Dear Editor,
The irresponsible lack of decisiveness by Mayor Garcia and LBPD Chief Luna is directly responsible for many of Long Beach businesses being looted and destroyed. How can they claim that they weren’t aware of the possibilities when they put in extreme measures to keep City Hall and the police department building safe with barriers.?!
Even though the Sheriff of Los Angeles County proclaimed a curfew at 6 p.m. on Sunday night, Garcia and Luna dilly-dallied around to an 8 p.m. curfew. How many businesses could have been saved.?!
They could have limited the protest demonstration time, or engaged in substantial pre-planning, or called in mutual aid and the National Guard as backup much earlier, or punctured the tires of getaway vehicles and confiscated them, or exercised a myriad of other measures available to them. Instead, when the inevitable violence and looting evolved, the well-paid police force just stood by and watched all the while proclaiming an empty victory.
This, people, is your taxpayer dollars NOT at work. Remember that at the voting polls next Nov.
Diana Lejins, Long Beach resident
Could not agree more. You said it exactly the way I would of. One of the worst cases of ineptitude at the highest level.
I agree that our elected officials and the police acted irresponsibly… as they have for as long as I’ve lived in Long Beach.
We have one of the very worst police departments in California. We’ve had the distinction at times of being the bloodiest. The city has paid out an average of $6 million every year for the last five years in settlements stemming from police brutality. Our mayor and councilmembers are owned by the Long Beach Police Officers Association (LBPOA) who donate generously directly to their campaigns, their officeholder accounts, or indirectly through Independent Expenditures.
The gross violation of our democracy, Measure BBB, which gave the elected officials (bought and paid for by LBPOA) an extra term was paid for by the LBPOA. The so-called Ethics Commission which is controlled by the very people it should be watching over, and turns a blind eye to gross ethics violations like allowing campaign donors and lobbyists to apply for a seat on the commission, was paid for by the LBPOA. The Citizens Police Complaint Commission (CPCC) that is supposed to watch over the police… does not, and woe to those who dare question it, because they get fired.
On May 31st, the most important dereliction of duties by our elected officials was to allow the police to violate our First Amendment right of free speech. The police were far too busy harassing, gassing, beating, and shooting rubber bullets at protesters to be bothered with their main job as exalted security guards. It is clear from the many eyewitness reports that the police were ignoring the looters in front of their nose while concentrating on what started out as peaceful protests. They are, after all, paid “to protect and to serve”, but evidently not the constitution or the public it protects. #RecallMayorGarcia #AbolishTheLBPOA #DefundThePolice
Carlos Ovalle