April 17, 2008

Report From Occupied America (contd.): Jamiel Shaw Gang Killing Enrages Los Angeles—Bratton, Villaraigosa Play For Time

By Brenda Walker

If there is anything that reveals America's moral rot stemming from the loss of law and borders, it is the protection of criminals to the endangerment of the public.

Among the violent crimes that devastate American families, there is a category that is completely preventable—those committed by illegal aliens. If the borders were defended as the Constitution requires, then the crimes done by foreigners residing unlawfully would have been avoided. If cities and states would desist from pro-crime sanctuary polices, many violent deaths could be averted.

Yet politicians from Los Angeles to Washington continue to balk at the basic responsibility of protecting law-abiding citizens from predatory foreigners. On the contrary—illegals are emboldened by liberal sanctuary policies that cut them extra slack to pursue violence, drug dealing and theft.

Los Angeles’ Special Order 40 has been making life easier for foreign criminals since 1979 when it was instituted by Chief Darryl Gates and the City Council. As Heather Mac Donald testified before a Congressional committee April 13, 2005, (Immigration and the Alien Gang Epidemic: Problems and Solutions):

“Sanctuary laws, present in such cities as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Austin, Houston, and San Francisco, generally forbid local police officers from inquiring into a suspect’s immigration status or reporting it to federal authorities.  Such laws place a higher priority on protecting illegal aliens from deportation than on protecting legal immigrants and citizens from assault, rape, arson, and other crimes.

“Let’s say a Los Angeles police officer sees a member of Mara Salvatrucha hanging out at Hollywood and Vine. The gang member has previously been deported for aggravated assault; his mere presence back in the country following deportation is a federal felony. Under the prevailing understanding of Los Angeles’s sanctuary law (special order 40), if that officer merely inquires into the gangbanger’s immigration status, the officer will face departmental punishment.”

Another preventable human tragedy occurred on March 2, when a young black man with a promising future, Jamiel Shaw Jr., was murdered in cold blood three houses away from the safety of home. One of the two accused killers is an illegal alien, Pedro Espinoza, who had just been released from jail the day before the shooting. Espinoza was a known member of LA's 18th Street gang, yet was released with no check of his immigration status because of Special Order 40. (For more background, see my article In Los Angeles, Hispanic Gangs Ethnically Cleansing Black Neighborhoods. )

Shaw’s murder seems to have appears to have triggered mounting outrage among LA residents—a sense that, whatever alleged advantage accrues to police-foreigner relations from sanctuary policies, the price in blood is far too high.

Local radio is fired up. Morning talk-show host Doug McIntyre is angry and active, as are John and Ken, who has a listening audience of over a million in afternoon drive time. McIntyre has been supporting "Jamiel's Law," a creation of mayoral candidate Walter Moore. (Read the text here, the most important parts of which repeal Special Order 40 for gang members.)

Doug McIntyre is one of the fiercest defenders of borders, and does a spirited rant here. His interview of the parents, Jamiel Sr. and Anita Shaw, also included Walter Moore with a discussion of Jamiel's Law.

On television, Lou Dobbs presented a rare illegal alien crime story on April 9, with Casey Wian doing a tough, emotionally affecting segment about the family's loss. (Watch on YouTube.) Bill O'Reilly, a long-time reporter of illegal alien crime, blasted Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and called Los Angeles "hopeless" because it "will not protect the people."

Jamiel's parents addressed the City Council on April 8 (watch on YouTube). I don't know how anyone could refuse their heartfelt, common-sense request that Special Order 40 be remedied at least to the point where known gang members are checked for immigration status when they are in jail.

Even so, the invasion pathology ruling Los Angeles is so extreme that illegal alien gang-bangers have open defenders on the City Council. Councilman Ed Reyes [send him mail] said fixing Special Order 40 "will cause division, because our economy isn't ready for that; I think we will suffer more. Our sense of community I think will be shattered." [CNN Transcript, April 8]

A criminal crackdown on vicious illegal alien Mexicans will shatter their “sense of community”? That doesn't speak well of Hispanics residing in the City of Angels.

For another example of allegiance to Mexico (including its criminals), listen to a clip [MP3] on the John and Ken Show of Councilman Tony Cárdenas  [send him mail] supporting illegal alien gangsters. So did members Bill Rosendahl and Richard Alarcon.

You might think that even the most corrupt tribalists would want the bad criminals among their group to be sent away, at least in order to maintain the fiction of multicultural peace and love. But no. Loyalty to evil is more powerful. It's true: the dark side of the force is strong.

(Mug shots and contact info for the Los Angeles City Council here.)

Another enabler of LA crime is the police chief, William Bratton, famous for insulting the friends of American sovereignty by saying, "If you don't like it (Special Order 40), leave the state." (Listen.) Bratton [send him mail] is a typical political police chief, more attuned to pleasing powerful interests than fighting crime.

Chief Bratton is not new to gang killings but he made a curious remark about Espinoza. "He assassinated [Shaw], just for the belief that he might have been a gang member," Bratton said. "That's what we are up against in this city, sociopaths like that."

We don't know much about Espinoza, but there is no evidence that he is a sociopath even if he is a killer. It is more likely that the 19-year-old was looking to establish gang cred among fellow Hispanics by killing a black. If so, he was acting rationally according to the customs of his tribe. Hispanic gang culture is a far bigger problem than a few criminal sociopaths—something a top cop should know.

In recent remarks to the Los Angeles Daily News, Chief Bratton remained stuck on the idea that the only people he needs to protect are the illegal immigrants: Immigrant rights-groups assail proposed changes in Special Order 40 [April 14, 2008]:

“‘We have a huge illegal immigrant population, as well as legal immigrant population, that are preyed on by criminals.

“‘We need those people as witnesses, we need them as victims, to help us,’ he said.

“‘Even the idea, the chilling effect of asking somebody their immigrant status, is a form of profiling. We're not going to engage in it.’"

A 17-year-old boy is dead at the hands of an illegal alien gangster, and the Chief of Police is worried about "profiling"? Los Angeles is upside down.

On a more positive note, Councilman Dennis Zine, a former LAPD officer, has proposed an amendment to the sanctuary policy requiring officers to report gang members found to be illegal immigrants to federal authorities: Zine wants to amend LAPD policy on immigrants , [By Richard Winton,, Andrew Blankstein and David Zahniser, LA Times, April 11, 2008].

That sounds good, although the Public Safety Committee, which would do preliminary consideration of Zine's reform, is going on hiatus for a month, so there may be some political footdragging, waiting for the furor to die down.

During his cliché-laden State of the City speech on Monday, April 14, Mayor Villaraigosa [send him mail] enthusiastically declared himself the "King of Potholes" (more than 800,000 filled!). And he did mention the plague of gang crime

“In the last year, this Department and this Chief have shown what we can accomplish when we support the mission. By focusing intensively on the top eleven gangs, we helped to register a 26 percent reduction in gang murders citywide. But, you know, that is grim consolation to the families of the 216 human beings who last year lost their lives and the more than 1,300 Angelenos who were the victims of gang shootings.

“Angelenos, we are all equal in the eyes of God. Every time an Angeleno is the victim of violence, we are all injured.

“But I want to say something to the whole community tonight.

“Crimes motivated by hate, by the color of a victim's skin, by heritage or language, by religion or belief, by gender or sexual orientation, do a special kind of violence.

“They strike us at the heart. They seek to nullify who we are as Angelenos. They attack us at our point of greatest strength, which has always been found in our diversity and our difference. And they challenge the very idea that a city of four million, black and brown, Caucasian and Asian, Spanish and English, Muslim and Jewish, Sikh and Armenian Orthodox, can be one City.” [State of the City speech, in PDF].

But the Mayor's answer to gang crime is to waste millions of taxpayer dollars on boon-doggling "intervention" programs. These have little effect on barrio kids more affected by examples of alpha-gangsters with big cars and impressive guns.

Villaraigosa did not, of course, mention the crime-friendly sanctuary policy. He apparently believes his tiresome diversity drivel will make violent behavior disappear.

Los Angeles today has become so corrupted by the influence of foreigners with their own agenda that it is simply ceasing to an American city.

According to Dante, the lowest level of hell is a zone populated by traitors. That applies to Los Angeles' previous mayor, James Hahn, who proclaimed it to be a "Mexican city", the current Mayor, Villaraigosa, the police chief and much of the City Council.

Given the appalling Presidential election, Americans who care about saving the country will need to become even more active locally. We can all practice up on our haranguing, er, registering our concerns with the LA City Council.