Listening: "Is Chicago, Is not Chicago," Soul Coughing
"Scarlet's Walk," Tori Amos
"Jet Fighter," Butthole Surfers
"How Fortunate the Man with None," Dead Can Dance
"Carmen," Antonio de Lucena
"My Console," Eiffel 65
Mentally Replaying: last night's panel
I'd rather be: a social firebrand
Enjoying: taking a day off the diet

Last night Which Way LA? went "on the road" to the FAME Renaissance building that houses the new site for the First AME church of LA. The public was invited to attend and ask questions of the panel, which consisted of Jairo, an ex-gangbanger, Police Chief William Bratton, AME Rev. Cecil Murray, and Father Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest of Jobs for a Future/Homeboy Enterprises. The whole thing was moderated by the venerable (and tall!) Warren Olney.

Molasses and I grabbed the opportunities and headed out into think evening traffic. The building is as much for business development in the West Adams as for the church, and thus I was really lost for a while. (We drove by it three times.) Is it really so hard to stick a cross on the outside of a church?

While it was supposed to be a panel to address concerns of new problems with gangs most people (like me) took the opportunity to take a good look at the new chief and hear what he has to say.

It was a KCRW event but it was sponsored primarily by the First AME church and so most of the people were part of the congregation. This would soon make itself plain as the "Amens" and the "mh-hmm, that's right!" grew in fervor and frequency. Many of the people who got a chance on the mic chose to posture and preach rather than pose a question, but those that did have questions, mostly had them for Chief Bratton and they were fairly tough questions.

...I came not to praise Cesar but to bury him...

Though I must admit Chief Bratton faced a tough crowd. Folks who were scared of their own kids and didn't see the police as any kind of helpful presence. But they started out plenty friendly. But reporters were there and they wanted to see him squirm. He's called the gang problem worse than the mafia in New York. Last night he took the time to clarify that this time gangs are worse than terrorists (actually since this country doesn't have a legal definition of terrorists the statement either invalidates itself or the gangs should be considered terrorists since they get their way by inspiring fear). A guy in the back waved around a booklet written by Amnesty International damned Bratton's campaign in New York for increasing reports of police brutality. He asked the chief to clarify why the NYPD had to pay a $50 million dollar settlement on behalf of something like 50,000 people. (I forget the exact details.) The huffed and puffed that the 72-page report was not worthy of notice, that the numbers were pulled out of context - the force was something like 40,000 officers, there were a little over 5000 complaints made to an independent citizen review board, which found about 5% of them worthy of action.

He never answered the question about the settlement.

I really want to give him a break. But you know, this place is kinda scary and I want to know, just like everyone else in that room, what he was going to do about it. His answer seemed to primarily revolve around the express job descriptions of a standard beat cop, which was to find the perp and haul him in.

He said he wanted to work with the community to reduce instances of gang activity, but no one could get him to up and say what or how he was going to do that. The Rev Murray had to inturrupt him at one point, amid catcalls, and state that several local ministers had met with the chief and his deputies to talk about community issue.

The chief invited anyone who wanted to meet with the LAPD (I seriously doubt it would be with the chief himself) to make an appointment with a lieutenant who was present.

So all in all, everyone has their work cut out for them. But between his Bostonion accent (yep, I was thinking "Faith would HATE this guy!") and a smirk that got deeper the louder the posturing and anger got, I think Chief Bratton has the most work to do. Primarily on himself.