Reassessing Priorities for Police Protection

Los Angeles needs a reformed city government that will be responsive to the dense population of the inner city. We are too bureaucratized. We are losing hope and value.

Yesterday, old Uncle Tony, an economic refugee from Mexico, saw his temporary home, an old Pinto, carted off by Central Traffic. He shaved and showered at his family’s crowded walk-up across the street. He did no harm. His only crime was to have illegally immigrated to look for work and a better life.

This morning I watched his young family load the rest of his possessions into a white Toyota for his trip back to Mexico alone.

After six months of the neighborhood accepting Uncle Tony and him helping us watch the neighborhood, a motorcycle cop did his duty on Rampart Boulevard.

I approached the officer and explained Uncle Tony’s situation. I asked him if he could do anything about the band who hang around the nearby shopping center. They have no apparent source of income, occasionally intimidate pedestrians, and leave their empty beer bottles and cans on the sidewalk. The officer politely told me he was a traffic cop and couldn’t handle that. He said he would just check the vehicle registration on the Pinto and be on his way. One hour later Uncle Tony’s home was gone.

This month we’ve had at least two shootings within two blocks. Street crime is a nightly occurrence and most of the neighbors don’t feel the value or have the language to call the cops. Their children can’t get the rides for distant soccer practice and the local parks are overrun by criminals in this Latin American neighborhood.

Diverse human beings like each other and learn each other’s foods and fun. But poor people, crowded into too little space with poor government control, learn to riot.

To heal Los Angeles is to heal the government of this city. This area needs community cops assigned to help fight all the drug-related street crime.

It is time to address Uncle Tony and the children before we all create the most sophisticated ghost town in the world.

PAUL GAMBERG

Los Angeles