Justice for Zac Rally Planned

This guy needs to give some answers.

There will be another vigil for San Fernando Valley teen Zac Champommier who was killed in a hail of police bullets while he was driving through the parking lot of a Studio City shopping center.




Family, friends and supporters will gather at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Ventura Blvd. this evening at 5:00 p.m.



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Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Monday

In light of the pay scandal in the City of Bell the LA Times looks at the salaries of City Council members through out LA County.  While some cities pay more than others of course the CEO level pay of Los Angeles City Council members seems to get a pass.  Apparently thought it wasn't always that way.  Over the weekend I happened to catch an old rerun of Grouch Marx's "You Bet Your Life" show from the 50s.  One of the guests was then Los Angeles City Councilman Gordon Hahn (brother to Kenny, uncle to Janice and Jim). Hahn told Groucho that City Council members made on average about 20 cents more an hour than City Hall janitors but less than plumbers.  How times have changed.



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Did Sheriff's Department Errors Lead to Death of Innocent Young People?

What is going on with the LA County Sheriff's Office these days? It seems that a number of poor administrative and perhaps political decisions has led to the unnecessary death of three innocent young people.

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Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Tuesday

But Antonio's seats are better than mine!

Man, being an elected official sure has it perks. We all know about Mayor V's free tickets. The latest politician to score free Lakers and USC tickets as well as wine, whiskey, tequila, cigars and cologne is District Attorney Steve Cooley. Of course a spokes-flack says that Cooley has the "highest integrity" and these were gifts from friends. It's nice to have friends in high places.

Speaking of perks for pols Walter Moore makes a good point. Though City Controller Wendy Greuel has released the salaries of City workers her report does not list the perks they receive such as free cars, per diems, insurance, etc. Moore recounts that during an interview with KABC's Peter Tilden, Councilman Dennis Zine hemmed and hawed when asked what perks he gets.

Attorney General Jerry Brown is investigating the pay scandal in the City of Bell but a new report recounts outrageous pay for officials in the City of Oakland when Brown was Mayor there. The situation was so bad that an auditor was brought in following Brown's departure that found a tangled web of high salaries as well as unknown bonuses, paid leaves and vacation buybacks far in excess of salary agreements. The situation was so bad an unnamed Democratic leader said that Brown was “the worst administrator ever to come down the pike.”

Despite serious ethical allegations against her, Maxine Waters, like Richard Alarcon, seems to have not lost support amongst her supporters. Daiquiri Jackson, a member of a South Central church, told reporters that Waters was being targeted because she is a minority woman. However this is nonsense because most of the House members - Republican and Democrat - who have been brought up on ethics charges the last few years have been white males.

The Los Angeles and First blog has given Mayor Villaraigosa a report card and he averages a C minus. With an F in budgeting and a D+ in the economy it's hard to go up from there.

Mulholland Terrace brings to our attention a ridiculous exercise sponsored by the Mayor and the CRA: a "contest" for the best ideas on how to build a "clean corridor" in LA. The purse? $11,000.

Activists and parents from the North Valley are not giving up until an independent review into the death of teenager Zac Champommier. You may remember that Zac was shot down in cold blood by LA Sheriff's Deputies in a shopping center parking lot for no apparent reason. For two weeks now protesters have held rallies in Studio City near the site of Zac's murder.

Use of Force Unnecessary in Champommier Killing

More and more questions coming out on the deadly and tragic shooting by LA Sheriff's deputies of Granada Hills teen Zac Champommier last month.

Champommier was in a Studio City parking lot at the same time a plain-clothes multi-jurisdictional police operation was underway.  Police had accosted a suspicious man in the parking lot who they believed was casing vehicles at the shopping center.  While this was happening 18 year old Zac, a suburban kid who probably never saw a bunch of un-uniformed officers waving guns before, got scared and decided to get the hell out of there.  In his exit Champommier bumped one of the plainclothes officers with his car.  

Sheriff's deputies assuming Champommier may have been an accomplice to the other man decided to shoot first and ask questions later killing the youngster, rather than perhaps just seek to disable the vehicle and halt the pursuit.

Now the man who the police had accosted is speaking out saying that police were slow to identify themselves leading him to think there were gang members about to attack him and that Champommier did not speed off but drove away slowly.

This blog has been supportive of law enforcement and realizes it's a dirty job none of us would be willing to do. That being said any profession has it's "cowboy" element and it appears that was in play here.  One must question why the officers were meeting in a busy upscale shopping center where their mere presence amongst folks not use to such a scene could be risky.  And were the officers so amped up into a pack mentality that their approach to investigating a man checking out cars was way over the top creating intense fear in a naive young boy nearby?

Indeed much is to be investigated here and hopefully some answers will come out.

No matter those answers, an innocent life has been lost and a community has been ripped apart.