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Los Angeles
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L.A. Leaders Favor Gangs Over Our Kids
by Doug McIntyre [radio
host/scriptwriter] 5/14/08
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I am unapologetically enraged at the brutal indifference of this city to an epidemic of murder. We need candidates and money to challenge every member of the City Council. We need new political blood to stop the bloodshed in the streets of L.A. The current crowd abused the privilege.
Last week, the Shaws, Anita and Jamiel Sr., addressed the City Council urging the passage of "Jamiel's Law" in the hope their son's death may not have been in vain. Based on the rude and contemptible response the council members showed the Shaws and their supporters, looking to the council may be the ultimate exercise in futility.
So while Anita, an Army sergeant, packed to rejoin her unit in the Middle East, Jamiel Sr. is left to explain to their surviving son, 9-year-old Thomas, why those awful men and women at City Hall wouldn't listen.
"Why are they laughing, Daddy?"
Why, indeed?
There is nothing funny about the deadly wagon-circling that the council performed in the aftermath of Jamiel's death. This council and this mayor appear committed to protect the status quo, even protect the 18th Street Gang if necessary, rather than reform Special Order 40 to prevent another slaughter.
"Facts are stubborn things," said John Adams. Yes, facts are stubborn but not nearly as stubborn as the power structure of Los Angeles. America's second-largest city is governed by gang enablers.
In Councilman Ed Reyes' world, the only businesses that
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can succeed in L.A. require illegal labor. Who cares if the poor fight it out with the even poorer?
The church needs new fannies for the pews and the priests, so Cardinal Roger Mahony will continue to roll out the welcome mat. Sure they're illegals, but they're Catholic illegals!
Jose Huizar and Tony Cardenas need more poor people so they can demand ever-greater sums of tax dollars, so they can hire ever-greater numbers of patronage employees, so they can have ever-greater power.
The L.A. Times and local television will continue to peddle the myth of unity through multiculturalism. They'll continue to market phony feel-goodism as long as the PC script is followed.
But the Shaws are off-script. Their grief is ad-libbed - their anger a righteous improvisation.
Had Jamiel Shaw II been murdered by an Aryan Brotherhood gang member, I assure you Councilman Eric Garcetti would have found the parliamentary skills to allow more than "50 words" of response.
Had Jamiel's killer been white, Council members Tom LaBonge, Wendy Greuel, Jack Weiss, Dennis "Paparazzi" Zine, Greig Smith, Herb Wesson Jr., Jan Perry, Richard "It's talk radio's fault" Alarc n and Bill "It's talk radio's fault" Rosendahl would have been piled like a rugby scrum trying to be first to the microphone to decry the horror of white gang racists.
But when a black boy is killed by a Mexican boy, and the black boy's parents tell the tragic story of the 100percent-preventable murder to talk radio and Fox News Channel - to Satan himself, Bill O'Reilly, no less! - well, these people are not to be trusted or respected. These people must be discredited and, ultimately, vilified. O'Reilly showed respect.
Greig Smith says he opposes Special Order 40, but what can he do? He's all alone. Jamiel Sr. will be all alone as he raises his youngest son while Anita continues to serve her country in Iraq.
Smith says he objects to Walter Moore's "Jamiel's Law," but does he propose something better? At least Moore is trying. The City Council, once played for farce, now plays as tragedy.
Smith says Moore is exploiting the Shaws for political gain. Isn't this the same City Council that used the death of an L.A. firefighter to justify Department of Water and Power rate hikes? The only thing the City Council does well is exploit tragedy for political gain. "Jamiel's Law" will save lives.
If the government of this city will not act when the son of a soldier is killed by an illegal-immigrant gangbanger who had been in jail 24 hours prior, while the mother of the victim serves her country in a war zone, then I ask a simple question: Who has to die before the government will act? God forbid it's the son or daughter of a council member. I repeat, God forbid.
We need more men and women like Moore. We need citizens of courage who will offer voters an alternative; I don't know what Moore would be like as mayor, but I am confident he would not consider the 18th Street Gang part of his "base."
The Villaraigosa administration will be remembered as the Vichy government of Los Angeles - a time when the mayor and City Council looked the citizens in the eye and said, "We choose the gangs over your children." Quite a legacy.
Yes, I'm angry. I'm damned angry. CRO
first appeared at L.A. Daily News
copyright
2008 Doug McIntyre
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