Lopez spoke with Monte Vista’s principal Jose Posada who described a recent incident of a daylight shooting that happened last Monday as parents and children were on their way to school. Six to eight shot were fired, and shootings have happened in the area between gangs too regularly.
The survival drill follwed by students on the command, “Pancake,” was demonstrated for Lopez. It is similar to the old “Drop Drill” but you have to lay flat on the ground instead of huddled under a desk in order to reduce your chance of being hit by bullets.
The urgency of the safety issue has pushed the students to write to elected representatives, Ed Reyes, Council member and Antonio Villaraigosa, the Mayor, for assistance. In my view, these two persons have been and continue to be ineffective in addressing these issues. The mayor has long dragged his feet on this, although he talks a good game. The style that he seems to favor is entirely weighted towards intervention, and what appears to be his pet project, midnight basketball. Ed Reyes is one of the Villaraigosa disciples so you can’t expect much from him that is not Villaraigosa-approved.
Most on the City Council have treated crime issues, principally gang crime, as matters to be kept on the "back burner." You continue to see more attention paid to such things as awards and festivities at the Friday City Council meetings and numerous hours spent at Council meetings on non-crime matters, like the Zoo elephant’s housing, than you ever have spent concerning the violent crime conditions complained of in Lopez’s column.
Ed Reyes is more interested in development and re-election, although I did not hear anything of him putting out an effort for vote-getting. by giving presentations of a public forum nature at any time before the March 3rd elections. Reyes assumed an attitude of entitlement when it came to his campaign for re-election. Reyes’ opponent, Jesus Rosas, gathered about 25% of the vote in Council District 1 with a very passive campaign, still being an "unknown" to most voters. That hints at the voter dissatisfaction with Reyes’ after two terms in office. Reyes’ contribution, as I recall, to the recreation area on the old train yard off San Fernando Road in Glassell Park was to add “berms” to the landscape next to the street. “Berms” are mounds of earth that are raised to provide a physical barrier to gunfire. To me, that only signals capitulation to the problem instead of being a solution, leaving things otherwise unchanged.
The shooting deaths of two teens last week at York Blvd. and Figueroa St. in Highland Park is another example of recent deadly violence that continues to jeopardize the local community. My wife has a cousin who is a teacher at Luther Burbank Middle School, located a few blocks north of the shooting scene and those victims were his former students. See LAPD Blog, March 16, "Two Teens Killed in Highland Park," http://lapdblog.typepad.com/lapd_blog/2009/03/two-teens-killed-in-highland-park-.html (Note: the address in the posting is wrong, "1600 Figueroa St." which is downtown- the correct location was probably supposed to be "6100 Figueroa St." where the Gold Line tracks cross Figueroa, by the Recreation Center.
The local culture-oriented blog, “L.A. Eastside,” comments on the shooting deaths, "Memorial in Highland Park," noting the memorial on the site where two young boys, Alejandro Garcia, 16 and Carlos Hernandez, 15 were gunned down on their walk home from Franklin High School," and criticizes the major print media icon, the Los Angeles Times, that barely mentioned the crime. http://laeastside.com/2009/03/memorial-in-highland-park/
The usual handling of problems by the Council and the Mayor is to solicit applications from organizations, usually “non-profits,” who submit proposals and, upon approval, receive allotments of funds to run the programs. There is a cottage industry in such activities where much more than a tidy sum can be gained. The city's process is examined in the L.A. Weekly. They discuss the mysterious method that the Mayor created to evaluate applicant programs. “Secrecy Rules in L.A.'s $24 Million Gang Program; Carr and Villaraigosa use 50 anonymous people to decide who gets the money,”
By Daniel Heimpel, published on December 17, 2008, http://www.laweekly.com/2008-12-18/news/secrecy-rules-in-l-a-39-s-24-million-gang-program/ describes the process that is anything but the “transparency” in government that was promised by the Mayor as he took office.
There was a follow-up story in the L.A. Weekly, “Why Do Secret Citizens Control the Gang Contracting?; Villaraigosa says they have to be anonymous. A dead city attorney told him so,” By Daniel Heimpel, published on January 07, 2009, http://www.laweekly.com/2009-01-08/news/why-do-secret-citizens-control-the-gang-contracting/
This story further examined “Villaraigosa’s unprecedented decision to create a committee of about 50 anonymous private citizens — whose own backgrounds and conflicts are unknown — to decide where to award $24 million in taxpayer funds.”
From that story: ”[Editor's Note: The mayor released the names of the 50 anonymous citizens cited below on Tuesday evening after L.A. Weekly went to press. On January 8, LA Daily blog will publish the list]”
As usual, the L.A. Weekly does more than simply scratch the surface with their stories compared to what is so often the case with the L.A. Times, and more now, with the Daily News, as they provide more details gained from better investigaton and reporting.
Many of the programs have little or no real method of demonstrating their effectiveness at activity other than running a program that can be guaranteed to use up whatever taxpayer funds it can acquire. There is more hope than results involved in such programs, in my opinion. Pointing to these programs as the “solutions” is not and should not be considered to be all that the City Council has to do to fulfill it's responsibility to the public.
Until there is a serious attempt to address the crime problem, it will continue. LAPD Chief Bratton said that "we can’t arrest our way out of the problem,” but there’snever been a showing that such action has really been attempted. Looking at this conditon on a fairness basis, something has to be done to make this picture right. The facts are that residents have to remain fearful of becoming a homicide crime victim statistics in their own neighborhoods, while the actual perpetrators have virtually unlimited freedom to do what they do best, conduct criminal acts, including shootings.
The Steve Lopez article added that Principal Posadas was a Marine and veteran of the Gulf War and he did not see as much action as what has been happening around the school’s neighborhood.
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FOR ADDITONAL REFERENCE on the Gang Program Selection:
See: http://www.fulldisclosure.net/Blogs/65.php
The gang program's selection procedures and the justifications are discussed in an 11 minute video, “WHO DECIDES WHICH GANG ORGANIZATION GETS THE MONEY?; Mayor’s Plan Includes Anonymous Selection Committee,” released January 4, 2009, from “Full Disclosure,” a public channel program, interviews people involved on the gang program, including Reverend Carr, the city's "gang czar," describing the programs, and the L.A. Weekly reporter, Daniel Heimpel. The program notes said, “approximately $24 million taxpayer dollars will be doled out to groups that have both gang members and former gang members on their staffs.”
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