Before we launch into the very interesting conversation about crime in LA, we report on Norwalk Slow Down Days. With all the construction going on, I alas, have not been able to zip through town with my usual alacrity, so I’m somewhat bemused that we are focusing on slowing down, but in the spirit of enforcing the laws we have, I bring you:
Slow Down Days
June 15 - 21, 2008
And as I scanned the press release, I noticed zero tolerance. Zoinks, the Mystery Machine will have to behave. So be careful or b2. The release:
With the summer driving season starting this weekend Norwalk Mayor Richard A. Moccia and Police Chief Harry W. Rilling have announced “Slow Down Days”, a traffic enforcement program with an emphasis on promoting public safety and reducing the motor vehicle accident rate. Motorists are also reminded to be conscious of their speed as children are being dismissed for summer from area schools.
Starting on Sunday June 15th and running until Saturday June 21st additional officers in marked cars equipped with radar units will be deployed throughout the city to increase public awareness. Officers will focus their attention on speeding, as well as red light, stop sign and cell phone violations. Vehicles with tinted windows and loud exhaust systems in violation of state law with also addressed.
In addition, a DUI / Sobriety Checkpoint is planned for Saturday evening, June 21st from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. on West Avenue near Reed Street. This DUI / Sobriety Checkpoint is part of the Comprehensive DUI Enforcement Program sponsored by the State of Connecticut Department of Transportation.
Travel at safe and reasonable speeds on streets and highways promote the city’s productivity and motor vehicle related safety. Speeding– exceeding posted limits or driving too fast for conditions—involves many factors including public attitudes, personal behavior, vehicle performance, roadway characteristics, enforcement strategies, and speed zoning. Nevertheless, speeding on the nation’s roadways is a contributing factor in as many as one third of all fatal crashes. Fatal crashes are only a small part of the total safety picture. In addition, many people are injured in speed-related crashes. The economic cost to the American society of these crashes was estimated to be $ 250 billion per year in 2007.
Speeding is a significant threat to public safety and warrants priority attention. The Norwalk Police Department will undertake a zero-tolerance enforcement operation during Norwalk’s “Slow-Down Days” observed June 15th thru June 21st. Chief Harry W. Rilling has directed police commanders to increase enforcement of speeding violations through the use of radar surveillance. Radar equipped patrol cars will be assigned to various areas of Norwalk during hours when speeding violations are most likely to occur. There will be increased speed enforcement activities conducted 24 hours a day, aside from the routine motor vehicle violations regularly cited by patrol officers.
Okay, now onto the LA Times. Relevant graf:
It’s important that people be well informed when they are forming their opinions about crime in the city,” Beck said. “What we don’t want to happen is for them to draw conclusions that then become the reality.”
Well we can certainly apply that all around here in good olde Norwalk now can’t we. People should be informed. I hope we get information out there, but sometimes it seems that facts are in short supply. So we look to other cities facing similar issues for context:
Los Angeles’ two top lawmen are increasingly at odds over the extent to which gang violence is being fueled by racial hatred.
Police Chief William J. Bratton and his top deputies have long cautioned that race-motivated violence remains fairly rare and that gang feuds over turf and drugs are the leading causes of such violence.
But over the last few months, Sheriff Lee Baca has publicly voiced a more ominous view of violence between Latino and black gangs. This week, he went further than ever, saying in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece that “some of L.A.’s so-called gangs are really no more than loose-knit bands of blacks or Latinos roaming the streets looking for people of the other color to shoot.”
Baca’s comments have prompted debate in law enforcement circles — with some Los Angeles Police Department officials questioning some of his assertions.
“The sheriff is saying we need to examine this issue in the light of day to keep it from spreading because we won’t be able to address or reverse it, if we deny it,” said civil rights attorney Connie Rice. “Chief Bratton is saying something equally valid, which is if you overemphasize race, you may be pouring jet fuel on the fire.”
Baca, in an interview Thursday, said he was speaking out because he considers racial animus among various gangs a serious problem that is not being discussed enough. He acknowledged that the Sheriff’s Department doesn’t have statistics showing a major rise in race-related violence but believes it is a growing problem. Baca this week announced that his department would create a Gang Emergency Operations Center to better deal with such violence.
“We need to talk about this in a more public way,” Baca said, adding he had heard about the tension from community activists, beat cops, gang intervention officers and deputies who guard the county’s jails. “It’s a small percentage but a significant percentage.”
But LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck said he disagreed with Baca’s conclusions about race and gang violence.
Beck, who heads the department’s anti-gang efforts and homicide detectives, said race is a major factor in the violence in county and state prisons, and is a problem on school campuses. But, he said, Baca was wrong to say that those factors are at play with gangs on the streets.
“His reality is largely formed by what is happening in the jails,” Beck said. “But I think you have to look at violence on several different levels. . . . In the world of serious gang crime in the city — which accounts for the vast majority of gang activity in the county — race is not the primary factor. Are there isolated instances? Yes. But are gang members commonly going around to kill and harm people because they are another race? Absolutely not.”
A Times examination of slayings in 2007 largely backed Bratton’s assertion about the racial factor in gang killings. The Times analyzed the circumstances of 562 Latino and black homicides from 2007 in which the race of the suspects was known, including all LAPD and sheriff’s cases, plus those of smaller police agencies such as Long Beach and Inglewood. The analysis found that nearly 90% of both black and Latino homicide victims had been killed by suspects of their own race.
The issue has been particularly sensitive for Bratton and his command staff in recent months.
So a crime post just in time for slow down days. Keep the crime in the posts and off the streets.
source: LA TIMES, Bratton and Baca disagree on role of race in gang violence , By Andrew Blankstein and Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers , June 13, 2008
