By: Marvin McCoy
Curren Price, Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martinez, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Heather Hutt, Katy Yaroslavsky, Nithya Raman, and the list goes on and on.
What list you may ask?
The list of politicians who parade law enforcement out like a human pinata for public display to invoke emotions and/or sympathy votes, while exposing the pain and trauma of seemingly repetitive and chronic documented stories of murder, beatings, and routine violations of civil rights against usually poor people of color in exchange for donations and votes.
The Los Angeles Times David Zahniser wrote this article When it comes to L.A.’s police chief, some council members are keeping quiet and in the spirit of Arsenio Hall, these are the things that make you go hmm…
Last week, the deadline for the council to intervene on Moore’s fate came and went without a peep from the LAPD’s outspoken City Hall critics.
Councilmember Curren Price, while seeking a third term, denounced the LAPD’s botched detonation of illegal fireworks in his district, which severely damaged homes and injured 17. First-time candidate Eunisses Hernandez voiced outrage over the fatal police shooting of a 14-year-old in North Hollywood. Hugo Soto-Martinez, another political newcomer, railed against the number of deadly police shootings overall.
All three won their races. But after joining the council in December, all three went quiet on perhaps the most critical law enforcement decision made so far this year in L.A.: the Police Commission’s vote to reappoint Police Chief Michel Moore.
Soto-Martinez has repeatedly declined to give his assessment of Moore, saying Friday he has been focused on changes to the LAPD’s disciplinary process. Over the last month, Councilmembers Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Heather Hutt, Katy Yaroslavsky and Nithya Raman also did not respond to inquiries about their assessment of Moore.
When it comes to L.A.’s police chief, some council members are keeping quiet
This site has masterfully and with laser-like precision exposed the hypocrisy of Board of Supervisors member Holly Mitchell and her silence as it relates to the below-average performance of Los Angeles County’s newly “selected ” Sheriff Robert Luna but I would be remiss to not mention the gross mishandling of LAPD Chief’s Michel Moore’s 5-year reappointment as LAPD Chief although his record as Chief prior to his appointment defies the logic of this appointment?
Robert Luna ran on a platform of eradicating deputy gangs to secure the Sheriff’s seat from Alex Villanueva and when it came time for show and tell Feb. 15 he told a reporter no deputies were on his radar as being identified as a deputy gang member even though Inspector General Max Huntsman said he had a list of 41 names.
“I have no names as I stand before you today,” said Luna, to a hand-selected crowd of reporters with credentials to be in the room who conveniently left that out of their reporting.
And the new “savior” of the Sheriff’s Department, Eileen Decker, is in on it because she voted for Moore’s second term. This means with all of her alleged genius she’s done nothing to reform LAPD so why is she being designated to be the “reform Queen” of the nation’s largest law enforcement agency? A position Luna just asked the Civilian Oversight Commission to fund.
With that being said America, especially Black America had a unique opportunity to dramatically transform law enforcement across the country, and the people in a position to enforce that change in particular egregiously abdicated their duty in the City of Los Angeles by not allowing a top to bottom assessment of LAPD upon the newly elected Mayor Karen Bass’ swearing in and picking a Chief that not only represented the highly controversial LAPD police commissions vision but that of residents and the City of Los Angeles as a whole.
Reappointing, or declining to reappoint, Los Angeles police Chief Michel Moore may be the most consequential decision city leaders make. They should not move forward without serious fact-finding, consultation and deliberation.
Los Angeles Times Editorial Board
If I can offer two words to the newly elected Mayor or better yet a name, Bass’ mishandling of Chief’s Moore reappointment, eerily reminds me of the mishandling of former Los Angeles Mayor Jim Hahn when he misled the public about reappointing former Police Chief Bernard Parks to another 5-year term only to renege on his promise and ultimately paid the price as he sought re-election with Black voters handing the former Mayor a stinging loss as a result of a perceived betrayal to the Black community who had deep respect and admiration for the former Chief, eventually electing the former Chief to the City Council.
I’m sorry but it needed to be said and I invite 2urbangirls readers to read the scathing rebuke by the Los Angeles Times in which they point out that despite multiple opportunities given by the Los Angeles Times to make a comment or assessment on Chief’s Moore appointment and his leadership that politicians whom recently won re-election, particularly those of the “left” leaning wing of the City Council, whom routinely criticized Chief Moore and LAPD, including Curren Price in which LAPD notoriously botched an operation in which a controlled explosion authorized by Chief Moore that not only caused substantial damages to residential homes but still traumatizes this community til this day.
When it comes to L.A.’s police chief, some council members are keeping quiet there’s comfort in knowing that residents South of the 10 aren’t paying $3.66 per day to purchase the Los Angeles Times to read these articles but they read 2UrbanGirls who is bringing it to their attention.
All of the Black Los Angeles city council members were silent when Zahniser was calling about the topic we are all discussing around the kitchen table and the Black community should keep this in mind when they ask for your vote for re-election or as they attempt to seek higher office.
Finally, the reappointment of Chief Moore defies logic and we deserve answers because allowing these politicians to remain criminally silent on issues such as these should shock the conscience of the Black community where we stop pointing the fingers solely at law enforcement but also at the elected officials we elect to represent us because history has proven far too long and particularly most recently that Black politicians and their self-serving ways have been the real impediment to Black progress in Los Angeles and we should be tired of it.
Marvin McCoy is a lifelong Inglewood resident and can be reached at therealmccoymarketinggroup@gmail.com or on Twitter @MarvinM83905936
