Opinion: You meet the nicest people in jail

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The Times reports today on the passing of Homer Broome, groundbreaking Los Angeles Police Department commander. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors adjourned today in Broome’s memory, prompting Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky to recall that he and Broome first met when Yaroslavsky was in the clink.

In his college days Zev — once quite the agitator, most often on behalf of Soviet Jews — was arrested at a demonstration for disturbing the peace and, he told the board, was sitting in the holding tank at the LAPD’s Southwest Division when he met Commander Broome. ‘And we hit it off,’ Yaroslavsky said.

That station is now named for Broome.