Letter to Editor: Comments on ‘Oops! They Did It Again!’

I read a recent article about the senseless killing of CEO Jesse Dillion’s nephew and after pondering the issues involved, it was all I could do to hold back the tears. Death is all around us. The charge that “Black Lives Matter” and that the community does not care about the senseless shootings and killings by criminals in our community is nothing but rhetoric to keep your eyes off the prize.

We cannot continue to have a police department in Pasadena without appropriate oversight! Many will think this a liberal view, which is anti-police, but it is just the opposite. We must bring our community/police partnership back to Pasadena or we will never be able to combat and quell the violence in our community. Combating crimes and violence, whether it be gang, domestic, or otherwise, is a primary function of our police department. But when the stench of gang violence and organized criminality wreak havoc on a community, it can only be overcome by a trusting true partnership between the community and the police.

Over and over, we have cautioned the chief that statistics do not lie. The recent stats on arrest, complaints, and use of force had a major missing element – transparency! Without a detailed breakdown of the numbers, they are meaningless. What crimes were allegedly committed that resulted in arrest, age, ethnicity, geographical area of the arrest are important details that allow us to see a clearer picture of what is going on in our community and where. Make no mistake – gang violence is about money, territory, and control.

More detailed and transparent information on use of force is a must. Who, what, when, where, why, and outcome (within the confines of the law) must be a part of the reporting process.

We have tried for many years to create this transparency by working with the PPD, hoping that they would see the light and the importance of this transparency to create an environment of trust where the community would be enthusiastic, not hesitant, to cooperate with the police in fighting violence and crime in our communities. But, the word is still out!

There are segments of the PPD that operate with a gang mentality – terrorizing, brutalizing, and even killing our people. Rest assured, every Black and Brown man (and woman) knows a police encounter could easily escalate into a death encounter.

Some members of the public safety committee seem to honestly be trying to address the issue of oversight but, have many obstacles in their way. If you ask the public safety committee for their analysis of the statistics, they will do nothing more than repeat the statistics given by the chief. This is not oversight, it is lip service. They must put some teeth in their oversight bite. The bodies are mounting and the divide between the community and the police seems to get wider.

If the city council and the public safety committee think that the community has forgotten their response to the McDade report, they are sorely mistaken. Victor Gordo and Steve Madison’s filibuster performance at the city council hearing on the report was like a bad episode of “Law and Order” on steroids! As they discounted every point made by the experts in a report they themselves had commissioned. But there were encouraging highlights from the council as Council Member McAustin brought the discussion back home to the community and the mayor and remaining council members looked towards resolving the issue of police accountability and not the rhetoric of divisiveness. We applaud the statement by Council Member Tyron Hampton that all of the recommendations from the report should be implemented. The community agrees.

Yes, Black Lives Matter! But make no mistake, this community is committed to stop the violence whether it comes from the police, gangs, domestic abusers, or the everyday criminal!

The community agrees that we cannot combat violence without a partnership with the police, but until the community can see some concrete change that will allow us to trust the majority of the department, the violence will continue. This change will need to come from the top, down, or we are doomed to see more violence until “Trust” comes back to “Protect and Serve.”

If the police cannot and will not help us, we must help ourselves. Our neighborhood associations and neighborhood watches must gather everyday information about criminal activity in our community and disperse this information to the community by email, flyer, or any means available to warn our youth, adults, families, and children of gang and criminal activity hot spots. We know what is going on in our communities. Let us go back to each one, teach one. We must protect and serve our own communities. Knowledge/education is power!

Oversight for our police department is long overdue. The argument of cost and need has been answered. We need it and if we do not move forward soon, it will cost more lives. No more dead children! The unwarranted killing of our people by criminals whether they are the police or others cannot continue to be tolerated.

But let us make no mistake about where we are. The recent city council/public safety committee discussion of the experts report on police oversight brought about another Laurel and Hardy filibuster performance by Steve Madison and Victor Gordon, refusing to listen or consider any of the recommendations from the experts for any form of independent police oversight. Oops, they did it again, asked for an expert report on independent oversight of the police and then refused to consider any of the experts’ findings. This time the fiasco was joined by Gene Masuda, who accused council members of not supporting our police department. Council Member McAustin moved back from her position that this is about the community and trust, and tacitly agreed with council members Madison, Gordo, and Masuda.

But, we are not done yet, another study was commissioned by the public safety committee to assess the public’s perception of the police department and the findings were again clear that the community at large felt that people of color were often treated differently and unfairly, compared to whites and more specifically treated poorly in the northwest.

Oops, he did it again! Before any review by the public safety committee, Council Member Steve Madison stated the findings were flawed and not representative of the community. Do we see a pattern here?

We are watching the tale of two cities (right here in Pasadena) play out in front of our eyes at city council. Make no mistake, the message is: we do not care about the people or issues in northwest Pasadena. We would rather payout million dollar settlements over the next few years as we work on gentrification of the northwest community and increase the building of high market rate property (with no balance of affordable housing), as over the years this could prove more cost effective than creating the oversight needed. The Rub being the death of African Americans and people of color, is the price of doing business in Pasadena.

And let us be clear on the arrest and conviction of Jasmine Abdullah! This is a travesty of justice. This case should have been dropped by the district attorney and in no way was a felony crime. In what world do we live in where the PPD lie, cheat, harass, and kill those they are sworn to protect and serve with impunity (they should be in jail), while a young warrior ask for justice and gets jail instead and threats and intimidation by the police. As was stated in the recent documentary on Compton “the police are the biggest gang in our community!” Who is the real criminal here?

The message is, if you live in the northwest your lives, your issues, your well-being does not matter.

A member of the city told me point blank: this is not Ferguson, the powers that be, know the people will do nothing more than talk.

Oops! They did it again! And the final message is you cannot do anything about it! Or can we?

– Martin A. Gordon, Chair Pasadena Community Coalition

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