LA is Between a Rock and a Hard Place … Need Staff but Can’t Fix the Sidewalks and Streets

PARKS’ PLACE-Just a little over a week after the Ferguson grand jury voted not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, a New York grand jury voted to not indict an officer who placed a chokehold on Eric Garner for allegedly selling loose cigarettes. He died from his injuries and the graphic video showing the moments before his death spread over the internet like wildfire.  

Then there was the officer-involved shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice from Cleveland. Rice was seen pointing and walking openly with a fake BB gun (missing the orange tip) through a park. 

To many, it doesn’t matter the circumstances, or whether the victims of these officer-involved shootings were in the right or wrong. As I’ve mentioned before, when incidents like this occur, many start stringing the incidents together and seeing a common thread of African-Americans being killed ruthlessly and without cause. 

Serving as Chief of Police as well as an officer with the LAPD, it’s been unsettling to see these latest instances of officer-involved shootings unravel. During my tenure, community-based policing/government was, and continues to be, my mantra. People want safe neighborhoods and police want to keep crime down-it’s a relationship that has to be stable and symbiotic. When certain police officers abuse the public’s trust and sense of safety, it’s just that much harder for crimes to be solved, for people to call and confide in the police. 

I appeared on CNN’s Newsroom earlier today to discuss the police tactics utilized during Eric Garner’s arrest. 

I stated that it’s important for police to know what their game plan will be before an arrest or stop because many times, people are going to resist arrest or at least question why they are being stopped and arrested. Having to react within seconds in the heat of a confrontational incident without being adequately prepped and prepared is a surefire way to make knee-jerk reactions that can cost someone’s life. 

Attorney General Eric Holder has requested federal civil rights investigations for both incidents. 

Determining whether someone’s civil rights were violated in instances with officer-involved shootings is extremely difficult to prove. There would have to be sufficient evidence that the officer implicitly shot the victims based on race or another characteristic such as someone’s sex or religion. I mean it’s highly unlikely George Zimmerman will ever be charged for violating Trayvon Martin’s civil rights. 

Mother Jones did an interesting piece that showed there is evidence that officers and people are quicker to shoot a black person than a white person. The prejudices and internalized biases we all have are very hard to break and uncomfortable to acknowledge. Curious if you discriminate? Take the test.  

The only silver lining perhaps from these incidents is that people are mobilizing and taking to the streets in large numbers to voice their concerns. I only hope these demonstrations will translate into more civic involvement by voting, going to police commission meetings, etc. to hold public servants accountable. 

I also hope people don’t clam up from all the race talk. The country cannot afford to embody an ‘ignorance is bliss’ frame of mind any longer. We’re all different and that’s okay. To ignore the differences between us and believe that everything is equal for everyone is unfortunately a farce. 

But we can and should continue to embrace our differences and question any injustices that we face discriminately.

 

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All this bad news may have you looking to mellow out. These start-ups are so imaginative- imagine being able to have marijuana delivered to you from your phone? 

Sorry, you may not get to light up that easy. 

Tuesday, City Attorney Mike Feuer filed a lawsuit against the phone application Nestdrop to cease the electronic distribution of marijuana. 

Wednesday, Council adopted forthwith a budget change for the fire department to allocate funding for 37 new positions. I voted no. 

The city is kind of between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, the city needs more staff, on the other, we can’t afford to hire or even take care of basic needs like fixing sidewalks, paving streets, or clearing illegal dumping (thanks to all of you who participated in our Clean LA campaign by the way- a total of 2,518,770 tons of trash was collected). 

Police and fire already take up 70% of the city budget. Did you know emergency medical services (EMS) take up 85% of firefighter calls? That means firefighters are serving in more of a paramedic capacity than actually fighting fires. And I don’t know about you, but for the times that I’ve seen fire personnel out lately, I haven’t seen a fire, but several fire trucks accompanying ambulances around. 

I simply asked Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas if he has assessed the department’s deployment plan internally so that there won’t be so many people showing up to some of these events where there are no fires present. The Chief says the addition of these new positions will help them triage calls better. 

I’m sorry. With a $242 million budget deficit, just handing out $4 million (which only covers direct cost but does not include an additional 60%+ for overhead e.g. Pension, Health Benefits etc ) like it’s candy is so irresponsible and unfathomable. This proposal came to the council without any deployment or financial analysis or report from either the CAO or CLA. The strongest argument from other councilmembers was "we gotta do it".

Councilmember Tom LaBonge said, as only he can, that we need an increase in firefighters because we need them to help people when the big earthquake comes. 

Ha! We aren’t even retrofitting concrete buildings that need to be. Maybe getting our priorities in order is step one, not hiring more expensive staff. 

Councilmember Mitch Englander, a member of the Budget and Finance Committee was most 'profound' when he stated the budget increase is, "a small price to pay", and hopes the fire department "will come back asking for more." What?????!!!! 

I guess resolving the city's budget deficits is not important any more, who knew!!!

Seven months to go…

Wednesday, Council adopted forthwith the City Attorney’s office request to add additional positions at a cost of approximately $2 million per year to accommodate the increase in workload, of several thousand cases, arising from the passage of Proposition 47. I voted no. 

I’ve been very vocal of my disdain for the proposition and it is my personal belief that the damage it will do to the safety of our community can not be calculated. Now that it has passed, all of these unintended consequences have arose such as what to do with all the early releases and of course who will be handling this influx of cases now that certain ex-felonies are now misdemeanors. 

The representative from the City Attorney’s office said it was apparent that they’d be asking for more resources before the proposition passed, but for some reason they never advised the council. She said she hoped that they would not have to come back to ask for more resources. Again, all I ask is that departments thoroughly take a look their staff to see if roles/ certain work can be redistributed before simply cupping hands and coming to Council chambers for a handout.

 

(Bernard Parks is Los Angeles Councilman for the 8^th Council District. He is also  former Los Angeles Police Chief. He can be reached at [email protected]) 

-cw

 

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 12 Issue 99

Pub: Dec 9, 2014