Last night, about half a mile from the scene of Saturday's assault, a man was arrested.
In Montecity Heights, danger is an ever-present threat. It comes from the inside out and back again from the outside in.
A woman was stabbed to death in her home after an argument escalated around 9:50pm.
The man who did it (if not her husband than something close) also stabbed his own son, a small 13 year old boy.
The woman is dead. The boy is not dead but his injuries are life-threatening.
What madness occured in that house while the rest of us settled down in our beds, thinking of work and errands. Did he grab her while she screamed- the boy looking on? Did he kill her in a fit of rage without intending to, then, horrified by what his son witnessed, decide to kill the boy as well?
What lives are these in Montecito Heights? What lives are led? What desparation?
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Hand Saved To Make A Fist
The driver's name, the one who ran away from police and hid underneath another car, is Alfredo Escobedo.
"The incidents, as you know, are disturbing, and they really tear the fabric of a civilized society... [the police] are the thin line that protects our communities and our children from these people who are terrorizing our communities," says Jose Huizar, the LA City Councilman whose district hosted Saturday's incident.
Porras grabbed at his handheld radio and yelled into it "Officer down, officer down, shots fired".
"It looked like his hand was going to drop off."
USC surgeons were able to save Tuck's hand with skin grafts and tissue from his leg.
The LA Times writes that yesterday the two men met at USC University Hospital. Officer John Porras gave his wounded partner a hug, then didn't let go. Someone had to pry him away from the 25 year old Tuck.
Police Chief Bratton seems to be the only one calling this an assasination attempt- implying that it was premeditated and a piece of a larger war against the police department, waged by gang members and other violent poor people, no longer satisfied with minding their own simple crimes. Now these violent terrorizers are organizing and attacking the LAPD.
To his credit, Bratton has done a lot to clean up gang violence in the city, but now the number of violent crimes has gone up, not down.
What is the answer? Is a strict hold on gang warfare the answer? Certainly a lax hold hadn't done any good. The question remains: how could a system of incentives be incorporated, since penalties only work for so long?
"He's [been] replaying it in his mind. He talked about that this morning," Bratton said. "He said, 'I have been running it through my mind, is there anything I could have done different?' And he says, 'I cannot think of anything I could have done different than what I did.'"
Maybe the real solution has nothing to do with the LAPD. Perhaps to solve gang violence the city would need to create a structure of education and empty jobs to incorporate graduates.
In other words, maybe the police shouldn't be the line that protects our communities and our children from "these people" who are terrorizing our communities. Maybe we will be one step closer to finding a solution as soon as people like Jose Huizar start realizing that "these people" ARE our communities and our communities are flawed structurally.
But how effective would a system of education be? How do you offer someone a life within our society's accepted system of living? Working long hours, making little money, barely able to manage living. Once a man crosses over and sees a world with real options to make it, it is hard to go back to our society despite the consequences. This is a world full of people who learned from a very young age that they could never be president.
The rest of us learn this after we've already invested too much into the system that we could never go back. Our rebellions are smaller.
"The incidents, as you know, are disturbing, and they really tear the fabric of a civilized society... [the police] are the thin line that protects our communities and our children from these people who are terrorizing our communities," says Jose Huizar, the LA City Councilman whose district hosted Saturday's incident.
Porras grabbed at his handheld radio and yelled into it "Officer down, officer down, shots fired".
"It looked like his hand was going to drop off."
USC surgeons were able to save Tuck's hand with skin grafts and tissue from his leg.
The LA Times writes that yesterday the two men met at USC University Hospital. Officer John Porras gave his wounded partner a hug, then didn't let go. Someone had to pry him away from the 25 year old Tuck.
Police Chief Bratton seems to be the only one calling this an assasination attempt- implying that it was premeditated and a piece of a larger war against the police department, waged by gang members and other violent poor people, no longer satisfied with minding their own simple crimes. Now these violent terrorizers are organizing and attacking the LAPD.
To his credit, Bratton has done a lot to clean up gang violence in the city, but now the number of violent crimes has gone up, not down.
What is the answer? Is a strict hold on gang warfare the answer? Certainly a lax hold hadn't done any good. The question remains: how could a system of incentives be incorporated, since penalties only work for so long?
"He's [been] replaying it in his mind. He talked about that this morning," Bratton said. "He said, 'I have been running it through my mind, is there anything I could have done different?' And he says, 'I cannot think of anything I could have done different than what I did.'"
Maybe the real solution has nothing to do with the LAPD. Perhaps to solve gang violence the city would need to create a structure of education and empty jobs to incorporate graduates.
In other words, maybe the police shouldn't be the line that protects our communities and our children from "these people" who are terrorizing our communities. Maybe we will be one step closer to finding a solution as soon as people like Jose Huizar start realizing that "these people" ARE our communities and our communities are flawed structurally.
But how effective would a system of education be? How do you offer someone a life within our society's accepted system of living? Working long hours, making little money, barely able to manage living. Once a man crosses over and sees a world with real options to make it, it is hard to go back to our society despite the consequences. This is a world full of people who learned from a very young age that they could never be president.
The rest of us learn this after we've already invested too much into the system that we could never go back. Our rebellions are smaller.
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