San Pedro Residents Say Not So Fast to Road Diet at Town Hall p. 2 Nationally Ranked Local Cyclist Competes for Brazil Games in 2016 p. 5
t Mike Watt Talks About New Album and 53-stop Tour p. 11
How Racism Shields Killers By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
The Local Publication You Actually Read
The Los Angeles Police Department has the lessons it learned from the 1965 Watts Rebellion and the 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion to reach where it is today: a law enforcement agency that largely promotes communitybased policing and respect for the constitutional rights of the citizens they are to protect and serve. Community leaders have been seeking answers following the officer-involved shooting of 25- year-old Ezell Ford, a man known to have a history mental illness. The police said he grabbed for their gun, eye witnesses say that he was shot in the back while pinned to the ground. Police Chief Charlie Beck refused to release the names of the officers involved in the shooting until Labor Day weekend, pending a risk assessment. Ford’s death occurred in the same context as a series of deaths nationwide in which young, unarmed, black people were killed by law enforcement or armed shooters who cited Stand Your Ground laws as their defense. Frequently in these cases, local police departments released information with the intention of undermining the victims’ status. And mainstream media outlets followed suit by using unflattering social media photos of victims to either paint them as criminals who “got what they deserved.” In Ferguson, Missouri, Officer Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown, setting off weeks of community protest. The department he works for attempted to obstruct justice and protect Wilson from any consequences. Polls show that most whites don’t think Brown’s shooting raises important racial issues. The effort to protect his killer is the best evidence of how mistaken they are. Los Angeles is not Ferguson. But Los Angeles is not immune to the circumstances that killed Michael Brown.
W Graphic: Mathew Highland
September 4 - 17, 2014
hen Darren Wilson shot and killed unarmed, black teenager, Michael Brown on Aug. 9, he lit a tinder keg, but he didn’t build it. In the weeks that followed, three other local police officers have been fired or forced into retirement due to poor judgment and reckless conduct. St. Louis County police officer Dan Page, a 35-year police veteran who pushed CNN’s Don Lemon on live TV on Aug. 14, was first suspended and then resigned in advance of an expected firing—not for pushing Lemon, but for comments indicating an appetite for killing people made on a videotaped speech to a local chapter of the far right Oath Keepers organization. Reactions to Ferguson Run Deep/ to p. 6
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