Tag Archives: Mike Coogle

Creepy Little Venice Zillionaire George Francisco Wanted A Homeless Man Evicted For The Sake Of His Sign Lighting Event — So He Got Creepy Little Venice Field Deputy Taylor Bazley To Look Into “Commanding” The Homeless Man To Leave — Mayoral Flunky Brian Buchner Turned Out To Be The Grownup In The Room And Put The Nix On This Plan — So Much For The Theory That Encampment Cleanups Target Health And Safety Problems — Given That Bazley And Francisco Value A “High Profile Event” More Than A Human Being’s Residence

February 20, 2019 Mike 2 Comments

Ask the City’s powerful and you’ll hear a familiar story. That breaking up and cleaning out homeless encampments promotes health, promotes safety, is even good for the people whose homes are being destroyed. Just ask Estela Lopez, the executive director of the Downtown Industrial District BID, who will tell you that these cleanups are good for the very people who are getting cleaned up. Ask famous-on-Facebook homelessness hero Betsy Starman, who’ll tell you that even arresting homeless people is for their own damn good. Ask LAPD’s HOPE team, who will tell you the whole thing is for the benefit of the victims.

Heck, ask zillionaire property owner, serial plagiarist, and erstwhile president of the board of directors of the whole damn Hollywood Property Owners Alliance John Tronson, who will tell you that arresting the homeless isn’t just necessary to help them, but it’s actually good for them. Ask Tronson’s once-upon-a-time BID Patrol minion Mike Coogle, who at one point responded to a social worker’s worries about a man who wasn’t 5150-eligible but who she still wanted to lock up with an offer to arrest him as much as possible so that eventually warrants would issue and she would be able to help him whether he wanted it or not. How’s that for arrests being good for the homeless?!

And this is a good narrative, I guess, or at least a useful one. It lets people who just want the homeless moved out and away and don’t give a damn about the pain and destruction to feel like they’re helping people while helping themselves, to feel like they at least appear that they do give a damn about human suffering. It strains the credulity of the sane, though, to believe that arresting homeless people, that breaking up their camps and destroying their possessions, is actually good for anyone, let alone the people it’s happening to. Or even that anyone actually intends it to be good.

There are just too many episodes like the one about CD13’s scheduling a cleanup because some zillionaire landlord had a property inspection coming up or the one about CD14 arranging a cleanup in advance of a movie company’s planned filming. It sure seems like, no matter what the lies the powerful are telling themselves in the morning mirror, the motives for evicting the homeless are really not humane at all.¹

And today I have another example, albeit with a twist this time, which is the involvement of Garcetti homelessness staffer Brian Buchner who, if not humane, at least understands how to manage appearances. The whole story is told in this email conversation between CD11 field deputy Taylor Bazley,² Brian Buchner, Dominic Choi, Emada Tingirides, and Garcetti’s latest magic bullet, the Unified Homelessness Response Center. The subject is universally-reviled-by-sane-people Venice zillionaire George Francisco and his infernal Venice Sign comma lighting ceremony therefor, scheduled last year for Saturday, December 1, 2018. You can read the special event permit here.

And the problem? Well, there was a human being living on the sidewalk where this very special event was to take place. And George Francisco wasn’t having it. So he had Taylor Bazley email a bunch of LAPDs and ask the eternal burning question, which is how can we get the homeless person out of the way of the zillionaire party? Turn the page for a transcription of this and the rest of the discussion, and don’t ever believe them again when they tell you they’re arresting homeless people for their own damn good.
Continue reading Creepy Little Venice Zillionaire George Francisco Wanted A Homeless Man Evicted For The Sake Of His Sign Lighting Event — So He Got Creepy Little Venice Field Deputy Taylor Bazley To Look Into “Commanding” The Homeless Man To Leave — Mayoral Flunky Brian Buchner Turned Out To Be The Grownup In The Room And Put The Nix On This Plan — So Much For The Theory That Encampment Cleanups Target Health And Safety Problems — Given That Bazley And Francisco Value A “High Profile Event” More Than A Human Being’s Residence →

Hollywood BID Patrol

BID Patrol Officer Mike Coogle Proposes to Cite Homeless Man Repeatedly So That Department of Mental Health Can Hold Him Involuntarily Even Though He Fails To Meet 5150 Criteria

July 27, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

BID Patrol officer Michael Lee Coogle has some fairly surreal ideas on what constitutes effective therapy methods.

I’ve written a lot recently on the BID Patrol’s penchant for amateurish social psychology, made dangerous by the fact that they’re essentially a privatized militia in the service of a bunch of narcissistic zillionaires. For instance, they think that the purpose of an involuntary mental health hold is to get rid of people who irritate the BID Patrol, that they somehow have the right to force people whom they perceive as mentally ill to relocate based on the aesthetic content of their speech, and to use conservatorships as a tool for keeping undesirables out of Hollywood. So I suppose that what I just read in this daily patrol log from last October about BID Patrol darling-amongst-unlicensed-social-workers Michael Lee Coogle³ isn’t that surprising.

Here’s the story. There’s this homeless man in Hollywood, RM, that the BID has been after forever. For instance, between January 2007 and December 2015 they had arrested him more than 40 times.⁴ They also pushed for him to be involuntarily treated for mental illness for years. As of August 2015 they had succeeded in getting him conserved⁵ but in October 2014 they were still trying.
Continue reading BID Patrol Officer Mike Coogle Proposes to Cite Homeless Man Repeatedly So That Department of Mental Health Can Hold Him Involuntarily Even Though He Fails To Meet 5150 Criteria →

Featured, Hollywood BID Patrol

How is this Even Legal? BID Patrol Attacks a Sitting Man, Forcibly Handcuffs Him, and Then, With Full Cooperation of LAPD, Arrests Him for Kicking one of Them During Putative “Arrest”

July 24, 2016 Mike 4 Comments

This would be unbelievable if the whole thing weren’t captured on video. On November 23, 2015, at least four BID Patrol security guards (Mike Coogle, along with Wissman, Tizano, and Cox) confronted a man who was sitting on the sidewalk in front of the Metro Red Line station at Hollywood and Vine. They talked to him for almost four minutes, during which time he didn’t answer their questions and mostly ignored them. At 3:55 in the video one officer says to another “you want him?” The other says yes, so they grab him and push him over.

Soon all four of them are piled on top of him and trying to put handcuffs on him. Coogle claimed that the man kicked him during this episode, and ultimately they didn’t even arrest him for violating LAMC 41.18(d). Instead they arrested him for battery for kicking Coogle. When LAPD officers Adams (#34837) and Galicia (#41404) showed up and accepted the man into custody with the approval of their supervisor, LAPD Sgt. Chuck Slater. You can read the full story in the arrest report, although it doesn’t answer the main question I have about this incident: How did the LAPD decide to arrest Jones for battery rather than the BID Patrol officers?

Now, I have heard repeatedly that these BID Patrol officers have no arrest powers beyond those that every private citizen has. Kerry Morrison has even said this to me in person while schoolmarmishly waggling her finger in my face. If this is true, and I think it probably is, then there are two possibilities. Either these BID Patrol officers are breaking the law on camera here or else it’s actually legal in the City of Los Angeles for private citizens to form up into gangs of four people, physically jump on top of anyone they see sitting on the sidewalk, and force them into handcuffs. In fact, Ms. Kerry Morrison has confessed in print to violating LAMC 41.18(d) but neither got arrested by her own BID patrol nor got jumped on and handcuffed by a gang of vigilantes.
Continue reading How is this Even Legal? BID Patrol Attacks a Sitting Man, Forcibly Handcuffs Him, and Then, With Full Cooperation of LAPD, Arrests Him for Kicking one of Them During Putative “Arrest” →

Hollywood BID Patrol, Hypocrisy

Kerry Morrison Goes Around Hollywood Peering into Cars to see if Homeless People are Living in them and then Sends the BID Patrol to Investigate

July 9, 2016 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Kerry Morrison with her detective hat on.

There is all kinds of interesting stuff in the BID Patrol daily log files, and some of it is too weird to even describe. This little story is from April 24, 2015, written by BID Patrol officers Mike Coogle and his frequent partner Mike Ayala:

OUTREACH- 1500 BLOCK OF GORDON AVENUE- E/ SIDE OF STREET
YESTERDAY WE RECEIVED A CALL FROM KERRY’S OFFICE REGARDING A VEHICLE SHE OBSERVED. THE VEHICLE, A GREY BUICK LIC#XXXXXXX, WAS UNOCCUPIED BUT CONTAINED A CHILD SEAT, FORMULA AND OTHER ITEMS POSSIBLY INDICATING THE OWNER OF THE VEHICLE IS HOMELESS WITH A CHILD. YESTERDAY WE LEFT A PATH CARD AND FLIER WITH LOCAL, FAMILY FRIENDLY HOMELESS SERVICES ON THE WINDSHIELD. THIS MORNING, THE CARD AND PAPER WERE GONE. THE VEHICLE WAS UNOCCUPIED AND SOME ITEMS APPEARED TO BE IN DIFFERENT SPOTS.

So yeah, people of Hollywood. Don’t you feel safer knowing that Ms. Kerry Morrison is peering in your car to see if you look homeless and then sending her armed minions the BID Patrol to follow your car around to see if you’re parked in the same place and if you moved stuff in your car around? And for such a vocal advocate of law and civic order as is our Ms. Morrison, this kind of thing is surprisingly illegal. Read on for the details!
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Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Hypocrisy

It Appears that Kerry Morrison, HPOA, BID Patrol Instituted Conservatorship Proceedings Against Homeless Man Solely to Thwart his Return to Hollywood

July 5, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Photo of RB from a BID Patrol report that seemingly set off the process of getting this man conserved to keep him out of Hollywood.

On July 20, 2015, Steve Seyler sent Kerry Morrison an email containing a report on a homeless man whose initials are RB. Seyler stated that RB had not been seen by the BID Patrol for 18 months preceding July 15, 2015. Furthermore, there was an active court order forbidding RB from returning to the Hollywood Entertainment District, and thus the BID Patrol called the LAPD and had him arrested on that date. Four days later, on July 24, 2015, Kerry Morrison wrote to Seyler asking him to have the BID Patrol collect some information on RB because “[t]here is some effort underway to move RB towards a conservatorship.” Kerry doesn’t say whose effort it is, but she’s clearly involved in it and she certainly doesn’t say it’s not her making the effort.

Flash forward to September 2015. On the 15th of that month Seyler emailed Morrison and former LAPD Hollywood Station captain Peter Zarcone discussing RB’s conservatorship hearing, scheduled for September 16, 2015:

Kerry any ideas on who else I can call? We only get one shot at this so I don’t want to waste this chance.

According to a daily activity log filed on the 15th by BID Patrol officer Mike Coogle, he was asked by Steve Seyler to attend the hearing. According to Coogle’s log for the 16th he actually did attend the hearing, and RB was conserved. It’s worth reading his account of the hearing, which also appears after the break. And see how suspicious the timing is?
Continue reading It Appears that Kerry Morrison, HPOA, BID Patrol Instituted Conservatorship Proceedings Against Homeless Man Solely to Thwart his Return to Hollywood →

Hollywood BID Patrol, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

Andrews International BID Patrol Runs Ideological Countersurveillance Operations Against Residents of Hollywood, Hearkening Back to Bad Old Days of James Davis and the LAPD Red Squad

October 8, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

BID Security Chief Steve Seyler and Kerry Morrison targeting residents of Hollywood for paranoid countersurveillance...look again! It's LAPD Chief James Davis and an unnamed, well-dressed woman jabbing a pen at the people of Los Angeles — BID Security Boss Steve Seyler and Kerry Morrison targeting residents of Hollywood for paranoid countersurveillance…look again! It’s creepy-crawly former LAPD Chief James Davis and an unnamed albeit extraordinarily serious woman jabbing a pen at the people of Los Angeles

Wikipedia is a perfect source for information about James Edgar Davis, erstwhile Chief of the LAPD and, amongst his chiefly peers, tied for second place with Daryl Francis Gates, the two of them behind only William Henry Parker III when ranked by sheer, unrelenting, untempered, unexcused, unreflected-upon, psychopathic brutality. James Davis was famous for letting not truth, not justice, not love, not mercy stand in the way of the almost visionary level of violent frenzy up to which he kept his troops constantly whipped. Most stuff on Wikipedia is made up and a lot of it is harmful. The people that work for Wikipedia are mostly petty tyrants, sadists, and torturers, convinced that their evil is done in the service of a greater good because their insane leader told them that was the case. The same story is true the reign of James Davis as Chief of the LAPD as well.

Davis’s crazed antics were so reprehensible that even his official LAPD bio has to acknowledge this reality in surprising detail. It’s worth reading the whole thing and, as well, reading Joe Domanick’s fine history of the LAPD up through the Spring of 1992, To Protect and Serve: The LAPD’s Century of War in the City of Dreams, to understand the role that Davis’s lunacy incarnate prepared the way and made the paths straight for both the 1965 and the 1992 popular uprisings. We’re concerned here, though, with only one essential aspect of Davis’s legacy: The Red Squad. Read from the contemporary LAPD’s statement on the matter:

With his return to office in 1933, Chief James E. Davis deployed a “Red Squad” to “investigate and control radical activities, strikes, and riots.” By today’s standards, the Squad’s tactics were intolerable, but its members had the blessing of government officials and the business community. In referring to individuals deemed subversive, one Police Commissioner voiced his views by declaring: “The more the police beat them up and wreck their headquarters, the better. Communists have no Constitutional rights and I won’t listen to anyone who defends them.”

Despite its disavowal by today’s ostensibly more sane LAPD, Davis’s red squad persisted far into the 20^th Century. In his fine history of such American police political surveillance units, Protectors of privilege : red squads and police repression in urban America, Frank Donner explains that

One of literally hundreds of spy photos taken by the Andrews International BID Patrol anti-homeless red squad since 2007 — One of literally hundreds of creepy spy photos of citizens of Hollywood legally engaged in legal activities covertly taken by the Andrews International BID Patrol anti-homeless red squad since 2007

The Los Angeles red squad was above all characterized by an undiluted nativism and a blatant patron-client relationship with local business interests, which was openly proclaimed against the local labor movement over the years…¹

Well, these days, the LAPD can’t spy on political dissenters any more, and plus the “local labor movement” was, at least until the phoenix-esque rise of SEIU and its ideological kin, pretty much burnt/napalmed/incinerated by “local business interests.” But all that red squad apparatus didn’t just vanish. As with so many of the tools of oppression forged by the white ruling classes of Los Angeles in the Twentieth Century, political surveillance of citizens engaged in entirely legal activities was transferred over to and/or eagerly taken up by Business Improvement Districts, who have subsumed most of the municipal functions related to the “intolerable…by today’s standards…” “blatant patron-client relationship with local business interests…” Read on for a host of examples of the BID Patrol spying on the citizens of Hollywood for purely political reasons and, Stasi-like, keeping creepy files full of the fruits of their voyeurism-under-color-of-law.
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