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Editorial--Special to Expo Update
It Looks Like August will be Hotter than
July!
By: Omari Bakari
Now that more people are becoming outraged at L.A.’s two very
distinct problems of police killings and gang terrorism, one being
predicated on the other, the community 40 years after the Watts riot
is once again getting restless.
For those of us who do remember Los Angeles and Watts 40 years ago
we - can recall the soaring temperatures, bad police/community
relations and youth bursting with frustration and restlessness from
not seeing the immediate results of the civil rights movement -
watched it erupt into the infamous Watts Riots.
Conditions today are baring a striking resemblance of Watts 40 years
ago.
As forceful as the police department has been in our communities,
they have never quite really seemed to solve the problem of poor
police-community relations.
As a result, the citizens are once again in an uproar. This time
it’s not just the LAPD, it’s the L.A. County Sheriffs, LBPD, and so
on and so on.
Police killings are on the rise and televised on our news channels
almost daily.
The irony is that more and more people are beginning to feel that
the police department’s strategy is a failure. While we watch the
police raid homes in “Operation Swift Intruder” and “Operation
Silent Night” looking for gang members that allegedly were involved
in the murder of another police officer, little Terry Brown, Jr.’s
murder, and some 30 others, will go unnoticed or unmentioned as it
was just part of a statistic that has yet to exceed last year’s
mark.
The police department’s information officer wants us to believe that
crime is in fact down from last year at this same time. The homicide
mark in July 2005 is 3 less than in 2004. We want the police to know
that even that number has been too high not just last year but for
the past 40 years and it is unacceptable.
The message: Kill a cop we’ll hunt you down. Kill a brother or
sister, business as usual.
In fact, when Jeff Coprich, founder and director of the L.A. Inner
City Mass Choir learned that Terry had been gunned down, he
contacted detective Greg Allen, a lieutenant in the 77th
division homicide department, to see if they would call a press
conference and offer a reward for information leading to the arrest
of young Terry Brown’s murderer. When Coprich followed up to see
what progress was in the works detective Allen told him to “lose his
number – don’t call me again”.
Coprich was visibly upset and angry about the way the police handled
his call. He said the detective’s tone of voice was arrogant and
disrespectful. As Coprich and his staff prepared to pick up food
items to feed the Brown family that evening, his outrage towards the
LAPD’s community relations spewed.
“Terry was a drummer who played with several community groups and he
was not a gang member. I’m out here trying to give these children an
alternative to the violence and crime in the streets. I have a
responsibility to stay on top of what is going on in our communities
with these kids”, stated Coprich.
The timely release of the Urban League and United Way report
validating what most people in the community already knew, the Black
community today is worse than it was in 1965.
Yet the question most want answered is: if we can spend the kind of
money spent to run down Al Qaeda, Bin Laden and police killers who
all have one thing in common - terrorism – then why can’t we stamp
out gang violence activity in the African American, Latino and Asian
communities that affect innocent hardworking American families’
everyday?
Even though gang membership numbers are extremely high, they
represent a very small portion of our community.
As we all are full of the hope that Mayor Villaraigosa can turn L.A.
around, he will have to build a police department that will actually
protect and serve all of the people of Los Angeles.
40 years after the Watts Riots most of us who have lived in south
Los Angeles know that conditions are worse. There are more drugs in
our communities today. There is more crime in our communities today.
It appears that the police relations are worse in our communities
and there are certainly less opportunities.
If all that wasn’t enough, we are having record temperatures and
sweltering heat.
It looks like this is going to be a very hot August.
Even hotter than July!
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