VOICES - The City of Los Angeles has been perpetrating a massive fraud upon the public for years and Angelenos are dying as a result.
On August 2 HUNC’s PLUM Committee took a significant step towards uncovering this fraud with its motion to request the full HUNC Board to call for a Federal Grand Jury into the downsizing of Fire Station 82 by 75% and moving it to Van Ness and Hollywood Boulevard as well as investigate the falsified LAFD response data which was used to cut $200 Million from the LAFD budget.
If all the people killed by the lies told by City Hall politicians were known, Richard Ramirez and Charles Manson would be tame in comparison. But, the City’s lies do their killing in secret. Because the City keeps no records of its kill rate, no one knows how many have died. In 2005, the City officials knew that their falsification of the City’s substandard emergency responses times was killing people. Los Angeles was singled out in a May 20, 2005, USA Today article, saying:
“This official deception is not unusual. Los Angeles is one of many cities that routinely lie to themselves about their true response times to medical emergencies. The result is needless deaths.” 5-20-2005 USA Today, “The Price of Just a Few Seconds Lost: People Die,” by Robert Davis
One would think that both the mayor and the Council President and all other councilmembers would zoom this horror to the top of their “Fix This ASAP List.” But, No. They did nothing. Remarkably after 6 six years of such lies, L.A. Council President Eric Garcetti used another whopper of a lie in early 2011 to slash another $200 Million from the LAFD budget. As a result, the emergence response rate dropped and deaths increased.
After the two months work of its PLUM committee, HUNC President and Vice-President refuse to allow the PLUM Motion to call for a Federal Grand Jury to appear on the HUNC agenda. Rather they decided to squash the Motion. (Disclosure: article’s author is on HUNC PLUM Committee.)
HUNC’s PLUM Committee had listened to five FS 82 firemen who attended the PLUM meeting and explained the dangers, especially to the Hills. PLUM reviewed newspapers articles going back as far as May 20, 2005 in USA Today, where Marc Ecstein, M.D., LAFD Medical Director, revealed the City’s deception about response times. The PLUM Committee also learned that much of the day, there are no First Responders at FS 82. About 30% of their calls are out-of-area due to the slashed LAFD budget, and thus, when an emergency arisen, they are not here.
Historical note: After 2006, HUNC supported the downsizing of FS 82 by 75% even though they had been advised that the response rate to the Hills would be increased. As the HUNC Board knew back in 2006, cars lining up to enter the northbound entrance onto 101 Freeway would block the fire station’s exit. HUNC Vice President and chairman of the Safety Committee was instrumental in having HUNC approve the down-sized FS 82. According to HUNC minutes, he had been HUNC’s information person about the fire department as he worked for Councilmember LaBonge. He attributes the recent false response data to an accounting problem.
Then at the August 20, 2012 HUNC Board meeting, where there the motion to call for a Federal Grand Jury was supposed to be heard, one fire chief and an entire crew attended. The fire chief told the HUNC Board the reasons LAFD cannot reach fires and patients as soon as they want. From whom else does the HUNC Board have to hear – other than the firefighters and paramedics themselves plus a fire chief? Oh yes, they need a green light from Councilman Garcetti who cut FS 82 by 75% and slashed the LAFD budget by $200 Million.
That’s why we need a Federal Grand Jury. The part of city government which is closest to the people – the neighborhood council with one of the most threatened areas in the city has killed off its own call for a Federal Grand Jury.
How has Los Angeles been doing since the 2005 USA Today exposed that LA lies were causing needless deaths? Horrible! Following are the actual response rates under 5 minutes between Dispatch and On Scene. (Data from Fix The City, Inc.)
Year Real LA Response
2007 65%
2008 62%
2009 61%
2010 60% misrepresented by LAFD as 78%
2011 58%
2012 57 first 3 months
The response rate has been steadily deteriorating since 2007. However, using the LAFD raw data on the time between Dispatch and On Scene understates the problem for another reason. The On Scene button can be pushed as much as one minute before the paramedics or firemen reach the Scene. (Data from Fix The City, Inc.)
Year LA Response Rate (If On Scene Pushed Early)
2007 42%
2008 39%
2009 38%
2010 37% Misrepresented by LAFD as 78%
2011 34%
2012 33% first 3 months
Thus, the actual response rate in 2010 was somewhere between 60% and 37%. The city’s 78% response rate is was a fraud. (Caveat: even the LAFD raw data is quite suspect)
Angelenos need a team of forensic investigators from a Federal Grand Jury to obtain all the remaining raw data from the LAFD and to conduct the interrogations under penalty of perjury to ascertain the actual response rates, but more importantly, we need a Federal Grand Jury to uncover the persons responsible for the deliberately false information. It is highly unlikely the LAFD decided all by its lonesome to publish false data after the 2005 USA Today article.
The focus should not be on the LAFD, but instead the Federal Grand Jury needs to target the Council President, the Major who appoints and fires department heads, and other councilmembers who were involved with the LAFD. Old emails need to be retrieved; old day planners need to be reviewed. Fire personnel need the protection of secret testimony to protect their careers.
HUNC and other city officials overlook the fact that deliberately killing another human being is murder. One need not know the identity of the person. The law only requires “malice aforethought” which means a wanton and reckless disregard for human life or serious bodily injury. After 2005, no council president and no mayor may deny knowing that cutting fire and paramedic responses times would kill people.
Whom Would a Federal Grand Jury Target?
The raw data, which was obtained by Fix The City, Inc., reveals a lethally slow response rate which was becoming worst and worst each year. Faced the mounting deaths, in 2011 Council President Eric Garcetti pushed through another $200 Million cut in the LAFD budget. How many people have needlessly died? Angelenos and the families have a right to know
After Fix The City’s 2012 revelation of the years of falsified response data and TV channels and newspapers began reporting the frauds, the LAFD was told to investigate the matter. The Mayor had appointed Jeff Godown to oversee the department’s investigation. Jeff Godown said that the new data was unreliable. (4 NBC Southern California May 15, 2012, by Gordon Tokumatsu and Bill French)
"If we can't get the response times right, we're going to have issues, as far as credibility," said newly-appointed statistics expert Jeff Godown, speaking to the LA Fire Commission on Tuesday. 4 NBC Southern California 5-15-12
When Jeff Godown told the public that the LAFD still was setting forth incorrect response times, the Fire Commissioners were incensed that they had been deprived of the opportunity to sanitize and re-write Godown’s report before the public saw it. “Fire Dept. Consultant: Scrap Response-time Numbers,” KNBC, by John North, 5-15-2012
Soon thereafter, Jeff Godown decided that it would be nicer to work in San Francisco. Tell the truth, lose a job.
So what do we now have? More false data, a cover-up by the same Mayor, by the same councilmembers implicated in the years of falsifications and deaths of untold numbers of Angelenos.
A Federal Grand Jury, however, has the power to interrogate the lower level LAFD management as well as field deputies in CD #13 and Cd #4 to ascertain what did Garcetti and LaBonge know and when did they know it.
Garcetti and Villaraigosa cannot fire the Feds the way they got rid of Jeff Godown.
When a Federal Grand Jury asks a question and you lie, you go to prison just like Martha Stewart. Thus, people tend to tell the truth to a Federal Grand Jury. That’s why everyone from the Mayor and Councilman Garcetti and some on HUNC’s Board of Directors are desperately trying to derail the call for a Federal Grand Jury.
The Martha Stewart Rule – that is the main reason we need a Federal Grand Jury investigation into the years of bogus fire data – and the hundreds of millions of dollars of gifts that Garcetti, Wesson, LaBonge, Villaraigosa, et alia were giving to developers at the same time the First Responders’ times were becoming worse and more people were dying. Interestingly, while Council President Garcetti was cutting $200 Million from the fire department budget in 2011, he and his cohorts were giving billionaire Eli Broad $52 Million for a garage next to his art museum and Council President Garcetti and his cohorts were giving millions upon millions of dollars to CIM Group.
Angelenos paid for those millions of dollars of gifts with their lives. The least we owe the dead is a Federal Grand Jury Investigation.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney. He can be reached at: [email protected] ) –cw
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 70
Pub: Aug 31, 2012