The LAPD is increasingly focused on serving as a space police rather than keeping us safe

An article in the Los Angeles Daily News [via LAist] discusses the Los Angeles Police Department’s benchmark of having 10,000 officers.  Some local politicians and city council members are calling for even more police:

Zine said the city will need a bigger force if the state proceeds with the early release of 27,000 prison inmates in a cost-cutting move.

“When these folks come back, there are no jobs and the economy is suffering. They’ll return to what they know, which is crime,” said Zine, a retired police sergeant. “Without these officers, it would be a dangerous and serious situation.”

A larger LAPD will only reinforce an oppressive cycle of poverty, violence, and imprisonment in Los Angeles.  Instead of hiring thousands of police officers, the city of Los Angeles should focus on green jobs.  The State of California is projected to need 10,000 solar workers each year over the next five years.  Funding real rehabilitation, job training, and green jobs, instead of more police officers to further the criminalization of communities, will initiate a cycle of cleaner neighborhoods, lower prices for photovoltaics, and more quality employment.

Cop cars

I waited for my friend at the bus stop on Crenshaw at Stocker (Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Mall) for about 45 minutes on Sunday. During my wait, I witnessed a living validation of the many theories we have discussed at greenRELAY this summer. Massey and Denton’s discussion of an oppositional Culture of Segregation and the cycle of poverty supported by residential segregation could not have stood out more. People at the bus stop spoke surprisingly loudly; young-looking mothers stood with strollers while saggy-jeaned men sat on the benches,  getting up occasionally to throw their trash away in the bushes behind the benches. These behaviors and styles, except for throwing trash in the bushes, are not inherently bad, but they clearly differ from the normative behaviors of the dominant groups in the US, namely wealthy white people. Massey and Denton would likely refer to loud speech in public, teen mothers, and baggy jeans as ‘oppositional’ because they don’t mesh with the behaviors of socioeconomic and political power, such as traditional families.

While I waited, I counted at least five cop cars that stayed within view for the entire time: one parked itself next to the curb with its lights flashing; another pulled over a car for a reason I could not discern; two others seemed to be circling the mall, and one pulled into the lot in which I parked. I found myself terrified that he would give me a ticket for nothing just because he could. I created stories and explanations in my head in preparation for the potential event, praying that he had no legitimate reason to come over to my car. Fortunately he left without exiting his car, but his very presence instilled fear in me, and I suddenly stopped judging people for making an effort to put trash in bushes. The constant surveillance overwhelmed me. I could leave. I have always been able to escape the gaze, but for people who endure that belittlement everyday, an oppositional culture demonstrates a righteous indignation, a way of asserting dignity in a city that has made legitimate means difficult to come by.

As I sat there, I thought ‘no wonder so many people have no interest in restoring the environment when the environment in which they have to live cannot possibly foster affection for the earth or the societies that attempt to organize its inhabitants’. The cops made me so frustrated that I found it easiest to give up hope, leave, and blame ‘the man’, ‘the system’. I think this is the mindset to which a lot of academics refer when they speak of cultures of poverty and segregation, ones in which people do the best they can with what they have and only fight it in ways that have few positive impacts. Massey and Denton argue that because of segregation, these oppositional values are passed between generations and their high concentration makes them the norm, preventing large-scale socioeconomic success. But we have seen throughout history that despite high concentrations of poverty and the prevalence of a culture that is not necessarily in sync with the powerful one, minorities have always fought for better and more just conditions. The necessary changes do come through structural revisions, but those almost always start with grassroots movements, like that of Environmental Justice. No doubt, minorities as a whole are still overwhelmingly disadvantaged, and segregation contributes greatly to it, but we have had our Sojourner Truth’s and Harriet Tubman’s, our W.E.B Dubois’, our Rosa Parks’, our Martin Luther King’s, Cesar Chavez’s and Jesse Jackson’s, and we will continue to have countless organizations who may not be as famous, but who work tirelessly to help people care about and fight for their environmental rights despite underprivileged situations.

A generation
Downplayed for immaturity,
Growing in intelligence
But noticed for our impurities.
We have enough to deal with
On our own.
Peer pressure, stability,
Stress at school and home.

And 2009 is a year of change…
Not to blame Barack,
But the teacher crisis is a shame.
Stimulate this,
I have a package for that,
And yet California
Is stealing from the one thing we lack.

Somehow gang violence
Has replaced education,
So police have replaced
Positive mediation.

While we need more
Textbooks, resources and stuff,
The police haven’t figured out
A ticket’s too much.

Not to say that the concept
Is bad,
But the actuality of it
Has been a bad reality to have.

I almost feel like
I’m a target or somethin’.
As if they’re tryin’ to take me down,
While I focus on what I’m becomin’.
Going to school to make somethin’ of myself,
And that 5 minute “truancy”
Ain’t gonna help.

What does it pay to have a mind today?
To stand up and say that somethin’ is not okay?
Not much, if we have a surplus of police
And one teacher has 55 students to teach.

Why do we have to deal with
Fear and intimidation
Of ticket distribution
And excessive “regulation”?
Yes, I’m talkin’ about tickets,
But that’s not all.
I’ve heard of police
Searching Cleveland* students
Up the wall.
And police eyeing girls
Instead of watching for wrongs,
And being fashionably late
To try and break up a brawl.
And not to say this is a police
Muscle flew,
But there’s a school that’s
Called an education complex.

This is why I fight
Needless to say, we need more…
Teachers, money,
Class subjects to explore.
And it’s good to know
There’s always a solution,
Just give us what we need
Not this psychological pollution.

Rally at City Hall

A number of organizations rallied yesterday at Los Angeles’ inauguration ceremony where Mayor Villaraigosa was inaugurated to his second term.  The Bus Riders Union, the South Asian Network, and the Los Angeles Community Action Network were there in force to challenge the Mayor’s insistence on hiring more police at the expense of city workers, LAUSD teachers, and much needed social services.  Members of the Bus Riders Union were carrying signs advocating “1000 more buses, 1000 less police,” green jobs, youth centers, and bus only lanes.

By continuing to fortify the police/prison state, Mayor Villaraigosa is turning his back on environmental justice.  If the Mayor truly wanted a green city, he would advocate parks over police, public transportation over incarceration, and green jobs over jails.  In a city built on environmental justice and human rights, all residents should have the right to mobility, healthy public spaces, and a quality education.  Police should help support these essential components of healthy neighborhoods by protecting people, not by pre-prisoning youth and policing space on behalf of the powerful.

The LAPD was especially egregious yesterday in their illegal restriction of public space.  A legion of officers on horseback, bikes, and foot were present to surround the peaceful rally.  Officers initially would not let demonstrators access public sidewalks on the block of City Hall, where other members of the general public were allowed to enter unrestricted.  If the LAPD wanted to legally remove demonstrators from the sidewalks around city hall, they would have had to close the block to all members of the general public, not just the demonstrators.  LAPD finally realized they were in the wrong about the public space and allowed demonstrators onto the sidewalks on City Hall’s block.

Individual officers, however, were still misinformed about their legal obligation to allow access to public space.  A couple in particular were adamant that demonstrators not step up on a small curb between the sidewalk and an open grassy area.  Members of the general public were allowed to walk through the grassy area, sit in it, and use the portable toilets there, but demonstrators were told that they were not allowed to enter it, even to use the restrooms.

Overall, the rally and the LAPD’s response were an affirmation of the demonstrators’ message.  If the city has enough police officers to surround peaceful gatherings, keep demonstrators from legally and safely standing on curbs, and maintain a video unit (yes, the LAPD Video Unit was present), then clearly no additional police are needed, especially at the expense of teachers and green jobs.

[Show as slideshow]

Who am I?
Am I really the future like everyone says or just another court case
Below the federal poverty line is where the majority is based
So how can one afford a $250 truancy ticket for being 30 minutes late
Especially since unemployment among minorities is highest in the state
Not to mention that lausd has a 50% high school drop out rate

See, the students here is not to blame
When our public transportation system is lame

But imagine MTA if students had better transportation
To better their chances at receiving an education
And not end up at a police station

Imagine if schools would realize
That being able to criminalize our youth is where the problem lies
Tardiness can be dealt with in other ways

Instead they put us in the hands of the ones that say they “protect and serve”
Giving us tickets for simply being late is a punishment we do not deserve

MTA imagine living in a city where transportaion was priority
And not ticket terriority
Where the handcuffs placed on the rists of youth were considered pelicular
And police unfamiliar

Imagine MTA if you put 500 new expansion buses on the street
And reversed the ’07 fare increase
Maybe the number of tardy students would decrease

Imagine if schools weren’t a pipeline to prison
Introducing our youth in the court system at an early age
Imprisoning them like an animal in a cage
Its time for a change

Imagine how much transportation means to a student striving for success
But daily tardiness is makin u stress, depressed, leading to your future arrest

Imagine MTA being the student disabled from participating in after school activities because the 115 comes once an hour
Or causing you to come home at an undecent hour

Imagine MTA the change transportation can make for me and my peers
A better life in our future years