Defending the 40-Hour Murder Ban

Published Apr 8, 2008 12:00 AM

Photo by Susan Catherine via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, author, blogger and president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable was the man behind the dream of the 40-hour murder moratorium that Los Angeles County and City put into place this past weekend. He defends his idea in the LA Times, the very same paper, who in an editorial, lambasted the proposal:

In its editorial, "A moment for Martin Luther King," The Times' board calls the county's 40-hour moratorium on homicide "silliness." Martin Luther King Jr. would have had an answer for the editors who think saving lives is silliness. [...]

What tipped readers off to The Times' misunderstanding, or deliberate distortion, of the goal of the moratorium was its incredibly sloppy, wrongheaded and idiotic earlier news headline, "L.A. City Council rejects ‘ban’ on homicides." The Times buried the fact that the council ultimately approved the resolution. The vote was unanimous.

Hutchinson about King's history and highlights some of what he did. Then ends with this saying that the moratorium ended up not attaining one goal -- that being

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at least three homicides occurred during the 40-hour period. "But the moratorium did attain the larger goals of calling attention to King and his struggle for nonviolent solutions to conflicts, and in engaging the community to continue the search for proactive solutions to the murder plague in L.A. Does this sound like something that's silly or a stunt?"

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Defending the 40-Hour Murder Ban