Sayre Fire: Someone Must Pay

At 6AM this morning....

• 2600 acres
• 10,000 homes threatened
• 500+ firefighters and growing
• 12 water dropping helicopters
• 2 fixed-wing aircraft
  
• Countless homes and possessions already burned
• Citizens and firefighters hurt
• Pets and animals burned alive
• 0% containment
• Cost to the taxpayers: $million$ and counting

All in just 8 hours.... and someone must pay.

The fire started at Veterans Memorial Park. It probably didn't start itself.

Could have been a cigarette, a small cooking fire, a bonfire with drinking buddies, or a deliberate act by a sick individual or group.

Regardless, if someone with any cognitive ability whatsoever is lighting a flame in conditions such that we have now, they are knowingly threatening everyone's lives. Attempted murder, in essence.

• Major health cost to thousands from stress and air quality conditions
• Unknown cost in medical bills, loss of work time, or even permanent disability
• Unknown amount of repairable and irreparable damage to the environment
  

Taxpayers, victims, employers, and the environment... all will pay this price.

• Odds that the arsonist will be caught and prosecuted: very low.
• Typical sentence if caught: community service hours or less than a year of jail time.

LAFD does what it can with the resources it has. Their firefighting ability is absolutely second to none. Unfortunately, until we look at the definition of arson differently and put the kind of funding in place necessary for cutting-edge research, development, and manpower needed to seriously raise the percentage of successful arson prosecutions, the only person who will not pay is the one who started this fire.

Valley Readies for Hot, Violent Summer

After a particularly violent night on Tuesday, police have stepped up their patrols in North Hollywood and the Northeast Valley, where a total of six shootings took place.

And how do our council memebers react to the escalation in violence? Why, by asking the mayor for more money to fund their gang intervention programs, that's how.

From the horse's mouth via the DN:

"We are anticipating a hot summer, and things happen when it gets above 100 degrees," said Councilman Richard Alarcon, whose district includes Pacoima, where two shootings Tuesday left three wounded. Alarcon said he is pushing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to speed up the funding of intervention programs in the area before summer. Both Alarcon and Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who represents North Hollywood, are doubling efforts to build Neighborhood Watch programs.

The brazen gun attacks started in Northridge about 6 p.m Tuesday, when a gray SUV with four men inside pulled alongside a 16-year-old boy walking near Wilbur Avenue and Parthenia Street. The boy told police he struggled with one of the men, who stepped out of the car and pointed a pistol at him, while another person emerged from the car and shot him with a shotgun.

An hour later, a fight broke out among nearly a dozen Armenian men outside a restaurant at Whitsett Avenue and Oxnard Street. The men appeared to have been arguing, police said, when a number of them pulled out guns and fired off more than 20 shots. An Armenian male identified as Artak Karamyan, 28, died at the scene. Police said a car-to-car gunbattle ensued, and the body of Paylak Harutyunyan, 29, was dumped at Coldwater Canyon Avenue and Vanowen Street.

The DN has a map and a timeline of the violence that errupted Tuesday night in North Hollywood, Northridge, Sylmar and Arleta.