Los Angeles teacher call for Mexican revolution in the US

Another City Shows Increased Accidents from Red Light Cameras

Peoria would like you to believe that they are alone in experiencing an increase in accidents due to red light cameras, but they are not. They join Los Angeles, Grande Prairie (Canada), Clarksville, TN, Temple Terrace, FL, and now Spokane, WA in recent announcements about the failure of RLC’s to make intersections safer. The Seattle Times reports:

Intersections where Spokane installed red light cameras in 2008 in the name of safety saw an increase in crashes and injuries in the first year of the controversial program.

There were 38 collisions at the three intersections the year after the city began fining violators caught on tape. That’s up from 32 the previous year, according to police collision reports provided to The Spokesman-Review.

Injury accidents at the intersections also rose from 11 the year before to 14 after.

Like the other cities, Spokane officials scrambled for excuses and justifications as to why the citizens should continue to be subjected to intersections where they face a greater chance of injuries so that the city can continue to enjoy what amounted to $108,000 in profit for 2009:

Spokane Mayor Mary Verner called the data “interesting,” but cautioned that it’s too early to make a final judgment on camera enforcement.

“The program has been effective in that we seem to have caught a lot of people running red lights,” Verner said. “If we’re not seeing a decline of injury collisions, then we need to figure out why not.”

If Spokane officials were honest, they’d join the likes of Southland City, CA, San Bernardino, CA in pulling the plug on their camera programs, a move that truly would make their cities safer.

America’s Secret ICE Castles

“If you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.” Those chilling words were spoken by James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement‘s (ICE) Office of State and Local Coordination, at a conference of police and sheriffs in August 2008. Also present was Amnesty International‘s Sarnata Reynolds, who wrote about the incident in the 2009 report “Jailed Without Justice” and said in an interview, “It was almost surreal being there, particularly being someone from an organization that has worked on disappearances for decades in other countries. I couldn’t believe he would say it so boldly, as though it weren’t anything wrong.”

ICE agents regularly impersonate civilians–Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspectors, insurance agents, religious workers–in order to arrest longtime US residents who have no criminal history. Jacqueline Stevens has reported a web-exclusive companion piece on ICE agents’ ruse operations.

• ICE Agents’ Ruse Operations

• Secret Courts Exploit Immigrants

  Jacqueline Stevens: You don’t need to go to Iran or North Korea to find secret courts. Try attending a US immigration hearing.

Pendergraph knew that ICE could disappear people, because he knew that in addition to the publicly listed field offices and detention sites, ICE is also confining people in 186 unlisted and unmarked subfield offices, many in suburban office parks or commercial spaces revealing no information about their ICE tenants–nary a sign, a marked car or even a US flag. (Presumably there is a flag at the Department of Veterans Affairs Complex in Castle Point, New York, but no one would associate it with the Criminal Alien Program ICE is running out of Building 7.) Designed for confining individuals in transit, with no beds or showers, subfield offices are not subject to ICE Detention Standards. The subfield office network was mentioned in an October report by Dora Schriro, then special adviser to Janet Ann Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, but no locations were provided.

Court overturns California ban on violent felons owning body armor

A police advocacy group has criticized an appeals court judgment last week overturning a law that prevented violent felons from owning body armor, saying the ruling will put officers and the public in danger.

The decade-old ban was enacted after the 1997 North Hollywood Shootout, a confrontation between police and two heavily armored bank robbers that injured officers and civilians. The state Legislature passed the ban in 1998 as a measure to protect police.

Thursday’s ruling by the California Court of Appeal for the Second District in Los Angeles overturned the state law, saying it was unconstitutional because the definition of body armor was too vague.

Nazi pigs in Riverside

Three neo-Nazis unfurled large swastika flags outside a Riverside synagogue on Oct. 2 as congregants gathered inside for Shabbat and Sukkot prayers.

The incident was one of several recent encounters between members of the Riverside chapter of the National Socialist Movement (NSM) and the local community. The group is planning a rally in Riverside this weekend, its second in four weeks, to protest illegal immigration. Hundreds of counter-protesters are preparing to oppose them.

Rabbi Suzanne Singer of Temple Beth El said the neo-Nazis paraded on the sidewalk adjacent to the synagogue during the service, leaving only after the last congregant had exited the building. She described the mood inside the synagogue as one of disgust and anger.

Beth El member Kevin Akin, who was present that evening, said the protesters used cell phones to photograph worshippers on their way out.

The neo-Nazis did not come onto synagogue property, Singer said.

Pot Dispensaries Sue L.A. Over Moratorium

Medical Marijuana Collectives’ Suit Comes As the City Struggles to Write a New Ordinance.

A newly formed association of Los Angeles medical marijuana collectives has challenged the city’s efforts to control dispensaries, claiming in a lawsuit that the 2-year-old moratorium is unconstitutionally vague and that the City Council violated state law when it extended the ban until mid-March.

The lawsuit, filed late Monday, is the first to take aim at the city’s attempts to halt the explosive growth in dispensaries.  It comes as the City Council’s Planning Committee continued Tuesday to struggle with a permanent ordinance to replace the moratorium.

Representatives from the city attorney’s office, the district attorney’s office and the Police Department reiterated to the committee their contention that over-the-counter sales of medical marijuana are illegal under state law.

Most of the hundreds of dispensaries in Los Angeles currently sell marijuana that way.

ICE Raids and Police Brutality Teach-In

L.A. County Network Against Police Murder and AbuseICE Raids and Police Brutality Teach-In

• PEOPLE OF COLOR HAVE BEEN BATTLING POLICE BRUTALITY FOR YEARS
• NOW THE POLICE ARE WORKING TO DEPORT PEOPLE AND TEAR APART FAMILIES
• COME LEARN ABOUT THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN ICE AGENTS AND LOCAL POLICE

MONDAY, APRIL 20TH
6:30 PM
AFIBA CENTER
5730 S. CRENSHAW
LOS ANGELES, CA

FOR INFO/RSVP, CONTACT:
DEKA @ 323-810-7112

Posted by Cop Watch Los Angeles – Guerrilla Chapter at 2:39 PM