Category Archives: Blue State Blues

Blue State Blues

$2 billion unemployment fraud in California illustrates a downside of term limits

The State of California has many distinctions and ranks highly among the states in a number of categories. U.S. News’ Best States Rankings places California #19 overall. (Across the board: Health care #7; Education #21; Economy #4; Infrastructure #32; Opportunity #49; Fiscal Stability 42; Crime & Corrections 23; and Natural Environment #5.) The 24/7 Wall St. Best and Worst Run States list places California at #14 among its peers.

But numerous state agencies in California do not have reputations for efficient, error-free management or best customer service experience. Tales of long waits at the DMV are common and after passage of Motor Voter legislation, numerous reports surfaced of difficulties in registering voters.

Nonetheless, it was still shocking to read recent reports of up to $2 billion dollars of fraudulent unemployment claims (associated with 640,000 accounts) at the EDD (the state unemployment agency), including an estimated $400 million in “claims improperly filed in the names of inmates in state prisons,” as was this colorful story from the Los Angeles Times:

When Pasadena police pulled over Robert Sloan Mateer behind the wheel of a slick Maserati SUV, they found $197,711 in cash, methamphetamine and a loaded gun without a serial number. They also found 17 unemployment benefit debit cards loaded with tens of thousands of more dollars in various names.

The stack of cards carried more than $133,000 for unemployment benefits, issued by California’s Employment Development Department under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act passed by Congress in March, according to a five-count federal indictment against Mateer unsealed last month. Many of those cards were in the names of victims of identity theft, according to federal prosecutors.

That Maserati was purchased with some of the unemployment insurance benefits the 30-year-old Pasadena man fraudulently obtained by using stolen identities, the indictment alleges.

A report this week suggested that “the state let its guard down well before the COVID-19 pandemic began in March, failing to keep up with what other states have done to flag bogus claims.”

It is hardly unprecedented for a government agency to be burdened with outmoded technology and processes, though some factors present in California make this situation more likely: The Democratic-dominated state government — responsive to the challenges posed by a highly diverse population, much of it in urban areas, wide disparities of income, expensive housing, unequal access to healthcare and education, and so on — will encounter many compelling demands competing for funding. Purchases of computers and software for the EDD or the DMV — or ensuring that vulnerabilities in the system are identified and remedied — may get short shrift.

But if government (and in particular, if the legislature with responsibility for making funding decisions) is working well, these problems won’t be slighted. Unfortunately, term limits hobble the ability of the legislature to work well.

When we limit the terms of legislators, we limit their opportunity to develop expertise in a policy area. By the time they’ve figured things out, they’re departing the legislature or running for their next office (where that expertise may or may not be relevant). And if they’ve figured things out, they hardly have time — or the clout as first- or second-term legislators to convince their colleagues — to resolve or remedy the problem.

For new legislators (with term limits in place) it’s easier to pick a high-profile area (rather than supportive administrative technology), perhaps a partisan hot topic with the interest of voters and activists, that may get more attention and a following to boost their campaign for their next elective office.

When someone can stay in place for a while, they can devote attention to the lower-profile, but still essential matters of making things work.

And worst of all from the standpoint of voters, when things go wrong, the legislatures, legislative leaders, and even the backbenchers responsible for letting things get out of hand are long gone. They’ve moved on before we can hold them accountable.

An anecdote will provide a contrast: Nicholas Petris served in the California State Senate from 1966 to 1996 (when he was termed out after passage of Proposition 28). He was my state senator for most of those years. Among his several areas of expertise was higher education. His district included Oakland (and the University of California Office of the President) and Berkeley (home of the UC flagship campus). Because of his expertise, he was an effective advocate for UC. As an old school liberal (responsive to competing needs in the state), he didn’t roll over for the University, but he knew what was critical. And — this is as important as advocacy — his expertise enabled him to be an effective and sophisticated critic. No one could pull the wool over his eyes.

Good governance in this area was possible. It’s a good bet that no one in the state senate since Petris departed Sacramento has had as good a handle on issues critical to the University of California. That depth of expertise is a thing of the past.

One of the L.A. Times‘ stories on the EDD scandal references “Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Laguna Beach), chairwoman of the Assembly Committee on Accountability and Administrative Review.” Her Assembly biography notes that she is a businesswoman and community leader, a graduate of Yale University, and is serving her first term.

It’s not impossible that through her leadership (with supportive allies) the problems at EDD (and the DMV) will be resolved before she leaves the Assembly. But Assemblywoman Petrie-Norris doesn’t have much time learn how to use the resources at her command as a new member of the Assembly, to figure things out at the troubled agencies, to interact productively with state leaders inside and outside of the Assembly, to make a public case for her diagnosis and proposed solution, and to ensure that a fix is implemented.

(Image of Maserati SUV from Maserati USA.)

Blue State Blues, Democrats

Our elites are failing us — California edition

Los Angeles Times columnist Robin Abcarian had three questions for Governor Gavin Newsom this week:

Why did Newsom attend his friend’s birthday party on Nov. 6 when he was telling his constituents to do one thing (dine in alone), while he and his wife did another (dined out with friends)?

How sincere was his subsequent apology following the very public spanking he received after the San Francisco Chronicle broke the news that he’d broken the rules?

And why does our governor hang out with a lobbyist who is trying to influence him on behalf of clients?

As question number two suggests, the governor — once he was caught — did apologize. (This puts him into a different category than, say, Donald Trump. But that’s a pretty low bar.)

The governor explained, after getting caught, that though he knows he was wrong, at least the dinner was outside. Perhaps it was, but the party began inside.

And as if this weren’t bad enough, it turns out a couple of officials from the California Medical Association were among the partiers. That would be CMA CEO Dustin Corcoran and the association’s top lobbyist Janus Norman.

On July 2, I posted that Governor Newsom’s quick action in mid-March to impose a statewide shelter-in-place order (following early action by Bay Area counties) “cast California’s political leadership in a good light and protected Californians before the virus had gotten out of control,” but that the guv’s subsequent actions cast doubt on his pledge to base his decisions on science and public health data.

Now we learn that Newsom has one standard for the public and another for himself and his friends. And apparently we can say the same thing about the leadership of the California Medical Association.

And then there’s this: “Legislators from California and other states are gathering for an annual conference in Maui this week despite a spike in COVID-19 cases in the Golden State that resulted in travel warnings by health officials.“

It has been confounding to live in Los Angeles County, which leads California with coronavirus cases and deaths, and trying to follow sensible steps (wearing masks, social distancing, avoiding gatherings — and being painfully separated from family and friends), while rates of infection, hospitalizations, and deaths increased because obviously so many people are flouting these sensible steps.

The political elite in California, by the way, is overwhelmingly Democratic. These folks are committed — just ask them — to science, equality, social justice, and (of course) public health.

Robin Abacrian advises us that the governor paid for his own dinner. “That’s a relief,” she notes, “because if he hadn’t, he’d be in violation of the California law that says lobbyists can only cover $10 of a public official’s meal.“

By the way, entrees at the French Laundry are $350 each. That’s a cool $700 for the Newsoms. Of course we don’t know what wine they had. And I couldn’t say if dessert was extra. Was there a cake?

(Image of one of two daily menus at the French Laundry.)

Blue State Blues, Short & Sweet ... Short & Sour

Us vs. Them law enforcement at L.A. Sheriff’s Department doesn’t inspire confidence

Two Deputy Sheriffs were shot at close range in cold blood in Compton, prompting furious anger from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

The community is also angry. This was an opportunity for LASD to lock arms with the community. Instead, in a series of tweets, the department responded with racist derision (as reported in this morning’s L.A. Times):

Within 24 hours, a longtime Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman posted tweets about the attack that employed racist stereotypes in reference to a reward for information leading to the arrest of the shooter. In one post accompanied by a GIF of a Black man shuffling bills, she wrote: “And here’s the neighborhood homies and enemies ‘bout to come up’ on that $100,000 #REWARD because $100,000 dollas is $100,000 dollas.”

And this:

“My advice to all the ex-girlfriends, side pieces, friends, wifey, ol’ lady, dime, queen, baby momma who know the #ComptonAmbush shooter of 2 LA Sheriff’s about getting that $100,000 #REWARD…,” Navarro-Suarez wrote next to an image of a Black woman saying, “Make that money girl.”

There was also the rough encounter with the diminutive reporter for KPCC, the region’s all news and information NPR station, being roughly jerked around and slammed into the pavement as she was being arrested — apparently for doing her job.

The video doesn’t match the department’s characterization of what happened. And, in another instance of Us vs. Them, Sheriff Alex Villanueva has even gratuitously “singled out Lakers star LaBron James — who has been vocal about systemic racism.”

Columnist Erika D. Smith, casting a wider net of the department’s challenges (“We don’t know much about the ambush of two L.A. County deputies. But we have scapegoats”), adds this:

Through all of this, Villanueva has been stonewalling investigations by L.A. County Inspector General Max Huntsman, cutting off one of the only avenues the public has for accountability and oversight.

LASD’s motto is, A Tradition of Service. The patterns we’re witnessing are hardly examples of fulfilling that mission.

Blue State Blues, Donald Trump, Republicans

We failed to act on warnings of climate change in the 1980s — yet the GOP is in denial in 2020

From Sunday’s Los Angeles Times:

In 2001, a team of international scientists projected that during the next 100 years, the planet’s inhabitants would witness higher maximum temperatures, more hot days and heat waves, an increase in the risk of forest fires and “substantially degraded air quality” in large metropolitan areas as a result of climate change.

In just the past month, nearly two decades after the third United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report was issued, heat records were busted across California, more than 3 million acres of land burned, and in major metropolitan areas, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, air pollution has skyrocketed. — “California’s climate apocalypse,” by Susanne Rust and Tony Barboza

The warnings actually came much earlier, as the story notes:

As one 1988 internal Shell Oil Co. document noted, “by the time the global warming becomes detectable it could be too late to take effective countermeasures to reduce the effects or even to stabilize the situation.”

“I’m only sorry that in 1989, I could not get an audience for what I wanted to communicate,” said Jim Hansen, a retired NASA researcher and early climate change scientist, of testimony he made to Congress about the issue.

The Western United States is burning. We did too little, too late to avoid catastrophe. Yet, as we near the end of the second decade of the 21st century, the President of the United States is a climate change denier, as this exchange between POTUS and Wade Crowfoot, California Secretary of Natural Resources, shows:

THE PRESIDENT: … So, Wade and Thom, please.

MR. CROWFOOT:  Yeah, well, from our perspective, there is amazing partnership on the ground, and there needs to be.  As the governor said, we’ve had temperatures explode this summer.  You may have learned that we broke a world record in the Death Valley: 130 degrees.  But even in Greater LA: 120-plus degrees.  And we’re seeing this warming trend make our summers warmer but also our winters warmer as well.

So I think one area of mutual agreement and priority is vegetation management, but I think we want to work with you to really recognize the changing climate and what it means to our forests, and actually work together with that science; that science is going to be key.  Because if we — if we ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think it’s all about vegetation management, we’re not going to succeed together protecting Californians.

THE PRESIDENT:  Okay.  It’ll start getting cooler.

MR. CROWFOOT:  I wish —

THE PRESIDENT:  You just watch.

MR. CROWFOOT:  I wish science agreed with you.

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I don’t think science knows, actually.

 Thom …

Yet it’s not just the President. He has, with the collaboration of the contemporary Republican Party, systematically forced out or silenced scientists in government. Most recently, he hired a climate change denier for a top role in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as Hurricane Sally heads into the Gulf Coast states.

Add to this that at a time of a raging pandemic that has killed more than 194,000 Americans — and still counting, Trump has undermined the scientists at the CDC.

Listen in vain for objections from GOP leaders in the House or the Senate. Fifty days until November 3.

Blue State Blues, The Way the World Goes 'Round

In California coronavirus still rules — and other issues affecting the Golden State

▪ This morning’s Los Angeles Times reports on public health officials’ guarded optimism that a surging coronavirus may be poised to recede (“California desperate for signs of a turnaround after stunning coronavirus setbacks”). Hope, as much as reason, appears to ground their views. And though there are numerous positive signs, the coronavirus still has the upper hand.

The impact of coronavirus has fallen most heavily on essential workers, residents in institutional settings (nursing homes, prisons), and people of color.

“The epidemic in the West is particularly among the Latinx community. … They are both in urban, as well as rural, agricultural areas,” said Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist and infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco. “There’s tremendous amount of transmission in Southern California, in particular in Orange and Los Angeles counties.”

▪ David Corn reported last week that Steven Miller’s maternal grandmother, Ruth Glosser, died recently of respiratory arrest as a result of a COVID-19 infection, which her son David Glosser (brother to Miller’s mother) has blamed on the Trump administration’s failures to address the threat from coronavirus:

David Glosser is a retired neuropsychologist and passionate Trump critic who has publicly decried Miller for his anti-immigrant policies, and he contends that Trump’s initial “lack of a response” to the coronavirus crisis led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans who might have otherwise survived. In an interview, he says, “With the death of my mother, I’m angry and outraged at [Miller] directly and the administration he has devoted his energy to supporting.”

Mrs. Glosser was living in a Los Angeles area assisted living facility. Los Angeles County, with a population exceeding 10 million, has more coronavirus cases than any other county in the country. Long term care facilities (as noted above) have been especially hard hit in the county and the state.

▪ Former California Senator Barbara Boxer has admitted making a mistake when she voted to establish the Department of Homeland Security. While I agree that this was a mistake, I’m not sure what to make of her belated misgivings:

Here’s where I went wrong: I never imagined that a president would use unconfirmed puppets like acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf and his deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, to terrorize our own citizens in our own country. Our goal then had been to protect our own people, not hurt them, not harm them, not hunt them down on the streets of Portland or any other city. There was no protection built into this bill to stop a power-hungry president from misusing a powerful federal police force, hidden in disparate agencies, controlled by one agency head — the thought never even occurred to me.

No one in 2002 could have predicted Donald Trump’s 2016 election. What about the general possibility of presidential malfeasance or misconduct at some point in the future? Apparently that had “never even occurred” to the former senator, who now asserts, “When we write laws, we must think harder about how they might be misused.” Nine of her Senate colleagues thought things through. (The act passed 90-9, with one senator absent.)

I’m not an impartial critic of the decision to shove scores of agencies under an unwieldy DHS umbrella. I was with the senators (all Democrats, though not all liberals) who voted Nay. I even object to the authoritarian name of the agency. And, yes, Senator Boxer, it was a mistake to pass a bill with “no protection built into” it that places limits on presidential authority.

But the nation was still stunned by the 9-11 attacks, George W. Bush was basking in public approval, and it was easier to justify a Yea vote (and not think too hard about how the law might be misused), than a Nay.

But I don’t buy Boxer’s logic. She notes that Trump has “little regard for the letter of the law or executive restraint.” If we grant this, however, and we’ve been paying attention to Trump’s increasingly egregious conduct, and we’ve seen all his enablers, including Bill Barr (whom she doesn’t mention), doing Trump’s bidding — fussing over legislative detail, or even casting a no vote (in my view) doesn’t prevent Trump’s reckless, unconstitutional decision in 2020 to send federal agents in unmarked military uniforms to Portland to incite and assault Americans protesting in the streets.

Legislative protections only work when political actors accept democratic norms, respect Constitutional authority, and embrace the rule of law. We’ve left that station long ago.

▪ Democrats (including me) often decry the mindless partisanship of Republicans. But sometimes partisanship leads Democrats astray. The election of Alex Villanueva as Sheriff of solid blue Los Angeles County is a case in point (as I’ve related in a previous post).

Long story short: he ran as a Democrat for a nonpartisan office in a year (2018) when Democrats were focused on sending a message to Donald Trump. He defeated Sheriff Jim McDonnell, a former Republican (who had re-registered as an independent). Democratic clubs across the county and the county Democratic Party managed not to notice that Villanueva’s primary source of support was from a deputies’ union that opposed Sheriff McDonnell’s campaign to bring accountability to the agency and rid it of bad cops. (Don’t things look different from the perspective of 2020.) Nor were Democratic groups daunted by the absence of experienced leadership from Villanueva on any issues that Democrats ought to care about.

The new Sheriff has been wrangling with the County Board of Supervisors ever since taking office. The LA Times reports on the latest controversy this morning (“Sheriff’s sexist slur and accusations of ‘blood money’ ramp up feud with L.A. County supervisors”). In a dispute with board chair Hilda Solis he invoked La Malinche (“a name used to demean a woman as a traitor or sellout. It refers to a historical figure in Mexican culture who was the interpreter and slave of the Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés and became a symbol of betrayal for facilitating the conquest of the Aztec empire”).

▪ Finally: Trader Joe’s (founded in Pasadena) made a corporate decision to abandon labeling such as Trader Ming’s, Trader Jose’s, and Trader Giotto’s [or seemed to do so; see Update below] after a 17-year old activist started an online petition that argued, “The Trader Joe’s branding is racist because it exoticizes other cultures — it presents ‘Joe’ as the default ‘normal’ and the other characters falling outside of it.” 

Readers of the LA Times weren’t convinced that TJ’s whimsical marketing was actually racist, as noted by four letters to the editor published earlier this month. Rather, the attitude across the board was, “Are you kidding me?”

On Saturday, Paul Thornton, the letters editor, commented (in introducing additional letters):

“The four letters published July 23 reflected that unanimity, and I thought that such a one-sided presentation of opinions would  provoke at least a few readers who agreed with Trader Joe’s expression of cultural sensitivity to write us. Instead, the letters had the opposite effect….

As of this writing, more than 70 readers have sent us letters on the topic, and not a single one has bid good riddance to Trader Giotto or Trader Jose.”

This one (from an LA reader) was typical:

I am Chinese and a fifth-generation American. My father’s name was Ming, and he always got a chuckle out of seeing “Trader Ming” in the grocery store’s Fearless Flyer newsletter.

Kudos to the young woman who saw a problem and took action. However, I would like to respectfully suggest that there are many problems more worthy of her time and energy.

[Update: Trader Joe’s customers view the chain’s “brand variations” much as LA Times‘ readers do:

A few weeks ago, an online petition was launched calling on us to “remove racist packaging from [our] products.” Following were inaccurate reports that the petition prompted us to take action. We want to be clear: we disagree that any of these labels are racist. We do not make decisions based on petitions.

We make decisions based on what customers purchase, as well as the feedback we receive from our customers and Crew Members. If we feel there is need for change, we do not hesitate to take action.

. . .

Recently we have heard from many customers reaffirming that these name variations are largely viewed in exactly the way they were intended­—as an attempt to have fun with our product marketing. We continue our ongoing evaluation, and those products that resonate with our customers and sell well will remain on our shelves.]

(Image: Governor Gavin Newsom speaks in Stockton as seen on KTLA5.)

Blue State Blues

Trouble in Paradise: California struggles to defeat the coronavirus and change police culture

Defeating the coronavirus

Seven counties in the San Francisco Bay Area issued “sweeping shelter-in-place” orders on March 16. Reaction was predictable: “Public health experts praised the region’s action, while residents, business owners and workers were divided. Some welcomed the restrictions as necessary for the common good, while others feared they could threaten jobs and livelihoods, doing more harm than the virus itself.”

Governor Gavin Newsom followed with a statewide order three days later. These orders, sound steps to ensure public health, cast California’s political leadership in a good light and protected Californians before the virus had gotten out of control.

No longer. In spite of Governor Newsom’s vow, “Protests won’t drive our decision making. Political pressure will not drive our decision making. The science, the data public health will drive our decision making,” he was under intense pressure to reopen (a dynamic in red and blue states alike). People’s livelihoods were at stake. Not to mention government revenues to fund public programs and services.

To to get businesses up and running again and employees back at work, Governor Newsom shifted the criteria for reopening safely and permitted local governments to rush to reopen. By May 26, public health officials were pushing back against Newsom’s increasingly aggressive reopening timeline.

Three and a half months after California began to shut down, and then began to reopen, the Golden State is among numerous states that have experienced an out of control coronavirus. While the rate of infection (15 per 100,000) is not as high as in eight other states — Arizona (43); Florida (34): South Carolina (28); Nevada (22);  Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas  (20 each); and Georgia (19) — California is the nation’s most populous state. The number of people affected, with 237,068 cases and 6,152 total deaths, eclipses the impact felt in smaller states.

In blue states (which promised that data, not political pressure would drive decision making) as well as red (where following Donald Trump’s lead has been the dominant impulse), the United States has become an international outlier. This nation — an international leader in medical innovation — has bungled the response to the pandemic so thoroughly that it is now among the countries whose residents are banned from entering Europe.

Chart from vox.com

Of course the United States’ primary policy failures have been at the national level. While this crisis cried out for national leadership, Trump has steadfastly refused to take on the challenge. That left 50 state governors (plus leaders in D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam) on their own. If that patchwork of policy responses – and the inevitable counterproductive competition among states for PPE and other resources to fight the pandemic – were not challenging enough, Trump told his base that reports of the pandemic were overblown, “fake news” generated by the mainstream media; he rejected wearing facial coverings as signals of disapproval of him; and criticized governors who imposed social distancing restrictions. Thus, simple, sensible measures to defeat the virus have been met with resistance every step of the way – in blue states and red states alike.

Republican men, who are particularly in thrall of Trump, are most likely to spurn sound guidance (when the President spurns it), but other folks (and not just Trump fans) have been misled by the mixed messages communicated by the President of the United States, his administration, his campaign, and a host of media enablers (led by Fox News Channel).

For a few weeks it appeared that states, individually and in concert, were on track to defeat this virus. The absence of national leadership and a unifying message, the refusal to marshal resources and coordinate a response across the country, and Trump’s deliberate undermining of governors determined to protect public health have defeated us. This calamity has starkly revealed Donald Trump’s unfitness for the office he holds. He is incapable of performing his job and declines to try.

While other countries have found a great measure of success, the United States will be wrestling with coronavirus for the rest of Trump’s first term – and well beyond.

Changing police culture

For many weeks across the country we’ve seen protests seeking to end pervasive discrimination based on race, with a special focus on law enforcement practices and policies that put Black men, especially, and Black women in harm’s way. Especially since 911, many police forces have leaned toward militarization, which clashes with more collaborative models of community policing.

Obviously, this problem isn’t confined to red states. The Los Angeles Police Department has a history of both militaristic and racially biased law enforcement. In 1965 (Watts) and again in 1992 (Rodney King), Black neighborhoods, sparked by anger over policing in the city, erupted in violence. While neighborhoods didn’t burn after the O.J. Simpson acquittal (1995), Black reaction to the verdict was undoubtedly influenced by LAPD Officer Mark Fuhrman’s taped interviews featuring racial slurs, tales of police brutality, and boasts of planting evidence.

LAPD circa 2020 is more than a generation removed from Daryl Gates’ department. We have seen significant changes since then. But there are still police shootings of unarmed suspects, including mentally ill individuals, and during street protests following George Floyd’s murder, there were numerous instances of police conduct that resembled the meting out of ‘street justice’ or torrents of uncontrolled anger, rather than disciplined law enforcement.

Image from the Telegraph on YouTube.

In full-page ads, which ran in the Los Angeles Times, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Washington Post, the San Jose Police Officers Association, the San Francisco Police Officer Association, and the Los Angeles Police Protective League calling for police reforms: “No words can convey our collective disgust and sorrow for the murder of George Floyd,” said the statement, continuing, “We have an obligation as a profession and as human beings to express our sorrow by taking action.”

The statement acknowledged the existence of racist police officers but pledged, “Police unions must root out racism wherever it rears its ugly head and root out any racist individual from our profession.”

On the same day the ad ran, the union had an entirely different message (“Facing criticism, police union unleashes its ‘pit bull,'”) for its 9,900 members:

“The CHIEF! Never sell out and back the troops!” said a Facebook post by Los Angeles Police Protective League board member Jamie McBride. The message accompanied a video of Daryl F. Gates, a former LAPD chief who ran a department plagued by excessive force and brutal relations with communities of color.

That kind of defiant pose has become a trademark for McBride over a 30-year career in the Los Angeles Police Department and six years on the board of the powerful union, which uses campaign donations to influence city elections. The Police Protective League puts McBride in front of the news media to signal that rank-and-file officers have had enough of the city’s left-leaning political leadership.

The veteran detective exudes the swagger and tribal brio of the old-school LAPD. He was a street cop with a disproportionate number of on-duty shootings and an investigator who fought management discipline (including his own) and won, and he remains a sometime actor who plays street thugs and tough cops in movies and on television.

His frequent and public Facebook posts yearn for a bygone era when the LAPD wasn’t under attack by what old-timers view as a cadre of timid chiefs, desk-bound geeks and opportunistic politicians.

A 2018 post on McBride’s Facebook page, touting the “good ol days,” features an armored vehicle, gunfire, tasers, body slams, car crashes, rivers of blood, and corpses – all to the tune of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter.’ At least not all the lawbreakers are Black or Latino.

“What you see in this video is a joy in search-and-destroy policing. … It’s not about protection. It’s not about safety. It’s warrior enforcement,” said Connie Rice, a civil rights lawyer who has worked with the department on reform measures.

Of officers like McBride, Rice added: “That’s the kind of policing they enjoy. That’s what they live for. … What the protesters are saying is: ‘Time’s up for that. It’s over.’ The consent of the governed for that kind of policing is done.”

McBride said that the video shows an earlier era of policing but that he acknowledges a need for change. “We as a department have instituted hundreds of reforms, yet there is more we can do,” he said.

The phrase, “hundreds of reforms,” is a tell, suggesting that it’s time to consider something more fundamental than a checklist of ‘reforms’ to eliminate us-against-them policing. Although Los Angeles is hardly ready to defund the police, the City Council just voted to cut $150 million from the police budget.

Supporters of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, who have proposed cuts of 90 to 100% of police funding, derided the action:

“That is literally pocket change,” said Rebecca Kessler, a resident of Van Nuys who called in to the council this week. “It’s a slap in the face. You need to defund the police, take way more money, put way more money into these programs.”

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa reached his goal of increasing the size of LAPD to 10,000 officers in 2013. That’s not that many cops for the sprawling city of Los Angeles. At the time, I regarded this as sound policy. With today’s budget cut, the force will eventually fall to 9,757.

When the troubled city of Camden, New Jersey disbanded its police department in 2013, and reconstituted it as a county agency, it saved money (by withdrawing from a union contract) and the force grew from 250 to 400. That’s a model I might have endorsed a month ago – staffing up and retraining.

But the route Los Angeles seems headed for – pioneered by Eugene, Oregon in 1989! – may be more promising. When residents call 911, the dispatcher has a choice: send police (if an armed response is needed); otherwise, send a team consisting of a medic and a crisis worker – from the nonprofit, Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS).

Last year CAHOOTS handled 20% of 911 calls in Eugene and the neighboring city of Springfield. Denver and Olympia, Washington have embraced a similar model.

In Los Angeles many 911 calls involve mental health crises, substance abuse, homeless individuals — often nonviolent situations. There is no compelling reason for armed police officers to respond to these calls. Further, the police are receptive to an approach that designates another responder.

Los Angeles police union officials have welcomed the idea of spreading around calls for service to other agencies more equipped to handle mental health-related calls. In 2019, LAPD statistics show, officers responded to 1.9 million calls for service, with 20,758 of those related to mental-health issues, a 2 percent increase from the previous year.

“We have gone from asking the police to be part of the solution, to being the only solution for problems they should not be called on to solve in the first place,” wrote the authors of the Los Angeles City Council that directed city staffers to look to Eugene for answers.

(Image: KCAL.)