Second Multiple Shooting in Week Contradicts Crime Progress Claims
In January, City officials were claiming Los Angeles that violent crime was edging downwards.
But one enormous SWAT tragedy in Winnetka that left an officer and a family dead, followed by a massive, multiple-party shootout at the base of Glassel Park, a part of town not known for shootouts, followed today by the second broad-daylight, multiple-victim street shooting in a week as well as a Suicide by Cop car theft in Van Nuys also today seem to belie the notion that much has improved. Worse, the perpetrator of the latest crime is still at large.
Councilman Tony Cardenas, chair of the City's ad hoc gang committee, stands in the way of putting gang intervention and management under the direction of the Mayor---he wants Council to decide what to do. But the Mayor wants the money himself for gang management, and Connie Rice and Laura Chick want him to have it. In short, the turf wars aren't just on the streets, they extend to City Hall.
More money, more control is always this Mayor's and this Council's solution to everything; slowing growth never is considered. One thing is certain: ever-burgeoning population growth during times of economic duress isn't going to make law enforcement, with its stagnant budgets and tepid personnel increases, any easier. As the economy falters even while the City continues to permit new homes for people who don't currently live here, and while developers continue to fail to supply affordable housing in sufficient numbers even after two decades of government manipulation, our City's most disenfranchised are at increasingly higher risk in 2008.
But one enormous SWAT tragedy in Winnetka that left an officer and a family dead, followed by a massive, multiple-party shootout at the base of Glassel Park, a part of town not known for shootouts, followed today by the second broad-daylight, multiple-victim street shooting in a week as well as a Suicide by Cop car theft in Van Nuys also today seem to belie the notion that much has improved. Worse, the perpetrator of the latest crime is still at large.
Councilman Tony Cardenas, chair of the City's ad hoc gang committee, stands in the way of putting gang intervention and management under the direction of the Mayor---he wants Council to decide what to do. But the Mayor wants the money himself for gang management, and Connie Rice and Laura Chick want him to have it. In short, the turf wars aren't just on the streets, they extend to City Hall.
More money, more control is always this Mayor's and this Council's solution to everything; slowing growth never is considered. One thing is certain: ever-burgeoning population growth during times of economic duress isn't going to make law enforcement, with its stagnant budgets and tepid personnel increases, any easier. As the economy falters even while the City continues to permit new homes for people who don't currently live here, and while developers continue to fail to supply affordable housing in sufficient numbers even after two decades of government manipulation, our City's most disenfranchised are at increasingly higher risk in 2008.
Labels: gangs, tony cardenas
Posted by Joseph F. Mailander @ 2/27/2008 10:00:00 PM
10 Comments:
You KNEW that Tony Cardenas was playing a game of one upmanship when he had that B-movie scene starring himself City Council, banging his fists on the desk and crying about his own impotence to keep the streets safe for his own son (violins! crescendo...) the very day before Laura Chick released her audit and recommendations to consolidate gang fighting under the Mayor's office. So that someone who have responsibility AND blame as well as to be more financially efficient.
Which makes sense, in the same way it makes sense to consolidate other depts. to cut fat from the budget.
Cardenas' sidekick on the committee is Janice Hahn, who's been crying for "her" parcel/ property tax to fund "her" gang programs. Just what homeowners need, at a time when property values are already down and we just passed Props S and raised the trash tax to allegedly pay for cops. (Karen Sisson said in the Daily News article that raising trash taxes AGAIN would be a swell idea.)
Cardenas was too much the drama queen, and Hahn also a spendthrift, so forget those two. (Rutten is right that Connie Rice's proposal to spend a billion bucks and 50 million alone at one high school, puts her plan totally out of the running -- we can't even fund mass transit or other vital services.) But Rice, Bratten and all concur about one thing: centralize the whole mess under one umbrella.
You give the wrong impression about the NE/ Glassell Park, though: it may be there have been no shootouts lately, but that area have been tied to and controlled by EME/ the Mexican Mafia since its start in the 50's, and the fact that there are multi-generational gang members there, grandparents to kids, who want the cops OUT and prefer gang control, makes it very dangerous. One big rat's nest.
The shooting of Salas was allegedly a gang hit -- he'd tried to stay clean since leaving jail and his ties to EME, but they wouldn't let him. He was killed by a kid who's one of 13 kids of a woman whose house has been called the "safe house" for gangs for years.
Salas himself was a young man of 36 who already was a grandfather and father and stepfather of many kids, unemployed and living off his girlfriend's social security check. Problems of felons with records getting jobs, allegedly.
The killing in South L A, also gang -related, black gangs this time. But the brazenness of killing in the open is again a common theme. Will Bratton admit that's getting worse? Why? Mexican and Latin gangs are connected to MExican, Salvadoran and Columbian druglords, but what about the rest? Are they fighting for the "rich" white drug trade, is that one reason L A is gang central and becoming like Mexico, or not? We get no answers.
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Don't forget the sanctuary status of Los Angeles, which promotes the immigration of even more poor illegal aliens, which only adds to the current problem of gangs, crime and poverty.
When will our local mexican politicians quit pandering to all the illegal immigrants in L.A. The city of Los Angeles can't afford to educate the kids of illegal immigrants. And also pay for gang prevention programs and law enforcement for illegal alien gang members.
Is it any surprise that we read about these horrific crimes in the sanctuary city of Los Angeles, which is also lovingly know as the ‘Gang Capital of the Word”
I am surprised the LAPD can keep any police officers, the police officers are quickly faulted by the city officials, remember McArthur Park. The cops have to work in a city where gang members have no hesitation to shoot cops with AK-47s. Even when cops kill a low-life gang member with an AK-47 who just killed a man walking a 2 yr, the police are questioned by the low-life family members of gangsters.
This is the stupid type of accusations the police have to endure from idiots supporting murderous gang members. The quote is from L.A. Times after police killed the gang member with the AK-47 a few days ago.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-avenues23feb23,1,196646.story
“Several residents interviewed Friday said they supported the Avenues. "I've been here 25 years and they've never disrespected me," said Modesta Hernandez. "On the contrary, they protect us. They help us."
They depicted the police as hostile and corrupt, and several said the shooting of Daniel Leon was unprovoked, although one neighbor said he clearly saw Leon raise the assault weapon at the officers.
wow, where do i even start?
1) a recent up-tick of crime does not mean that its a new trend that we should continue to expect for the rest of the year. Crime wave, yes. Permanent (or at least for the near future), no. Several of the crimes in this recent "crime wave" were committed by the mentally ill coincidentally. Other than stronger gun laws, how do you keep the mentally ill -the exact definition of someone who is IRRATIONAL- from committing crime. And we're talking Britney-Spears-mentally-unstable-should -be-committed here; not criminal-therefore-mentally-ill ill.
2) Linking crime to development? Seriously? There's also been a rash of school shootings across the country lately; is that because of an increase in development? In fact, deterioration of communities is a known factor as a contributor to crime. I'm sure you are familiar with the "Broken Windows" theory. If you want neighborhoods to improve, development has to happen on some level.
People commit crimes because of a a lack of opportunity and a culture that accepts bad behavior as an excuse.
3) Affordable housing will only happen if we increase the housing stock. Supply and demand. So we need development if you want housing to be affordable.
4) What the heck is your beef with development and planning lately. Planning is a science, but like Medicine, its not exact. Growth happens, just like continental drift. Suburban growth outwards is no better than urban infill. both increase traffic, both strain civic and physical resources. But the planning department has to offer proactive solutions that to the best of their knowledge will create a healthy balance. Personally, i favor urban infill as my pill of choice since I think its less taxing on society (and really, better for crime; i have my reasons). Walkable solutions rock: take DC for example, where neighborhoods that were once down are coming back. People are moving to the District instead of the suburbs and its doing awesome. Yes, the suburbs are growing too, but those people aren't commuting to DC. You've gotta believe that that is on the mind of the city planners when they look at community plans.
Until people regain their power in the communities the gang bangers are holding hostage and stand up for themselves and their families the gangs will run wild. The gang issue is not a law enforcement problem. Its a community problem with parents who don't have control of their criminal kids and are afraid to discipline them. A solution would be for Landlords to evict any family who rents in the city of LA and harbors gang bangers. You can bet the gang issue will drop drastically
In January, City officials were claiming Los Angeles that violent crime was edging downwards.
Not that I believe that crime is edging downwards, but it says "edding downwards". It doesn't say completely eliminated.
Of course there will still be shootings and crime. But that does not mean that crime is not edging downwards.
Broken Windows can only work when a city has enough police officers. In LA, the police can only respond to shootings with any reliability.
Call 311 for graffiti removal and they will tell you it takes up to four days. That's four days of free publicity for your neighborhood gang.
Take the Pasadena Freeway and you'll see gang murals - literally the size of billboards - that have been allowed to stand for months.
In areas like Northeast LA, there should be cleanup crews patrolling every street, every day of the week - but in a $6BN+ budget, somehow there's just not enough money to actually solve quality of life problems.
What a disappointment Villaraigosa has turned into.
Joe,
You should do a little research and find out, how many shootings there are in Los Angeles every day. The news only reports on the most horrific, spectacular or police officer involved shootings. If you talk to anybody living in the worst parts of the city, hearing gun shots is an all too often occurrence. Look at the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report and see that Los Angeles County has over one killing a day. And as you read this remember there were many more people shot, who survived their injuries.
There are hundreds of Latino gangs with thousands of gang members in just Los Angeles County alone. Is it any wonder we have so many shootings and unsolved murders. There are many people too scared to testify against these low-life animals.
One of the Blogging Burros just posted a comment about illegal immigrants and crime, well guess what a large percentage of gang members are illegal aliens, And 25% of jail inmates in California are illegal aliens, what other proof do you need, to see the effects of illegal immigration and crime.
The city of Los Angeles reminds me of a welfare mother with 6 kids, 4 of which are in juvenile hall and still wants to have more babies. The federal government needs to protect our southern borders and start more INS/ICE raids. And the local police need to have the ability to arrest and deport know gang members who are illegal aliens. But with our mechista mayor and council members pandering to the whim of the illegal aliens, this does not seem likely here in Los Angeles.
Crime, Gang and LAUSD problems will never be corrected until Los Angeles is no longer a sanctuary city for illegal aliens. The city and state will go bankrupt funding all our social programs used by illegal aliens.
The cost of any real gang intervention program is in the billions, and a large percentage will be spent on illegal aliens.
What a surprise another shooting in the ghettos of Los Angeles. (sarcasm)
Anyone who drives through east, central and south Los Angeles knows we have a city which is dangerous. Keep bringing more poor mexican illegal aliens and we will be just like tijuana. Soon we will have mexican drug cartels buying police and politicans and things will only get worse.
Does anybody who writes on this blog ever visit all the ghettos in south L.A.?
Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) estimates there are actually 20-38 million illegals in the country right now, and quotes various scholars estimating billions of dollars in costs to our county and state.
But the debate isn't happening because it's being cut off by groups like La Raza and wecanstopthehate.org which claim that any discussion is racist "hate speech." It's bizarre that we have virtually no open analysis of the figures of illegal immigration -- if it's such a net positive, let's see the numbers, pro and con.
12:19 is an idiot apologist for Cardenas, Huizar, Reyes or Zorro Marxist Alarcon.
Don't blame the perpetrator, blame society, spend billions to reform our society from the ground up "to give them a fair chance," bla-bla.
The previous poster points out the obvious: when you have a culture like where that Hernandez woman praises the gangs as providing "security" and trashes the cops as corrupt, when a shooter like Leon is the child of a woman with 13 kids whose house was shut down last year for actively incubating gangs, when families like hers have multi- generation gangbangers who glorify the cholos, and inspire young ones to emulate their "old school" cholo culture -- when even the victim is a grandfather at age 36, father and stepfather of almost a dozen kids, unemployed and living off a girlfriends's welfare check: don't try to shove your leftist/ Hispanic b.s. down our throats that these people are "like us" except they didn't get a fair chance. What they need here is tough enforcement plain and simple
Same for the lowlife Crip who shot those people at the bus stop to "earn his street cred" with the Crips. What kind of home life do you think he has? What do you wanna bet daddy was a gangbanger, dead or jailed or just plain gone, knocking up even more women?
People like this apologist wanting to suck more money out of us for their anti-gang farces, staffed by cholos playing both sides of the street, just try to take advantage of the libs on the westside who think throwing tons of money their way will keep gangs out of their own hoods. It won't. Cholos are on the Westside/ trying abductions and robberies in Westwood, Bel Air, long entrenched in Venice, Mar Vista and in the West Valley, Oxnard and Inland Empire. If you don't get the kids by age 10, they're lost if they're born to families which protect the gangs and are overtly hostile to the cops. Like your Ms. Hernandez.
Tell your Reyes's and Huizars and Alarcons and Cardenas' who blame them on the rest of US, to ---
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