Cops as immigration enforcers, when fashion and politics collide, bringing the 'Magic' back to the Lakers

At the end of the day, we had two people who were killed. One of which was long-time Whittier police officer Keith Boyer. So, I have the community of Whittier as well as the whole law enforcement family wanting some answers. Was there a failure in the system? Were there things that we could have done better as it relates to policy and procedure? Was he in jail long enough? Should he have been on probation? He was in and out of jail a lot but on the surface, there was nothing in his background that was of a violent crime nature. But we need to look deeper into this and see what went wrong to have again, two people killed within an hour of each other.

I think we're going to look at all policies and procedures. I think we got to look at the courts. I think we have to look at judges. As far as I Can tell right now, the Probation Department was really recommending that this guy be in residential drug treatment. That was never ordered by the court. They just let him out and put him in community supervision. So, I think we're looking at probation, we're looking at courts. I think a lot of people want to know if he was part of the early release of prisoners that we had in California under [AB] 109. Whether or not Prop 47 had anything to do with it which would have made his possession of meth a felony and not a misdemeanor which is what happened to him. So, we want answers. My community wants answers. The law enforcement agencies want answers. And the family of this fallen police officer certainly deserves to get some answers. 

We're asking our CEO as well as our county counsel to give us a report back. I'm not sure what the timeline was that we gave them but we want a report back long-term to see whether or not there are some recommended procedures or changes we all might look at and put into effect. 

I know our Chief Probation Officer in LA County is certainly taking a good, hard look at it. I think everybody has to feel badly that we have two people who are dead this week by someone who was in our probation system. I think ever body wants to look at whether there were places along the way that we could have done things differently. There's not anybody that knows the story, particularly the death of Keith Boyer, that doesn't feel like they want to see whether or not there were any failures. 

Officer Boyer and his partner were responding to a traffic accident. That happens all the time. And they were completely unaware that the suspect would have opened fire on them. They were just unprepared for something like that to happen. Our law enforcement officers– every day, they're in danger. Our public is in danger all the time by some of these hardcore criminals. At the end of the day, what I want to find out is, are there any risk factors that we can identify? Are there any recommendations that will insure that we can do a better job at protecting our public and certainly protecting our officers who every day try to protect us. 

 I know for a fact that all law enforcement agencies throughout the county of Los Angeles do point to [AB] 109 as a cause for concern, particularly because when you have early release of prisoners into our communities, what did not come to our local communities was any extra resources to help with reentry, any mental health services, any more money for drug treatment programs. So, I think they're feeling like a lot of these prisoners are getting released earlier, coming into our communities.  And law enforcement as well as society has not been given the resources to prepare and help let these folks transform into our society. Whether or not this suspect was part of the early release program– that's something we're also looking at in this investigation.  

287(g) is a delegation of authority to local and state police forces to enforce federal immigration law. It gives local law enforcement the ability to detain people based on their immigration status. It empowers local police to pursue federal immigration objectives.

It's been around for about ten years. It was implemented in the Bush Administration. It ramped up toward the end of the Bush Administration, entering the first Obama administration. 



During the Obama years, it was focused on undocumented immigrants who had committed felonies. Local police were then instructed and encouraged to pursue those folks at the behest of the federal government, and it gave them training on how to identify those people.

There's been no requirement for local law enforcement to participate. It was a voluntary program, and it was used by the majority of police in the country.

Presumably, the federal government could change the law if they were willing to ensure that local police departments would only get grants if they participated in 287(g). That was not the policy of either the Bush or Obama Administrations, and I think it would change the relationship between the federal government at some of the states, particularly California, that has the Trust Act on the books that precludes local police from participating in certain kinds of federal enforcement actions.

"Algeria was conquered by France in beginning of the 19th Century and it was French for 130 years before its independence. So, many Algerians were actually born French. Anyone who's Algerian now who was born before 1962 was born French. It was the case of my father...If in in '62, people of Algerian origin would choose French citizenship, they would basically say to all their Algerian friends, 'I'm rooting for France. I'm not pro independence,' that's why they all chose Algerian citizenship even though they have mixed feelings.



After a few decades, that's what happened to my dad, he just realized my son's a French, I've been here all my life and it gets complicated with the passports, papers, traveling so after awhile he asked for French citizenship. At this time with the search for terrorists and information and intelligence the police would actually through this process you would have go to a police station to talk to an officer...whatever nationality you come from and they do a little investigation. They ask you who your friends are, where do you work, who do you see and if they want more they will ask you more and this is what happened to many Algerians at that time who were asking for French citizenship."

"I discovered the fact that the ambiguity could work when I was writing the film. I wrote it on my father's side on the first draft. When I was trying to find funding for the film and the national center of cinematography, they give you notes. When I got the notes I understood that all viewers cared about was, was he a terrorist or not? Which was not really my point, my quest was for identity an the terrorist thing was just in the background."

"My hope was that if you are rooting for the interrogator because you think his questions are legitimate, let's say you're a little bit on the right side of the political chess board in France...my hope was that this audience would get in the film with the police man and after awhile because they last over a half an hour... I was hoping that they would understand on a human level how humiliating the experience was and maybe change the way they see things and the way they look at those foreigners...that was one of the points I wanted to make with the film."