Nearly every day Los Angles police file reports on someone for their simply being suspicious. Suspicious of what, however, is unclear. It is part of the Los Angeles Police Department’s suspicious activity reporting program, which is touted as a first line of defense against possible terrorist attacks. Though law enforcement praises the reporting system,...
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Over 100 demonstrators marched through Compton yesterday to protest the killing of Jose de la Trinidad by sheriff’s deputies. Converging on the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Compton station, protesters demanded justice, not only for the Trinidad family, but for other victims of police shootings. De la Trinidad, 36, was killed by deputies on...
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Transparency and accountability are lacking in California’s gang member database, according to a recent report written by the Youth Justice Coalition. The report, called “Tracked and Trapped,” outlines a system of secret surveillance that targets alleged gang members, many of whom have not been arrested or accused of a crime. Some in the database...
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Los Angeles saw its second SlutWalk yesterday as participants marched through Hollywood to buck stereotypes and call attention to victim-blaming in cases of sexual assault. The concept of SlutWalk was spawned in early 2011 when a representative of the Toronto Police said “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized”...
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A coalition of organizations will be launching a civil rights campaign against the Metropolitan Transit Authority this Wednesday, July 25. Headed by the Bus Riders Union, activists hope to gain the support of the White House in pressuring the MTA in rectifying a series of civil rights violations documented by the Federal Transit Administration....
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A candlelight vigil was held by a small group of occupiers on July 19 to express solidarity for those injured and arrested in a recent protest that ended in violence. While holding candles and maintaining silence, a little over a dozen occupiers walked two blocks from Pershing Square to Fifth and Spring streets, the...
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Homeless people have historically gained the ire of city dwellers. In 1875, the editors of the New York magazine Appleton’s Journal took issue with the destitute who made themselves “an object of abhorrence to decent folk” in Central Park. They criticized the installment of park benches, saying that the “mendicancy of a free seat...
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It began with a corn dog and ended in three arrests. Last night, a man who only asked to be identified by his first name, Mike, sat on the steps of the Aon Center building at Wilshire Boulevard and Hope Street to eat his corn dog and rest. Building security told him he could...
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Although the Los Angeles Police Department announced it would modify the way it stores its reports on suspicious activity that it deems related to terrorism, a coalition of community groups is skeptical of the reforms and is calling for the program to be ended. Due to concerns over privacy, the department said last month...
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Occupy activists and homeless advocates continued their planned seven-day demonstration last night in front of the offices of the Central City Association, a downtown business advocacy group. Activists argue that CCA influences city officials to draft policies that benefit wealthy interests at the expense of downtown’s poor and homeless residents. Pitching the occupy movement’s...
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