California Republicans met in Sacramento for their three-day spring convention. We'll get an update from the ground in the State capitol. Then, GOP pac hires Ruben Barrales to widen Latino support, we talk to business owners who'll be effected by sequestration cuts, LA Times reporter Rebecca Keegan joins us for a Hollywood update, Music & Memory non-profit group reaches Alzheimer's patients where little else can, and much more.
Update from the California GOP spring convention in Sacramento
California Republicans gathered this past weekend at their state convention to sort out their image problem. The once-dominant political party in California now claims fewer than 30 percent of registered voters, no statewide offices, and only a handful of seats in the legislature.
The state party may also be up to $800,000 in the red. John Myers, Political Editor for KXTV in Sacramento, covered this weekend’s convention. He joins the show with an update.
Ruben Barrales hired by GOP committee to widen Latino support
One message coming out of this weekend's GOP convention is clear: To grow the party, Republicans must reach out to Latinos in California.
Grow Elect is a political action committee formed to do just that by recruiting, funding and training Latino Republican candidates for public office. The group recently hired
as its new president.
Barrales former San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce CEO also served under President George W. Bush.
Sheriff's deputy's 2008 murder helped inspire changes in Northeast Los Angeles
Sentencing is scheduled Monday for Jose Renteria, convicted in February of murder in the drive-by shooting death of Sheriff''s Deputy Juan Abel Escalante in 2008.
Two others have pleaded guilty and two others still await trial for their roles in a murder that helped inspire a sweeping change in some of the most violent neighborhoods in Northeast LA.
The change is plenty visible in Glassell Park, on a street that's basically a stone's throw from the parking lot of LAPD's Northeast Community Police Station.
Walk down Drew Street, once infamous as a drug nest, and you'll find a fairly quiet residential street, save the near-constant sound of barking dogs.
“One dog, two dog, somebody has three dogs," said longtime resident Simon Tejada. He says everyone who's lived in the area for a long time has dogs, a holdover from when this was a much more dangerous area. The sidewalks weren’t full of strollers and kids walking home from school like they are now.
“The corner was very hot," Tejada says. "Hot corner.”
Now Tejada jokes the neighborhood’s changed for the better, but everyone’s stuck with a bunch of dogs.
Number 1 in gang violence
Five years ago, back before Captain Bill Murphy took command of the LAPD's Northeast Station, the area led Los Angeles in homicides.
"We were number one, unfortunately, in gang violence," Murphy says.
In March 2008, LAPD officers had had just ended up in a shootout with a member of the Drew Street clique of the Avenues gang; officers shot and killed one of the gang members.
Months later, after a lengthy federal and local investigation, law enforcement raided several locations on Drew Street, arresting dozens of Avenues gang members.
There, things might have stopped.
"On August 2, I got a call about 5:40 in the morning," Murphy says.
Juan Abel Escalante, a deputy sheriff, had been gunned down by Avenues gang members. They'd driven up and shot him as he was outside his parents' Cypress Park home, getting ready to go to work.
"They shot him and killed him in cold blood," Murphy says. It was apparently a case of mistaken identity; the gang members thought Deputy Escalante was from a rival gang.
Almost immediately, law enforcement flooded the neighborhoods that make up the Northeast Division: the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, the U.S. Attorney and, of course, the LAPD.
“And we were going to take the entire Avenues gang on," Murphy says. And they did.
Another federal investigation was launched and about a year later, law enforcement arrested hundreds of alleged gang members.
Deputy's murder sparks a change
But Murphy says he wanted to do things differently – not stop with kicking in doors and arresting suspects in neighborhood raids. That would clear out some gang members, but it wouldn't bring a lasting peace.
So Murphy reached out to community leaders like Nancy Moore, a former pastor at a church in Highland Park and head of the local clergy council.
“Bill came to the clergy council and said: ‘You know what? These kids have lost their daddies and their brothers,'" Moore says.
The task of community groups like Moore's has been to make sure the families of people in prison had support. They also organized peace marches, resource fairs, and are a regular presence at murder scenes to provide support to family members.
She says it’s sad that it took the death of a sheriff’s deputy to spark a change in the Northeast neighborhoods. Still, Moore says everything jelled: the community groups, social services organizations, government agencies, and law enforcement.
“A lot of things happened in conjunction with one another, and as a Christian, I’d say God was kind of directing some things," Moore says. "You can read that however you want to.”
More change for Northeast L.A.
Now, things are changing again for the Northeast. Captain Murphy was just promoted to Commander, and will move on in a week.
He leaves behind a station with an entire wall devoted to awards for Northeast’s work fighting gangs – and Deputy Escalante is in the middle of it.
"His picture is up there with the end of watch the day that tragically, he was murdered," Murphy says. "We have a memorial to him to always remind us the type of job that we do, the importance of it, and the impact we can have on a community.”
Alex Sanchez: Gang peacemaker or shot-caller for MS-13?
Since he became the first former gang member granted political asylum in the United States, many have followed the activism and work of gang interventionist and Homies Unidos founder Alex Sanchez. But for the last three years, many have followed him for a different reason-his implication in a complicated, high-profile criminal case. From the Fronteras Desk, Erin Siegal has more.
On June 24, 2009, Sanchez was arrested. The U.S. government accused Sanchez, a former member of the notorious street gang Mara Salvatrucha, of leading a covert double life in Los Angeles.
"As soon as I open up the door I see all these M-16s pointing at me," Sanchez recalled. "And I said, 'look, let me finish getting dressed.' And they were like, 'Come out! Come out! Come out!'"
Sanchez, then 39, had experienced trouble with law enforcement years before. But this time was different: he was now a prominent activist in Los Angeles, mediating gang disputes and coaxing youth to leave their gang affiliations behind.
"When I saw the officer outside my home, Frank Flores, I realized that I was being set up," Sanchez said.
Flores is an experienced detective, and one of the Los Angeles Police Department's experts on gangs. He regularly testifies in court during gang prosecutions.
So does Sanchez. He's a gang interventionist who has been out of gang life for more than a decade. He said he recently butted heads with Flores in court, testifying against him as an opposing witness in an unrelated case.
Soon after Sanchez's arrest, the U.S. government announced he was being charged alongside two dozen other alleged MS-13 members.
The crimes ranged from murder to extortion to drug trafficking.
The government alleged Sanchez wasn't really a peacemaker — that he was secretly still an active "shot-caller" in MS-13.
Prosecutors used the RICO Act against Sanchez, which added federal racketeering and conspiracy charges.
The LAPD refused to talk about the case for this story, and the Los Angeles Office of the Attorney General refused multiple requests for comment.
Special Agent Darrell Foxworth of the FBI's San Diego office isn't connected to the Sanchez case, but he's familiar with gang investigations in Southern California.
He said RICO charges are be a powerful tool against gangs — and also lead to longer sentences.
"Now, this has been something that the FBI has used very, very successfully over the years," Foxworth said. "It started with the LCN, the Mafia, the Cosa Nostra. We utilized this investigative strategy, this particular law, to disrupt and dismantle organized crime here in the United States. We've taken this same template and we've applied it to violent street gangs."
Sanchez faced life in prison, and news of his arrest came as a shock to many. His bail was set at $2 million. Friends and family made donations, and four people reportedly put their houses up as collateral.
Over the next three and a half years, the government's case dragged on.
Finally, last month, Sanchez's public defender Amy Jacks filed a motion to dismiss the case. She charged that government prosecutors had "presented false evidence," and "lied to the grand jury."
Apparently, the prosecution made mistakes.
On Jan. 16, 2013, without admitting wrongdoing, the prosecution admitted their case against Sanchez was "flawed." Sanchez said some wiretap evidence had been omitted, and there was confusion over the identity of certain wiretap participants.
All criminal charges against Sanchez were dropped, without prejudice.
Former California lawmaker and civil rights activist Tom Hayden knows Sanchez personally, and has written extensively about him.
"Without prejudice, the government could bring charges again, but they would have to be new charges with new evidence," Hayden said. "And the government would have to explain why the new charges and the new evidence are better than the charges that they brought in 2006 that fell apart."
"He’s either secretly a very bad person and has fooled the judge and tricked his way into having the charges dropped, or he’s the victim of constant mistaken prosecutorial and police enforcement policies," he said.
Judge Dale Fischer, who presided over the dismissal, told prosecutors they had to move quickly if they planned to file new charges. The U.S. Attorney's office said if there are new charges, they'll be brought forward by March 30, 2013.
So for Sanchez, the wait continues.
"Every morning I wake up and think about, 'Am I going to remember this day, if I'm doing life in prison?'" Sanchez said. "Right now, since the case was dismissed, all I'm thinking about is, are they going to come at night, like they did the last time? It's traumatizing."
Sequestration cuts hit home for business owners
On Friday President Obama accused Congressional leaders of failing to reach a compromise to avoid the impending spending cuts. the end of the day. We'll talk with some business owners who'll feel a direct impact because of sequestration.
Hollywood Monday: New releases, SXSW debuts and more
L.A. Times entertainment reporter Rebecca Keegan joins us for her regular Monday update of the latest from Hollywood.
Today we'll be discussing the new film "Oz: The Great and Powerful," which is a prequel to the beloved 'The Wizard of Oz." Then, premiering at South by Southwest festival is a remake to Sam Raimi's 1981 classic "Evil Dead." Word has it that the production called for 50,000 gallons of fake blood.
China launches screenwriting contest for American writers
Today, the Chinese government announced the creation of an international scriptwriting contest. The idea behind the contest is to target American writers. The winners of the "Tale of Beijing" contest will all get prize money and an all-expenses paid trip to Beijing to meet with potential investors.
Clayton Dube, director of the US-China institute at the University of Southern California, joins the show with more.
Crowded field competes in Tuesday's election for Los Angeles' 13th council district seat
In her mailbox and on her doorstep, Echo Park resident Lucia Chappelle has been inundated.
“It's crazy,” the freelance writer says, standing outside a market. “I’ve got three or four people knocking on my door every day.”
Such is life when you live in a city council district where 12 candidates are on the ballot.
Chappelle, 60, says she votes in every city election, but still hasn’t decided who will get her support this time. “It’s just really difficult to engage,” she said.
When voters in Los Angeles go to the polls Tuesday, residents of the 13th city council district may have the most difficult choice. A dozen candidates are seeking to succeed Eric Garcetti, who is running for mayor. Based in Hollywood, the district can serve as a launching pad, as Garcetti demonstrates. The district also includes Silver Lake, Atwater Village and Glassell Park.
“It’s one of the key districts in the city,” says Jaime Regalado, the retired director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State LA.
For one thing, the area is one of the few in L.A. that’s grown economically over the past few years. Developer money has poured into the district, along with trendy restaurants and boutiques.
“It’s become a booming district,” Regalado says. “Its political importance has become magnified because of that.”
That may be why four of the top candidates moved into the district within the past couple of years – critics say to take advantage of what they knew would be an open seat.
Gentrification has brought thousands of young, new residents, and pushed out thousands who couldn’t afford soaring rents. But it remains a tale of two districts, Regalado says, with wealthy and poor living nearly side-by-side. The 13th is also perhaps the most diverse in the city, says the district’s former Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who served in the 1990s.
“It’s Armenian, it's Thai, it's Persian, it's Polish, it's Russian, and obviously it’s Latino, but not solely Mexican," Goldberg says. "There are a lot of Central Americans.”
The candidates reflect that diversity.
“I was born in Seoul, South Korea,” Emile Mack told a recent candidates forum. Mack is a chief deputy with the L.A. Fire Department.
“When I was three years old, I was very fortunate to be adopted by an African American couple and brought here,” Mack said.
Another candidate, Alex De O’Campo, senior director for a charitable foundation, described growing up with his Filipino immigrant parents and six siblings.
“Dinners usually consisted of two cans of sardines, a bowl of rice," he said.
De O’Campo, Mack, and labor activist John Choi are seeking to become only the second Asian American elected to the L.A. city council. The first was Mike Woo, who represented the same district in the 1980’s.
The race is the most expensive council contest in the city, with Choi topping the money list. Between his own fundraising and labor union money, he’ll benefit from nearly $500,000 in spending.
De O’Campo, Mack, and former deputy mayor Matt Szabo trail him in fundraising. A third tier in the cash category includes former Garcetti aide Mitch O’Farrell, who’s won the LA Times endorsement.
But money is less important than face-to-face contact, argues former councilwoman Goldberg.
"In my first campaign for city council, I think we had 120 coffees during the primary,” she says.
And with a crowded field, a candidate with deep but not necessarily broad support could win a spot in the expected runoff, says Fernando Guerra of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.
“I can easily see the top two people getting under 20 percent,” Guerra says. That might amount to less than 6,000 votes.
Outside Trader Joes in Silver Lake, residents expressed interest in a wide variety of issues, from more bike lanes to concerns over a proposed condominium project in Elysian Park.
“Street violence,” Chappelle said. “We’ve had homophobic attacks in our neighborhood, in a neighborhood where we have lots and lots of LGBT people.”
“Roads, terrible roads here, its Third World,” Bruce Stewart complained.
Interestingly, none in a small survey of people listed the city’s projected budget deficit, which nears $1 billion dollars over the next four years.
One Trader Joes worker and Echo Park resident threw up his hands as he struggled to name one candidate. He reflected the overwhelmingly number of choices in this district, as well as a general disinterest in city elections, compared to presidential contests.
“The other day I got a huge stack of brochures, literally all in one day from a bunch of people I’ve never heard of,” Roman Rose said. “I threw them all out. It’s just like a pizza flyer to me.”
KPCC's Voter Guide
View your March 5 ballot, research & choose your candidates. Save, print, email, &/or text yourself your choices!
City Hall Pass: Gearing up for the primary election
It's time for City Hall Pass, your ticket to all the latest political news coming out of downtown Los Angeles with KPCC's political team of Frank Stoltze and Alice Walton. On tap this week, tomorrow's primary election.
RELATED: Check out the KPCC voter guide to get ready for the polls
Picture This: Pete Pin captures Cambodian diaspora in the US
Today, we proudly announce a new, occasional series on photography we call Picture This.
We begin this series with 30-year-old photographer, Pete Pin. His parents met in a refugee camp in Thailand after fleeing Cambodia. Pete was born in that camp, though his family ultimately left for California. Pin was raised in Stockton and Long Beach.
Recently he's been turning his lens toward other Cambodians living here in the U.S. Before he got into photography, he planned on pursuing a PhD in political science, but he still knows plenty about the political history of Communism in his homeland.
Interview Highlights:
On how the effects of the Khmer Rouge are still being felt in the Cambodian-American community:
"It's something that I never fully understood. How that affected my parents and affected this community here in the states. It's something that plays out in multiple different levels, at the family level, at the community level at the country level. That massive demographic shift within a single generation, in a span of four years."
On how he started his Cambodian Diaspora project:
"I initially started about three years ago. I photographed my grandmother, and I had never had a real conversation with my own grandmother about her life and her experience in the Killing Fields until that moment I took her portrait. She explained to me things about my family, things in terms of what my grandmother did to keep my family alive during the Killing Fields. That was a huge revelation for me and it also answered a lot of questions about the sacrifices that individual family members made. "My family in Stockton, they're very close knit. There's some degree of obligation that they have to take care of my grandmother, and that's not based on cultural expectations or taking care of your grandparents and parents, but moreso because of what my grandmother did to keep my family together. From our discussion I learned some very specific details of things that she did during the killing fields to keep everyone alive."
On how his grandmother saved his family during the Khmer Rouge regime:
"My grandmother was not wealthy per se, but she was relatively wealthy in the provinces she lived in. When then Khmer Rouge came, no one understood what was going to happen. People were celebrating, some people were embracing the Khmer Rouge, but my grandmother understood the implications of the peasant revolution. She preempted any possible attack on her family by dyeing all of our clothes black and going to the Khmer Rouge leader when they came into town and telling them that they swore loyalty to the revolution. Black is the color of the revolution. They gave up all their property to the revolution."
On the image of the man's tattooed hands (Image 1 in the slideshow):
"On his left fist is an image of Angkor Wat, which is a symbol of Cambodian nationalism. On his other fist is a cityscape. That gentleman I met in Philadelphia during Cambodian New Year. I saw his fists and understood instinctively what that meant for him and what it meant for me as a Cambodian American. The Killing Fields for this individual didn't stop when he arrived here in Philadelphia. He suffered from inner city issues in terms of gangs and poverty. All the social ills that we associate with the inner city. If you consider the fact that as an immigrant group, refugees in general are not necessarily well-suited to adjust in American society, they lack all the basic tools and skills necessary to resettle properly and specific to the Cambodian case, if you understand the demographic consequences that most of those who were well suited to immigrate, those with degrees, those who were educated were actually executed, and the majority of people who lived were young like my parents or rural farmers. Many were even illiterate in their own language. That has lasting path-dependent effects of the development of a community, the development of a country, the development of a people."
Music & Memory non-profit group reaches Alzheimer's patients where little else can
Each afternoon at about 4 o'clock, Tom H., an 83-year-old retired optical engineer, spends an hour visiting with his wife Marcie in her room at the Atherton Baptist Homes assisted living facility in Alhambra.
Marcie, 84, suffers from Alzheimer’s disease but she can still recognize her husband of 55 years.
"She remembers my name. She remembers I’m her husband," says Tom. "She lights up every time she sees me, so all that’s good."
Still, Marcie’s dementia has stolen away much her ability to think clearly and to function as she did years ago. Communication has become challenging for the long-time Pasadena couple, who asked that their last name not be used in this story.
“The memory is so short,” says Tom as he sits in a chair next to Marcie, holding her hand. “If I tell her something, she won’t remember after several minutes.”
But not all is lost to the couple. An organization called Music & Memory has provided Tom with a new way to awaken Marcie to the present moment: It's an iPod that’s customized with some of her favorite music.
On a recent day, Tom searches the music on Marcie’s playlist and chooses "Mockin' Bird Hill" by 1950s pop sensation, Patti Page.
“You like this,” Tom says he places headphones over Marcie's ears.
“I like this,” she repeats back to him.
Then, as Page's voice fills her headsets, Marcie smiles at Tom and begins singing along to the music, chasing away the dementia-induced stupor that had gripped her just minutes earlier.
Reaching them through a back door
Somewhere in Marcie's brain, the songs from her past—and her long-lasting love of that music—are still intact. The iPod's personalized playlist helps her find that again.
“It’s not a cure for Alzheimer’s but you are tapping those parts of the brain that are still functional and you’re reaching them sort of by a back door,” says Dan Cohen, founder of the Long Island-based Music & Memory.
Cohen, who is trained as a social worker, says he came up with the idea of using personalized music to improve the lives of elderly dementia patients about six years ago. His non-profit group works by collecting donated iPods and then distributing them to nursing homes that undergo Music & Memory training that his organization provides.
So far, he says, more than 60 nursing home chains in the U.S. and in Canada are certified in the program. In California, there are six certified facilities, including Atherton Baptist Homes and Pacifica Senior Living in Northridge.
"It gave me chills"
Among those who support Cohen’s efforts locally is Josh Grill, an assistant professor of neurology at UCLA’s Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research. The organization has set up a web page to collect donated iPods for local nursing homes certified in the Music & Memory program.
“In Alzheimer’s disease, music may calm the patient bring back memories that we thought were once lost and even increase their alertness and their ability to communicate with those around them,” Grill says.
Down the hall from Marcie’s room at Atherton Baptist Homes, Jessica Litchfield, director of residential activities, recounts the first time she put her Music & Memory training to work on a patient. She chose an elderly resident who was suffering from late-stage dementia.
“She had stopped rolling herself in her wheelchair. She was the very first person I had put the iPod on,” Litchfield says. “And her face lit up. I literally stayed there for 30 minutes watching her. And she started clapping again and she started rolling herself down the hallway. It gave me chills. It did. It was wonderful to see.”
"Blessing to us both"
Not all patients show such dramatic transformations. Most here in a room at Atherton sit in their wheelchairs with their eyes closed, seemingly asleep as they listen to their favorite tunes.
But even that, say those who are familiar with dementia, is an improvement over the agitation, delusions and aggression that often grips those with Alzheimer’s disease.
“There are reports of music decreasing agitation and increasing calming and even alleviating depression in some of these patients,” Grill says. “And overall we think that providing music therapy may improve the quality of life of these residents.”
So far, that seems to be the case for Tom's wife, Marcie. The hour she spends each afternoon listening to her iPod with Tom seems to calm her, he says. She's more aware of his presence.
“I just think it’s a blessing to both of us because I’m not a very strong conversationalist,” he says. “So when we get together it’s something we can share together and that brings us a lot of joy.”
How LA's next Mayor can help fix the city's dysfunctional architecture
A lot of Los Angeles' best-known landmarks — and eyesores — came about because of the whims of top city leaders. Where will the next L.A. mayor stand on architecture?
Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic for the LA Times, has talked to the mayoral candidates about city design, and discusses which L.A. spots could use the most work.