Below is an article (in the local Wave Newspaper) about the a protest
action protesting the shooting by the Inglewood Police of an unarmed young
Black man by the Inglewood California Police.
And another Black man was killed today by the Inglewood Police.
Tomorrow (Tuesday, July 22, 2008) there will be large meetings at Bethel
AME (79th and Western at 6:00 p.m) and then at the Inglewood City Council
meeting (starting at 7:00 p.m but the Public Comments part of the Inglewood
City Council Meeting will not start until later - maybe about 8:00 p.m.
although the time is not certain - Inglewood City Hall is at One Manchester
Avenue, Inglewood , California) to organize to attempt to stop this outrageous
pattern of police abuse.
Jim D.
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Los Angeles Wave
The Soulvine
By BETTY PLEASANT, Contributing Editor 17.JUL.08
SOMEBODY CARES - There seems to be considerable agreement among
residents in and around Inglewood as to the immediate need to put some controls
on the city's lethal renegade police force. While many residents have said
"amen" to last week's Soulvine, this e-mail to the Soulvine from an Inglewood
person expresses the tone of them all:
"Remember, while Inglewood residents practice 'duck and cover' when
they run across IPD officers, or while our streets run red with the tears of
families of blameless victims, the run-amok law enforcement officers of
Inglewood are charged with: raping alleged streetwalkers in local motels, being
'serviced' by massage parlor prostitutes, illegally discharging firearms in the
air at local bar hang-outs, beating up black janitors in their headquarters
offices, running shipping scams through FedEx and UPS, reckless driving
resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage per year in
taxpayer expense - all of which has gone under-reported or without public
comment, or no official follow-up or little discipline and fewer terminations.
"IPD has cost Inglewood citizens millions of dollars in court
judgments, damages, time and effort to handle or clear up their mess. Where's
the accountability? IPD receives annual pay raises when the balance of the
truly hardworking city staff hasn't had a salary increase in decades. Special
ballot propositions are passed by the voters to increase sales taxes to collect
even greater revenues to cover IPD costs; they get to work three-day, 12- hour
work schedules while most law enforcement agencies have spurned this approach
to law enforcement - it engenders lack of judgment and productivity.
"Like good government, community policing in Inglewood is just a
concept, a notion or vague idea. Few or no dollars are spent to teach or train
officers on its practice. They would rather buy the latest handguns, shotguns,
sniper rifles, ammunition, bulletproof vests, tear gas, stun guns, tasers,
batons, tactical and armored vehicles, and the like. As an organization, they
seem ready to bemoan the community, and unwilling to befriend it. They have
chosen weapons of mass destruction, rather than reasons for mass communication."
Los Angeles activists were quick to jump on the Inglewood police
issue, as Najee Ali, Big Money Griff, Pastor Warren Henry and the Rev. K.W.
Tulloss of Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network, led attorney James P.
DeMaegt and a group of about a dozen other Inglewood residents on a Walk For
Justice around Inglewood City Hall Friday in the first sign that somebody cares
about police atrocities in that city