UPDATE: Here is a letter to the editor of the Daily Journal submitted today by Oscar Winslow, president of the L.A. City Attorneys Association:
Approximately 292 protestors were arrested during the Occupy LA sweep. It took 1400 police officers, many of whom were approved for overtime, to clear the encampment. Ironically, there’s a shortage of prosecutors responsible for prosecuting these individuals, as Deputy City Attorneys within the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office have been placed on furlough and ordered to work shortened days. Because of this, and the loss of 100 deputies from the Criminal Division, there is a question as to the office’s ability to handle the large-scale increase in arrests. Although Deputy City Attorneys will, as always, perform with the highest possible degree of professionalism, they must do so within the constraints of the furloughs imposed on them. This incident highlights and portends the difficulties that may occur when LAPD’s counter-part in public safety, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, continues to have its budget cut, as arrests without prosecution are meaningless.
With all the backslapping and self praise going on today among the mayor, police chief and their lieutenants, you would have thought they had done something great, like solved the city’s many problems, rather than just arresting 250 people who offered no resistance.and never should have been allowed to take over the grounds around City Hall for two months.
release of all those arrested in the police raid on Occupy LA last night. The
police are holding everyone on $5,000 bail for misdemeanor charges of failure to
disperse.
“California law is clear. Penal Code §853.6 is mandatory
in requiring that anyone charged with a misdemeanor shall be released
with a written notice to appear.
“National Lawyers Guild board member, Carol Sobel,
condemned the action of the LAPD. “The Los Angeles Police Department is
deliberately refusing to release anyone arrested in the Occupy raids with a
notice to appear. The City is holding them in jail on $5,000 bail until they
can be arraigned by a judge, which can take up to 48 hours. This punishes
people for exercising their First Amendment rights.”
:Like the hypocrites on the City Council, the mayor boasted time and again how much he respects the First Amendment rights of the protesters. It appears it is the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments regarding illegal detention and due process that he has trouble with.
The truth, the sad truth, is he only respects money and power just like everyone else in elected office in this city.
I have hope that the Occupy L.A. movement will actually figure out that all politics is local and now that the encampment drama is over will decide to reach out to the 99 percent, including community activists of every sort, of every race, of every class, people who have worked long hours over many years to try to make their communities better, people who are treated like dirt by the power structure of L.A.
Absolutely – I did not see that they did
anything except demand their rights as citizens.
The cost to throw out these interlopers is at least 1.5 million dollars. The 1400 police last night probably charged 14,000 hours of overtime, and at the rate of at least $80 for overtime that works out to be $1,120,000. Add to that the city probably spent at least $200,000 in overtime cost for police, fire, DOT and Sanitation prior to last night, and the lawn will probably cost $600,000 to repair you have a GRAND TOTAL OF $1,920,000. It is probably more, but Reyes, and Villaraigosa do not care its not their money. I wonder how many librarians you could of paid with this money. I know about 20 librarians, and this cost doesn’t even include the cost of the City Attorneys and other Departments.
The cost to throw out these interlopers is at least 1.5 million dollars. The 1400 police last night probably charged 14,000 hours of overtime, and at the rate of at least $80 for overtime that works out to be $1,120,000. Add to that the city probably spent at least $200,000 in overtime cost for police, fire, DOT and Sanitation prior to last night, and the lawn will probably cost $600,000 to repair you have a GRAND TOTAL OF $1,920,000. It is probably more, but Reyes, and Villaraigosa do not care its not their money. I wonder how many librarians you could of paid with this money. I know about 20 librarians.
NO WAY….. MAKE THEM PAY THEIR OWN FULL BAIL AMOUNT!! THEY GOT WHAT THEY ASKED FOR AFTER THEY RUINED CITY PROPERTY AND CAUSED A LOT OF PROBLEMS FOR THE ACTUAL TAX PAYING CITIZENS OF LOS ANGELES.
I NEVER HERD ONE PERSON BELONGING TO THE PROTEST BE ABLE TO PUT AN INTELLIGENT SENTENCE TOGETHER (WHILE BEING INTERVIEWED BY THE MEDIA) THAT COULD EXPLAIN WHAT THE HECK THE WERE ACTUALLY PROTESTING!
No, Ms Sobel, they are not being punished for exercising their First Amendment rights. They are being arrested for violating, at minimum, chapter’s 1, 4 and 5, of our LA Municipal Code.
And,by the way…..where did these unemployed protesters get the money to buy their unapproved pharmaceuticals?
The protesters/occupiers owe nothing to the people of LA in terms of any damage done.
Mr. Barron needs to understand this. His citations of the code are meaningless.
The LA City Council lead by Eric Garcetti and Bill Rosendahl ok’d their stay. They passed a resolution and Eric Garcetti personally told them to “stay as long as you want.”
That allowed them stay and took away any responsibility. It also allows future groups to demand equal treatment under the law and have a similar stay.
Mitch Englander and another Councilmember “Abstained” instead of voting No. So their weakness should not be awarded and they cannot claim to be in the right.
The court did not consider any filings of the Occupy group because they did not file in an urgent manner and by the time the court became aware of it, the police action was over and a fence erected.
The LA City Attorney’s office uses anything as an excuse to “undo” the damage done by a revengeful Jan Perry to cut the budget in a disproportionate manner when compared to LAPD.
But you can’t blame this on the LA City attorney’s lack of budget.
The Occupy group members should be released without bail.
The LA City Council is responsible for releasing any liability from the protesters by the verbal statements from Eric Garcetti and Bill Rosendahl.
The LA City Attorney is not concerned about the people of LA, their concern is for the defense of their clients, the crooks also known as the elected leadership.
And the voters should not complain either.
I agree with David. The protesters are lucking that they only were arrested for a misdemeanor because what I’ve heard is major felonies were committed inside the encampment but everyone was too afraid to report them. Sorry Ron but this group is not getting any sympathy citywide. People in Los Angeles have had it with these pot smoking, lazy, public health group of people who were doing nothing but infighting and lost their message. Blame the Mayor and the morons in council. LAPD lapdog Beck is just following their orders cause his lame. If the local lazy ass media would do their homework and research they would report Beck is lying. But Beck is LYING…..”Beck said much of cost of the eviction would come from private funds collected by the LAPD for policing at Michael Jackson’s memorial.” THAT MONEY WAS SPENT BACK IN 2009. Report the facts
If you people really cared, you’d be in front of the city hall now demanding that Villar cancels his junket trip to Asia to save money. His folly of letting flea baggers to stay two months (!!!) and significantly damage city propery (30 tons of garbage !!!) cost you, the tax payers. So should be no money for his useless trip to line up his pockets and troll for women.
Villar will say his buddies on the LA Chamber or whoever else is going with him (12)are paying the bill. If Occupy LA really want to ruin his trip, he leaves Sunday Dec. 4th then they should put the word out they will protest at his house since he wont’ be home, and AEG. Villar loves AEG cause of those free tickets. How insane the council have the nerve to speak out and act as if they had nothing to do with Occupy LA staying so long at the city park.
If it wasn’t for City Atty Carmen Trutanich, who was the only one to demand AEG pay back those funds to the city, they wouldn’t have had that money.
My question, how can they cover the money spent on the Jackson memorial and pay for LAPD overtime to evict the occupiers, all on the same $1.4 million dollars.
That don’t make sense.
Occupy LA: Wake up and work with the community folks throughout the City that know the issues and need your support of many good causes to challenge the ability of the 1% to continue getting multi-million dollar handouts from the LA City Council.
I don’t know the GOP had lobbyists for public yoga, weed smoking, and trashing of public property
I guess Ron Kaye and friends are it
Wouldn’t it be great if the Occupy LA group protested the AEG LA Live tree lighting tomorrow? If Beck wants to give them credit then hey, they deserve to be protested for wasting our tax dollars
About THAT Mr. Mayor, Let me make this as clear as I CAN, that because of planning and surprise element, it was successful. Wrong. It was successful because the Protest WAS PeACEFUL.
As you know a big majority represented the homeless, as homeless are know to migrate to these encampments because they are a safe-haven. Not enough housing Mr. Mayor, the Problems still remain, as before the movement and now after, never the less, WE can not afford to meddle with Petty Politics, especially criminal and before WE KNOW IT, there will be A NEW MAYOR; with the CRAP left over, starting from a two mayor ago.
About the successful eviction, I call it an evacuation, disbursment of people, who came for a reason, were warmly greeted, were told thank you for comming, with deep appreciation and then after two months, bingo bango Hey, guys, (mayor speaking) I gave you Poncho’s (hola)..but no taco’s so now it’s to to Vamous outta-here!! That is EGO talking.
If Occupy LA were smart and that’s debatable, they would go to LA County in Gloria Molina territory. Why are they staying just in Los Angeles? Get out of here and go protest the outskirts of LA County and do something worth the time instead of just smoking dope. In the end the drug dealers from Skid Row ended up in the emcampent and the radicals. If you read all the postings on stories all over the internet this Group has NO SUPPORT AT ALL. The more they behave like morons they more they are pissing people OFF