2017 saw dramatic changes in criminal justice throughout the state, how firefighters are feeling after our unusually long fire season, a tour of BuzzFeed's Tasty kitchen.
After a year of fires, firefighters reflect on their "rewarding" profession
Paul Lowenthal couldn't believe it when his manager asked him to take a vacation.
"He came to me and said, 'I need to order you to take four days off.' And I just sort of laughed at him," Lowenthal told Take Two's A Martinez.
Lowenthal is the assistant fire marshal for the Santa Rosa Fire Department. With 2017 being the worst year on record for fires in the state of California, he and his fellow firefighters have been constantly working to contain a multitude of blazes for most of the year.
That includes the fires in Northern California, where Lowenthal's own home burned down.
In spite of that, the last thing he wants is a vacation.
"I enjoy what I'm doing," Lowenthal said. "I want to keep moving forward."
The widespread and powerful blazes were enough of an obstacle for service members to deal with. But the fires were also stoked by tough weather conditions that made things even more difficult.
"[We had] almost six days of a Santa Ana wind event," said Mike Mohler, the battalion chief with Cal Fire. "I know weather professionals at the National Weather Service say that hasn't happened in almost 30 years."
Mohler said the constant fires this year have taken a toll.
"The term for it is, 'hit a wall,'" Mohler said. "It's really taking the breath out of everyone with the devastation and the fatalities."
But Mohler said that his profession is still incredibly rewarding. He and his fellow firefighters have worked hard to interface with community members. They've helped them rebuild and feel safe as they deal with the devastating circumstances.
"The community understands these horrible situations," Mohler said. "But they come together. They embrace it. They do what needs to be done and they move forward. For me, that's the measure of success."
Paul Lowenthal agreed.
"We're tied to our community. We're here for as long as it takes," Lowenthal said. "It's a unique task, but I don't want to stop doing it."
But Lowenthal still looks forward to the day the fires are completely extinguished. "I've got a nine-year-old daughter, and I promised her I would take her on a vacation when things calm down. We're shooting for spring break."
Why the drought put the California salmon supply in danger
Salmon trucked to the ocean a few years ago because of low river flow are having trouble making their way back home to lay eggs. That means the state's largest hatchery has about half as many fish as normal, forcing officials to truck the baby salmon to nearby deltas.
"The reason they were trucked is because the river where the hatcheries were located were running so low and so clear. They basically would have perished," said John McManus, executive director of the Golden Gate Salmon Association. "The reason why is because when the rivers run low and clear, it makes it very easy for predatory fish to gobble up the baby salmon."
How salmon trucking could be prevented in the future
Water managers could address this and help us solve quite a bit if they simply reserve some water for release in the springtime. It's interesting to note that up in Oregon, Washington, Idaho ... there is a legal requirement that reservoir operators release water in the springtime for the very purpose of delivering baby salmon down the river and out to the ocean. So if they have it up in Oregon and Washington, why don't we have it here? If we did, we'd be in much better shape.
The 5 top LA criminal justice stories of 2017
Crime is always a big story in Los Angeles, birthplace of the modern street gang, home of the drive-by shooting and stomping ground for the LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff's Department – agencies that regularly lead the nation’s list of police departments that use force.
There were a number of law enforcement stories that might qualify as among the most important of the year. We've whittled the list down to five.
SHERIFF GOES DOWN
For years, former jail inmates complained sheriff’s deputies regularly beat them. Independent watchdogs and civil rights group chimed in, saying even visitors to the Twin Towers jail downtown could get a beating if they violated jail rules.
But what began as an FBI investigation of a pattern of excessive use of force against inmates ended with former Sheriff Lee Baca’s conviction in March on obstruction of justice, conspiracy and perjury charges. Baca and his undersheriff, Paul Tanaka, were the masterminds of a scheme to stop the FBI’s inquiry into jail abuses. It included hiding the FBI’s informant and threatening federal agents with arrest if they continued the probe.
The first jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquittal. In the second trial, U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson prohibited Baca from using virtually all of the character witnesses that he had used in the first. Anderson also prohibited Baca from using his Alzheimer’s disease as a defense.
Baca, 75, has appealed his conviction and remains free.
LAPD GANG INJUNCTIONS END FOR THOUSANDS
The Los Angeles City Attorney’s office filed its first gang injunction in 1987, asking a judge to issue a restraining order against the Playboys Gangsta Crips in West LA. The order named the gang and a few of its members, but not all. Like the dozens of injunctions that would follow, people would have no idea they were under an injunction until police stopped them on the street.
The injunction prohibited people suspected by police of being gang members from a wide range of otherwise legal activities, such as carrying on conversations on certain street corners or wearing clothing associated with the gang. Courts rejected civil liberties lawsuits challenging the injunctions' constitutionality.
This year, City Attorney Mike Feuer and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck decided to reverse course, sending letters that lifted the injunctions for more than 7,000 mostly African-American and Latino young men – 80 percent of the people covered by injunctions.
It was a tacit acknowledgement that the gang wars have substantially subsided and, for some, an acknowledgement that the injunctions were draconian and unfair.
For the LAPD, injunctions have long been another tool to fight gang violence. Officers could stop any suspected member of a gang on the street. Civil libertarians said this resulted in a serious violation of the civil liberties of people with only a loose affiliation or no connection at all to gangs. An audit documented some merely had a cousin in a gang – but the individual was seen talking to the cousin.
At the height of their use, the city had gang injunctions against more than 40 gangs that covered over 10,000 individuals. Over the years, 79 gangs and nearly 9,000 people were slapped with injunctions, according to the L.A. Times. Other jurisdictions used them too; the number reached 150 statewide.
But a 2016 audit of the state's CalGang database found serious problems with it. The LAPD, for example, inaccurately added non-gang members to the list - a list that is sometimes used by prosecutors to add gang enhancements to its charges against a defendant. Those enhancements can add years to a prison sentence.
NEW LAW PROHIBITS POLICE FROM COOPERATING WITH ICE
After an intense months-long debate sparked by the election of President Trump, the California legislature approved a so-called "sanctuary state" bill that severely limits cooperation between local police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Governor Brown brokered the deal between State Senate President Pro-Tem Kevin de Leon and sheriffs around the state who wanted to continue working with ICE.
Police officers and sheriff’s deputies in California are now prohibited from asking about a person’s immigration status, detaining someone for the purposes of handing them over to ICE or in any way helping federal agents arrest people solely on suspicion of being in the country illegally. Police chiefs and sheriffs also are prohibited from placing cops under the supervision of ICE.
The bill also requires California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to create policies to limit ICE agents’ ability to grab people at public schools, libraries, health facilities and courthouses around the state.
The idea is to create "safe zones" for people without proper authorization to be in the U.S.
Some law enforcement officials opposed the legislation.
POLICE BODY CAMERAS GO TO WORK
Virtually every police and sheriff’s department in California classifies body camera video shot by officers as evidence, which means they can use that as a reason to keep the images out of the public eye.
But that is changing as law enforcement leaders and rank-and-file cops get more comfortable with the technology.
This year, the LAPD – the department with the largest number of cameras deployed – began looking at releasing video of all officer-involved shootings. The L.A. Sheriff’s Department doesn’t have cameras yet, but Sheriff Jim McDonnell says a $55 million plan to deploy cameras over the next four years would include releasing video from high-profile incidents. The Board of Supervisors must approve the funding.
Body cameras are beginning to do their job. An LAPD officer is now struggling to explain video that apparently shows him planting cocaine on a suspect. A defense attorney uncovered the video during discovery in the man’s trial on felony hit-and-run and possession of cocaine charges. In another high profile incident, Pasadena Police are struggling to explain why officers broke a man’s leg as they were taking him into custody on a traffic violation.
CRACKING THE POLICE CODE OF SILENCE
Sheriff McDonnell, hardly a radical reformer, nonetheless declared in 2017 that the names of deputies who commit misconduct that raises questions about their credibility should be turned over to the district attorney.
So if a deputy lies on a police report, the DA should know that because he might lie on future reports, McDonnell said. Under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling known as "Brady," the DA also has an obligation to inform defense attorneys of any evidence that might point to a defendant’s innocence – including questions about the arresting deputy’s honesty. The sheriff currently has a list of about 300 such deputies he wants to give to DA Jackie Lacey.
The Association of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs filed a lawsuit to block McDonnell, arguing police personnel files are secret – even if they reveal misconduct prosecutors are obligated to tell the defense about.
The California Supreme Court considers the issue next year.
It’s unclear how many police departments have lists of officers with credibility problems. Some DA’s in California have struck deals with police unions to obtain the lists. Lacey has not, but says she supports the sheriff’s effort.
How BuzzFeed's 'Tasty' kitchen built an empire of Internet foodies
Holiday get-togethers are a perfect time to up your cooking game, and if you’re looking for a new dish to impress family and friends, chances are you’ve searched online. And if you have, you've probably come across BuzzFeed's culinary video series, Tasty.
The Tasty brand is famous for its top-down style of two hands whipping up a dish in fast motion. Their recent recipe of a chicken Alfredo penne reached more than 20 million Facebook views in just one hour of posting.
With almost 7,000 videos gone viral, the Hollywood kitchen is building an empire of Internet foodies and continues to be a game changer for online recipe sharing. Since their launch in 2015, the studio has earned more than 62 billion lifetime views across all platforms, and added studios in New York, Japan, the U.K. and more.
On today's menu: scalloped potatoes four ways, meatball-stuffed pastry rings, loaded queso and a tower of cream puffs.
Tasty producer Alix Traeger pours a decadent béchamel sauce over one of her scalloped potatoes.
"So that’s always kinda the shots you’re looking for in something like this," Traeger says. "We literally have it in all of our videos, but the moments that make you say, 'Oh yes!' Things like cheese pulls and drizzles and butter melts and things like that."
Tasty has mastered the art of the zoomed-in, tantalizing close-up shot. But aside from making viewers drool, their goal is to make cooking more accessible, easy and fun for the amateur home chef.
"I never went to culinary school," Traeger says. "I’ve just had a love of cooking, and I think it’s really important for people to be comfortable in the kitchen and confident in their skills, no matter where they are on their cooking level."
And that’s a big appeal — approachability. Most of Tasty’s producers aren’t professional chefs, so their videos focus on step-by-step instructions with clear visual cues. No gorgeous TV kitchens, no distracting personalities. Just two hands that show you exactly what you need to do.
Traeger tops off her potatoes with a generous layer of bacon bits and shredded cheddar cheese before popping them into the oven.
"You see I've kinda dropped some cheese on the side, because at the end of the day, this is about cooking at home. And people spill," Traeger says.
Tasty’s videos are circulated mostly via Facebook, with a main page anchoring nine spin offs like Tasty Japan, Bien Tasty, Tasty Vegetarian and Tasty Junior, for the kids. The studio also gave birth to Nifty and Goodful, and last year they created a Tasty 101 series to walk through more difficult kitchen concepts and recipes.
Today, producers Alexis deBoschnek and Jody Tixier are filming how to make a croquembouche. Essentially, a tower of cream puffs glued together with caramel.
DeBoschnek sets down a tray of 100 cream puffs at one of the shooting stations, this one named "Julia Child" for inspiration. But celebrities like Martha Stewart, Wolfgang puck and even Katy Perry have stopped by to show off their home recipes.
One by one, she dips each cream puff into the caramel and arranges them into a spiral tower. And finally, after the last cream puff, the team yells an ecstatic, "Woohoo!"
That was deBoschnek's 500th cream puff of the week. But Tasty’s recipes aren’t always so self-indulgent. In anticipation of New Year’s resolutions, they’ve also brainstormed healthier alternatives, like donuts made with bananas and applesauce as opposed to refined sugar.
But what makes Tasty so successful?
"I think that one thing that we've tried to do...we try to make every recipe something that would be sharable with your friends and family," says Claire King, head of culinary at Tasty. "So it’s kind of this balance between accessibility and then sharability as well, so we really want to make sure that...this recipe is reminding you of someone."
Like tagging the steak-lover in your life, or the best friend who's obsessed with avocados.
Now back to the scalloped potatoes, where Traeger has just pulled them out of the oven for the infamous bite shot.
"Okay so, this is always a little nerve racking because...when you get to the end it's like, do or die!"
She grabs a metal ladle and dives into the potatoes. After multiple attempts, the perfect bite shot is successfully lifted up, and of course — goes right into her mouth.
"Oh my gosh. That's really good."
In the words of Chef Gusteau from Ratatouille: "What do I always say? Anyone can cook!"