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October 10, 2008
Foot, Bicycle Patrols in Downtown take on Pedestrians
Photo by mugley via Flickr
The LAPD's Central Division is increasing their resources in downtown in the form of eight bicycle patrols and new foot patrols finds downtown blog Angelenic. According to the Senior Lead Officer for the area (he's like the mini chief of police for a neighborhood), they are focusing on pedestrian enforcement. Blogger not happy:
Is this nipping larger crimes in the bud or is it just “Broken Windows” theory gone wild? Broken Windows, espoused by Chief Bratton and with a tried and true record in New York City, is the doctrine that preventing small crimes such as graffiti, subway fare evasion and petty theft — and punishing perpetrators accordingly — prevents larger crimes from happening.But when I can walk past 6th and Los Angeles and shifty-eyed loiterers approach me to buy my “stolen” laptop, when I walk down Spring Street and see a woman inducted into prostitution, and when I find myself in the Civic Center being physically threatened by a man much larger than me for money, focusing on office workers stepping off a Grand Avenue sidewalk a moment too late just seems ludicrous.
While we understand that graffiti, illegal dumping and jumping gates in NYC subway stations to avoid paying are all part of broken windows, we're not sold on pedestrian enforcement yet.
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Just for the record, Broken Windows didn't work so much as steal the credit (like most his policies) from the success of other reasonable, well though out policies enacted before Mr. G came around.
Saying Broken Windows worked is like saying that benign neglect made the South Bronx a great place.
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Pedestrian enforcement crack downs are absurd. It pisses me the hell off. Cars can break rules all up and down the road and highways threatening lives without consequence, and yet we need to crack down on pedestrians who might get in a motorists way for maybe 2 seconds. Never mind the crack deal around the corner, let's get those people using the crosswalk too late. A perfect example of using police to pick on easy targets as a distraction from greater worries.
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I saw a bus driver run a red light last week at the Wilshire/Flower intersection and her hands WEREN'T EVEN ON THE STEERING WHEEL! She had both of them on a bottle of water.
Maybe that's why they are fining pedestrians for not crossing the street before the hand stops blinking - because they can't control all of the people who are running red lights downtown.
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I agree with GarySe7en as well. Drivers in LA break the rules all the time and make it hard for us pedestrains. I can't even cross a street in this town without someone trying to turn before me. BOO! :(
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And who do you complain to if the crosswalk signal is WAY too short to even cross the street in time. Is there some sort of number we can call to get those things changed? Someone let me know.
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I have had two friends this year get jay-walking tickets in the West-Hollywood / Beverly Hills area around Cedars Sinai. Look Out!
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Just found this - did you know, in most cases in the State of California, it is LEGAL to cross the street while not at an intersection, barring a few exceptions:
http://www.tozerlaw.com/jaywalking_california.html
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I remember my friend's sister was unnecessarily jaywalking in burbank, with the crosswalk 20 feet away, and a motorcycle cop drove by and yelled out "there's a nice crosswalk right behind you!"
I wish he had given her a ticket.
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Getting a $101 'jaywalking' ticket at 7pm on a completely dead intersection at figuroa and 8th in downtown LA was intolerable, especially when I see people stopping traffic to run across the street on LaCienega and Santa Moncia. Guess the LAPD change the rules as they see fit, huh?
Why is 'jaywalking' an offense anyway? If people want to put their own lives in their own hands, let them. I agree that more needs to be done to crack down on the bad driving in this town, it's about time pedestrians are treated as equal citizens.
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"Why is 'jaywalking' an offense anyway?"
M-O-N-E-Y
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Jesus. Any one else see a trend here? The Central Division is also ticketing cyclists ($165 per ticket!) for not having a bicycle license, but they're not enforcing the part of the law that effects bicycles shops. Additionally, they've been out of licenses for a week, so we don't even have a way to prevent the problem.
And now they're going after pedestrians.
NEWSFLASH, LAPD: CARS ARE (almost) ALWAYS MORE DANGEROUS AND COSTLY. PLEASE ADJUST YOUR POLICIES ACCORDINGLY.
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If they actually gave out speeding tickets instead of letting everyone drive 85 they could make quite a deal of money. I'd love to see a system like the British are installing where highways have cameras that can monitor average speeds over an area and use license plate numbers to mail out tickets. Budget issue solved and accident rates to fall soon after I'm sure.