Tag Archives: George Floyd Uprising

LAPD

The Oscar Joel Bryant Foundation — Which Represents African-American LAPD Officers and Civilian Staff — Surveyed Its Members On Workplace Racism Regarding The George Floyd Protests — Sixty Percent Of Respondents Witnessed Or Were Aware Of Racist Statements Made By LAPD Employees — Foundation President Jody Stiger Met With Chief Michel Moore To Discuss — Here’s A Copy Of The Foundation’s Newsletter With Stiger’s Report — And A Lot Of Other Interesting Material

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The Oscar Joel Bryant Foundation “represents African American officers and civilian employees who proudly serve the Los Angeles Police Department and other municipal agencies throughout the county.” The Foundation publishes a quarterly newsletter known as Pursuit. In the Second Quarter 2020 issue Foundation president Jody Stiger wrote that soon after this Spring’s protests over the killing of George Floyd began, he …

… began to receive numerous calls and texts from members and non-members regarding the harsh and callous comments being made about the Black Lives Matter movement, officers that decided to kneel with protesters, and countless other comments that were, quite frankly, racist and incongruent with the Department’s Core Values.

The Foundation’s board of directors surveyed the members, asking simply “were you witness to, or aware of, any concerning statements made by LAPD employees in regards to the recent protests and calls for police reform?”

Sixty percent of the respondents answered “yes,” and Stiger told Foundation members that the board had met with LAPD Chief Michel Moore “and expressed your concerns to him. I personally read some of the responses to him, and he was very disappointed with what you all witnessed in the workplace.”1
Stiger goes on to describe other actions the board planned to take to protect the safety and well-being of their members while on the job. Stiger’s entire statement is transcribed below. The Foundation’s members have a unique perspective on the question of what should be done about the LAPD. I haven’t heard as much about it as I have some others, and it makes the whole newsletter, which I was lucky to obtain a copy of, definitely worth reading.
Continue reading The Oscar Joel Bryant Foundation — Which Represents African-American LAPD Officers and Civilian Staff — Surveyed Its Members On Workplace Racism Regarding The George Floyd Protests — Sixty Percent Of Respondents Witnessed Or Were Aware Of Racist Statements Made By LAPD Employees — Foundation President Jody Stiger Met With Chief Michel Moore To Discuss — Here’s A Copy Of The Foundation’s Newsletter With Stiger’s Report — And A Lot Of Other Interesting Material →

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LAPD

The Los Angeles Police Commission Asked The National Police Foundation To Write An “After Action Report” On Police Responses To George Floyd Protests Between May 27 and June 10 — The NPF Asked LAPD For A Huge Amount Of Evidence — Including Surveillance And Bodycam Video — Training Records For Every Cop Involved — Training Curriculums For Relevant Courses — Mental Health Referrals (Of Police) And So On — In Fact I Have A Copy Of NPF’s Initial Requests — Four Pages Of Requests — And Inspector General Mark Smith Sent NPF A Long List Of Activist Social Posts About LAPD — And I Have Live Links To All Of Them As Well! — Including For Some Reason A Link To This Blog!

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On May 25, 2020 Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd and the United States, including the City of Los Angeles, erupted in massive protests. And police around the country, including right here in the City of Los Angeles, responded with disproportionate aggression and overwhelming violence against the protesters. In the wake of that first wave of protests and nearly universal criticism of their response, the LAPD opened over 50 internal investigations against officers for brutality.2

And the Los Angeles Police Commission, nominally an independent oversight body,3 arranged for the National Police Foundation to conduct a putatively independent report on the matter. It’s doubtful that this report will do anything more than evoke the famous “Few Bad Apples” theory to justify maybe tossing a few cops under the bus while vigorously reaffirming the structural and institutional soundness of the LAPD. The NPF is far too compromised to expect much else.

So I’m predicting that the report, when it finally comes out, will be tedious and fundamentally dishonest. But none of that means that the report creation process isn’t interesting. In fact it’s very interesting, as I learned recently when I obtained a few records relating to the process. These documents have to do with evidence requested by the NPF from both LAPD and the Police Commission, and they’re interesting to me for at least two reasons.

First, the fact that Mark Smith, the Inspector General, gave the NPF a huge list of social media posts about the protests4 and told Richard Tefank, the Executive Director of the Police Commission, in an email that the OIG staff had collected them.5 Wondering if the cops are reading your tweets? Not only are they, but they’re quite likely handing them over as evidence! Smith even sent the NPF a 2016 blog post of mine about Cory Palka.6 Also I made an html version of Smith’s links for maximum clickability and it’s at the end of this post.

And second, there’s the sheer bulk of the material the NPF requested and the sheer promptness with which LAPD handed it over. See this August 27, 2020 memo from the NPF to LAPD and Tefank consisting of four pages of detailed requests for evidence. The version I obtained was marked up in red and blue by Lizabeth Rhodes, director of LAPD’s Office of Constitutional Policing, with the Bates Stamp numbers of all the material they’d already produced as of September 17, just three weeks after the request.
Continue reading The Los Angeles Police Commission Asked The National Police Foundation To Write An “After Action Report” On Police Responses To George Floyd Protests Between May 27 and June 10 — The NPF Asked LAPD For A Huge Amount Of Evidence — Including Surveillance And Bodycam Video — Training Records For Every Cop Involved — Training Curriculums For Relevant Courses — Mental Health Referrals (Of Police) And So On — In Fact I Have A Copy Of NPF’s Initial Requests — Four Pages Of Requests — And Inspector General Mark Smith Sent NPF A Long List Of Activist Social Posts About LAPD — And I Have Live Links To All Of Them As Well! — Including For Some Reason A Link To This Blog! →

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Business Improvement Districts

Rick Lemmo — Super Genius — Caruso Flunkie — And Supreme Commander Of The Pacific Palisades BID — Goes On Paranoid Rant About Pretextually Protesting Violent Criminals Poised To Invade The Palisades — And Beverly Hills — And Brentwood — And Loot — And Wreak All Manner Of Havoc — But Don’t Worry — Says Lemmo To His Zillionaire Cronies — Your McMansions Are Safe!! — Because LAPD Has Secret Plans In Place To Stop These Scary Criminals — But Don’t Tell Anyone I Told You — (Says Super Genius Rick Lemmo) — Because Even Though This Is A Public Meeting — Open To The Public — Who Is Allowed To Video Record The Meeting — And Publish It On YouFreakingTube If They Want To — Neverthess I Declare It To Be Off The Record!!! — You Can’t Attribute This To Me!!! — (Says Rick Lemmo About Something That Rick Lemmo Said) — Feel Like You’re Not Smart Enough To Be A Zillionaire? — Rick Lemmo Is Proof That However Not Smart You May Be That Isn’t Why You’re Not A Zillionaire

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Can I just say that Rick Lemmo is a moronic lying narcissistic zillionaire bootlicking authoritarian poobutt blundering weirdo? In any case, this dude, who I forgot to say is some kind of flunky employee of Rick Caruso and also runs the Pacific Palisades BID, presided this morning over a meeting of the BID’s board of directors, and you can watch the whole damn thing on YouTube if you’re interested.7 And they talked about the usual array of trivial crapola with which these backwater zillionaire BIDdies seem to be obsessed.

But also Lemmo went on an extended rant about violent looters poised to overrun the three most vulnerable areas in Los Angeles County today. He revealed that his top secret sources in “security” and “law enforcement” had blessed him with this information and also told him not to worry because they had plans to occupy the contested territories immediately if there were any threat at all to property.8 And in one of the most curiously stupid episodes I’ve ever experienced at a BID meeting, Lemmo told everyone that his rant was off the record, not available to the press, and not for attribution to him.

He said this in public. At a public meeting. In front of a freaking camera. What was he thinking, if anything?9 These three most especially extra threatened areas, if you’re curious, are Brentwood, Beverly Hills, and the Pacific Palisades. Those are the essential zillionaire strongholds which must be defended at all costs against the marauders. In case you’re wondering, Lemmo’s top secret sources in “law enforcement” have “identified a variety of criminal groups that utilize peaceful protestors as a smokescreen for them to loot businesses and promote violence.”

And not only that but “LAPD and National Guard are fully aware of the situation and prepared to fully deploy in and around these areas and protect them based upon whatever up to date intelligence they receive from the unrest.” Then there’s Lemmo’s zillionaire-specific version of the appalling all lives matter trope: “all business areas are small business areas.” And his overflowing abundance of whack-job paranoia: “And purpose of this statement is to let you that there is a lot more out there than what is visible to us from a protection standpoint and also unfortunately from a criminal element.”

There was more interesting stuff at the meeting, it’s worth a watch. And as usual the craziness speaks for itself better than I can speak for it. Read on for a transcription of Lemmo’s lunacy!
Continue reading Rick Lemmo — Super Genius — Caruso Flunkie — And Supreme Commander Of The Pacific Palisades BID — Goes On Paranoid Rant About Pretextually Protesting Violent Criminals Poised To Invade The Palisades — And Beverly Hills — And Brentwood — And Loot — And Wreak All Manner Of Havoc — But Don’t Worry — Says Lemmo To His Zillionaire Cronies — Your McMansions Are Safe!! — Because LAPD Has Secret Plans In Place To Stop These Scary Criminals — But Don’t Tell Anyone I Told You — (Says Super Genius Rick Lemmo) — Because Even Though This Is A Public Meeting — Open To The Public — Who Is Allowed To Video Record The Meeting — And Publish It On YouFreakingTube If They Want To — Neverthess I Declare It To Be Off The Record!!! — You Can’t Attribute This To Me!!! — (Says Rick Lemmo About Something That Rick Lemmo Said) — Feel Like You’re Not Smart Enough To Be A Zillionaire? — Rick Lemmo Is Proof That However Not Smart You May Be That Isn’t Why You’re Not A Zillionaire →

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