Now that he's found himself flat-footed after four years with a paper-thin record of social activism upon which to base a campaign, Mayor Jim Hahn's feverishly engaging in empty, populist shovel-work:
Put aside for a second that 22 such localized injunctions are already being used to quell the worst of the gang activity in South Los Angeles, the Harbor area and east L.A.. - by forbidding cop-ID'd gang members to congregate, carry cellphones, possess spray paint, etc.
It's really just another pandering, implausible "cure-all" proposal being flung into the mediasphere by a losing incumbent who's desperate to look busy ...
While on the one hand this reinforces LAPD Chief William Bratton's so-far successful "broken windows" policy by increasing vigilance to problems before they start, Hahn's gang injunction runs smack into a couple of big problems:
The ACLU has already raised the question of harrassment - enforcement the injunction will likely stomp on more than a few innocent toes and result in the errant branding of non-criminals who are friends with gang members. Count on Steve Yagman and a few of the more pro-active civil-rights plaintiffs' attorneys to get busy with the inevitable wrongful-arrest cases.
What's more - even if Rocky Delgadillo's office can put together a motion compelling enough to persuade a court to pass such an overreaching blanket mandate (and somehow naming all 39,000+ "known" gang members in L.A.), it's going to cause a massive overload on already-stretched LAPD officers working gang turf.
Now they'll have to divide attention between the daily business of handling assaults, domestic violence and armed robbery to make sure they're consistently shooing 14-year-olds with gang affiliations on their F.I. (field-interview) cards away from riding bikes together.
Jim, where were you four years ago with real, feasible programs to improve schooling, job opportunities and mentoring programs in gang-afflicted neighborhoods?
Oh, right. Paying Fleishman-Hillard more than $3 million (on bad billing) to tout a city utility that has no competition.
Listen - not to be flip, but aside from the fact that this injunction boondoggle is just a transparent election-season trampoline flip with no real importance - isn't this about as futile as trying to reverse decades of toxic-waste dumping by declaring a nationwide law against littering?
Posted by: mack_reed on Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 08:40 AM
