Los Angeles Special Order 40 Grants Legislative Protection to Gangs

LOS ANGELES - Special Order 40, a thorn in the side of those who would like to see illegal immigration curtailed, has been linked to governmental protection of violent gang members to the detriment of citizens and legal residents living in Los Angeles and surrounding areas.

The Case That Sparked the Debate

When 17 year young Jamiel Shaw, II was fatally shot just a few doors down from his home, the case had all the makings to lend credence to statistics dealing with gang violence. After all, young Mr. Shaw was an African American youth walking at night in what is known as gang territory. Yet as the circumstances became known, the facts turned what would have made the evening news as just another gang killing into a community struggle that is almost unprecedented in Los Angeles' recent history.

You see, young Mr. Shaw was a Los Angeles high school football star who was being courted by a couple of colleges for potential scholarships after his graduation. He was not a member of a gang, carried no gun, and was known as a hard working, good kid. His mother is an army sergeant on active duty in the Middle East, and his father was raising Jamiel and his siblings.

The alleged shooter is 19 year young Pedro Espinoza, illegal immigrant, gang member since the age of 12 (as reported on Fox News), and until 28 hours prior to Mr. Shaw's killing incarcerated on weapons charges. Even though his immigration status was known, Immigration officials were not notified and Mr. Espinoza - in spite of federal migration violations in addition to his other charges - was let go.

Special Order 40 Theory

When former Chief of Police Daryl Gates implemented Special Order 40, he sought to garner the cooperation of legal and illegal immigrants alike. At that time, immigrants were weary of police and thus many crimes committed against them went largely unreported. The constant fear was that police involvement could lead to either deportation of the reporting immigrant, or it might lead to a closer scrutiny of the neighborhood or the reporting alien's family, and thus could endanger illegal immigrants living there - some of whom might be friends or family members of the crime victim.

Special Order 40 stipulated that immigrants - legal and illegal alike - had access to police services without fear of being asked about their immigration status. In theory, this now permitted immigrant victims to come forward and report crimes, enabling the LAPD to effectively fight crime, while at the same time preventing the police department from arresting undocumented residents.

The Harsh Reality

Even as the ACLU busily whitewashes the disastrous effects of Special Order 40 almost 30 years after its inception and attempts to point to the many Latina victims of domestic violence who might not come forward if the Order were rescinded, gangland murders committed by those living in Los Angeles illegally are on the rise.

This inspired Judicial Watch as far back as 2006 to file a lawsuit against current Police Chief Bill Bratton. In Harold P. Sturgeon v. Bratton, et al. (BC 351646), the organization makes the cases that dangerous criminals with violent backgrounds are not apprehended and deported, even when they are under arrest for smaller offenses. Since the LAPD's hands are tied, murderous thugs are time and again released into the city and lawful residents are at risk.

When Political Correctness and Ambition Turns Deadly

In what can only be described alternately as lunacy or absurdity, the Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the Police Chief, and the Los Angeles City Council are virtually unanimous in their opposition to changing one letter in Special Order 40.

Antonio Villaraigosa, ambitious for higher office and throwing in his lot with Hillary Clinton in her grab for the party's presidential candidate nomination, has actively wooed the immigrant community with statements such as "there are no illegal people here" (as reported in The New Yorker) while the streets in his city are slowly turning into slums where the gun rules and the lawful live in fear behind barred windows.

He is known by others (like Dennis Cardoza and Tom Hayden) to be vindictive and having a long memory, the Los Angeles City Council is toeing the line and the only one who appears to have broken rank is Dennis Zine who introduced what is now referred to as the Zine Motion for Jamiel's Law.

Say what? Is that the same Dennis Zine who has time and again opposed any changes to current immigration enforcement in the City of Angels?

The Special Order 40 Conspiracy and the Gadfly

It is a sad testament to the current workings of the Los Angeles City Council and those associated with it that uses the name of a young murder victim to their own ends. Dennis Zine's motion, although nice in theory, has about as much force and teeth as the Pillsbury Doughboy. To make matters worse, it is a thinly veiled plagiarism of the proposed law drafted by Los Angeles' gadfly Walter Moore, who is seeking to take on Mayor Villaraigosa in 2009.

Walter Moore worked together with the family of young Jamiel Shaw to craft a law that would have prevented alleged shooter Pedro Espinoza from being released from jail without having been turned over to the Immigration authorities. Yet in an unprecedented attempt to bury this proposed legislation, Mr. Moore was soon dropped from the discussion altogether, and the Shaw family suffered humiliation at the hands of the Los Angeles City Council who - in spite of the heartbreaking testimony the family had to offer - maintained the party line which essentially reads "Special Order 40 good, everything else bad."

Tossing a bone to Angelenos ready to take back their city from the tattooed hands of gangbanging thugs, Dennis Zine's proposal contains a lot of requests but no requirements. Requests are made to be ignored, while requirements breed accountability - not something favored by the Mayor who would be governor.

Ah, but the jig is up, the cat is out of the bag, and scales have fallen from the eyes of a good many Angelenos who are now coming together - regardless of race, color, and ethnicity - and demanding that the elected officials revisit Los Angeles Special Order 40 that grants legislative protection to violent gangs comprised of illegal immigrants. The only question that remains is whether or not the Zine induced smokescreen will work and appease the electorate long enough for the dust to settle on the grave of Jamiel Shaw and new issues govern the day.

Harold P. Sturgeon v. Bratton, et al.is scheduled to begin in June of 2008 and with the current discussion on Jamiel's Law (both the original as introduced by Moore and the sham motion as introduced by Zine) one can only hope that the winds of change are indeed beginning to make themselves felt.

Sources:

http://keepstuff.homestead.com/Spec40orig.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,340650,00.html
http://www.aclu-sc.org/News/Releases/2006/102015/
http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2006/so40-sturgeon-v-bratton.pdf
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/21/070521fa_fact_bruck?currentPage=3
http://ftpmoore.com/ZineCopOut2.pdf
http://web.mac.com/waltermoore/WalterMooreForMayor/Home.html