City Council's Pretend Hearing On Jamiel's Law

City Council's Pretend Hearing On Jamiel's Law By Walter Moore, Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, WalterMooreForMayor.com October 27, 2008 On March 2, 2008, Jamiel Shaw, II, an outstanding young man destined for college, was murdered two doors down from his own home. On March 22, 2008, Fox News broke the story that Jamiel's murderer was a gang member and illegal alien. On March 25, 2008, I proposed "Jamiel's Law," which would deny "sanctuary city" protection to illegal aliens in gangs. The purpose was to let police arrest gang members for immigration law violations, without to catch them committing other crimes, such as murdering our young people, collecting "taxes" from shopkeepers (i.e., extortion), and selling drugs. Under Special Order 40, police can enforce immigration laws against gang members, but only AFTER catching them for some other crime. The point of Jamiel's Law is to let police arrest gang members for immigration violations without waiting to catch them for another crime. Today, October 27, 2008 -- over seven months later -- a City Council committee pretended to hold a hearing on whether Special Order 40 -- the memo that prevents our police from enforcing immigration laws unless they catch someone committing another crime, too -- should be "clarified." Mayor Villaraigosa, of course, wasn't there. Today he was pretending he was a construction worker filling potholes. He changed wardrobe from his Metrolink crash ensemble (a fire fighter's jacket) to his Bob the Builder outfit. Meanwhile, back at City Hall, the hearing lasted three hours. Result? Nothing. The City Council Members decided to wait and see if the police will "train" their officers better, as if that were the problem. The Committee gave the Shaw family a few brief minutes to comment. Their son was murdered, and they have busted their you-know-what's trying to spare other families the same agony, by gathering over 40,000 signatures so far. They should have been given as much time as they wanted. Instead, they were given the "bum's rush." No one bothered to ask how they were holding up, or how the effort to get signatures is going. Talk show host Kevin James (KRLA 870) pointed out during his public comment that the police had already claimed, way back in March 2005, that they were going to start training their officers better on Special Order 40. So they've been "training" on this issue for three-and-a-half years now, but City Council will supposedly check their progress at the beginning of 2009. Why rush, after all? I mean, it's only a matter of life and death for families like the Shaws. The one and only bright spot during the hearing was when City Council Member Greig Smith said he would vote to repeal Special Order 40 in its entirety. I said the same thing during the whopping 60 seconds the Committee deigned to give me and other mere members of the public to comment on this life-and-death issue. I urged the Committee to put Jamiel's Law on the ballot at the end of my 60 seconds, but Council Member Weiss felt it was vital to talk over me the instant the sixtieth second passed. A number of people showed up to speak in favor of Special Order 40. Most if not all of them seemed to share two fascinating traits. First, they all seemed to be associated with some "non-profit" or "community" group, as opposed to holding a job in the private sector. Second, they all seemed to be reading from scripts. This made me suspect that a bunch of groups feeding at the public trough had received an urgent memo to go to City Council, fill out a public comment card, and read these points. To test my hypothesis, I looked for, but could not find, a comprehensive list of "non-profits" that receive funding from the City of Los Angeles. That would be an interesting list, don't you think? And you'll just love this: several times, the Special Order 40 supporters -- many of whom were wearing headphones to hear the translation of the hearing into Spanish -- started chanting in Spanish. Remember, this is in the City Council Chamber of America's second-largest city. Can you imagine anything like that in any other country? Foreigners, yelling in a foreign language, protesting against the enforcement of immigration laws against foreign gang members? Oh, and one woman said we shouldn't use the terms "gang bangers" or "gang members," because gang members are people, too. Bottom line: wake up and smell the crazy. This is Vichy California, occupied territory. This is non-fiction, non-stop Kafka. If you have any hope whatsoever of persuading the people in power -- except for Greig Smith -- to do the right thing, forget it. It's not going to happen. We must take control of City Hall. That means electing me Mayor; getting Jamiel's Law on the ballot; and replacing the City Council, City Attorney and City Controller with people committed to ending City Hall's aiding and abetting of illegal immigration. Click here to contribute.