Activists paint Westwood crosswalk to improve safety. Police shut down effort, cite volunteer for vandalism
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- Frustrated with delays in getting the city of Los Angeles to paint street intersections, some activists have taken it upon themselves to do the work without permission.
- An activist with the group People’s Vision Zero was arrested and cited during a painting project in Westwood on Sunday.
Jonathan Hale and more than a dozen other activists were halfway through painting a third crosswalk at an intersection in Westwood on Sunday when two police cars pulled up.
Los Angeles Police Department officers told the group to stop painting and cuffed Hale, video footage posted to social media shows.
“Leave him alone. He’s not doing anything wrong,” says a woman out of frame.
“You’re vandalizing city property without a permit so [I’ll] ask y’all nicely. Ya’ll can record all you want, but back up or I will take everybody to jail,” an officer says, as Hale is cuffed.
Hale was cited with a misdemeanor for vandalizing property. He has a Jan. 5 court date.
The arrest marks the latest clash between the city of Los Angeles and civilian traffic safety advocates who are frustrated by the delays in getting street intersections painted and are taking it upon themselves to do the work they say can’t wait. The tension comes as the city struggles to reduce pedestrian deaths.
Federal agents told Oxnard police that their vehicle had been rammed by a civilian’s vehicle. Activists say a video shows it was the other way around.
Hale’s group is dubbed the People’s Vision Zero, a reference to the city’s 10-year-old “Vision Zero” plan to eliminate traffic-related deaths by 2025.
Despite the plan, the city has not succeeded in eliminating all traffic deaths.
Between 2017 and 2021, annual traffic fatalities increased by approximately 20%, from 246 to 294, according to a January 2024 report on the Vision Zero plan. The city has averaged more than 300 traffic deaths each of the last three years along with thousands more suffering serious injuries.
The program’s major failures were in part due to a lack of political will from city leaders, poor coordination between departments and a lack of accountability to follow through on projects and goals, according to an independent audit published this year.
The program had identified 56 key “actions and strategies” to be completed by either 2017 or 2020. But by the end of 2023, nearly half had not been completed, the audit, which was conducted by the firm KPMG, found.
Hale said that in recent months, he has made repeated attempts to spur the city to take action.
In an Oct. 28 email reviewed by The Times, Hale requested the Department of Transportation install crosswalks on multiple points along 4th Street in Koreatown between Vermont and Western avenues. That area would be a focus for the group’s guerrilla painting activities because multiple people had been killed in traffic collisions over the last decade. The group had raised hundreds of dollars for painting supplies, with each crosswalk costing around $70, he said.
On Monday, Mayor Karen Bass’ office said in a statement that it offered to collaborate with Hale, noting that it is “willing to work with any Angeleno who wants to make our streets safer” and that it hopes to “develop solutions to expedite the installation of crosswalks that meet legal and accessibility requirements.”
“Despite communication about City, State, and Federal laws and parameters, Jonathan has chosen to continue to pursue his own course of action,” the mayor’s office said. “Mayor Bass is determined to ensure the safety and accessibility of streets and sidewalks for Angelenos, no matter how they bike, roll, walk or ride.”
Hale said that he met with representatives from the mayor’s office as well as from the Department of Transportation in September but that there had been little follow-up. Since the meeting, however, he said he has taken care to alert the mayor’s office when he is planning an action, which he sees as a way to “protest for safer streets and a more effective government.”
About a week ahead of the Sunday action in Westwood, Hale wrote to the mayor’s office, explaining that a pedestrian had been hit and injured several years before at an intersection a block away. Hale said he posted fliers along the block and talked to neighbors to give them a heads-up.
‘The Snake’ portion of Mulholland Highway is open again after it was damaged in the Woolsey fire. The county hopes new safety measures can deter high-speed races and prevent crashes.
Hale said he requested marked crosswalks on Midvale Avenue in early October, but no improvements had been made. There were too many potholes at that intersection for his group to paint a crosswalk, so it chose the nearby intersection of Wilkins and Kelton avenues for Sunday’s action instead.
When police reopened the road midday, allowing cars to pass through, some of the still-wet paint was tracked by vehicle tires. It was a big disappointment to Hale, who said he tried to explain to officers that in 20 more minutes the paint would be dry.
“It was very frustrating. Our crosswalks are crisp. We take pride in sharp, well-defined corners,” Hale said. “People share their experiences or near-misses getting hit by cars while going on walks with their kids or with their dogs. Those are the people we do this for.”
Austin Beutner, a former Los Angeles schools superintendent who is running against Bass, sharply criticized the city over the arrest, saying the city should not be “criminalizing people who are trying to make our streets safer.”
Former Times staff writer Ryan Fonseca contributed to this report.
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