.

  • […] Kcrw Posted on September 10, 2010 by AP WWLA on Which Way LA? KCRW 89.9, Tonight at 7 pmI’ll be discussing the LAPD’s handling of the aftermath of the fatal shooting by an LAPD officer of Manual Jamines on Thursday night’s Which Way LA? with Warren Olney. The show begins airing at 7 p.m. and is on KCRW 89.9 FM.FYI: I was on the 10 minute segment called Reporter’s Notebook, which … Read More […]

  • Mary always say: Using facts to distort or distract from accountability just as bad as wild eye accusations.

  • LAPD cops are trained to shoot for center mass. They never, EVER train to shoot somebody in the leg or arm. The cop did what he’s trained to do.

  • “Using facts to distort”

    You’re showing your lack of intellectualism AGAIN.

    You cannot use FACTS to distort.

  • An LAPD cop must have beat your ass reeeeaaallll bad for you to have as much hatred as you do towards them.
    Did you make a complaint or sue the cop in court?

    What was her name?

  • I doubt female officers abuse their authority as much as the men do. I say make the nation’s entire police force women. I think they’d do a fine job. Would probably clean up every single department in the country within a years’ time, even the LAPD, which, like all southern california police agencies, is just about impossible to clean up. I know a lot of female cops and they are great people. Some of the male cops I know are, too. But most male cops? There’s just something that went wrong somewhere in their life. They seem to be in it for all of the wrong reasons.

  • “which, like all southern california police agencies, is just about impossible to clean up.”

    Now it’s not just LAPD, it’s ALL SoCal police depts.

    “I know a lot of female cops and they are great people.”

    The gals are great but the guys are bad.lol. Can’t get more sexist than that. Rob just can’t seem to try and bait people without displaying his inner bigotry.

  • Do you look for racism or sexism under every rock? I’m sorry, but some things are just true. Women are better cops than men.

  • Even women officers would physically dominate a guy like Rob. After all the males were gone he’d cry about how heavy handed they were.

    Like I said, he’s only here in an attempt to entertain.

  • The world would be a better place if women were in charge, Sure Fire. No doubt police in America would do a better job if women made up for most of them. We’re seeing the kind of job men are doing.

  • Cops watch a film that shows that a person with a knife can close a distance of 20 feet in the time that it takes to unholster and get a shot off. A drunk with a knife, threatening people is a danger. If doesn’t put the knife down, but instead makes a move toward the officer, the cop isn’t supposed to wait until he’s been stabbed. And, it’s true, there is no use of deadly force less than trying to kill the assailant – no shot to the leg or arm. Let’s focus on whatever it is in the neighborhood that is causing the prolonged unrest – not on the shooting because it seems that it was justified.

  • There is not ONE eye witness, I repeat EYE witness, that is making the claim the drunk had no knife. Hell, that’s why the cops were called there, because he was waving a KNIFE around.

    Rob must have Dream Weaver running on a loop on his Ipod.

  • There’s no eye witnesses to just about every murder that takes place, at least not any that come forward. If every murder case needed an eye witness the prisons would be just about empty. People are afraid of making statements due to the threat of repercussions. I could imagine a lot of the Mexican and Central American immigrants in this community fear testifying against cops just as much as they would against gang members. So it’s important to let no stone go unturned. Considering the long track record of incidents with the LAPD and LASD, it would be foolish to just run with their side of the story.

  • ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    Not even a nice effort.
    There were plenty of eyewitnesses to this incident. You can bet your last dollar that if the drunk had no knife, it would have already been reported on ad nauseum and the unrest would most likely still be going on.

    Just making shit up as he goes along……AGAIN.

  • “Knife or no knife, a great many community members are deeply upset and say that the shooting was simply not necessary.”

    That statement tells you all you need to know.

    Translation: “Ok, he had a knife. But the cops shouldn’t have shot him”.

  • Well, I’m certainly not going to take the LAPD’s word for it, or yours. I’m going to wait till all of the facts are out. You have a neighborhood full of immigrants, understandably fearful of the LAPD, and therefore fearful of testifying against cops, or giving a statement to the press saying that the cops shot an unarmed man.

  • They weren’t too afraid of the cops to call them and ask them to handle the drunk with the knife.

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