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Your city's team has won a major sports championship. It's a great achievement, and a reason to celebrate. You love your team, you love your city, you love a good time. But how do you celebrate? Dance, hug, shout, throw confetti, have some drinks, high five your friends, eat cake, relive the highlights of the game, throw a party at your home? Sure, right? You want to express your pride, your joy, your happiness on behalf of the team.
But set garbage cans, barricades, trash, and trees on fire? Tag private property? Break the glass of people's vehicles and business? Steal things? Push and shove each other? Try to turn over cars? Destroy a public transit bus? Climb onto the freeway? Smash street signs and crosswalk signals with metal bars? All on City property that an already strapped-for-cash City will have to pay for? Not to mention the cost of the fire and police personnel and resources used to control the 'celebrations' or the cost to local business owners whose property was destroyed, vandalized, or just taken.
Last night's media coverage referred to the events on the streets of Downtown Los Angeles as 'celebration.' Is this how we define 'celebration'?
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LA>Tehran
At least the people of Iran have a legitimate reason to be upset. There should be no parade because of the behavior of these retards....and that should go for subsequent championships as well.
such a shame... im both utterly embarassed and upset. embarassed for that fact los angeles "locals" would do this to their own city. on top of that, being that i live in downtown, i feel they have no right causing that much chaos with the looting, vandalism, and destruction of my own neighborhood.
Just so people know, post-championship rioting is NOT just a Laker or LA thing:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-11-01-riot_x.htm
Why...You ask? It's simple when you don't respect yourself, you don't respect others.
LA, you disappoint me.
This is what Randy New man had in mind.
Way to represent LA you classless thugs. Good job.
Morons.
At least all the community activism groups are flooding the airwaves denouncing this type of activity....oh wait, that's just my imagination.
Only in L.A. do I watch our sports team win championship and my first thought is "Better get/stay out of downtown."\
Feel totally bad for that car's owner.
Shoot, I was in Chicago the night the Bulls won it for the 3rd or 4th time... there were people offerring us $100 to drive them somewhere, anywhere, out of downtown. As far as sports mayhem goes, we're still laid-back mellow Californians.
this is why cuts to education are a horrific idea. this makes me so sad and angry.
Looks like Nathaniel West was right: You can rot out here without feeling it.
I've yet to truly understand the definition of ignorance.
That's because ignorance, like stupidity, knows no bounds, as demonstrated by these geniuses.
its disappointing but at the same time not surprising to me. there's always bad apples in every batch and due to living in a big city like los angeles, our bad apples are REALLY bad.
Is there anyway for LAPD to ID those looters in the pictures? Businesses were told to move downtown, now they may think twice if this kind of shit happens every time the Lakers win the Championship.
Any LA transplant who are appalled at what happened last night apparently have not lived here during the early 90s to make sense of the behaviors of these particular group of fans/thugs. Or even witnessed similar behavior during the Shaq-Kobe championship run. Sensational coverage of it will just entice them to do a repeat next year. It's a shame this is shown more than the actual sport event. That consignment shoe store will sure think twice about their current location.
This happens in every city each time a sports team wins a championship. Philly 08 MLB, Boston 07 MLB, L.A. 02 NBA, Denver 01 Stanley Cup. They don't restrict shitheads to L.A., They run rampant everywhere.
If memory serves me, I tend to recall some city official bragging about the fact that LA was the only major city to not have this problem. That comment was made before the first Kobe/Shaq championship. Maybe these same morons were afraid to loot in Inglewood. Perhaps the Lakers need to move back to the Forum.
I also remember my dad visiting from El Salvador around that same time and he told me "These people are worse than the hooligans in England."
Huh? I was in Boston for MLB 2004, as well as NFL 2001, 2003, and 2004, and nothing like this occurred. Same goes for MLB 2007 and NBA 2008. Not every city celebrates by destroying itself.
I'll grant you that Boston is a significantly smaller town, so that may factor in, but I don't think you can make a blanket statement like that.
Fuck the Lakers, and fuck their fans.
Fuck the Lakers, and fuck their fans.
fuck you and your entire family, bitch
You can't blame all of this on these drunk fools! Where are the cops with tasers or riot shotguns in these photos?? I think Brannan dropped the ball on this one, big time!! They knew there might be "celebration" rioting, and were completely unprepared!! Someone's head downtown has to roll----
matty mat, in the middle of a red sox celebration one year, a cop shot a rubber bullet into the crowd and wound up killing a girl. pretty sure that's not the right solution.
I hope the LAKERS lose next year and the year after that and forever, if fans can't handle it and react in this way. What a waste of tax payer dollars for such crap! This is an embarrassment.
There are millions of fans who did not riot. None of those guys rioting were season ticket holders. I doubt that they even attended games. I want the Lakers to continue to strive for excellence. I want the police to do their jobs. Every large city has a criminal element. This was entirely predictable and preventable. Karly2010, you're an idiot. Dan, You're a jackass.
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I bet every one pictured probably makes $30,000 or less per year. Way to make your city proud, fellas.
Yea, I guess how much money a person makes is a real indicator of what type of person they are.
But if you really want to explore that issue decoy, please let's.
Professional athletes constantly run afoul of the law with their drug use, getting caught screwing around on their spouses, domestic violence, public violence, public drunkenness, and yet these people are held up by soceity as our heros, and paid millions of dollars a year.
Yet we as a society balk at paying an education professional, (a teacher), even 1% of what the average professional athlete makes. An educator has the potential to have much more positve influence on a young person's life and future.
What is a young supposed to think when they see the real heros getting pennies, and getting the budget ax the first time there's a financial crisis?
I bet Koby and Shaq aren't going to go hungry or lose their homes during this recession, but a good many teachers will.
Doesn't give a young person very much incentive to be one of the real heros, does it?
Having recently moved to LA, and even more recently, Downtown LA, I have to say I'm shocked an appalled at this kind of behavior. I realize living in a big city naturally almost guarantees this kind of behavior once in a while, but after such a momentous event and such a great achievement, one would think people would be happy and want to take pride in their city. However, because of the "few bad apples" everyone keeps referring to, LA has been buried further into the stereotype that nobody here cares about anyone else-- just in it for themselves. Sidebar: "few bad apples" -- if you were there, you're guilty so it's more than just a FEW bad apples.
You know, these same people you see in the photos with the ear-to-ear grin while damaging public and private property will be the same ones with their hands out when financial situations get even worse. I would love to stand at the front of the crowd and scream "had you not rioted after the recent Lakers victory, the city of LA might have some public assistance for you. Instead, we had to clean up after your party. So sorry."
Hang in there Eric. Downtown is a great place to live. Fortunately The Lakers don't win the world championship very often, and last Sunday night is not the barometer to measure downtown by.
Downtown L.A. used to be very dangerous, especially at night. They've cleaned it up a lot. Made it much safer and more livable.
Believe me, you wouldn't have wanted to live here at all 6-10 years ago.
Thanks for the words of encouragement! I definitely feel safe at night downtown, and appreciate that it's gotten better as the years have passed.
I was really outraged at the displays of behavior on Sunday and was fuming all day Monday trying to figure out how the city let something like this happen.
The more people who speak out about it, the better I feel.
I second jrb's comments.
I remember the first time I ventured to downtown on my own some 20 years ago. It was quite the experience and I was on the bus to boot! The time I waited for my transfers and bus to get out of there was the slowest moving time of my life -- and that was during the day. I didn't know which would happen to me first: get mugged or shot.
Going there at night always depressed me, especially after having visited places like Chicago and New York.
Nowadays, downtown is an entirely different world at day and night.
Ghetto kids are all over the nation, unfortunately a high majority of them are here in LA, and theyre typical Lakers/Raiders/Dodger Fans. Probably have nothing going for themselves, living on welfare, unemployement or selling drugs. A normal sane person wouldnt do such things, when you work for your own things you respect other people's property. These people lack common sense and respect. They dont respect themselves obviously, how can they respect other people and their property? Makes me want to spit on them.
LAPD should cordon off an area for a bonfire, hire a group of drummers, and then let all the Lakers fiends dance around the bonfire until they pass out.
It worked for the celebrating cavemen after they caught dinner - why not here?
Reason# 6,531 why NYC is better than LA.
Lakers fans are scum just like that rapist who wears #24. San Antonio won 4 championships in the last 10 years and not one fire was set, or car destroyed or person shot. That is because San Antonio is a class act from the team to the fans.