Comments by "Daniel Bradford" (@Falconlibrary) on "Los Angeles gets what it voted for" video.

  1. LAPD simply don't respond to most calls. It's not that they're overwhelmed nor underfunded (LAPD gets 50% of LA's huge city budget). They just don't care. I lived in Los Angeles for 23 years and it's ALWAYS been like this. LAPD answers to no one and serves only itself. Has nothing to do with "defund the police" and it happened under Dick Riordan, too, who was a Republican mayor. We had a gunman holding patrons hostage at the library where I worked in 1999--when Riordan the Republican was mayor--and the LAPD didn't show up for two hours despite half a dozen frantic 911 calls, by which time I'd negotiated for the man to abandon his gun and leave the premises. The LAPD lieutenant who arrived screamed abuse at me for "letting the man go" rather than praising me for convincing him to disarm and flee before the cops arrived. We had senior citizens and children's story hour in the library at this time. The lieutenant actually drew his gun and waved it around while he threw a tantrum. I was more frightened of him than of the gunman, who was frightened but eventually calmed down. The LAPD needs oversight and deep-rooted reform. Its political power is such that it answers to no one. I did get a citation from the city librarian and from Mayor Riordan himself for handling the gunman. I was supposed to receive the citation personally from the mayor but refused, since he was busy trying to bust our union. I would've been tempted to tell him off to his face, too, which wouldn't have been a good career move.
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