Today, we start with a discussion about the LAPD's plan to require judicial oversight for ICE holds. Then, community organizations provide aid to busloads of undocumented immigrants in Murrieta. Plus, Washington State's legal pot shops open for business — we talk to Seattle sole pot shop owner, a new memoir tells the untold story of drug kingpin 'Freeway' Rick Ross, LAPD Museum houses history of city's dark side, Tuesday Reviewsday and much more.
Los Angeles to require judicial oversight for ICE holds
Los Angeles said this week that it will reject federal requests to hold non-citizens just because of their immigration status.
It will only grant detainers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, if there's been some kind of review by a judge or if a warrant has been issued. L.A. joins a growing number of police and sheriff's departments around the country saying no to ICE holds.
This year, the LAPD has gotten 733 requests for ICE detainers and granted about 300 of them, or some 40 percent, according to Chief Charlie Beck. With the city's new policy, that rate will likely drop further.
With more on why this is happening, we're joined by Southern California Public Radio's Josie Huang.
Yesterday's statement from the Los Angeles Police Department:
Recent court decisions have raised Constitutional concerns regarding detention by local law enforcement agencies based solely on an Immigration Detainer request from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Until this area of the law is further clarified by the Courts, effective immediately the Los Angeles Police Department will no longer honor Immigration Detainer requests submitted by ICE unless one of the following conditions are met:
1. Judicial Determination of Probable Cause for that detainer; or
2. Warrant from a Judicial Officer.
The Los Angeles Police Department endeavors to maintain a solid relationship with our Federal partners while simultaneously serving the citizens of Los Angeles regardless of immigration status in United States.
Community orgs. provide aid to busloads of undocumented immigrants
Protestors have been gathering in the city of Murrieta, southeast of Los Angeles
They're upset with the federal government's diversion of undocumented immigrants for processing there and they appear to have stopped the program for now. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been sending about 300 immigrants a week to Murrieta, to relieve pressure on border stations in the wake of a recent surge.
While it's not clear what happens next, the pause provides some relief for locals who've been helping the area absorb the influx. The California Report's Steven Cuevas has more.
What's changed in the year since California's inmate hunger strike began?
Today marks one year since 30,000 California state prisoners began a hunger strike to protest the solitary confinement conditions faced by inmates.
It was the largest ever hunger strike by California prisoners, lasting 60 days. Prisoners complained that authorities used solitary confinement indefinitely, claiming that some had been housed in isolation for decades.
Here's how one inmate at Pelican Bay, Jeremy Beasley, described it in February of last year:
"I haven't had human contact with anybody without being in chains since 2004. I've became angry, I've become bitter, know what I mean? And to tell you the truth, I have no idea of how I'm going to react with people when I get out there."
Inmates are in these cells for 23 hours of each day, a practice that Amnesty International and the United Nation's have equated this with torture. But a year after the strike, what reforms and measures have officials taken to address the situation?
Reporter Michael Montgomery from the Center for Investigative Reporting has actually been inside solitary confinement, himself. He joins the show with an update.
The untold story of drug kingpin 'Freeway' Rick Ross
Defining what an American success story is can all depend on your perspective.
For some it's getting a college degree, finding a good job then maybe buying a house with a white picket fence. For others it can mean pulling yourself out a hopeless situation by any means necessary, legal or illegal.
Freeway Rick Ross was a cocaine kingpin in the '80s and early '90s, whose empire spanned across the U.S. He was so powerful, that at one point, he controlled a vast multimillion-dollar operation. Until it all came crashing down.
Ross along with crime reporter Cathy Scott have written a new book that details all of it called "Freeway Rick Ross, the Untold Autobiography." Ross joins Take Two to talk about his life and his new memoir.
LAPD Museum houses history of city's dark side
In the trendy northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Highland Park, on one end of York Boulevard you’ll find record stores, cafes and hipster boutiques. On the other end you’ll find the Los Angeles Police Museum.
This collection of all things LAPD lives in the city’s last surviving 1920s station house, and offers a visceral glimpse into the gritty hell and Hollywood noir of the L.A. cop world. For The California Report, Peter Gilstrap has the story.
Even if you’ve never been here, there’s still a good chance you’ve seen the place. With its classic Neo-Renaissance, just-the-facts-ma’am, architecture, the structure has been a shooting hot spot for decades, and not just the kind with bullets.
“Major motion picture-wise, 'Gangster Squad,' it was out last year, filmed here,” says Glynn Martin, the museum’s executive director and former LAPD sergeant. “From television, there’s a new show on called 'Playing House,' they were here earlier this year. 'Justified,' 'Parks and Rec'… the original 'Transformers,' 'Flags of Our Fathers,' Clint Eastwood’s 'Blood Work,' 'Dukes of Hazzard 2,' 'Stop Loss,' 'When a Stranger Calls.' It’s a long, long list and it’s a very popular filming location.”
RELATED: Picture This: Inside the LAPD's rarely seen crime photo archives
Martin sits in a small conference room, a space not open to visitors. As with so much in the unique world of the police, the mundane mixes with the extraordinary. On a large table sits a pizza box larger than a manhole cover. A cop-size pie, by God. There are two slices left from the original 44. There is also a carton of cookies. There are no doughnuts.
On a nearby table are small envelopes yellowed with age stacked neatly. They’re filled with negatives from crime scenes — murders, robberies, apparent suicides, all taken in the year 1953, all labeled by some forgotten typist. One example: John Doe, homicide, San Fernando Boulevard rail yard. Hold the thin film up to the light, and there is the mystery corpse in the white areas of the negative, sprawled in the contrasting dark of an empty boxcar.
Police station No. 11 has been home to such items for decades. From 1925 to 1983, the building served as the Northeast Division station. When the cops relocated, it stood vacant, decaying and forgotten. At one point, says Martin, the place was so badly damaged by fire you could stand in the basement and see through to the roof. In 2001, old No. 11 got a major face-lift and a new lease on life when it was resurrected as the museum. It’s now on the National Register of Historic Places.
“Raymond Chandler said the history of Los Angeles is the history of its police department,” offers Martin, “and I find an awful lot of truth in that. What I also find is that drives an enduring interest in the LAPD. Really what we’re about are three things: faces, places and cases.”
Among those cases are some of the most notorious in modern memory, incidents that have inspired the work of many writers, including former cop Joseph Wambaugh, Michael Connelly and James Ellroy, who has participated in museum events for years.
“We’re talking Black Dahlia, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, the Charles Manson case, the Night Stalker, Hillside Strangler, the Onion Field, The North Hollywood shootout, the SLA shootout,” reels off Martin. “These are events of world renown, and I think that is probably the thing that makes this special. Those kinds of things continue to drive interest in what the LAPD is and what they do.”
The museum displays powerful artifacts from those crimes, alongside Hollywood relics. You can see Patty Hearst’s iconic M1 carbine, and the suit coat worn by Jack Webb in the classic "Dragnet" series. Behind the museum there’s a bullet-ridden squad car from a bank job gone bad next to the bad guys’ even more bullet-riddled Chevy Celebrity. Back inside, the hall holds poster-size blowups of Police Beat magazine, featuring Bob Hope and the stars of the classic LAPD TV series "Adam-12" on the covers. You’ll find an undetonated pipe bomb the size of a dachshund, and decades of well-used billy clubs and handcuffs.
Down a hallway you enter a cement room containing five cells that look like a block of gray cages. Back in the day, Martin says the ceiling bars created a hanging hazard. Nearby is a well-worn metal chair. In front of it, at chin level, there’s a rack of numbers.
“Now you can come here and take your own mug shot in a chair that was sat in by thousands of criminals prior to your arrival,” says Martin, as 4-year-old visitor Zyla Delgado plops down in the chair that has held so many law-breaking behinds.
“It’s a big attraction for the youngsters,” Martin says.
Zyla’s mother, Rose, says it’s the first time at the museum for the family, who lives in nearby Montclair. “I’ve never been here before and I think it’s amazing. I’ve seen this stuff in movies but I’ve never actually seen it.” Neither has Zyla, who rockets herself from the booking chair and races into a grim jail cell that boasts a cot, a toilet and a sink. What’s her favorite thing?
“The jails,” she says. Then she screams with glee and runs to another cell.
The biggest draw, however, is upstairs. In 1997, two heavily armed men clad in body armor and ski masks tried to rob a Bank of America in North Hollywood. Both were killed in the ensuing firefight. Their outfits and weapons now adorn two mannequins, complete with bullet holes.
Next to the formidable mannequins, a monitor plays the raw, riveting footage of the entire shootout. “We always warn the school groups and the kids of the material,” Martin cautions. “It’s not bloody or gruesome, but if a kid knows what they’re looking at, it’s probably not the best things for the youngest of our visitors.”
Museum docent Cal Drake knows about being on the receiving end of a bullet. The 84-year-old retired detective joined the LAPD in 1952, and received the Medal of Valor after being shot by Black Panthers during a 1969 raid. He grew up near the station house, though he spent little time in the building during his career. Now he’s here once a week, guiding visitors through decades of crime history of which he was a part.
“I was raised in this division,” he says. “I went to high school in Eagle Rock across the hill here. I didn’t want to work this station. It was a good place to work, good people to work with. I didn’t want to put my neighbors in jail.”
If it seems like reliving some of the highest-impact criminal events of the last century on a weekly basis might be a bit tough on a man, remember that this man was a cop.
“It can be somewhat emotional,” admits Drake, “but not tremendously. When I’m emotional, you won’t know it. That comes from the business, you know?” Thanks to the Police Museum, it’s a business that he is still not distanced from, retired or not.
“This kind of gets you back into the swing of things,” Drake says. “I didn’t want to get that far away from the department, I enjoyed my time on the police department. It was the best job I’ve ever had.”
Could childhood trauma lead to a misdiagnosis of ADHD?
One in nine U.S. children currently has a diagnosis of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. And, according to a new study, some of those could be misdiagnosed.
This new research confirms what many psychologists have seen in their own practices: that a child with an ADHD diagnosis is most likely to have also experienced prolonged stress or trauma in early life, whether it's poverty, divorce, violence or family substance abuse.
Dr. Caelan Kuban, director of The National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children, is one of those practitioners who has witnessed this type of misdiagnosis. She joins Take Two to talk about whether children who have experienced trauma are being misdiagnosed with ADHD.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Henry Butler, Cowboy Jack Clement, Fania and Miranda
It's Tuesday, which means that it's time for new music on Take Two. This week on the show, A Martinez is joined by critic Steve Hochman and
, Associate Editor of Latin at Billboard.
Alright, let's let them take it away.
Steve Hochman's Picks
Artist: Cowboy Jack Clement
Album: For Once and For All
Songs: “Got Leaving On Her Mind,” “Just a Girl I Used to Know”
He only made three albums in his own name — this last one was completed shortly before he passed away last year at age 82 — but Cowboy Jack Clement was one of the true giants of modern country music, a towering figure as a producer, writer, publisher and muse for some of the essential artists in a career spanning more than half a century.
As a young staffer at Sun Records he was the first to record Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison and went on to help shape the talents of (and become best buddy to) no less than Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings, as well as getting credit for desegregating country by championing Charley Pride and producing his key albums. “Cowboy” wasn’t a casual nickname, but an earned honorific befitting his colorful, larger-than-life presence that has been termed by some “Shakespearian.”
The respect and affection he gained in his years is bespoken by the cast that assembled to help on this album, from executive producer T Bone Burnett to a who’s who of country-Americana elite performing alongside him: Vince Gill, Dierks Bentley, Leon Russell, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Buddy Miller, John Prine, Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlins, Dan Auerbach, Jim Lauderdale, Bobby Bare and Duane Eddy among them.
For all that, "For Once and For All" is anything but grandiose, but rather a down-to-earth, personal and personable account, at once casual and spirited. The songs are drawn largely from material he wrote in the ‘50s and ‘60s, songs of love and leaving triumphs and trip-ups, tall tales and, of course, trains, all invested here with the intimacy of the voice of a gifted storyteller sharing the wisdoms of his vast experience, without a whiff of pomposity or pretense.
From 1958’s “Fools Like Me” (a hit for Jerry Lee) and 1959’s “Miller’s Cave” (as classic a defiant, first-person outlaw ballad as there is, first a hit for Bobby Bare in ’63) to 1967’s whimsical “The Air Conditioner Song” to the somber plea of 1969’s “Jesus Don’t Give Up On Me” (the liner notes stress that he was spiritual, but “about as religious as a corn cob”), he doesn’t so much as hold court but host a gathering of friends.
“Got Leaving On Her Mind,” recorded over the years by artists from Charley Pride to Jerry Garcia, here has the Cowboy joined on vocals by Bentley and the Secret Sisters, while Eddy, Miller, Burnett and Pat McLaughlin make for an ultra-twangy guitar quartet. The wistful “Just a Girl I Used to Know” — a classic with versions by Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton, Elvis Costello and Lee Ann Woman among others in the catalog — here sports exquisite harmonies from Emmylou Harris and Jim Lauderdale.
Artist: Henry Butler with Steven Bernstein & the Hot 9
Album: Viper’s Drag
Songs: “Viper’s Drag,” “Henry’s Boogie”
It was just New Year’s Day that I saw this act at a New York City jazz club, but already I had my first concert-of-the-year contender. And now the same act gives a legitimate album-of-the-year candidate.
Butler, a blind pianist from New Orleans, has a long career in the lineage of the city’s great ivory-ticklers, from Prof. Longhair on down. He’s also done various band and modern funk projects, but rarely has made an album that really captures his talents.
New Yorker Bernstein’s a horn player (the rare slide-trumpet being his signature tool), composer and arranger who’s had key roles with a range of artists from John Zorn to Lou Reed to Levon Helm, as well as leading his own big band and the edgy, witty Sex Mob and making some bracing explorations into ranges of Jewish-rooted music.
The two worked together in touring band spun off from the Robert Altman movie Kansas City. They got back together to play a blues festival in New York City in 2011 and from that grew this partnership. The collaboration allows Bernstein to explore old styles with fresh perspectives, and gives Butler, finally, a setting in which he can fully flourish. In the Hot 9 — the name evoking Louis Armstrong’s essential Hot 5 and Hot 7 sessions of the 1920s — Bernstein has brought together some of the top players in New York and New Orleans funk and jazz.
The music references those earliest years of recorded jazz, explicitly with the title tune, “Wolverine Blues” and a couple of others drawn from that seminal repertoire, but informed by and embracing pretty much everything that’s happened in jazz since. Mostly, it’s a true expression of the colorful, imaginative and accomplished personae of Butler and Bernstein and their cohorts, not least drummer Herlin Riley, assuring that there’s always a Mardi Gras vibe somewhere in there.
Butler sings on a few of the songs, which are terrific. But the heart and soul of the project come in the instrumental workouts. Sure, Butler’s playing has a lot of Longhair and James Booker and the other New Orleans greats in it, but Fat Waller, Art Tatum, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk are present.
Bernstein’s compositions and charts are as much Charles Mingus as Louis Armstrong. The magic of Viper’s Drag is its rapid-fire runs up and down the decades of jazz as in the title song, and more so in the places where all those eras and styles exist as one, notably the original funky Fat Tuesday strut, “Henry’s Boogie.”
Justino's Picks
Artist: Miranda
Album: Nuevo Album
Songs: “Fantasmas” and “Extraño”
Argentinean electro-pop band Miranda return with a new album titled New Album.
Ale Sergi, Juliana Gattas and Monoto return with a similar retro vibe that has made them popular among their fans for more than a decade.
Since meeting 13 years ago, the band has been charming audiences with their electro-pop music and their unique style of videos and on stage presentations.
“Fantasmas” (Ghosts) is a slower-paced pop ballad that uses ghosts as a metaphor for relationships. It’s a sweet composition, catchy and the video is one to check out especially since the group is known for creating cinematic music videos that feel a little Wes Anderson in tone.
In this latest release fans will be happy that they get about 11 songs, but they are also performed acoustically, giving fans a double dose of Miranda, who have for years been making music that’s whimsical (often deep in the context of love), but always entertaining musically and lyrically.
Artist: Fania (various artists)
Album: Summerstage 201- Fania 50th Anniversary, Vol. 1
Songs: “Mi Desengaño” (Roberto Roena & Apollo Sound) and “La Paz del Freak” (La Mecánica Popular)
It’s hard to believe, but it’s been 50 years since the Latin label Fania Records was co-created by Dominican-born bandleader and composer Johnny Pacheco.
This summer we're being reintroduced to the best of Fania with music that includes salsa, Afro-Cuban jazz, Latin R&B and the boogaloo. Additionally, new mixes have been made and newer bands continue performing in the spirit of Fania.
The label, which introduced the group Fania All Stars, included some of music’s most celebrated singers such as Hector Lavoe, Willie Colon, Celia Cruz and Ruben Blades.
This summer’s release of songs will showcase new acts and DJs who play tribute to Fania and those who were part of this musical movement. Fania is releasing eight digital albums through September in conjunction with New York’s SummerStage. Those features acts are performing in Central Park including the Fania All Stars who will be performing on Aug. 24.
Two of those releases include Roberto Roena’s “Mi Desengaño” and La Mecánica Popular’s “La Paz del Freak.”
Roena, a native of Puerto Rico, sings the classic composition and was tapped to perform this summer as part of the anniversary celebration.
La Mecánica Popular, known for their psychedelic salsa, has members from Peru, Colombia and New York-born musicians who honor the new wave of tropical music.
Washington State's legal pot shops open for business
Today, Washington State becomes the second state in the U.S. — after Colorado — to allow the sale of cannabis for recreational use.
Yesterday, the state began issuing licenses to vendors, but the rollout in the Evergreen State already looks much different than it did in Colorado.
"Colorado had an existing medical marijuana system that was regulated, so they had a built in," said Derek Wang of public radio station KUOW. "They could basically switch over to their recreational system."
In Washington State on the other hand, they had to start from scratch. They had to learn about pot, how to do background checks, which business models might work best, because not just anyone can grow, distribute and sell weed.
Also, Washington issued its legal pot licenses via a lottery system, without giving already open medicinal marijuana businesses a competitive edge. More than 2,000 people applied for retail licenses, while only about 334 were actually issued.
"There are three different licenses. One for retailers, another for processors, and a different one for growers," said Wang. "For retail applicants, people had to submit business plans, they had to talk about security measures, and I think at the processors level and retail level they had to have their facilities inspected."
These regulations caused delays for some businesses. In Seattle, with a population of around 634,000 people, only one store open for business on day one.
Cannabis City, located in the industrial SODO neighborhood, is the sole legal pot shop in Seattle ready to open its doors on Tuesday. The shop's owner, James Lathrop, has been preparing through the night for the barrage of customers, setting up crowd control measures, ordering a portable toilet and hiring food trucks.
The supply of legal weed is scarce. There have only been 440 pounds of marijuana grown so far this year because the licenses to grow weren't handed out until March and it takes at least four months to grow pot.
Regardless, people are coming from around the country says Wang. Even though only five retail shops have opened up in Washington state.
Proposed ballot measure would decriminalize pot possession in DC
As legal pot sales begin in Washington state today, in Washington DC, a voter initiative that would decriminalize pot possession is making its way toward the November ballot.
Advocates for a ballot initiative that would decriminalize marijuana possession in DC announced yesterday that they had collected 57,000 signatures, more than twice the number needed to get the Initiative 71 on the ballot this fall. But Congress could still step in to block the measure.
Aaron Davis, a reporter with The Washington Post, joins Take Two to explain more about Initiative 71 and the debate over marijuana legalization in DC.
Grand Canyon development plan causes controversy
Imagine gliding down on a gondola to the floor of the Grand Canyon, slowly taking in all of the beauty that the canyon has to offer.
Once you arrive at your destination, lunch at a river-side restaurant, before a leisurely nature stroll. To some, this sounds like a perfect way to take in one of nature's greatest wonders. To others, it's practically blasphemous.
Los Angeles Times environmental reporter, Julie Cart, joins Take Two to talk about the possibility of this scenario becoming a reality.
Study: How climate change affects National Parks across the US
Well if you're planning a trip to an amazing natural site like the Grand Canyon, you'd better hurry up. A new report finds that "extreme" climate change has arrived at one of America's favorite places to escape to: our national parks.
The National Parks Service says this extreme warming is already having consequences in parks and historical sites. Joining Take Two to explain more is author of study, Dr. Bill Monahan, National Parks Service scientist.
USC film school teams up with State Dept. for international documentary festival
For the third year, the U.S. State Department is funding the University of Southern California's American Film Showcase, a $3.3 million program that sends American documentary filmmakers and their movies around the world to show them a side of America they may not know.
The program takes "some of the best documentaries made over the last couple years" to residents of other countries, said Alan Baker, an associate dean at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts. The goal: To to educate and, maybe, change minds.
Even in drought, key Calfornia data on water wells remains restricted
In the middle of the California drought — one of the worst in recorded history — you'd think that scientists and water policy experts would have full access to all state records that contain information about the state's groundwater supply, a precious resource.
It turns out that the state keeps these locked up in a warehouse and only government researchers can access them. The issue is the subject of a recent article in the Sacramento Bee.
All this has led to a fight, not over the water itself, but over who has access to data about that water.
"It's kind of like trying to make a road map without any information about where the roads are," Graham Fogg, professor of hydrogeology at the University of California, Davis told Take Two.
Ground water provides about 40 percent of the state's drinking water. About 95 percent of California's freshwater is underground, according to Fogg. The state drilling records on wells provide a picture into what's going on beneath the ground.
"It's a complex system and these wells are one of the few little pictures into the subsurface," said Fogg. "It's just fundamental information for understanding these systems."
Vatican officially recognizes international association of exorcists
Last week The Vatican formally recognized the International Association of Exorcists. It's a group of 250 Catholic priests who claim to cast out demons from humans, a scenario familiar to any lover of scary movies, like the 1973 classic "The Exorcist"
John Allen, Associate Editor at the Boston Globe who covers the Vatican and Catholic Church, joins Take Two to explain more about the Vatican's decision.