Monthly Archives: July 2019

LAPD, Los Angeles City Government

In The Wake Of Federal Lawsuits Against The City Of Los Angeles For Its Outrageous Unsupportable Illegal Pretextual Arrests At 2014 Protests Over The Murder Of Michael Brown City Attorney Mike Feuer Issued Detailed Confidential Case Filing Guidelines Explaining Precisely Which Crimes To Arrest Protesters For — And Exactly What Information Had To Be In The Police Reports In Order To Prosecute Successfully — Which Looks To The Even Mildly Cynical Eye As A List Of Suggested Lies For The Cops To Include — And Here — Friends — Is A Copy Of Feuer’s Confidential Report — All Eighteen Pages Of It — And Special Bonus! — LAPD Enforcement Guidelines For LAMC 55.07 — Which Regulates How Big Your Signs Can Be At Protests And Forbids Glass Bottles — Among Other Things

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In 2014 a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri murdered Michael Brown. On November 24, 2014 a grand jury announced its decision not to indict the officer and, in response, civil unrest broke out across the United States, including in Los Angeles, where hundreds of protesters were arrested by the LAPD. And it’ll be no surprise to anyone paying attention that the police here used illegal tactics, arrested people who weren’t breaking the law, and so on.

These allegations were the subject of at least three federal civil rights suits against the City. One by Charmaine Chua, filed in January 2016, was eventually certified as a class action, and seems poised to settle fairly soon. Another, by Patti Beers and others, seems to have settled already. The third, filed by Girmay Amha, has particularly vivid descriptions of LAPD misconduct, and it’s really worth your time to read to find out exactly the kind of crap the cops pulled.

So evidently, and this is supported by the fact that none of these cases seem likely to go to trial and the fact that evidently few if any of the arrestees were ever charged, the City realized that they had incurred significant liability due to LAPD misconduct. In defending the City against these multiple suits, and also having been involved in the decisions not to charge most or all of the protesters, the City Attorney’s office would have had to had a deep look into LAPD’s arrest policies at protests.

The lack of charges certainly suggests that they didn’t like what they found. It’s possible, therefore, although I don’t (yet) have direct proof, that LAPD behavior at the Michael Brown protests was the cause of the fact that in October 2017 Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer released an extensive and detailed set of filing guidelines related to arrests made at protests. I recently obtained a copy of this putatively confidential document, you can get your own copy here, and there’s a transcription below.1

This remarkable document lists 16 distinct violations that the City Attorney recommends LAPD arrest protesters for. It includes “evidentiary recommendations” for each crime, which read like nothing more than winking advice to police about what kinds of things they have to make up in order to avoid future debacles. There are also notes to filing deputies city attorneys for some of the violations. In all it’s a technical but absolutely fascinating document, and surely the time spent reading it will be repaid manyfold.

And included in the same document release from which I obtained this record, there was also this other notice from the Chief of Detectives, entitled “Enforcement Guidelines for Violations of LAMC §55.07.” This law regulates what kinds of items are forbidden to possess at protests, like sign poles that are too thick, or sharpened, and so on. It breaks down the division of responsibilities among different command levels for arresting people for violations, and includes a copy of the mandatory warning, in both English and Spanish, which must be read by officers before they start arresting people for violations. Very, very interesting stuff.
Continue reading In The Wake Of Federal Lawsuits Against The City Of Los Angeles For Its Outrageous Unsupportable Illegal Pretextual Arrests At 2014 Protests Over The Murder Of Michael Brown City Attorney Mike Feuer Issued Detailed Confidential Case Filing Guidelines Explaining Precisely Which Crimes To Arrest Protesters For — And Exactly What Information Had To Be In The Police Reports In Order To Prosecute Successfully — Which Looks To The Even Mildly Cynical Eye As A List Of Suggested Lies For The Cops To Include — And Here — Friends — Is A Copy Of Feuer’s Confidential Report — All Eighteen Pages Of It — And Special Bonus! — LAPD Enforcement Guidelines For LAMC 55.07 — Which Regulates How Big Your Signs Can Be At Protests And Forbids Glass Bottles — Among Other Things →

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LAUSD

During The UTLA Strike In January 2019 — The Union Sent A Letter Around To Various Charter School Employees — Expressing Solidarity And Stuff — And Emilio Pack — Supreme Commander Of STEM Preparatory Charter School — Was So Offended That He Contemplated Blocking All Emails From UTLA To His Employees — Only On The Strongly But Cynically Worded Advice Of His High-Powered Charter School Lawyer Janelle Ruley — From The World’s Most Privatizing Law Firm — Which Is Of Course Young, Minney, & Corr — Did He Back Off From His Creepy Paternalistic Disrespectful-Of-Humanity Position — And I Have A Copy Of The Damn Letter From The Damn Lawyer! — Along With Other Emails Of Interest! — And You Can Read Them Here!

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Today we’re looking at Dr. Emilio Pack, supreme chief head executive honcho & founder of STEM Preparatory Schools, which is, of course, yet another instance of the usual herd of entities of the general type of entity that it’s an instance of, and supremely so. Pack, renowned amongst those whose renown is the currency of his world, profiled and lionized and so on, is a member of the shadowy pro-charter conspiracy known to the world as the Los Angeles Advocacy Council. And not just any member, but a member of the executive committee, perhaps the chair, something big.1

And then there’s the world’s most privatizing law firm, Young, Minney, and Corr.2 Famous in these parts for their of counsel guy, H. Wayne Strumpfer and his hapless and feckless but tireless advice to the hapless and feckless but tiresome Ms. Sakshi Jain, founder and CEO of weirdo little co-locationist charter upstart GANAS Academy.3 And then, of course, there is the UTLA, which needs no introduction around here and neither does their monumental strike in January 2019.

It’s well-known, of course, that charter schools hate unions, and that, friends, is where our story begins! Well, and ends too, pretty much. It seems that on January 7, 2019, UTLA sent an email to a bunch of charter school employees, expressing solidarity and explaining their position vis-a-vis charter schools and the strike. I have a copy of it only because Kerry Kletter, who is not just the head boss of Village Charter Academy but is also a bootlicking snitch of the first water,4 emailed a copy to bootlicking first-water snitch-handler Cassy Horton of the CCSA and was all like OMG the freaking nerve of these damnable unionists! You can read a copy of it here along with subsequent bootlickery between Kletter and Horton.

And it seems also that this letter was sent to some people who worked at STEM Prep, laboring in the happy fields overseen by Supreme Executive Commander Pack! And it seems that Supreme Executive Commander Pack blew his supremely executive commanderish stack! And decided to block incoming UTLA emails! Because why should damnable unionists consume his valuable electrons?! But supreme executive commanders generally have not attained the supreme executive commanderships they enjoy by taking action without weighing potential consequences, And Pack is clearly no exception. Thus did he ask his lawyer, Janelle A. Ruley, hey friend! Can we do this thing?

And Janelle A. Ruley was all like no freaking way, friend! That’s just the very briar patch into which the UTLA seeks to get thrown! Later they will lie about stuff and you’ll be busted! And, as it happens, I know this story because subsequently Emilio Pack forwarded an email from Ruley to Christina De Jesus of Green Dot Charter Schools and a couple of pinheaded flacks from the California Charter Schools Association, thus waiving the privilege and creating a public record which, as will happen, I managed to obtain a copy of. Here’s a link to a PDF of it and you can read a complete transcription below!
Continue reading During The UTLA Strike In January 2019 — The Union Sent A Letter Around To Various Charter School Employees — Expressing Solidarity And Stuff — And Emilio Pack — Supreme Commander Of STEM Preparatory Charter School — Was So Offended That He Contemplated Blocking All Emails From UTLA To His Employees — Only On The Strongly But Cynically Worded Advice Of His High-Powered Charter School Lawyer Janelle Ruley — From The World’s Most Privatizing Law Firm — Which Is Of Course Young, Minney, & Corr — Did He Back Off From His Creepy Paternalistic Disrespectful-Of-Humanity Position — And I Have A Copy Of The Damn Letter From The Damn Lawyer! — Along With Other Emails Of Interest! — And You Can Read Them Here! →

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LAUSD, Public Records Act Pragmatics

In January 2019 Sakshi Jain — Founder And Supreme Boss Of Universally-Loathed-By-The-Sane Charter School GANAS Academy — Solicited Her Peeps For What She Was Pleased To Call “Your Meaningful Donation” — So I Hit Her Up For A List Of Donors Along With Amounts Given — And Today I Received A List — With No Last Names — I Hassled The Lawyer — And He Claimed That That Was The List — And That They Claimed No Exemptions — And I Didn’t Believe Him — And Then Jain Emailed Me When She Meant To Email Him — And Admitted That She Had Deleted The Last Names — To Hide Them From Me — So The Lawyer — Lied To By His Client — Handed Over The Complete List — And You Can Read It Here!

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Yeah, the headline has the story! Here’s the background! Noted galaxy brain Sakshi Jain is starting a charter school in the City of Carson. It’s called GANAS Academy, and it’s putatively going to co-locate on the campus of the well-beloved neighborhood school Catskill Elementary. But the Catskill folks aren’t taking this quietly. They’re kicking up a damn storm, and rightly so! And I’m investigating right and investigating left and investigating all over the place because who can gaze approvingly upon themselves in the damn mirror in the damn morning if they’re not doing something to thwart these damn privatizers?!

And of course I’m doing my small part by wielding the California Public Records Act like, well, like the California Public Records Act. And in May I got a bunch of emails from the privatizers, and one in particular, this from January 2019, is an important part of the story I’m telling in this post. Therein, you see, amongst other admonitions, did Sakshi Jain admonish her audience thusly: ” If you have not already done so please make your meaningful contribution to the school. The amount of this donation is an amount that is meaningful to you and is not shared with any other board members.”

And a claim like that, that it’s possible for an agency like Jain’s crackpot little charter school that’s subject to the CPRA to keep this kind of crapola secret just because their weirdo sense of what passes for propriety among zillionaires and their willing servants suggests that they ought to do, well, I can’t resist exposing their self-proclaimed but exceedingly putative secrets to the world.

So that very day, the very day I read the email, I popped off this request for records to Jain and her lawyer, the bizarre but weirdly well-dressed little dude known in some circles as H. Wayne Strumpfer, who is of counsel1 to the world’s most privatizing law firm, Young, Minney, and Corr, asking for the damn donation records.
Continue reading In January 2019 Sakshi Jain — Founder And Supreme Boss Of Universally-Loathed-By-The-Sane Charter School GANAS Academy — Solicited Her Peeps For What She Was Pleased To Call “Your Meaningful Donation” — So I Hit Her Up For A List Of Donors Along With Amounts Given — And Today I Received A List — With No Last Names — I Hassled The Lawyer — And He Claimed That That Was The List — And That They Claimed No Exemptions — And I Didn’t Believe Him — And Then Jain Emailed Me When She Meant To Email Him — And Admitted That She Had Deleted The Last Names — To Hide Them From Me — So The Lawyer — Lied To By His Client — Handed Over The Complete List — And You Can Read It Here! →

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