I probably shouldn’t be writing this Op-Ed, since a particulat police department calls me every week to harass me into donating (probably in retaliation against me for suggesting that the City of Los Angeles is $73 million in the red already – largely due to the pension funds of the police and fire departments). And I can see how this would be the case – as quite recently — my beloved Times reported that 50 L.A. police officers received $16 million from the federal government for additional pensions. Wow! I thought they get pretty healthy pensions already – just to pick-up-the-pieces…
Every time I stop in at the Ralphs off of Los Virgenes in Calabassas – I see an empty patrol car parked in the parking lot. I’ve never actually seen the cop or cops who go with this vehicle – (but I’ve never stopped in at the Starbucks there either). But I’m thinking that a cop car in the parking lot is definitely a deterrent to would-be anti-social types.
Certainly getting a ticket for running a stop sign (or was it a red light) on the morning that you are contemplating a mass murder – might slow you down a little…might even make ammunition harder to buy. But perhaps the Arizona cops like white kids with shaved heads? Did this cop even check the computer on this punk (because he reportedly had a police file!).
So I was left feeling a bit incredulous when I saw the “first responders” to the Tucson Tragedy getting awards for…for…for what? For coming in to-pick-up-the-pieces, yet again? I thought that the police credo was “to serve and protect”? I for one would like to see more-of-us honest, hardworking taxpayers getting protected by the-boys-and-girls-in-blue. I’m wondering if it was such selfsame taxpayers who took down the shooter and prevented more carnage – because there were no police on-the-scene. Obviously these 3 are the true heroes, and will be honored, (I’m sure); but why should any-of-the-boys-and-girls-in-blue receive commendations for doing their job, albeit quite after-the-fact?! I mean, anyone can put yellow tape around a crime scene…
I’ve driven by that shopping mall on Ina Road more-than-once, in fact, I’ve probably even shopped there. Didn’t Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords have to file something-or-another with the local constabulary that her little gathering might cause some parking problems (that might even have called for a-couple-of-officers to help with the traffic flow in-and-out of the shopping center)? I mean, don’t police mull around such events that could get ugly if protestors showed up?
I guess the old cliché is true: that cops simply aren’t around when you need them. I’ve been clobbered twice by-a-couple-of-drunks, one of whom had been tailed by a couple for 7 miles as they tried to get the police to get this drunk off-the-road. The police only got there to pick up the pieces – after the drunk driver had rear-ended me and then plowed into the central median.
Which leads me to the recent incident RE: Mitrice Richardson who left the Malibu/Lost Hills police station in the wee hours of the morning and then disappeared – but whose body was discovered in a canyon 9 months later (not long after [how ironic is this?] her former boyfriend reported seeing her in Vegas?! In this instance the police weren’t supposed to pick-up-the-pieces until the coroner arrived on-the-scene – but they did anyway – and now Ms. Richardson’s body is being exhumed for further analyses. Go figure…