Sixty percent of comatose Californians and virtually one hundred percent of the non-comatose are aware that last year’s Proposition 47 is causing massive freakouts amongst California’s cops, the zillionaire elite who rely on those cops to stave off the slavering locustoid hordes of marauding homeless people who inhabit their fevered imaginations, and the zillionaire elite’s hired flunkies, among whom are to be found the staffs of the Business Improvement Districts of Los Angeles. If you haven’t heard about this kerfluffle, the Los Angeles Times has helpfully run about nine zillion op-eds covering every sane point of view on the issue and most of the more popular less-than-sane ones. The gist of it is that in November 2014, about 20 minutes after the election results were in, the cops of California pitched a toys-out-of-pram tantrum and essentially stopped arresting anyone for anything and everyone, including all BID-associated people everywhere, started blaming the proposition for every crime committed anywhere in the state along with petty thefts and suspicious fires, broken windows, pissed-in gutters, aggressive panhandling, open bottles of cheap vodka, and probably the disappearance of freaking Amelia Earhart.

We haven’t gone out of our way to report to any great extent on this BIDiabolical whining because there’s just so much of it, it’s so freaking repetitive, and, anyway, who has the time? However, our faithful correspondent assures us that nary an HPOA Joint Security Committee meeting he’s attended in 2015 has gone by without someone mentioning it, and the same goes for other HPOA/CHC meetings. Kerry Morrison even once admitted on camera that she’d voted for it but now she regretted it. In any case, Carol Schatz has unexpectedly provided us with such a distilled, such a quintessential, such a blatantly, screechingly, cynical example of the genre that we finally felt moved to address the subject. Everything we’re quoting here comes from this email chain, which is one of the many recently obtained for us via the California Public Records Act. And the details, as they will do, follow after the break.

The story begins on Friday, July 17, when DCBID Director of Operations Ken Nakano emailed everybody to inform them that:

This morning just before 7am a maintenance worker was sweeping in the area of 4^th and Broadway. While attempting to sweep up some broken glass on the ground, a male white transient attacked the worker with a cane like object while screaming “You can’t take my diamonds!”. … LAPD was called and arrived quickly after. The suspect who was at this point sitting in a wheelchair (though he didn’t need it) had broken the stick in half and also picked up a hammer while continuing to be threatening and irrational. LAPD after giving multiple commands and warnings ultimately had to shoot the suspect with less than lethal “Bean Bags” (3 times) and a Taser to get the suspect into custody. The suspect was arrested without further incidents and will be charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

This is an unknown transient who is not known by our staff and obviously suffered from mental illness.

Well, we weren’t there, so we don’t know why exactly the LAPD had to shoot a guy in a wheelchair three times with beanbags and then tase him, but maybe it was, as Ken Nakano is so careful to point out, because he didn’t actually need the wheelchair. Obviously it’s not OK for people to attack people with “cane like object[s].” At least we can all agree on that.

Nine and a half hours later, Carol Schatz weighs in with an almost-human sounding expression of emotion:

Another horrifying incident. Please convey my concern for his welfare to the worker. Was he injured? What should we do to show our concern?

OK, fine. Carol Schatz can’t talk to the worker herself, but she can direct Ken Nakano to talk to the worker on her behalf. Probably that’s just one of the quirks of the power-elite or something, and who are we to judge?

Ken Nakano back at her, just one hour later. Ten and a half hours after his initial email, if you’re keeping track. Dude works long hours, we’ll give him that:

He was not injured and when I spoke with him after the incident, he was fine and was more hopeful that the person would get the assistance he obviously needed… [blah blah blah concern safety attention surroundings blah blah blah]

But by the next morning (a Saturday; these people are always on the job), Carol has started to have some more what-passes-for-practical-among-these-people kinds of thoughts. At 10:04 a.m. she wrote:

see if capt. oreb can confirmhe [sic] is either a [sic] ab 109 or prop 47 release?

And the ever vigilant Ken Nakano, one freaking minute later on this fine Saturday morning:

Will do

So see, yes, a crazy person attacks a maintenance worker, who’s unharmed. Carol Schatz’s second thought about the matter is its propaganda value. The “capt. oreb” she’s referring to is Captain Michael Oreb, whose LAPD Bio page has a super-cute picture of none other than Carol Schatz on it, under the august title of “Featured Community Member,” even though she lives in Beverly Hills,¹ so it’s not clear what community she’s supposed to be a member of in this context.

So Carol is so kissy-poo with the local LAPD honcho that she’s not just featured on his web page, but she can have her minion Ken Nakano call the guy up to find out personal information about some random crazy person which she’s obviously planning to use to fuel the anti-prop-47 propaganda machine she and her BID-buddies are keeping revved up at full power 24/7. And why wouldn’t the cop want to give it to her since, as noted above, cops all over the state are whining and bitching about the temerity of the sovereign people of California in doing something that cops didn’t want them to? Now, maybe the homeless man’s record is public, and there’s no malfeasance in finding out whether he’s a prop 47 (or AB 109, look it up here if you’re not familiar, it’s not that important for our purposes) release. Or maybe it’s not. But why does she feel so sure that the LAPD’s just going to cooperatively hand over the info? It’s certainly not part of their job to do that. If normal people want public info from the LAPD they have to go through the discovery office and wait freaking forever (Mike has requests pending with them that are a year old at this point). And look through some of the other emails in this batch. See how mercilessly they’re redacted? And certainly illegally to boot. There’s a reasonable case to be made that Carol Schatz is in violation of the public records act. Will Michael Oreb tell us if she’s a prop 47 release? For God’s sake… Anyway, words fail us, but (total non-sequitur) this article by Ron Kaye about Carol makes for amusing reading.

1. For proof she lives in Beverly Hills see here (search in page for “Carol E. Schatz” if you can’t spot it easily).

Image of Carol Schatz is a crop of an image from Jose Huizar’s Flickr stream. He claims it’s copyrighted but we think it’s in the public domain because it’s a public record. You can quote us on that even though our words actually are copyrighted. Picture of Amelia Earhart is in the public domain for reasons that those kooky kids over at Wikimedia can explain way much better than we ever can or want to do. Picture of LAPD Captain Michael Oreb was published here by the South Park BID, which puts it in the public domain in the great state of California, OK! Crop of screenshot of Michael Oreb’s LAPD bio is in the public domain for a number of reasons. Pick one.