The Thorn West is a state and local news roundup compiled by members of DSA-LA. Our goal is to provide a weekly update on the latest developments in state and local politics, and to track the issues that are most important to our membership.
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Issue No. 51 - March 19, 2021
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- The deadline to submit signatures to recall Governor Newsom passed this Wednesday, and it appears that recall proponents will have more than enough signatures to trigger an election. If so it would likely be scheduled for this fall. This week was also the first time that Newsom acknowledged the recall at all; he denounced the push for a recall on Twitter and in an interview tour that included CNN and MSNBC.
- Xavier Becerra was officially confirmed as secretary of health and human services on Thursday. He will step down as California’s attorney general and Governor Newsom will appoint his successor.
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- LA County entered the red tier of COVID restrictions on Monday, as the county saw case numbers drop and more residents able to get vaccines. A possible drop into the orange tier may be on the horizon.
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Police Violence and Community Resistance
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- Last week, a report on LAPD violence during the George Floyd uprising, requested by the Los Angeles City Council, received largely positive coverage in mainstream press as a sincere interrogation of police misconduct. In KNOCK-LA this week, Shakeer Rahman and Hamid Khan of @stoplapdspying note that the report recommends expanding police powers considerably, and argue that its author, Gerald Chaleff, is an LAPD insider with a history of promoting weak reforms. A letter addressed to the council, co-signed by BLM-LA and LACAN, echoes these concerns.
- The same report was presented to and discussed by the Public Safety Committee this week. (Audio here). Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson defended Chaleff’s reputation as an outsider, and called activists who criticized him (many of whom left public comment before the meeting) “shockingly ignorant.” A large amount of focus was placed on developing more training officers to identify and remove the “violent component” who “insert themselves” into protests using “tactics … we’ve never seen before.” The committee took no action other than to request and await further report-backs.
- In other LAPD news: The police pressed charges against an LA Taco journalist in retaliation for his coverage of police violence at the celebrations of the Dodgers’ World Series win... The district attorney will review 370 cases tied to a retired LAPD detective who was filmed going on a racist tirade after a traffic accident... Video has circulated of an on-duty officer firing wildly at a car driving away from a stop... And the LAPD destroyed an encampment in councilmember Joe Buscaino’s district.
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