Preliminary hearing or trial? The latest on Kelly Thomas. Is Griffith Park ready to play ball? Autry Museum’s founding president to lead Smithsonian history museum. The latest on the battle for the White House. Talking about rape, mother to daughter. Plus, the latest news.
Preliminary hearing or trial? The latest on Kelly Thomas
Today is the third day of testimony in the preliminary hearing of the police officers accused of beating a homeless, mentally handicapped Orange County man to death.
According to the Orange County Register a judge could rule today on whether or not the two Fullerton cops will stand trial. The last couple of days have been dramatic. On Monday prosecutors played the surveillance video from the bus depot where the beating took place.
For the first time the video was synced with the audio from the police officers patrol cars, giving a very clear picture of what went down that night. On Tuesday the pathologist who performed Thomas’ autopsy testified that his death was caused when, during the course of the beating, police officers piled onto Thomas which compressed his chest. That, along with the bleeding from his nose and face cut off oxygen to his brain.
At one point during yesterday’s hearing Thomas’ father, Ron, overcome by the graphic images and testimony, got up and walked out of the courtroom. Today, testimony continues and there’s a chance we’ll get an even better look at the prosecutors case. Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas appears to be putting a lot on the table for a preliminary hearing.
What exactly is his strategy? How much evidence is too much evidence for a preliminary hearing? It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which these officer aren’t going to trial. So what’s to be gained by playing the cards so far away from the vest?
GUESTS
Laurie Levenson, Professor of Law at Loyola Law School
Ed Joyce, KPCC Reporter
Mark Geragos, attorney with Geragos & Geragos, has defended many high-profile defendants including Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson, Winona Ryder and more.
Is Griffith Park ready to play ball?
A proposal from City Councilman Tom LaBonge is causing quite a stir in northeast Los Angeles. LaBonge, in an effort to answer the calls of parents in the area for more Little League baseball fields, floated the idea of building two in Griffith Park.
This would reduce the amount of time parents in Los Feliz, Atwater Village, Silver Lake, Echo Park and East Hollywood would have to spend driving to Hancock Park or Toluca Lake, where the closest fields are now. Griffith Park used to have an abundance of little league and adult baseball fields, but they were removed when the 5 Freeway was built.
"Now we have an abundance of families with children who would like to see their kids get recreation of any sort and there's no place for them to go," said Mark Mauceri of the Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council.
"What would be displaced is a portion of flat space that has trees in it… it would displace 7 picnic tables, but there's a discussion about the term displaced, because they would be moved 75 to 100 yards down in the same area. Some people think the whole area is being ripped out, its not."
The fields would be located on the east side of Griffith Park near Crystal Springs Drive and the project would be funded by Proposition K and would run upwards of $950,000. One stipulation of Proposition K projects is that they are opened up to public discussion, and some vocal minority factions are proving to be an obstacle for the project.
Opponents of the plan cite the fact that construction would move a frequented picnic area and displace several trees in the area. Several equestrians also claim that the noisy kids could spook their horses on the trail which would run up near the fields.
"The proposed site of the two baseball fields would in fact wipe out a substantial portion of the Crystal Springs picnic area, a beautiful open area which sports many many trees, many of them 100, 200 years old." said Joe Young of the Sierra Club. "My second concern is the proponents refuse to acknowledge that there are two existing baseball fields in this area."
Mauceri argues that while there are two baseball fields already in existence in the area, they're meant for adults and not suitable for children.
"Pote field… is an adult baseball field. It's got 90-foot base pads. It's the kind of field that Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier and Albert Pujols play on, it doesn't really work for 5 and 6-year-olds," said Mauceri. "You don't want to destroy that field because it's one of the few adult fields we have."
Alternately, an area of Atwater Village across the Los Angeles River and Interstate 5 is being considered as a backup option.
WEIGH IN
When will the council rule on this issue? What other problems do opponents of the plan have with the proposed fields? What other options are there to reach a resolution? Is there a potential win-win for both sides?
GUESTS
Mark Mauceri, Recreation Interests Representative, Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council (GGPNC); he is also a media consultant and coaches the Silver Lake T-Ball Pirates.
Joe Young, Member of the Exec Committee of the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club and Member of Friends of Griffith Park
Autry Museum’s founding president to lead Smithsonian history museum
John Gray, the founding president of the Autry National Center of the American West, has been tapped to lead the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Gray is credited with transforming the Autry complex into a major cultural center. The Smithsonian’s history museum is one of the nation’s most popular museums. It has a budget of $34-million is projected to host 5-million visitors this year. Gray starts his new role on July 23, succeeding Brent Glass, who led the museum since 2002.
What’s Gray’s vision for engaging museum-goers in our history? What does his departure from Los Angeles mean for the Autry?
GUEST
John Gray, Incoming Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington; former Founding President of the Autry National Center of the American West
The latest on the battle for the White House
Let the countdown begin. Voters are just six months away from hitting the polls. With a torrent of campaign events and media appearances, there is a flurry of developments and spin-doctoring that is crying for analysis and reality checks.
We'll begin with primary results from yesterday. What do they portend for the presidential contest? Plus, in the past week, we've heard two senior members of the Obama administration make clear statements supporting same sex marriage. Education Secretary Arne Duncan was asked in a television interview whether he believed gay couples should legally be allowed to marry. Duncan said, "Yes, I do." His comments come after Vice President Joe Biden said he is "absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.'' How do these statements square with President Barack Obama's position? Can the Obama campaign benefit from a mealy-mouthed position on gay marriage?
The Mitt Romney campaign may have gone off-message yesterday, too. The Republican National Committee held a roundtable to highlight the GOP's campaign for Latino votes. However, when its director of Hispanic outreach was asked to explain the party's immigration policy, Bettina Inclan had difficulty and stated, "[Romney] is still deciding what his position on immigration is." What is he waiting for? Or did Inclan misspeak?
Finally, the war on/for women has extra ammo. Last week, the Obama campaign introduced #Julia to constituents. She's a graphic representation of the American everywoman. In a slideshow on the campaign site, you can click through Julia's life from birth to the golden years – from Head Start to Social Security. It is supposed to show how Democratic policies help women and contrast them with Republican policies that hurt. Romney jumped on Julia in a campaign stop yesterday: "Julia progresses from cradle to grave, showing how government makes every good thing in her life possible.
The weak economy, high unemployment, falling wages, rising gas prices, the national debt, the insolvency of entitlements – all these are fictionally assumed away in a cartoon produced by a president who wants us to forget about them." What will win over the female electorate?
GUESTS
Jonathan Wilcox, Republican Strategist; former speech writer for Governor Pete Wilson
Matt Rodriguez, Democratic strategist; former senior Obama advisor in 2008, now runs the Los Angeles office for the Dewey Square Group.
Talking about rape, mother to daughter
When Shannon Bradley-Colleary was 20-years-old, she seemed to have everything. It was 1986. She was a “privileged” college student studying journalism in London with several other students from the University of Southern California. Despite her young age, she saw herself “as a Woman-of-the-World, an intrepid explorer,” ready to be reinvented.
But she got more than she bargained for.
While in Italy for what was supposed to be an adventurous spring break getaway, she was almost date raped. Like many women before and since, Bradley-Colleary never reported what happened to her. Today, Bradley-Colleary has two daughters, 8 and 9 years old, and she wants to protect them. When they are old enough, she plans to tell them what happened to her in hopes that “they’ll see the warning signs” she missed. In retrospect, she says “innocence is overrated.”
"There's always that concern between not telling them enough to be prepared for something, and telling them too much," she said. "I know they're too young now for me to tell them this story, so I wanted to write it down, and have it for them when they're old enough."
According to Bradley-Colleary, children are born with the right instincts until they forgo them to adapt with society and culture. "I think we teach our children to be very accommodating to strangers, you know ... and what I realized is, children's reactions, before we socialize them, are often right on. They follow their instincts; they don’t' cover things up," she said.
Marybeth Roden, assistant director at the Rape Treatment Center at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, said parents should not only discuss the subject with their daughters, but also with their sons.
"I also think it's vitally important for mothers and fathers to speak to young men, because they're the ones that are committing these crimes, and there are things they need to know as well," Roden said. "Rape is never the fault of the victim, it always lies squarely, 100 percent, with the person who uses force or takes advantage of someone who is unable to give consent because they're drunk."
Roden added that educating children at a young age will shift societal norms.
"We have to change the culture. Men need to be empowered to speak up if they see other things that their friends are doing that don't feel right, or speaking about women in a denigrating or predatory way. ... 99 percent of men obviously wouldn't behave like this, but they can have an enormous influence on men in their circle," she continued.
According to Roden, much progress can still be made, but receptiveness to tackling the issue has grown in the past three decades.
"When we started our national campus rape campaign in the '80s, there was some resistance on the part of some colleges to even bringing this subject up. Now there is much more awareness and much more information out there," she said.
Roden suggests that every parent has their own way to relay information to their kids, and that's okay. "I think that there are ways to educate your child. I think you need to decide what the appropriate way to do it is. ... I think the important thing is to make a commitment to informing your children about risks."
From the phones:
Robin in studio city said the key to teaching young children once they're able to handle this type of information is honesty.
"Not negative, not pessimistic, not critical – 'Oh, men are bad' – but be very honest about what can happen," she said. "But also, we need to really encourage our daughters to listen to their instincts, to know what that means. And I think that starts at a really young age."
Lisa in West Hollywood started talking to her daughter about similar issues at the age of five. "I'm trying to teach her just to have a sense of trust about her body, so that, from a very young age, she knows that if something doesn't feel right, she can trust herself," she explained.
Lydia in Studio City said she was raped as a freshman at an Ivy League University. She said that actually being raped makes it more difficult to speak to her daughter about her experience.
"I've written about it, but I will not share the details of that experience with my daughter, who's now 13," she said. "I've certainly talked about the issue with her, had her read about experiences with other young women, but I think to have her see her experience through the prism of the specific event that happened to me would be too frightening for her, and while it might be cathartic to me, would not be helpful to her."
WEIGH IN
But when is the right time to talk about rape with one’s daughter? Where’s the line between protecting our children and scaring them unnecessarily? What should all mothers tell their daughters about the risks of being a woman? What do you wish your mother had told you?
GUEST
Shannon Bradley-Colleary, screenwriter and blogger, author of “The Date Rape Story I'll Some Day Share with My Daughters,” posted on her blog TheWomanFormerlyKnownAsBeautiful.com
Marybeth Roden, Assistant Director, Rape Treatment Center at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center