Will LA Have Another Riot?

The recent shooting of an illegal alien, a Guatemalan day laborer, who menaced passers-by (mostly women and children) with a knife while drunk, and got shot when he attacked a police officer, has drawn protests and violent skirmishes. The question is, will LA see another riot?


Westlake, which generations ago used to be a nice, gentrified area, is now completely controlled by Central American gangs, mostly MS-13, and is the site of frequent Communist / Black Block agitators. The same folks who gave you the May Day riots a few years ago. The new Police Chief, directed by illegal-alien panderer Antonio Villaraigosa, LA's "Latino Mayor" has offered "community meetings" and dialog (instead of arrests and cracking heads). As a result, LA seems poised for a riot.

The vitriolic response to the shooting has surprised many department and elected officials. With the knife recovered at the scene, eyewitness accounts allegedly supporting the authorities' claim that Jamines advanced aggressively toward the officers, and no racial overtones to the shooting, the incident did not seem to be one that would cause such an eruption of anger.

In an interview Wednesday, Beck blamed the unrest on outside groups that, he said, seized on the killing as an opportunity to foment anger toward the police.

The area's large population of immigrant day laborers, who have struggled to find work during the city's financial collapse and have grown frustrated with the LAPD's aggressive stance against the neighborhood's ubiquitous illegal street vendors, may have been particularly receptive to the calls for upheaval, Beck said.

"It has been a bunch of agitators pushing the envelope and using individuals as their pawns," he said.

At least some of the disorder seemed to have been fueled by such groups. About a dozen people who appeared to be affiliated with the Revolutionary Communist Party handed out literature about the group's beliefs and other cases of officer-involved shootings, and chanted messages over bullhorns about a communist revolution. Among those arrested Tuesday night was Jubilee Shine, 40, of South Los Angeles, who heads a group called the Coalition for Community Control Over the Police.

Hernandez, the officer who shot Jamines, remains ineligible for patrol assignments, police officials said. An officer involved in a shooting is kept off the streets until the chief has received a formal briefing on the incident and the officer is cleared by a department psychologist to return to full duty.

Note: the officer who shot the Guatemalan illegal alien day laborer (who was completely drunk at the time) is himself, Hispanic.

Stupidity abounds:

Carol Sobel, a civil-rights attorney who has clashed with the LAPD over the use of force, echoed several protesters and residents in the area who questioned why Hernandez had not been able to shoot Jamines in the arm or leg.

"I can understand if the person has a gun, that the officer should shoot to kill. But, in this case, with a knife, it seems to me this could be excessive," she said.

Deputy Chief Sandy Jo MacArthur, who oversees training for the LAPD, said officers are put through simulation machines that mimic real-life scenarios in which the decision to use deadly force must be made in seconds.

Officers are not taught to "shoot to kill" or to "shoot to wound," she said, but are trained to aim always at an aggressor's "center mass" — roughly the belly or chest — to stop the person from advancing. If that does not stop the person, officers are trained to aim at the suspect's head, MacArthur said.

What this is about, really, is control. Control of the Westlake area, with the Gang members, day laborers (often the same people), and the Communist/community agitators (again often the same people) wanting to use the incident to push the Police out and seize control. If a riot breaks out, all the better to loot the area completely (and burn the remaining evidence). Above all, it is a statement of dominance. Central American gangs and illegal aliens control the city, not the Police. Certainly not the White Westsiders or those in the Valley.

Reportedly, attempts were made to attack the Rampart Station, and rush inside, the previous night (that of Sep 8-9). It seems likely this stand-off will grow only more intense, until one side breaks. All it will take, is a political call by the Mayor to withdraw from certain areas and streets, and the crowd will gather enough force to create a mob. One that can attack with impunity (on live TV). Once control has been ceded, it will take the National Guard to return it.

LA is a powder keg. The illegals here feel no affection for LA, it is not their home or homeland. It is merely a place to be looted. Eventually, it will be.

What the fall-out from that will be is another issue.