35 thoughts on “Is Villaraigosa Creating a “Police State” in LA?”

1. I heard from a union member that even though the mayor wants workers to take a cut, he’s not asking any of the vendors they do business with to take a cut. Why not? Plus there’s all kinds of revenue they aren’t collecting, like the parking garages that don’t pay their tax bills even though they collect taxes. And that sum is in the millions. The mayor has lost all perspective and his tough guy stance is bogus.

2. There’s a city worker’s blog here:

   http://lacityworkers.com/blogs/

   So which positions are being cut?

3. Perhaps the continued investment in the police force is to protect the forever fortress of business. Certainly when the summer heats up, the unemployed’s boredom prevails, and frustration’s fuse runs short the kids of L.A. may just run rampant in the streets. Who wants another Watts? Another Rodney King riot? Another redistribution of the order of things?

   Matt Lucas

4. I’m not trying to say that we don’t need cops or fire fighter but I do think that the city, has gone over budget in those departments. When looking at this I’m very catious of how I make up my mind on these issues and I try to get as much info as I can.
   But anyway, sure you can blame the mayor but there are a whole lot of other people in charge that can take some of that blame. And something I’m speculating as to why the city is so nice to the cops and fire fighters is maybe because of the unions. Because when any city official wants to get reelected they’ll look good with a “neighborhood friendly” fire fighter/cop union backing his or her vote. In context to same situation other unions don’t hold as much weight or prestige when they are compared to a cop/firefighter… and I’m not saying that other unions are not or that they are any less.
   So I think they’re just protecting the cops and fire fighters from job cuts to keep good and get some favors for elections.
   And now the realitys of the times we are in an economic crisis… just like in the private sector things are also being felt in the public sector, that being said the city would eventually need to cut jobs and stop handing out favors.

5. Politicians know that the candidate who promises more police is usually the one who wins. How did we get this way? I wonder if violent crime today per capita is really even that bad compared to other times in history? Wild West? Depression? I’ll bet you crime was worse in the ’80 when crack cocaine first hit. Again, I’m guessing per capita, factoring in population increase, etc. What are the odds of someone minding their own business getting murdered today compared to 1986? How about someone who kind of kicks it with the bad crowd from time to time? How about active gang members? I’ll bet you it was more dangerous 20 years ago for all 3, again, if you consider the population then vs. today. Not going by overall murder numbers, which I’m sure are higher today. More people, more murders.

6. @matt lucas – both the Watts and Rodney King riots were sparked by police violence. The fuel was a period of increased police repression combined with economic recession/depression in the South Central LA community.

7. I really dont think that per capita deaths vs overall quantity really matters to people. If you tell someone that there was 10 deaths in there neighborhood this year, but thats only 1 per 10,000 residents versus 1 per 1,000 residents in the 1980s for the 5 deaths then. (totally bullshitting the numbers) People are not going to feel any safer. PLus its only a snapshot of safety, people have to also take into account other crimes and issues

8. Upfront disclosure: I’m a city employee whose job is uncertain.
   I’m a city employee and BH resident and its odd position to be in. Cause doing whats best for the city isn’t necessarily best for its employees.
   Everyone who is a critic of a large police or fire department changes their opinion the moment they need assistance, whether your house is on fire or someone is trying to break into your home. Just like there are no atheist in a foxhole. Its easy to see that politics have screwed up city hall and the city operated like money aint a thing. I dont think that anyone will argue against the idea that the fat cats should also be taking pay cuts and reductions in perks and staff. Whatever cuts are made to the top, its really only symbolic, a drop in the buck it. Labor is the cities largest expense. The regular workers 40,000 salaries and pensions are much more of an issue than what the politicians themselves make. So if the city wants to resolve its budget issues it has to tackle to issue of the cost of its labor. I’ll refer you to the link that looks at some issues of labor cost (http://citywatchla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3169&Itemid=75). So the city is on the hook for both its current workforce and its retired work force. Hell Councilman Parks is collecting both city council salary and his pension from the police department., but of which are 6 figures. If he was really concerned about th cities finances he’d give one of them up. And all of this is made possible because the unions bosses are in bed with the politicians. SO none of them them are looking after the residents interest. Money that could be used to for yes more police or fireman or after school programs, arts, summer lights, etc is being wasted.
   The only reason the cost of police or fire is an issue is because other departments are on the chopping block. Arts, safety, health, housing, nor any program should be competiting with each other for funding if the city hall stopped wasting and giving away money.

9. I never said that people should feel safe. We’re just a bunch of primates made of water and soft organs. We’re never safe. I’m referring to the paranoia. And, I disagree with you. I think if people were informed on the probabilities of crime at the same rapid fire rate they’re force fed an illusion of widespread, out of control crime, via the prioritizing of evening news stories and those hideous, exaggerated programs like “Gangland”, they wouldn’t be as paranoid about crime and we wouldn’t have this political climate of even liberal politicians trying to outdo their opponents on promising more police. As far as giving people the illusion of “safety”, that’s law enforcement’s scam. I’ve never given any such suggestions. The type of safety law enforcement promises really doesn’t exist. That’s the whole scam. They create this paranoid illusion of widespread crime, then offer an illusion of “safety” as a response. Law enforcement does with the illusion of safety what socialist leaders do with financial handouts and bowls of soup. Oh, except that the financial handouts and soup are real. Safety doesn’t exist. The only way police could truly provide citizens with safety is if they put at least 3 police to guard each individual citizen. Since it’s an impossible goal, and that citizens are unlikely to be a victim of violent crime, anyway, the time, energy, and money invested in extra law enforcement to address this fictional world of doom should be invested elsewhere.

10. I am really scared of the killer MTA trains in East Los Angeles. I need more crossing gates to protect me from the KILLER trains !!!!!!

11. Crossing gates don’t infringe on peoples’ lives as much as police in the era of paranoia and zero tolerance do.

12. There has always been a “Police State” mentallity on the LA Eastside anyway. Over the years there have been numerous studies that have shown the police presence on the Eastside as way out of proportion to the actual crime statistics of the area. If I recall, back in the seventies there was even a law suit or legal action to force the city and county to reduce their presence on the Eastside.
    I guess if your a merchant that is selling direct to the public and are open at night it might be comfortable to see lots of police patrolling around but most people I know have a negative reaction when seeing the police rollers on scene. It means your gonna get rousted, questioned, or ticketed,or mad dogged.
    I laugh when recalling an old friend of mine telling about the time when he and his wife came out of Ernie’s Taco’s on No Broadway, he got into his car that was parked out front and before he could start the engine the red lights of a cop car went on and the police busted him for a DUI. He was put into the back seat of the patrol car and there were already two other guys cuffed and sitting there, also busted for a DUI.
    Homeboy cracked me up with his explanation his predicament, “shit the fucken cops know that every godamn Mexican coming out of a bar or restraunt on a Fri or Saturday night has had a few beers, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel”.
    If the police had as much presence on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood or Ventura Blvd in WOodland Hills on a Saturday night they could make as many busts as on the Eastside.
    The Eastside has always been under a kind of siege by the police.

13. Who wants to bet that the driving force to keep East Los Angeles from cityhood is the LA County Sheriffs fighting to keep their turf? I was talking to a guy who wants an unincorporated area of Sacramento to be its own city, free of Sac County’s control, and all he could do was blame liberal politicians in Sac County for wanting his ‘hard earned’ tax dollars. When I brought up the idea of the Sac County sheriffs being involved with the stalling, to keep their jurisdiction, he didn’t have an answer. Who has more control today? Liberal politicians, or police? Again, what does better on the campaign trail? Promising to raise taxes, or promising more police?

14. Though, i agree that programs like “Gangland” over exaggerate a problem. However, most issues of crime and violence aren’t nearly as addressed appropriately as they should. Unless, its the wealthy or privileged that are victimized. Rhinna gets beat by Chris Brown its all over the news for hours. A teenager gets shot in the hood, a short paragraph on the 5th page of the LA Times next to male enhancement pills ads, cause its the hood and that is just life in the hood. I know i’d much rather be informed about that then lil pablo helping his nana cross the street. People do not have liberty to consider violence and crime an “illusion” when its the taco stand up the street from your place that was robbed at gun point or your neighbors car that was broken into last night.

    I dont agree with the idea of a “police state” on the eastside. But hell, we can call it agree to disagree.

    Are we ever fully safe? no. but you can reduce the threats to ones safety. And thats not an illusion. And active police presence in a neighborhood is solves part of the issue, but not completely. Adding more police does not complete address the issue there needs to be a more of a focus on community policing. Working and interacting with the residents and stakeholders. So that the police can better get to know the community and the community better know its police and trust them. Paired with programing that keeps kids off the streets and away from gangs and trouble, as well as employment opportunities for its residents, a community can reduce its threat of violence and crime. But there will always be people trying to make a quick buck or looking for a cheap thrill, so there will always be a need for police.

    I probably hang around a different crowd than DQ, cause most people i know are comfortable with police around. Unless we are doing something we are not suppose to.
    As for the police stopping your friend from driving the under the influence. Is the police stopping someone from driving drunk suppose to be a bad thing?

15. Whoever said violence and crime was an illusion? I said the notion that it’s likely to happen to you is an illusion, and I base this on the simple fact that violent crime is not likely to happen to anyone. Even someone asking for it. It may be more likely for some people than with others, but nobody walks around with more than a 50% chance of being gunned down or even sunday punched. It’s just not going to happen to most people. I would be fair enough to exclude a consensual fist fight between two men. If you want to call that a violent crime, sure, then it changes the scenario. But such incidents are rarely life threatening.

    Now I’m yet to see someone running for office promising to “reduce the threat to one’s safety”, because that would certainly be a fair promise. It’s a possible goal, and could be attained, even without violating peoples’ rights, if the right measures are taken. What politicians promise, however, is “SAFETY”. Period. S A F E T Y. They promise the illusion that they’re going to put a bubble around the community that keeps the bad guys out. In fact, anybody who doesn’t promise that is going to lose to someone who does. That’s what I’m criticizing. They’re promising something that flat out doesn’t exist. And in order to pursue this goal, or at least give your constituency the impression that you’re trying, is to flood the streets with police, and to have those police prioritize “results” over basic civil rights. You can blame this flawed system on just about every civil unrest that’s taken place in modern history.

16. “As for the police stopping your friend from driving the under the influence. Is the police stopping someone from driving drunk suppose to be a bad thing?”

    Yea it’s a bad thing when a guy has two or three beers or a couple of margaritas (just enough to get your ass busted), and because he lives in an area that has a police dept that deals with the citizenery more harshly than if it were a middle class surburban area.
    Do you think that there is no drinking going on along Ventura Blvd in Woodland Hills, in Old Town Pasadena? Funny, I’ve been knocking back a few with dinner in those areas for many years and can never recall seeing someone on the sidewalk touching their noses and following some cops finger with thier eyes, let alone a DUI checkpoint.
    Curious in that certain areas of the city there are No Parking signs all along the residential streets, but on the Eastside it’s not uncommon to witness the motorcycle cop, who should be helping with the traffic flow on Boulevard at rush hour, instead writing tickets on the side streets for lapsed license renewals and directing the tow trucks, hauling the cars to the storage yards where it will cost poor people a couple of hundred bucks to get their cars out of impound.

    I’ve always found it interesting to notice how the police on the Eastside handle groups of teenagers, who might be wearing baggy clothes and fit some profile. In other parts of town teenagers can be seen goofing around on the street, like kids will do, and there is no consequence, on the Eastside it’s a different story, how many times have I seen the police roust a group of teenagers and write them all up on a contact sheet, have them up against a wall getting patted down, have guns pulled on them while they are made to sit on the ground with thier hands on their heads.

    How often do the police in Tarzana or Brentwood enter a bar in three’s or fours and roust the patrons drinking there? Pat everyone down, asking what your name’s are, running warrant checks on everyone?
    Wierd how when someone gets a car stolen on the Eastside and calls the police, the report is taken over the phone, nothing ever happens. My long time friend who lives off La Cienega and Beverly had his Mercedes stolen a few years ago, right out of his driveway. When he called the LAPD they sent a detective out within the hour.
    Same friends elderly father, who suffers from Alzheimers, got lost, the police were kind enough to locate him within a few hours, the old man was confused and swinging his cane at people, but was calmed down and brought home.
    A few years back in Highland Park a little, elderly, wino was acting crazy, drunk, had no shirt or shoes on, was yelling and swinging around a tiny pocketknife.
    Police showed up, pulled thier guns and starting screaming at the winito, got him even more aggravated, someone knew the wino’s family and ran to get them. Before they could get back the police shot the little old wino to death, shot him about nine or ten times.

    Yea I guess some people hang around a different crowd or live in different parts of the city and have a different perception of “Police Presence”.
    Yes I hope the police dept is changing it’s relations with the community on the Eastside.
    But it’ll take some time and effort to erase the well known history of racism, brutallity, selective enforcement, rude, bellegent, punitive behavior, racial and ethnic profiling, and basically just being viewed as anything else but trouble in the neighborhood.

17. Why would the LAPD’s Latino officers (they are 42% of the force, whites are 37%) participate in unfairly targeting fellow Latinos?

18. Spokker, what’s your source? The only numbers I can find are from 2000 DOJ stats, which have whites making up 46% of the LAPD and Latinos making up 33% of it.

    http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/lemas00.pdf

19. “Why would the LAPD’s Latino officers (they are 42% of the force, whites are 37%) participate in unfairly targeting fellow Latinos?”

    As almost any Chicano who lives or has lived in a predominately Mexican American neighborhood (the varrio), will tell you, the ethnicity of the police officer typically has no bearing at all on the way LE deals with the community. These officers are trained and groomed to conduct themselves according to the traditions, precepts, and unwritten laws of their depts.
    If those traditions, and unwritten laws include racial profiling, brutality, rude behavior, and selective enforcement, then the officer, no matter what his ethnicity, will most probably toe the line and conduct him or herself exactly as the other “white” officers, in conformance with the “culture” of that specific police dept.
    And curiously (or maybe not so curiously), sometimes the Latino officer will be even more brutal, demeaning, and rude, than the “white” officer. In fact I would be willing to bet that most Mexican American’s who have lived in the varrios across the nation and have had dealings with LE, could tell you stories of “Latino” officers who have treated them badly in one way or the other, and it’s usually while the Latino is partnered up with a “white” officer.
    It’s as if the Latino officer is trying to overcompensate and demonstrate to his “white” counterparts that he can be “one of the boys”, that he has no compunction against treating one of his fellow “Latino’s” like a dog.
    The attitude and actions of the Latino police officer often reflect an attitude of “I’m a Mexican American myself so I know how to treat these cocksuckers!”

    Ethnicity and race are no guarantees against poor LE behavior, and they never have been.

20. I look at the remarks of some of you and have to laugh-I then step outside AND LOOK AT MY HORSES, and thank GOD when retired from the Los Angeles Police Department, I had sense enough to leave California and moved to Texas.

    Many of you are missing the whole point. Your elected leaders, that YOU PUT/VOTED INTO OFFICE HAVE ABUSED THEIR OFFICE and drove LA and California into bankruptcy! Yet, YOU, the voters keep putting the same turds right back into office-yea, “Bitter Bernie”, shamed FORMER LAPD CHIEF, is fighting for you-that’s a joke!

    Need I remind all of you that his top chief were investigated by the FBI while he was chief-yet YOU VOTED HIM INTO OFFICE AFTER HE LEFT THE LAPD! I FOUND THAT AMUSING WHEN IT HAPPENED! i KNEW that was a mistake but you can’t talk sense with people these days in LA and CALIF!How soon you-the voters forget!

    Need I also remind you THAT Bernie Parks was removed because he refused to put into place the Christopher commission mandates-he stalled and drug his feet for his full term as chief. He was so abusive as Chief, LAPD officers were leaving at record rates-taking the training YOU-MR AND MIS TAX PAYERS PAID FOR! Yet, you voted him into office where he could do REAL DAMAGE!

    Yea, ground the LAPD choppers, send the horses in the mounted unit off to slaughter, turn loose thousands of “non violent” thugs back onto your streets-yea that will help out your mess out west in California. NEWS FLASH-This will NOT SOLVE A DAMN THING!

    The only soultion that NOBODY-and I mean NOBODY in California and LA is willing to admit needs to be done is simply vote out, recall, or investighate those elected thugs! You need to indict ALL those ELECTED OFFICALS who have been incontrol of your tax dollars and waisted it! audit the damn city books! DO NOT count on your new “controller” she was and IS part of your problem-you need the FBI and justice department.

    The people of Los Angeles and California simply need to take back control of your cities and state goverment and the only way to do that is MEANINGFUL CHANGE IN YOUR STATE! You send a clear message to them by throwing them out of office.

    I laugh when I see the “special intrest groups” whine. They add to your problems. I left CA like so many have and are doing (about 800 thousand over the years)-I gave up, and walked away.

    I am far better off in Texas-which has a balanced budget! Texas has the LARGEST T.A.R.P. FREEWAY PROJECT in the nation-just opened up this week! This project means “JOBS” to Texans. Where is your state goverment? I guess people in CALIF and LA dont need those jobs and the 405/10 freeway is just fine for those drivers.I seem to remeber Calif voted for Oboma, and Pelosi is the “Speaker of the House” and from San Francisco-yea, they are doing a “spiffy job” for you out in California!

    Until you-the VOTERS, take control of your state and city-the rest of what you are doing is simple “smoke and mirrors.” You need menaingful change in that screwed up city and state-selling horses and grounding choppers is a joke!

21. DQ-With all due respect, I am not a Villaraigosa fan, I respect this post, and all the different opinions expressed here. Well lets see… let’s consider the source, “the mayor”, the little coward of a man who turned his back on his wife and young son when his wife was struggling with cancer!!! So let me see… if a man doesn’t have the common decency, or intelligence to see a critical situation in his own family and step up to the plate and be a man, how in the hell is he going to care about some constituents??????? How do you think his son feels, seeing all this, reports of his dad and his ugly ass TV reporter girlfriend, that he did not EVEN stay with too long, before finding another girlfriend? So when Antonio is on tv spouting all his whack ass ideas, I simply say he has no integrity, and more sadly NO BALLS!!

22. LAPD Retired, congrats on your move to Texas, we have too many people in Calif anyway. I hope you and your horse find happiness in that God Forsaken land I’ll take Calif anyday, even with all it’s present financial problems, the only Ocean you got there is so polluted and filled with oil derricks, waste, and brown water it could float a steel I beam, and the only mountains you have are really in New Mexico, and your deserts are ugly reposits of flat, mesquite filled, arid cattle country, that is so uninspiring that most of it is owned by people who call it “Land and Cattle Company’s.
    The hill country around San Antonio is nice but there still only hills.
    But your right on about our elected officials in many cases not representing the people, but Bernie Parks does not represent the Eastside of LA, of which this blog is all about, which is fine with me. His own constituents must make that decision.

    “Yea, ground the LAPD choppers, send the horses in the mounted unit off to slaughter, turn loose thousands of “non violent” thugs back onto your streets-yea that will help out your mess out west in California. NEWS FLASH-This will NOT SOLVE A DAMN THING!”

    Yes it’s time to get rid of the horses that are nothing but a PR stunt, and also ground most of the helicopters that buzz around and over the neighborhoods blasting on loudspeakers all damn night. And certainly drastically reduce the budget and influence of the costly LAPD Media Relations Unit mouthpieces, and cut all the wastfull duplicity at the LAPD. Underwater Dive Unit? (the LAFD has the same service available), and get the LAPD back to what it should really be about, period, officers on the streets and not in some office or on horseback, not at punitive and deceptive DUI roadblocks, collecting tax’s in the form of tickets and citations in economically stressed neighborhoods, hassling undocumented people, basically serving Tow Truck and Storage Lot business’s. LAPD should concentrate on serving the community respectfully and in numbers justified by the crime rate there.
    And enough of the draconian jail sentencing and incarceration of people who could or should be encouraged to enter drug, alcohol, and mental counseling programs. Enough of the 80% or more recidivism rate by ex cons who get parole violated for chickenshit offenses like being in a part of the city or neighborhood or being in contact with another ex con who migh even be a relative.
    Enough of supporting the prison/industrial complex Capitalist’s, (including the loco Prison Guards Unions), who get rich off instituting those draconian and over the top laws like the “three strikes = life” for shit like stealing a piece of pizza or a bicycle, those facists who feed at the public trough with impunity, building jails like lego toys, maintaining and servicing those penal institutions (over 20 prisons built in the last couple of decades while at the same time only 2 or 3 colleges were built) at a cost to the public of billions of dollars, and that now is under Federal mandate to reduce capacity and to initiate more humane conditions and sentencing.
    Sure we have problems in Calif as all states do at this time, and much of it is a result of those Texas Republicans (Bush, DeLay, Phil Ghramm, ect ect),who ran the country into a multi trillion dollar deficit while enriching their crony’s and turning the country into a nightmare of a Corporatocracy.
    Yea stay in Texas with your horse.

    Vince, thanks for the respect bro, but don’t get me wrong, I’m no Villaraigosa apologist, it isn’t that I have some moral outrage over his screwing around, I personally could give a shit about his personal life, what I care about and am disapointed in is his job performance and his lack of representation of the people who voted for him. Villaraigosa represents the wealthy ruling class of Los ANgeles and the same old Mandarin class that has always pulled the strings in LA.

23. “don quixote”, you cannot “Blame Bush” for all of California and LA’s problems; it is not even working for Oboma anymore. Let’s face it, California is/has been controlled mainly by the democratic party for years. The “progressive agenda” that is pushed out west has failed and failed badly. Blaming Bush is one last act of trying to put a good spin on bad policy.

    One recent artical about Arnold going to DC begging for a money was a flop-the Fed’s are saying “NO” to California-yet, the state Voted and helped Oboma get into office. Once President, he turned his back on California. Even your mayor has been told “NO”- NOW THAT IS FUNNY!

    With 35 million people in Calif, you are correct-it has far to many people. However, the people coming to California cannot afford to live in the state. The people leaving California are the exact types the state needs to buy property, buy taxable items, and basiclly make jobs to reduce the mind numbing unemployment-about 16% right now. Texas has an 8% unemployment rate.

    California leads the nation is tax. My DMV fees in Sept of 2009 for two pick-ups was 1,125 in Calif. In Texas I paid 390.00 for THE SAME TWO TRUCKS!

    Property tax IS INSANE! My tax in Calif is 6,500 a year-for the same size home and property in Texas it is 2,000 per year. Sales tax in CA is at about 9.5% and in some places 10%. In Texas 7.5 %. Texas has a budget surplus of about 9 Billion Dollars-yet the sate with the 6th largest economy is still broke-why? Public corruption simple, and voters are willing to tollerate this corruption.

    I am not gonna sit and debate the merits of either political party-they both are bad. Yes, Bush was spending like wild during his 8 years in office and as a conservative-I will not condone that at all. Yet, the current president has now taken our national debit to new levels and we have no end in sight. In some ways, we get our oil from the middle East and our “bail out money” from China-we went from bad to worse.

    I am a native Californian-born and raised. Spent 25 years in LA-so yea, “the weather” is good at times-but mainly a “myth” people like to repeat. For example, from Bakersfield to north of Sacramento you have zero visability fog and hot weather-so this is all relevant. I decided “palm trees and sunshine” was not worth the price I was paying to the corrupt thugs in goverment-I was sick of paying for all the dead beats in Calif and moving to California “for the great weather.”

    Current forcasts for LA are grim, and for California they are even worse. Your state “UN-employement fund” is nearly empty and needs Fed Money to keep it working-yet California has jobs-but just not the ones people “want” so they sit at home on unemplyment. My brother is a classic example of this! You think nothing of bashing other states-that is sooooo California, But facts are facts. In 2003 and again in 2007 Texas and California were compaired-side by side in many areas. Each time Texas was the better place to live. Heck, California has 5 of the most “misrable cities in the US” to live-LA is number 6 according to Forbs. Stockton, Modesto, are in the top 5! The same area where thousands of track homes were built and sold at inflated prices-now they sit vaccant!

    Texas has some of the best schools in the nation-I wish I could post a photo of the new Rockwall, Texas highschool. It makes any new school in LA built in the last 10 years look like a dump. USC and UCLA would love the new “aquatic center” and football fields! I thought it was a college-nope, a Highschool! This is typical for Texas. Today, TxDot was out filling pot holes all over and one infront of my ranch-when have you seen that in LA???? I did not even need to call and beg to have them do it!

    The money alone we have saved by moving to Texas this last June (2009) allowed me to take a 10 day vaction to Mexico at Christmas. Currently, the cost of fuel in Texas is well under 2.50 per gallon-thats as savings with each fill up. I know where your prices is at-I had to fly out to that state and hated every moment of it.

    You like to make people belive you know something of this state-no so. West Texas is now home to new wind power farms-energy which will be sold to California-AT A PRICE. Yea, sure it’s flat, but that is great for wind farms. Calif has 37 new green utility plants ready to build (which will make 37,000 jobs) but they are all tied up in court due to “enviormantal concerns”.

    We may not have the “beach” as you know it-but we have thousands of major lakes all over the state-which have water for growing population. A population that is expected to pass California in the next 10 years. Yet, it is well known that a major earth quake in the Stockton delta will trigger a massive levee failure that will wipe out an estimated 75% of Californias drinking water. We all know that LA City has the “water police” due to water shortages right now-go a head-stick your head in the sand! It is now to the point you cannot ignore the problems in Calif!

    Texas has, 8 of the best housing markets in the USA RIGHT NOW. We are a “RIGHT TO WORK” state, which means very few unions to demand costly public pensions and lobby our elected officals for back-room perks-like that mayor was so willing to do until things tanked. Now look at him! James Hahn, was warning LA of this very problem- yet, LA voted by “color” not “qualifications” and look what you got stuck with!

    Our Hill County is very exspensive to live, as is the Austin area. YET, many people who have fled California choose to live in these areas. We like it that way-keeps the riff-raf out. Texas is by all accounts a “law and order” state and WE DO use the death penalty-we dont have a bunch of librals running around saying how horrible it is!

    Texas, investigates public corruption and we put those who violate our trust in jail-as the former Mayor of Dallas just found out (as did his wife and other corrupt elected officals in Dallas!) When has this happened in Calif??

    Yea, I got a horse, clearly you are not able to understand the bond between humans and animals. Where I live and keep my horses, I don’t have wino’s living in boxes outside my property, ugly RV’s parked infront of my home, loud parties from rude nieghbors, gangsters selling dope next door, and yes, those choppers above trying to hunt down some thug on the run from the law.Nor do I worry about the state making me pay for a “permit” to keep them-like they wanna do in California to help “raise money for the budget”-NO WAY! I said, “enough! shove it!” and we left! When I looked at our budget it was clear my partner was working JUST FOR US TO PAY OUR TAXES TO THE STATE AND FED’S-that is no way to live at all. So we sold everything and left!

    We moved smiply for the “cost of living” and affordable way of life. I know lots of people like you-they will whine and complain, and defend the same ol failed California public policy. Yet, they (you) are unwilling to do anything to change the system that is the problem. You would rather play the “blame game” which is fine-cuase you will pay more and get less with evey state budget and city tax that those crooks can think of!

24. Sounds like you and your horse are happy there in Texas, with the kind of people the state of Calif really misses John, and I am happy that Texas is doing well and is so flat that wind farms are making the state money (huh?), maybe now Texas and the rest of the South can turn the tax structure around and support us poor ignorant Calif. people, who deserve what we got, because as you say we are the ones “who voted for color and not qualifications”, you know, the “rifraff” you Texans like to keep out of the Texas Hill Country.
    Maybe now you Texans and Southerners will support us poor Californians like we have been supporting you rebels for decades, as we poor Californians have gotten back about $1.00 for every $3.00 in Federal Tax we paid to support the South that usually paid $1.00 in Federal Tax for every $3.00 they received in Federal subsidies.
    Oh Yeah, Texas, that according to you and the “Forbes Magazine Lists”, beats the hell out California every time whenCalifornia cities like Modesto and Lodi, Fresno, and Bakersfield, are compared to the real hot spots like you have in Texas, no surprise there John, you guys have it all over us poor welfare recipeints who live here in Calif, and as you say, vote based on color, and where there are so many hills and mountains we can’t even support windmill farms except in a couple of shitholes like Palm Springs and vicinity.
    And hell it’s a known fact that in Texas public corruption is never tolerated like here in Calif. But maybe that’s cause in Texas you got honest politicians like George W Bush, ex Sen Phil Grahmm, and honest Johns like Tom DeLay among others, oh wait, I guess thats unfair bringing up the recent past, yeah blame it Obama cause theres another case of ignorant people voting based on color again!

    Once again John LAPD retired now a Texan, glad you and your horse are so happy in that lovely environment, after all being with one’s own kind is obviously your just reward.
    Bye Y’all

25. don quixote, based upon your rants, it is clear you are very much a part of the loud-vocal, anti police group in Los Angeles who blames everyone and everything-including the LAPD for the cities problems. Law Enforcement and the states 3 strikes laws are and easy target-I thank God for my famuly that your ideas are not belived by the majority of people in California.

    As for those you named, I would JOYFULLY take anyone of those PEOPLE you mention as my nieghbor-heads and tails over some section 8 building. Your remarks about “the south” speak for themselves and do not warrent and further comment. The numbers and results speak for themselves in this state. Must suck to be stuck in a broke state and working just to support the goverment (state or city-you pick).

    The fact is, everyone of the programs you name (rehab for thugs, ect….) all cost money and your state flat can’t afford it anymore. Which brings us back to this artical and making tuff cuts in your state. Yea, No more prop 136 classes for junkies, and other progressive NOBAL ideas. You rant about things like DUI check points-fine do away with them-wont be my family of kids killed by some drunk-I stopped trying to save the world and people like you-it is pointless. Sure do away with 3 strikes-if you dont have one-BUY A GUN! Rememeber, we are cutting back on cops and prisons-they can respond and that over loaded 811 system your CURRENTLY HAVE IS ABOUT TO GET WORSE!

    After reading your last rant, it is clear why other states and people living in those states dislike people from California. Rememeber, I lived/worked in Calif. I opted to leave-there was nothing there I want. I was sick of it and gave up-so I took the money and left. Your tax dollar returns are not my problem-and to be blunt, why give the state more money they will just waist it anyway.

    I have seen the wind farms in Palm Springs, Mojave and other places-they pale compaired to what is being built in Texas-again more jobs in Texas.

    My UPS driver is from Seal Beach, the man I buy my beef from is from Thousand Oaks, The lady who brings my mail-Ventura. The man who runs my gym is retired LA CO FIRE. ALL IN TEXAS! Last week, a doctor from LA was with us-she and her partner will move to Texas from Santa Barbara this summer once they close their offices. Yea, say what you want-think as you choose. Your the one paying not me-I said enough and walked away and would vote against giving any money to Calif. The rest if the USA has now woke up-even this president is well aware after of this after only 365 days in office. The media cannot hide this anymore. There appears to be little stomach in Washington DC at this time to “bail out” the “Bankrupt State”.

    As one person commetted in a LA TIMES artical about the san Diego Mounted unit last month when they cut it-“maybe some texans will buy the horses. They seem to be the only ones who have money these days”. That was someone elses words-not mine. I see it everyday and that person was right and we got it by not living above our incomes and keeping taxes low.

26. Gee whiz!, “John retired LAPD now a Texan”, I thought I, as a bonified “people like you” Californian, had clearly wished you good luck and fortune, with “your” people, and horse in Texas. Sorry your upset and perturbed about something I might have said, maybe it’s due to the fact that I’m unfortunate enough to be from California, and as you have stated so scientifically, “other states and people living in those states dislike people from California”, pero que van hacer? I’m just a victim of chance, being born in California that is, tu sabes, I’ blaming my grandparents, they could have saved me all this heartache and grief if they would have moved to someplace with more opportunity, like maybe Waco or Abilene Texas instead of LA Calif. or my lack of clarity could be the result of too much sunshine and not enough exposure to Texas wind energy farm life and federal subsidies.
    It’s obvious that us proletarians from California don’t have the gumption or intelligence to “git up and move”, to better ourselves, like your Mensa friends from that awful shithole by the sea “Santa Barbara”, whom are now moving to those superior diggs, in maybe one of Forbes Magazines picks for top citys, maybe New Braunfels, or Amarillo, Tyler, Katy, or maybe one of those centers of culture and intelligencia in the Dallas suburbian nirvana’s, never more than ten minutes from the new shopping mall with Waffle House, Chick-fill-A, Hobby Lobby, or climate controlled, high tech security zoned, Inspirational Southern Baptist affliated Mega Church and Amway conference center.

    Again and Sincerely, all the best to you and your horse in Texas,

    From one of the unfortunates, stuck here in this living hell of a bankrupt state where so many of us “your kind of people who vote based on nothing but color”, exist, and only due to the good graces of places like Texas and those huge windmill farms.

27. Don’t mess with Texas. You might hurt their feelings and make them secede.

28. According to John they’re already succeeding, spokker.

29. Again, I can’t find any links on the internet that back up Spokker’s numbers regarding the LAPD racial makeup. Spokker, could you please tell me where you got those numbers? The only link I could find was 2000 DOJ stats, which, I’ll admit, are a decade old. But I couldn’t find any other links which gave the LAPD racial makeup. The only link I could find had more whites in the LAPD than Latinos. Do you have a source to back up your numbers, Spokker, or were you just guessing?

30. John, regarding California’s “progressive” agenda, how progressive would you say that prison spending is? Enforcing drug laws?

31. 2009

    http://www.dailynews.com/ci_13173222?source=rss_viewed

    “Today, the LAPD is 42 percent Latino, 12 percent black, 7 percent Asian and 37 percent white.”

    I wonder why the LAPD is such a magnet for self-hating Latinos. Maybe they got sick of the fucked up communities they grew up in and are trying to help change it.

    Maybe when Los Angeles is 0% white, and that day cannot come soon enough, we can stop playing the victim. Or maybe the new shtick will be that whites taught Latinos how to brutalize their own people.

32. Just putting the theory out there, of course.

33. Friends I know who are in their 30s, know a few Latino policemen (that were classmates in High School). These guys became police because they were bullied in high school by gang kids—now they enjoy bullying back, ‘hunting down’ and brag about it at parties. People are gravitated to a job where they can feel the most powerful. Certainly, the ideal is that someone who chooses to serve and protect, should do so because they genuinely believe in community service. Given the history of the LAPD, they appear to be more of a legitimized gang of thugs. One wonders what mentorship goes on there generation after generation.

34. Cops don’t act like a gang in the more middle class and wealthy parts of town, as DQ and others have noted.

    Maybe the cops in the wealthier neighborhoods weren’t bullied. At least not by the local gangs. They’re probably from out of the area, or out of town, because upper-middle-class people don’t become cops, generally.

    I’m sure there are some reformist cops from the area. I heard that Charles Beck (the new chief) is one. But he was a cop’s kid, and probably didn’t have the bullying issues to deal with.

    Violence begets violence. You need not be victimized directly by the violence, and it will still affect you. Violence has its own logic: force = power = safety. It’s difficult to escape this logic.

    Gangsters were abusing others to seek safety by establishing power by use of force. Of course gangsters abuse each other primarily. Cops that abuse gangsters are seeking safety, and do so by combining state power with personal force.

    They’re perpetuating a cycle of pain.

    #include “economics”
    #include “pacifism”
    #include “history”

35. This “debate” is totally getting into “who’s right”, again, a common flaw of “us” evolved primates…..Being a proud civil servant since 2000, it seems that the paranoia and public unrest since 9/11 and the ensuing “Fight against Terrorism” has taken a toll on this entire country. How did this happen? George W wanting to impress daddy that he could finish what the old Bush couldn’t(still hasn’t-lol). Does anyone know after 9/11 the city of L.A. and other cities across this nation went on a hiring frenzy? Bulking up the police & firefighters & security guards up the ying-yang after 9/11. Overtime pay is pretty much a way of life for these departments, not to say of how much it costs to hire & train all this personnel. After 9/11, our department as well as others that are non-police/fire felt the strain and it’s just been getting bigger & bigger. Zero overtime(not that there was more than 3-4 days a year anyway), lower than actual cost of living concessions when our unions dealt with city hall and wage freezes for the past two years. It’s easy to blame the little guy and protect the “alleged” needed resources(a.k.a. police/fire/security agencies) because it’s like paying or peace of mind. Hell, even insurance companies offer rebates……..