Homeless people need cell phones to survive, and charging them is a perennial problem. Although the City of Los Angeles could very, very easily put electrical outlets on streetlights they refuse to do so, which leads to the dangerous but necessary practice of makeshift rewiring by unhoused people. As revealed by this newly obtained email conversation, in March 2019 this was happening regularly in Chinatown.
LAPD Officer Stephen Nichols told George Yu, the unhinged megalomaniac leader of the reprehensible Chinatown Business Improvement District, that if Yu gave him a list of affected lights he would personally deal with the unauthorized wiring. But Yu told him not to do that. Yu cited a recent electrocution death in Westlake and told Nichols:
“Lets let BSL do their work. I would prefer natural selection like the Westlake incident to happen as that will be the only way that the City will take care of business.”
When Nichols finally got Yu’s point, which took a surprising amount of discussion, he thought it was hilarious. Nichols’s entire response: “☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺” Here we see the thoroughly disgusting spectacle of an LAPD officer, sworn to protect and to serve, sharing a laugh with a notorious psychopath over the tactical political utility of mass electrocutions of homeless people.
And this is the same George Yu that refuses to comply with the Public Records Act, who has been found in contempt of court and had a warrant issued for his arrest, universally hated by everyone who actually lives in Chinatown, a self-admitted outlaw who putatively progressive Councilmember Gil Cedillo eats lunch with and gives tens of thousands of dollars in discretionary money because Yu can’t budget his BID money, and so on. The guy is a homicidal maniac entirely funded by the City of Los Angeles.
Yu is an extreme example of the deep wrongness of business improvement districts in Los Angeles, but only in degree. The rest of our City’s BIDs have better PR and less overtly psychopathic staff than Yu, but that’s really the only difference. They’re more dangerous because they’re more polished. Defund them all!
