The Antelope Valley Times

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Op-ed: Lancaster and Palmdale: Cancel the contract with the LA County Sheriff

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By Waunette Cullors

It doesn’t take a federal monitor to tell us that policing in the Antelope Valley (AV) is unconstitutional, racist, and often deadly for Black and Brown residents. But the 10th semi-annual report from the federal Monitoring Team on progress with the 2015 Settlement Agreement between the U.S. Department of Justice and the LA County Sheriff over racist policing by the Lancaster and Palmdale Sheriff Stations should be alarming to all LA County residents, and any who believe in fairness and justice.

Both of our AV cities are made up of majority people of color. From 1990 to 2010, the Black population in Lancaster grew from 7% to 21%, and in Palmdale Latinos make up the majority, comprising 55% of the population.

Five years into the federal Settlement Agreement, the Monitoring Team’s open letter to the presiding Judge states, a “disturbing lack of progress on key areas including use of force, complaints, crime prevention strategies, and community engagement practices as well as our concerns about a lack of accountability and follow-through at the highest levels of LASD administration.”

This resounding condemnation of the Sheriff’s Department is backed up by 73 pages of metrics detailing how LASD and the County continue to subjugate Black and Brown Antelope Valley residents to humiliation, harassment, and state violence.

Among the many yardsticks of bad policing and misconduct measured in the report, the Sheriffs use discretionary stops and searches as the primary tool for oppression and discrimination. Combined, the two AV stations conducted 39,232 discretionary stops in 2019 (vehicle, bicycle, or pedestrian), averaging over 100 unwarranted stops a day, 365 days a year.

While comprising roughly 17% of the combined AV population, Black people make up 32% of all stops, and yet are less likely to have contraband or to be on probation or parole. The Report goes on to detail how the Sheriff is out of compliance on 18 of 23 Settlement Agreement requirements related to stops, including conducting stops and detentions without reasonable suspicion.

The progress on Use of Force by the Sheriffs is equally disturbing. In fact, Use of Force has INCREASED since the Settlement Agreement took effect, up 53% in Lancaster and a 57% increase in Palmdale, comparing 2016-2017 with 2018-2019. Here, LASD is out of compliance on 13 of the 19 Settlement Agreement requirements related to Use of Force, including not having an updated Use of Force Protocol document for the DOJ to review and approve — after 5 years.

Again, none of this comes as a surprise to those living in these occupied communities.

I moved to the Antelope Valley over two decades ago. As is the case in many communities throughout the US, far too often, Black youth are stopped without reason in the Antelope Valley community. We shouldn’t have to live in a world where our children of all ages are stopped, chastised, humiliated, and searched.

I have seen deputies targeting undocumented women with their children and stopping them for infractions such as lack of car seats. They take this opportunity to impound their cars and take their children away.

This parade of community harassment doesn’t come cheap either. The City of Palmdale spends over $28 million for these Sheriff “services,” 35% of the City’s General Fund. While the city of Lancaster spends over $27 million, 39% of Lancaster’s General Fund. As a taxpayer in this community, and as a Black woman directly experiencing these daily inequities, it is time to ask WHY.

Why do our local elected mayors and city council members continue to approve these kinds of expenditures to bring in outsiders to inflict daily harm on the very people who they represent? Why do the County Supervisors, who purport to be on the side of justice and “care first” continue to defend the noncompliance with basic constitutional policing by LASD?

Yes, it sounds crazy, but it is true, as taxpayers we are funding LA County Counsel attorneys to defend the Sheriff against complying with the federal Monitoring Team.

Where is the outrage?

Where is the LA local coverage of this failing report card issued to LA County and Sheriff Villanueva?

Even during this time of national racial reckoning; after a summer where we found our local young men hanging from trees in the midst of uprising protests against police brutality under an administration that openly supported white supremacy; and after a year where the disparity of COVID laid open for all the racial injustices Black and Brown people face in this country and in this county.

Even in these times, no one has deemed these Sheriff transgressions, meticulously counted, reported and printed in black and white, important enough to comment on.

The people will not be silent.

It’s time for our city leaders to cancel the Sheriff’s contract. Both of them.

About the author:
Waunette Cullors has served on a multitude of executive boards committed to advancing the African American community, including being Vice-Chair of the NAACP, President of the Friends of Jackie Robinson Park, and Director of the Antelope Valley Black Chamber of Commerce. Cullors is the founder and Executive Director of The WOW Flower Project, a non-profit organization with the primary objective of introducing youth to the world of Arts, Wellness, Education, and Horticulture.

Filed Under: Opinion

63 comments for "Op-ed: Lancaster and Palmdale: Cancel the contract with the LA County Sheriff"

  1. Instead of engaging with the actual data presented and dealing with it, we’d rather trash Waunette Cullors. Confronting what is actually being said is too difficult. Our local sheriffs are under federal monitoring for targeting African Americans and Latinos. This is a fact. They are out of compliance with the federal government in most categories of the monitoring agreement. Their own survey says that community support is declining, before the unrest of last summer. The settlement updates all say that African Americans are least likely to have contraband in their vehicle, but are most likely to be stopped and jailed. There has been no progress in six years. Given this data, it is reasonable to consider not renewing their contract. LASD is not taking the monitoring agreement seriously. The sad fact is that most residents are ok with biased policing because they may not be the primary victims of it and think the primary victims of such policing deserve it.

  2. Reminds me of Back to the Future 2.. How many Biff Tanners does it take to screw up more of the valley than it already is.? Maybe it is not too far into our own future that we will become just like the underground area of Demolition Man.. So all the Black, Brown and White people are going to have to kneel at the mercy of people who stir the pot with no one to take the blame for the stirring or the stopping of it.. So I think Ms. Cullors stop stirring the pot. You and no one else is that important to stir up peoples lives. Especially people you don’t know. Now go and get a new pair of pearls.

  3. I hope we can all agree that we need law enforcement so we can live in relative safety. We also need to be respected and welcomed in our own community without the fear of being stopped and harassed for no reason.

    I cannot see why we cannot have both. At least we should try to have both. No we should demand both. We deserve both.

  4. “Cancel the Sheriff’s contract.” What is the next step you would suggest, Waunette Cullors? Maybe you would like to go to the other extreme and give the contract to Ansar ‘Stan’ Muhammad, the Antelope Valley Chapter of “The Nation of Islam.” Maybe Mayor Parris and Mayor Hofbauer can hire their friends to dish out their brand of injustice. No solution, Waunette, only makes your opinion a problem of uncontrolled anger.

  5. Meanwhile folks in the County areas are like… “is this mic on?” We pay plenty of taxes to both Lancaster and Palmdale every time we shop for anything, without getting much in return. We can’t get a single dispatch for fireworks that go off EVERY WEEKEND, the year round. We get ZERO traffic enforcement, yet day after day we have fatal accidents. We have to call and remind Palmdale to clear weeds at a dangerous intersection every year! Last year there were 2 fatal accidents at the same corner, and they STILL hadn’t come to cut back the weeds.

  6. Rex Paris now is the time to be a leader and condemn Waunette Cullors for being a race baiting hazard to this community. God forbid waunette is the next victim of an assault with a deadly weapon or a home invasion of a car jacking or any one of the numerous crimes that are increasing in our community. Then she would call the Sheriffs office and demand protection. What a stupid fool this person is. Please leave the antelope valley you and your sick opinion are not wanted here.

    • Are you kidding me? Rex would love to kick the sheriffs out so he could start his own police department led by one of his tools. What could possibly go wrong? No accountability and no one to answer to.

      Be careful what you wish for. It might be more effective to keep the pressure on like the ACLU is doing and bring the spotlight to Lancaster.

    • Who cares what Rex Paris says about this or anything. Have you listened to the garbage that comes out of his mouth? He calls our brave nurses working at AV Hospital tyranneous cowards. He says that people should carry guns and shoot the homeless if they rob you. He says bird chirps make crime go down. He makes ups stories about fake shootings of sheriff deputies and blames mentally ill people for it. He said that the BLVD was better than Disneyland. He said the Eye in the Sky would keep us safer. Do you feel safer seeing your $10 million tax dollars flying overhead while robberies, assaults, and burglaries go on left and right down here on the ground.

      Who cares what Rex Paris says about anything.

      • If they could only shut Rex up like what happened with Trump’s twitter account.

  7. Considering the near daily attacks on elderly Asian and Latinx people by people in the BIack community, I highly doubt this opinion will be taken seriously by either group. The “black/brown” coalition that Ms. Cullors imagines just doesn’t exist in reality and there is a good reason for this — it’s completely one sided!

    The radical arm of the BIack community is looking for a reduced police presence so that criminal minded friends and relatives aren’t caught and held accountable for the crimes they commit. They want to pull brown people (Latinos & Asians) into this “coalition” to make it seem like a universal opinion, but its not.

    All I can think about is that monster that assaulted and robbed that elderly Latino grandfather in the bathroom at Superior Groceries last summer, and the grandfather succumbing to his injuries and dying weeks later. The summer before that was an assault on roadside food vendors by criminals who wanted to steal their cash. The radical wing of the BIack community want things like this to go unpunished and they want these types of criminals to get rehabilitative treatment when any other ethnic group would be punished with jail time (as they should be!) or charged for hate crimes.

    Opinion pieces like this one written by Ms. Cullors are anger inducing for a lot of us who see things for what they actually are. Until the BIack community can make a valiant effort to reign in their criminal minded element and support victims as much as they do criminals, don’t expect any of the rest of us to join your anti-cop “coalition”, which is what it really is.

    • Not your friend: White supremacy hatred and violence toward Asian Americans has been around since the 19th century. The latest attack in Georgia killing 8, was by a white man.

      • @no hate , no research ,and armchair assumptions create hate , like saying it was a whiteman who killed those people in Colorado. It was a Syrian , but thanks for the white guilt trip we appreciate it.

      • Black kid hanging from tree was a suicide. this article is another race baiter democrat .way more people are victimized by blacks than any other race.its simple..stop shooting and robbing people.blacks are killing one another at a alarming rate.Then if a cop shoots one all blm come out screaming looting, and burning the city down .yet they shoot and kill each other every night.antelope valley was a nice community. As far as r rex telling everyone to carry a gun and shoot the homeless ??no he said carry a gun for protection. Whats wrong with evening the playing field?

  8. I don’t know what she’s getting at? ….Plenty of us Brown folk here support law and order and law enforcement! When I say “brown folk” I mean Latinos, Middle Easterners, Arabs, Armenians, South Asians/Indians/Pakistanis. A lot of us are business owners who don’t want to put up with out of control crime rates and lawlessness. A lot of us also have family in law enforcement all over Southern California. We hear their stories and know what they have to deal with on a daily basis, unlike this one sided opinion piece.

    She keeps bringing up “brown” people into her SJW coalition to try to abolish the police, but none of us are buying it. Nobody I know thinks this is a good idea, even the more liberal people I’m acquainted with.

    She doesn’t speak for me or any other “brown” people I know.

  10. Essentially what Cullors is saying is that people who pay limited taxes (or none at all, to be honest) should dictate to the rest of us how our tax dollars are spent. People like her want limits on law enforcement so that there will be complete anarchy (but only for a chosen subset of the population).
    I’ve noticed this thing where black social justice advocates try to bring us “brown” people into the mix because without us “brown” folk, their stance becomes very naked and obvious…..which is to say, they want anarchy for black people only and no consequences for pathological behaviors in the black community! They want a society without consequences for black people who choose to commit crime.
    Be very mindeful, Ms. Cullors, that the huge majority of us “brown” folk (Indians, Latinos, Native Americans, Arabs, Middle Easterners) are very much into law and order and support our law enforcement. A lot of us come from communities and places where crime was rampant and where we were victims. Almost none of us are interested in repeating those circumstances.

  12. She should be ashamed of the hate she is saying….I especially liked where she said, the police stop undocumented women without proper car seats and tow the car….now how do police know if someone is undocumented when stopped? Do they have it printed on the back of the bumper? Also, how dare a police officer want to protect a child who is not in a proper car seat….how many babies have gone flying out the windows and killed on the street due to no car seat? He cared more than the mother did.
    Those who think she is a saint and hate the police….call her next time someone breaks into your house, steals your car, tries to carjack you, or you have a traffic accident. I am sure the police would like the break.

  13. I don’t think Latinos make up the majority of residents in Lancaster and Palmdale. The majority of people in these two cities are extremely low information voters. They consistently elect corrupt, conservative Republican representatives, and reject progressive politicians. That’s the main cause of all the problems here.

    • Latinos make up 60% of Palmdale and 41% of Lancaster (2019 American Community Survey estimates). Combined, that puts the total Latino population for both cities at 50.1 %, which is a bare majority.
      The 2020 Census Bureau reports are not being released due to ongoing lawsuits between communities and the federal government that have not been resolved.

  15. I like to consider myself a freind (not a close personal freind), of Waunette Cullors. She has invited me to her home and shared a lot of gardening information and experience with me. She seems smart, and a giving individual of our community. She certainly didn’t show any signs of being racist! To begin with, I am an older white man, and I’ve spent most of my life in the Antelope Valley. My father was a CHP until I was about 9 years old. There are a lot of danger in any kind of law inforcement. Without them it would be a very dangerous world. They have good reason to take controle of any situation they come in contact with while on duty. Having said that, no one is above the law, including law inforcement and politicians. I invite every single citizen to be active in conversation and action in our community. Active l is tuning, and active speaking, but not “activists”. It’s far too easy for any of us to fall down the rabbit hole! Politically I fall to the left of the right, and to the right of the left. Lets talk about issues rather the political affiliations. And let’s speak with each other. Let’s look at data, not let our emotions jump the gun. Wuanette, I want to thank you for bringing up issues that concern us all. But let’s hold individuals responsible, not groups. Any time we aline ourselves for or against a group, we are headed for trouble. And being part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Lets be careful about saying things that aren’t true. It detracts from all the truths we do say. For example, the young man who was found hung in the tree has been claimed a suicide. Even by his family. I would like to end my opinion by saying the left will not learn anything from each other. The right will not learn anything from each other. Lets all talk and listen to each other calmly and respectfully. It’s the only way we can become better neighbors.

    • The problem with “let’s hold individuals responsible and not groups” is that we actually have a group that is entrusted with enforcing the law…in our case the LA County Sheriffs Department. This group, collectively, has made it abundantly clear that IF the person breaking the law is “one of their own” they, again collectively, have not the slightest interest in fulfilling on that responsibility.

      I’m all in favor of the old “few bad apples” bit, but who do you propose we put in charge of sorting them out of the barrel?

  16. The total black population in the Antelope Valley has dropped from 17% in 2010 to 14% in 2020. The black population in Lancaster peaked at 21% in 2010, but is now down to 1o 18%. The black population in Palmdale peaked at 14% in 2010, and is now at 11%.

    I’m a Brown person and I support law enforcement. I mind my own business, pay my taxes and do not engage in illegal activity.

    Thing is, if you don’t like living here, and you don’t like obeying the law, there are PLENTY of other places you can move to!

  17. When I first appeared on this site I was pushing for exactly this. The LA County Sheriff’s Department is one of the most corrupt and murderous law enforcement agencies in the entire country so it seems absurd to go out of our way to hire their services. However, I was brought around to the idea that we would be better off actually forcing them to follow through on a reform process. Admittedly, that probably requires the wholesale overthrow of the good ol’ boy cabal that holds the political power in this valley in an iron fist, since they absolutely approve of every excess the LASD perpetrates.

    That, unfortunately, is the biggest argument for maintaining contract services for law enforcement. The sheriff is bad, and LA County seems incapable of electing a better one. But does anyone really think we would be getting a better outcome with a chief of police hand picked by Wrecks Parris and his cronies? The sheriff is bad, and his department overall is riddled with corruption, but the reason the Antelope Valley gets the bottom of that very bad barrel is because that’s what Wrecks and his cronies and their puppet Hofbauer WANT.

    The other issue is cost. Admittedly, the law enforcement contract is a huge number in the city budgets. It looks a lot less huge if you do a little research though. There is no shortage of comparable size cities that do have their own police departments. Look at their budgets. Or trust me, they are not spending less. They are in fact spending double, at least. They also receive federal grant money to offset the direct costs, money that currently goes to LA County would be redirected to the cities if we provide our own policing. How much of that money would wind up stuck to the grubby hands of Wrecks and his crew?

    Ultimately, even if the grant money that didn’t get stolen were enough to offset the direct costs the expense of a police department would wipe us out financially. Look at every department of the Palmdale city government. A police department typical for a city the size of Palmdale would more than triple the current number of city employees. Human Resources department would have to triple in size. The city attorney would have to more than triple his staff. Public works gets more city buildings to maintain, and a gigantic increase in city vehicles that have to be maintained. Basically every department of the city government, most of which currently consist of a couple people, has to be ramped up by double or triple. This is a LAST resort.

    So here we are. Our current city officials are never going to push the LASD for reforms, because the local LASD can absolutely be counted on to turn a blind eye to the outrageous corruption of Wrecks and his cronies. This traces back to the voters who can’t be bothered voting the corrupt out of office. The sheriff is not going to follow through on reforms because the voters of LA County can’t be bothered to make him. That is where the change needs to start, with the voters, not the name of the law enforcement agency used.

  18. I’m done with carrying this bitterness (outrage) over this completely corrupted justice system, Waunette Cullors. From now on as a Christian, with the power of the Holy Spirit, I will overcome bitterness in my life. I have no power to change this system, only to change what lies within me, so I better get busy undoing a lifetime of anger that did nothing but poison my way of thinking.

  19. May God bless and protect each and every LEO today and everyday!

    This racist, evil, ungrateful, full of hate chick who wrote this needs to be removed from the Keppel School District board ASAP. We do not need this kind of hate in our schools regardless of what you think about certain issues. We need to protect our children from this kind of evil.
    Keep your racist, biased, and unproven at home. It is really easy to vent and spew such hate through printed words in an article that literally means absolutely nothing.
    Anyone who wants to judge LASD should go sign up and do their job before ranting about it and making comments that do not represent how so many others feel. This valley has went to hell and it is surely not the cause of the men and women who put uniforms on and leave their family everyday to protect literally the most ungrateful community ever. Put your big girl panties on cupcakes, these streets need to be cleaned up and if you don’t like how it is being done, or want to make everything about race, than you are more than free to submit an application.

  20. Just another opinion. Waunette Cullors is a race baiting fool.

    The entire Antelope Valley is the septic tank of L.A. County.

    Tim Scott is an idiot

  21. Interesting.

    Even though I’m not a fan of the sheriffs department I would be interested to see what your replacement is for law enforcement. Cancelling them completely with no replacement is a terrible idea.

  22. Have you taken a poll of the “minority” community to ask if they want more or less police presence? In many cities where this has happened, the response is “speak for yourself” We don’t want an increase in crime in our neighborhoods.

    I expect all police to use necessary force to secure arrest when faced by resistance. I “don’t” expect police to have sole responsibility to “deescalate” all confrontations with adults. I expect adults to know that if they fight police to try to avoid arrest that they’ll be detained anyway and the harder they fight, they more force that will be used to get them to jail. This should have been learned in kindergarten.

  23. It’s rather disconcerting that you generalize the entire Palmdale and Lancaster sheriff stations. I’m not a cop but I respect how hard it is to be a deputy in the current climate. It’s the most selfless and thankless job I can imagine. That said, abuse of power and unconstitutional policing needs to be handled and there needs to be accountability. However, I’m not privy to statistics in that regard. The Av is not malibu station. These deputies can get in more capers on one shift ‘PALMDALE AND LANCASTER’ then other departments in higher income areas do in an entire career. Walk a mile before you spread such spiteful reports, respectfully.

    Ma’am, I wouldn’t dare discredit your own personal experiences with LASD. My contention is your malice and linear thinking. I believe it only further separates the community from first responders and spreads hate.

    • You just said you weren’t privy to the statistics. Why even comment if you don’t know what your talking about? If she’s pointing out a fact how can you deem it as divisive?

    • “Selfless and thankless”…. They’re the most selfish paranoid fools that dont care about your civil rights and they make over 45 thousand a year. They dont need thanks. They’re doing what they’re paid to do and not all that great either. There are plenty that can do their job better but because they dont know enough of the right people like these feckless lancaster oinkers do, they’ll never have the chance to prove themselves even half as much as these pinkos desperately do. I would gladly except marshall law if it meant these lancaster morons had to go find another job that involves shovels or something essential and they are subjected to the same kind of authority that they so desperately project. Lancaster police are not essential, they take sides with tweaker lowlives over an independent individual probably because they’re related or are tweakers themselves and I hope L.A. and Kern county sees it to. Palmdale and others have my true respect as authority. Lancaster is full of dummies and cowards. I’d love to see them all fired. They all should live in that mental appartments next door, polishing their guns and making those apartments their own world to police. No one goes in, no one ever comes out…ever. They can be under the authority of drones and missiles and they can arrest themselves all they want until that building rots from their facsist sweat while real progress is happening with martial law UNBIASLY eliminating gangster activity including all those from the Lancaster sheriffs department. Lancaster needs an enema!

  24. I thinks George Gascon’s sons or Barry Soetoro’s sons should patrol the two communities.

    • THIS IS SO SAD AND BOTH OF THESE CITIES SHOULD BE ASHAMED A N.V D BOTH MAYOR’S OFFICE EMBARRASSED. THEY CONTINUE TO PREACH ON HOW FAIR AND THERE’S NO DISCRIMINATION LMAO….I BELIEVE ACTUALLY FACTUAL EVIDENCE THEN THE B.S THAT COMES OUT OF THERE MOUTHS. THEIR WILL BE NO UNITY AMONGST US IF WE HAVE RASCIST COUNCIL MEMBERS IN CHARGE OF THE PEOPLE. SEE IT TAKES A STRONG INDIVIDUAL TO STAND UP AND SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH WITHIN THE GOVERNMENT AND LAW ENFORCEMENT. I GUESS WE HAVE FOLLOWERS IN CHARGED WHO DOESNT HAVE THE BALLS TO STAND UP MORALLY CORRECT WITH THE LEADERSHIP AND THE TRUTH. NOT DURE WHY WE HAVEN’T VOTED ON CHANGE REGARDING THE COUNTRY’S NAME. ITS A HOAX ITS A FAKE TO BE CALLED THE UNITED STATES WITH NO UNITY…. WE ALL ARE BORN THE SAME WAY. SAME ORGANS. SAME COLOR IN BLOOD AND WE WILL ALL DIE THE SAME REGARDLESS IF ITS MOTHER NATURE. DISEASES. KILLINGS. OLD AGE ETC. WE CANT CHOOSE EHO WE WANT TO BE OR HAIR COLOR SKIN COLOR ETC. SO WHY HATE WHEN NO ONE CAN HAVE THAT CONTROL. BLAME OUR CREATOR THATS WHO HAS THE CONTROL. WERE BORN INTO THIS HATEFUL UNIVERSE YOU CANT BE EVIL OR HATE SOMEONE WHO HAD NO DAMN CHOICE OR CAN CHANGE WHO THEY ARE. GOD HAS MULTI CULTURAL PURPOSE AND ITS not for us to understand nor us to question.. ..

  25. … bless their hearts, L.A. County Sheriff have been terrific. Crime here in the AV, off the charts, much appreciation for their efforts, county law enforcement really have their work cut out for them.

    • It amazes me how you can be confronted with FACTs; the corrective actions mandated by legitimate courts of law are being widely ignored by the sheriff and his undergoons is just the facts, and yet spout back this off the cuff inflammatory nonsense about crime rates, which you have obviously never bothered to find out the facts about.

      The Sheriff’s department is demonstrably not just breaking the law, they are actually openly defying the law…and you tell them “good job and god bless.” People like you are the root problem; claiming to be looking for law and order when really all you want is to find a deputy and polish their baton in hopes they will be your personal mercenary. You obviously couldn’t care less about the law.

      • Ten million people, one sheriff. Whites are a minority at large but the problem is be rayciss

    • 55%
      No wonder there’s so many DUIs they’re always celebrating Cinco de Mayo too many hit and runs thank you Jerry Brown

  26. They are aholes in general. I’ve had my own issues with them and their better than God attitudes. I’ve complained, had investigations opened, yelled at them, called the aholes, etc.

    They have absolutely no right to be assholes from jump street. They are immediately aggressive before assessing the situation to determine if that type of force is necessary.

    I’ve also complained to our mayor, who is worthless. I come from a family of law enforcement and they even think we have issues.

    Even in the Gabriel Hernandez case, they were atrocious. Shame on them. Another note, VILLANUEVA, is an idiot.

  27. Wtf was that all about?Do we need more crime in our cities or more racism? I think neither…you ma’am are trying to spread hate where it ain’t….shame on YOU

    • What the hell kind of article is this??Apparently we need more crime from the low lives that are coming into our valley. Looks like we should just STK on the spot if they don’t want any kind of police force.

    • THATS an easy Q. how does the LAPD operate? ie the city LAPD contracts w say Burbank the same way Palmdale/Lancaster contract w the LASD via what is called MUNICIPAL LAW ENFORCEMENT SERVICES AGREEMENT see: http://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/bos/supdocs/135548.pdf , but in the LASD contract w the AV there is a clause whereby the “city” (mayors) direct HOW city ordinances are enforced section 1.3:

      1.3 “General law enforcement services performed hereunder may include, >>if requested by the City<>>the extent of the duties and functions to be rendered hereunder, or the minimum level or manner of performance of such service, **the City shall be consulted** and a mutual determination thereof shall be made by both the Sheriffs Department and the City. The City shall first consult with the >>>Station Captain,<<< Division Commander, and Division Chief, in an effort to reach a mutual determination. If a mutual determination cannot be realized at a subordinate level, then the matter will be elevated to a Sheriff's Department Assistant Sheriff or the Sheriff."

      IN short it was BOTH the mayors office AND the AV LASD station Captains (who are trained in law enforcement BUT NOT Constitutional Law) that decided to, not only implement the unconstitutional city ordinances BUT the manner in HOW those ordinances were to be enforced.

      THESE points were developed to address the MAIN issue of HOW the AV has gotten to where we are today. in MO without ever addressing ACCOUNTABILITY how can we ever expect to have confidence enough to ensure that RACISM is NOT the issue?

      at the top of this "opinion" there was a reference as to HOW the LAPD works and that had to do w "what do we replace it with".
      IN Los Angeles the "Metropolitan Police Force" is utilized – why can we not apply the same concept right here in the AV?

      ABOVE, law enforcement numbers were noted (some 28 and 27 million dollars – my sources tell me that those numbers are much higher) totaling some $55,000,000. REMEMBER last November there were also new sales taxes passed on BOTH cities as well (measures AV and LC) for another 24-32 million dollars. that minimum $75,000,000 would allow both cities to establish a Metro Police Force for Palmdale AND Lancaster allowing BOTH cities to KEEP law enforcement expenditures RIGHT HERE IN THE AV.

      FURTHERMORE such an action would LIMIT the authority of the "city" to dictate HOW law enforcement would operate especially if one of the elements on the required vote was the establishment of an AB 1185 like Citizen's Oversight Committee see:

      https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billStatusClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB1185

      WHICH would be selected from the community by the City Council and determined by majority vote to ensure that OUR law enforcement would reflect OUR community values

  29. Those two cities have the highest crime rate in the county! They have the highest rate of child abuse in the county! Why don’t we concentrate our efforts on these causes than that of a racist rant.

  30. Anti constitutional governance dominates and emasculates based on class, not race. Blacks are disproportionately impoverished and repressed because they come from the conquered States, not because they were slaves in them before the war.

    -white son of 30 year LASD veteran and subjected to ASSAULT under, and DEPREVATION OF RIGHTS under COLOR OF LAW

    I am a dissident. I am not a criminal. I haven’t harmed anybody. I’ve only directly disobeyed unconstitutional (US), tyrannical laws and civily defied wrongful governance without consequence, aside from that artificially imposed on me. Yet I am not entitled to survive an encounter with pitbulls or protect the family I’ll never have. Police are an as fundementally UNAMERICAN institution as our standing armies. Best part of all this is that the original writer is controlled opposition from those who seek to weaponize identity politics and neoleftist language to further SOCIAL STRATIFICATION, which for Americans with honorable character of ALL descents, is a yoke already too cumbersome. If the elevated status and privilege of police over your own is not a burden, you are not an American of honorable character.

    As a reminder to civil “servants” in relevant jurisdictions, the citizens of any State shall not be denied the privileges of citizens of the several States. Furthermore, state governments are explicitly prohibited by the US Constitution from conducting foreign diplomacy, precluding accountability to the home governments of migrants, ultimately revealing “sanctuary” jurisdictions as covertly predatory. If you work for a sanctuary government, quit your job now or suffer the consequences before your Maker.