Dear LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell:
I want to join a gang. Do you know where I send my application?
While you’re chief of America’s third-largest police force, you’re obviously the right person to ask about this.
First, because I’ve long considered you a friend. You returned my calls, back when you were an Long Beach police chief and L.A. County sheriff, and you even spoke at public events convened by my publication.
Second, because you’re the person who convinced me to become a gang member.
While you haven’t advised me directly to join gangland, your actions have made your message unmistakable:
If Californians want to protect our neighbors and ourselves from lawless federal raids, our only option is going gangster.
I confess it took me awhile to reach this conclusion. During the early days of the ongoing ICE/Border Patrol siege of Southern California, I assumed that the LAPD mission statement, “To Protect and Serve,” implied a commitment to protect all of L.A. So I thought you’d have detectives investigating federal violence against Angelenos.
But you didn’t. For a few days, I wondered if you had been persuaded to defund the police, or just retire. You are 66 and have become noticeably hands-off.
But I was wrong. Soon you started saying that LAPD’s non-response was exactly what you intended.
You explained that the department’s “Special Order 40” restricting you from doing immigration enforcement also meant that you couldn’t protect Angelenos from violent feds doing immigrant enforcement. Your principled refusal to intervene included cases where U.S. citizens were assaulted, or legal immigrants kidnapped.
That reminds me of something else I admire about you: you’re no politician — as you proved in losing the 2018 sheriff’s election to lunatic Alex Villanueva. Today, you’re ignoring the fact that 72% of Californians believe local police should arrest federal immigration officials who act maliciously or exceed their authority, according to a poll.
Of course, you’re also a pragmatist, and you recognized you couldn’t completely ignore the raids.. So, when Homeland Security types called you because they were surrounded by Angelenos who organized to protect their neighbors, you rolled out and helped the feds.
You were keeping the peace!
Ungrateful activists claimed that you were taking the feds’ side — because they don’t understand you like I do. As you explained publicly, you must see the big picture — that stopping the abductions of Angelenos now might get in the way of solving serious crimes and preventing terrorist attacks later.
“All of the crimes we investigate potentially could be in partnership with [federal agencies],” you told the city council last summer. “Without that partnership, we wouldn’t be able to go into the World Cup, the Olympics.”
So, you left the task of defending Angelenos to Angelenos themselves. But you didn’t leave us entirely alone. When we responded to the federal raids with public demonstrations, you sent police who fired “less lethal” projectiles at protesters and journalists, presumably so we’d flee before we got hurt.
Since you had foreclosed police response and protests, I found myself asking: what does Jim want our city to do?
To answer that, I reviewed notes from our old conversations, and noticed you citing John Stuart Mill, the 19th-century English philosopher-politician.
Mill famously argued that people may cause evil through inaction: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”
Then it hit me. Taking on bad feds requires grit and resolve. You, I realized, had been leaving Angelenos to confront federal violence to toughen us up!
You could see that politicians would never stop the raids. Many Republicans support the abusive actions. Democrats are too cowardly to round up rights-violating federal agents.
You were telling us that our choice isn’t red or blue. It’s Blood or Crip.
So, once I’m on-boarded into the right crew, I’d love to buy you lunch. Because, when I think about your responses to these raids, I truly can’t thank you enough.
Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Dear LAPD Chief, how do I join a gang? | Mathews
Reporting by Joe Mathews, Zócalo Public Square / Ventura County Star
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