Newspaper articles which speak to the LPSF Police Redeployment Petition

Discussion
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Dear Everyone;

Three more or less related articles which speaks to our Police Redeployment Petition and I have highlighted some pertinent sections which speaks even more to the issue..

I am sending to both LPSF Discussion and Activists as maybe some discussion people will become activists on this issue. If you want to see a copy of the Police petition go to the files section of LPSF-Activists and look for the Law Enforcement Redepolyment Petition.

We are meeting this Saturday June 10 at 3:00 at Cybelle's Pizza 9th Ave between Judah/Irving to discuss the Police Redeployment Petition and other topics of prime importance......

And as the saying goes, "Come On Down"!!!!!!

Ron Getty
SF Libertarian

Community speaks out at hearing on violence
http://www.examiner.com/a-130053~Community_speaks_out_at_hearing_on_violence.html

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Adam Martin, The Examiner
Jun 8, 2006 6:00 AM (8 hrs ago)
SAN FRANCISCO - Residents of the Western Addition and other neighborhoods plagued by gun violence shouted down police Chief Heather Fong on Wednesday night and demanded the implementation of a community-oriented policing plan.

A joint meeting of the Police Commission and a Board of Supervisors’ committee on ending gun and gang violence erupted during Fong’s address to the panel, just minutes after the meeting’s start.

The meeting, meant to address concerns about violence in the neighborhood just west of City Hall, was held in the gym of the Ella Hill Hutch Community Center. Just more than a month ago, center employee Dante White was shot dead in that same gym in an apparent gang-related execution. Police have not found his killer.

“This community has been severely wounded, and I don’t think it’s respectful to come and not hear the patient first,” said the Rev. Amos Brown, president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

As Daniel Langry, chairman of the Western Addition branch of the African American Community Police Relations Board, stood up during Fong’s address and threatened to use a bullhorn if public comment wasn’t opened, Supervisor Sophie Maxwell said, “OK, the people have spoken. We’ll do public comment first.”

This was the second meeting at the Ella Hill Hutch Center meant to address the violence plaguing the neighborhood. The first, scheduled for Dec. 6, 2005, was canceled abruptly when an agreement could not be reached on how to implement the police relations board’s community policing plan, which involves more police interaction with the community and the creation of a community policing director within the Police Department.

That plan took center stage Wednesday. For almost three hours, residents of the Western Addition and other activists and concerned citizens called for its implementation and spoke of the need to revamp the way at risk communities in The City are policed.

“We need to reintroduce police into the community,” Ella Hill Hutch Center director George Smith said.

'War zone' in Visitacion Valley
Shootings, stabbing and bullets flying -- boy on life support
- Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, June 8, 2006

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/08/BAG46JAFGV1.DTL

Patrick Hogan walked along Sunnydale Avenue in southeast San Francisco on Wednesday and pointed to fat, round holes in the stucco of an apartment building he manages.

"We're going to patch this up today," he said. "We don't need people seeing that all day."

The punctures were made by bullets shot at a 15-year-old boy at 8:40 p.m. Tuesday. The boy -- one of Hogan's tenants -- was hit in the drive-by shooting and was on life support Wednesday at San Francisco General Hospital. He was not identified by authorities.

An hour after the attack, Maurice McKinney, a 24-year-old San Francisco man with a conviction for drug dealing, was shot to death a few blocks away at the rundown Sunnydale public housing project. The areas where the shootings occurred are enemy turfs, residents said.

Police said they did not know if the incidents were connected, but Hogan and others said they occurred in a week of violence that has angered residents of the neighborhood in Visitacion Valley.

A man was shot in the left leg on Sunnydale Avenue earlier Tuesday; bullets hit a railing half a block away. The victim did not cooperate with investigators, police said.

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Ron,

  These articles mostly talk about people wanting more "community policing," or police foot patrols. Although it's not mentioned here, Mayor Newsom is planning to give them that -- by hiring more police officers.

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Dear Starchild;

Just because the Mayor is hiring more police officers does not mean that they will end up on beat foot patrol once they complete the police academy and probation program and that is a half year away for the next graduating class.

No rookie police officer is ever going to get assigned to beat foot patrols. They would get ate alive. We need beat foot patrols now by experienced capable officers - not rookie officers.

Ron Getty
SF Libertarian.

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Ron,

  What I was getting at is how calls for more foot patrols can be used to serve the agenda of bigger government, if it isn't made clear that growing the SFPD is even more objectionable than not having foot patrols. I think what's happening is that people said they want foot patrols, and the police said fine, give us more resources and we'll provide them -- and as you suggest below, it will be the rookie officers who are given those undesirable shifts. Not that they're likely to be "eaten alive" -- police officers kill many more civilians than civilians kill police officers, experienced or not.

Yours in liberty,
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Dear Starchild;

The police department through a voters initiative some time back was authorized 2000 officers. At this time they are 200+ below the authorized amount. So it is not about growing more government it is working within what the voters asked for and secondly assigning the officers we do have more expeditiously to safe keep people lives not stand around writing out tickets for broken tail lights. Who are police officers protecting from someone with a broken tail light??? DO'H!!!

The jobs of keeping people safe can be done with the resources they do have right now IF properly assigned.

Please re- read what I said about rookie officers. I did not suggest or wouild I ever ask for rookie police officers to get those shifts as they are not capable of doing the beat foot patrols duties which only experienced officers should be assigned to do.

On the matter of police officers killing more civilians than civilians killing police officers I think you may have to cite some authoritative figures to back up that claim. As I am guessing you are leaving out those who are killed in direct gun battles as against civilians who were not armed with anything but still got killed.

Fair enough request??? AND I am leaving out the government killing people like Ruby Ridge and Waco which were cases of state murder or that airline passenger murdered by air Marshall's not too long ago. Or all the civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by the government.

Ron Getty
SF Libertarian

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Ron,

  If you look at city government, you will find *many* authorized positions on the books that are not actually filled. It's generally in the interest of liberty (and therefore our interest) that those positions *not* be filled, regardless of what the voters have approved.

  I am confident in claiming that there are more civilians killed by police officers than police officers killed by civilians, but I don't have time right now to research it. Perhaps someone else will find the data.

  I'm not talking here about wars or other federal actions such as the Waco massacre, but I am including civilians killed in gun battles with local police departments. The responsibility of the police is to resolve or defuse situations before they escalate into gun battles, and when there is an escalation, to bring the combatants to justice without killing them. Police have also been known to lie about the circumstances under which they have killed, and their claims are not subjected to the same kind of critical oversight as yours would be if you said you shot an officer in self-defense. So I think it's proper to count all who have died at their hands.

  The job of keeping people safe can be done with *fewer* resources than they have right now, if properly assigned. I hope we can agree on that. I just want to make sure our calls for foot patrols don't end up contributing to public pressure that results in more police hires. We should make it clear we oppose Newsom's plan to put more cops on the streets, regardless of whether they are walking or driving. Until the police have their priorities straight, more resources are wasted on them.

Yours in liberty,
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Dear Starchild;

AS Chris Daly said in his Prop H the long term ownership of hand guns leads to violence. Then he exempted police security guards and the military. Yet is their anything magical about donning a uniform which should exempt the police security guards and the military from long term handgun ownership and the resort to violence???

The only single time a psychological exam is given is before hire and never again. So as Daly says hand gun ownershoip and violence - it's only natural the police are going to slaughter anyone they want to whenever they want to using whatever excuses they want to concoct. Tough Nails to the dead. But hey long term gun ownership leads to violence.

So disarm the police and security guards and military then as the NRA likes to say then only criminals will have guns!!!

Or require regular annual psychological exams of gun toting police security guards and military.

You either ban handguns for everyone or not at all. Afterall, who is going to protect you from the police security guards and the military when they come gunning for you. You are the only person who can protect you from them.

The police go fanatic when an officer is slain and thousands show up for the funeral. Yet how mnay officers show up for the funeral of an innocent dead civiilain murdered by the police? Not a one!!!

But enough of violence.

Just fess up as to how Angela Keaton came to refer to you as Cupcake!!!

Ron Getty
SF Libertarian