Man: You let me go or you die.
BID employee: Why would I die?
Man: You let me go or I’ll get hurt.
BID employee: How are you gonna hurt us?
Man: [Unintelligible] … but you will let me go, it’s not valid.
BID employee: Well we can’t let you go, that would be you, uh, trying to subvert the legal process…by your…
Man (interrupting): Whaddaya mean you can’t let me go? OK [Unintelligible]
BID employee: We’re required by law to deliver you to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Man: For what?
BID employee: We, we tried to keep you out of that business. You kept disrupting the business…
Man: [Unintelligible] Why did you fucking put me in this car, you punks? What if I kick you in your head right now? What if I kick you right in your head, you little punk? What if I kick you right in your head? You let me out of this car, now. And you don’t bring me to jail or I will kick you somewhere.
BID employee: OK, we’ll take you to the office and get you out there.
Man: You better…you better not put me in no jail cell, punk.
BID employee: OK, we won’t…we won’t.
Man: I didn’t say nothing wrong to you or him. I’m arguing with him. I argued with that last one in the store. I did nothing illegal or wrong.
BID employee: OK.
Man: Now you’re fucking harassing me. Don’t you fucking take me to jail in this car. If you harass me at all I won’t forgive you. I never will. You’re gonna pay. You’re gonna pay with your life. Cause I’m gonna kill you with a knife. [Lengthy unintelligible part]
BID employee: You know, when you whisper, I can’t hear you. My hearing’s bad.
Man: [Continuing to be unintelligible]
BID employee: You’re gonna find me and burn me up? Is that what you said?
Man: [Continuing to be unintelligible]
BID employee: Ah, you realize you’re making terrorist threats, right?
422. (a) Any person who willfully threatens to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with the specific intent that the statement, made verbally, in writing, or by means of an electronic communication device, is to be taken as a threat, even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out, which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made, is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety or for his or her immediate family’s safety, shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year, or by imprisonment in the state prison.
The highlighted text shows clearly that in order to commit this crime, the victim has to actually be “in sustained fear for his or her own safety.” You can see from the video that the BID patrollies are not, in fact, in sustained fear of this mentally ill, physically restrained man. If there’s no fear, there’s no crime. So they’re just making stuff up when they accuse him of breaking that particular law. They might as well accuse him of betraying classified information to the Martians.
Do these minions not know the law? That seems implausible. Do they not care what the law is? That’s evident. No one goes around wearing a gun and arresting people for imaginary crimes unless they have complete contempt for the law. And this is not the first trumped-up and delusional accusation of terrorist/criminal threats that we’ve written about. Purposeful ignorance of the elements of this crime seem to be a standard arrow in the BID patrols’ quiver.
Does their employer, the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, care that their gunmen arrest people for imaginary things? We would guess, based on appearances, that as long as the BID patrol keeps harassing the homeless and doesn’t bring shame and liability down on anyone’s head, the HPOA doesn’t care how they do it. They ought to care, though. If not for the sake of human decency, at least for the sake of the law, which they too seem to have nothing but contempt for.
The rest of the dialogue, if you’re interested:
Man: [Continuing to be unintelligible]
BID employee: What’s the question?
Man: Why did you [Unintelligible] and put me in a car [Unintelligible]?
BID employee: Oh, we gave you a 24 hour trespass notice
Man: You didn’t give me no trespass notice [unintelligible] cause you ain’t really gonna do it this time. I want [unintelligible]. You better know that. [unintelligible]
BID employee: You can’t…You gave us no option.
Man: OK. [unintelligible]
BID employee: Why do you keep using…?
Man: You better have that right, punk. You get killed with a nigger that [unintelligible]. And you can get hurt bad if you lose your money [unintelligible] money at all. [unintelligible], right? You better know that. What if I [unintelligible]?
BID employee: You’re whispering again. I can’t hear you.
Man: [unintelligible] Would you like it, punk, if I kicked your head right now? [unintelligible] would you?
Other BID employee (to radio): Yeah, we’re standin’ by, further en route to Highland and Franklin.
Man: Would ya? [unintelligible] Answer me.
BID employee: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.
Man: OK, you don’t want to admit it if I say something, but you let me out of this car or I’m gonna kill you both [unintelligible].
Other BID employee: You’re gonna kill us both with a knife?
Man: [unintelligible]
BID employee: If we don’t let you out of the car you’re gonna kill us both?
Man: If you don’t release me [unintelligible]
BID employee: Are ya really that mean?
Man: [unintelligible]
BID employee: Three twenty six. I’m stopping…uh…number one.
Image of the man who didn’t make criminal threats is a screenshot from a video which is a public record, and is therefore itself a public record. The copyright status of the picture of Osama bin Laden is unclear, but we’d like to see a DMCA takedown for it…come at us, habibi! We got it from Wikimedia.
