How mixed heritage shapes American identity, the L.A. police commission's raft of reforms designed to reduce police shootings, our series inside a private immigrant detention center continues.
LA Police Commission President on increasing transparency and reducing police shootings
Don't shoot if you don't have to.
That's the message the Los Angeles Police Commission sent to officers Tuesday as it approved a sweeping set of reforms.
The five-member panel released a raft of proposals designed to reduce the number of police shootings. These recommendations come at a time of great public outrage about the lethal use of force by officers. The police union is not pleased with the commission's plan.
Matt Johnson, president of the L.A. Police Commission, joined Take Two to discuss the reforms.
Interview highlights
On the need for more transparency
"When it comes to officer-involved shootings we haven't had a formal process of what information is released and when it is released. Sometimes we do it in our commission meetings, sometimes there is a press conference that the [LAPD] chief has, and it's somewhat ad hoc, how it's done. So we looked around the country, looked at other departments at how they were doing it, and we saw some good examples out there. So I instructed the department to go and take a look at some of these other departments and then come back to us with a formal protocol for us to discuss that would formalize a process for us to release accurate information in a responsible way."
On the benefits and limits of video footage
"If the expectation of the public is that even with body cameras that it's going to be like watching a movie, I can tell you, having now watched hours and hours of body camera footage, it's never like that. And rarely do you get a perfect picture of what occurred. But, I will say this, it is a very important piece of evidence, and often it is the most important piece of evidence. So personally I'm very much in favor of the widespread deployment of body cameras. And we are on track, by the end of next year, that every officer in our city will have body cameras."
On ways to reduce use of deadly force by police
"One is policy. You look at the policy and change the policy in a way that keeps officers safe. We're never going to get to zero. We live in a particularly violent city, and it's just unrealistic. We can only control the officer's behavior, we can't control the suspect's behavior. So we always have to be mindful of that and we can't hold officers to unrealistic expectations. As we saw, we had three officers in the last week in the state of California, including a sheriff's deputy right here in Los Angeles, lose their lives while responding to calls to protect citizens. So one, we change the policy to build in that idea that deadly force should only be used as a last resort. The second part of that is we build in a requirement that if the opportunity reasonably exists to de-escalate a situation, we expect our officers to attempt to de-escalate the situation."
To hear the full interview, click the blue player above.
Have changes at Adelanto immigrant detention center led to better health care?
Sports roundup: Kaepernick takes starting spot amid protests, Dodgers face must-win, Tiger (kind of) returns
San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick is scheduled to return to the starting position this week as protests during the national anthem spread beyond the NFL. Tiger Woods delays his anticipated return to the tour. And the Dodgers stay alive in post-season play.
Andy and Brian Kamanetzky join Take Two with more.
To listen to the conversation, click on the blue button
Battlefields to Ballfields: Helping veterans serve as youth sports referees
A new program is training veterans to serve as referees in youth sports.
The theory? The demands of combat and the demands of parents, players and coaches in the midst of a game can be similar in some ways.
NFL rules expert, Mike Periera is behind the initiative:
"The fact that when they are on a mission, they are part of a team. And they are on a team that depend on each other and work with each other and they have goals," said Periera. "To me that's exactly the same as what officiating is."
Mike Periera joined Take Two's A Martinez with more on the Battlefields to Ballfields program.
On why he cares about this project so much
I didn't serve. I was the product of the lottery back when I was going to college where everybody got a lottery number based on their birth date on the drawing. And I by happenstance got a high number and didn't have to serve. But certainly my father served and others around me served ... When this whole thing came from my mind, I felt like it was an opportunity for me to give back.
On what his program is providing veterans who enroll
They get the uniforms, they get all the equipment, we enroll them and pay for the dues in their local association. We pay for a mentor who will work with them. We set insurance for them so they're protected if they get hurt on the field and then we're gonna provide counselling services for whatever they might need. It's not a one and done. We will follow them and continue to pay for their dues and any other equipment they may need for a minimum of three years so we can track their progress.
On why there's a shortage of referees for youth sports and how veterans can fill the void
Because it's hard to take the abuse. And I could understand that. We all call it recruiting and retention and which is more important. It might be that you can recruit, but it's hard to retain because of that issue. Thomas Harris [a veteran in Southern California enrolled in the program] said, 'You think I'm gonna be affected by some parent yelling at me? ... When I was in the service, I was yelled at so much for no good reason, especially in boot camp. This is not gonna bother me whatsoever!'
On what he gets out of organizing this program
While I love my job at Fox, it's meaningless compared to this. If I can have some impact with some struggling vets and also help impact the number of officials that are needed to officiate games, then I really feel like I've accomplished something. But all I've got to do is look into the eyes of Thomas Harris, who's now working some high school football... and see that look that I believe that he probably had when he was on a submarine. All I have to do is look at that and I get a sense that maybe we can make a difference in somebody's life. And maybe we can make a difference in somebody's life who deserves the opportunity to do something like this.
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above
To learn more about Mike Periera's experience as an NFL official, you can read his book 'Under Further Review: Inside the Infamous, Controversial, and Unforgettable Calls That Changed the NFL
Hillary Clinton's recent tax proposal could lift some Angelenos out of poverty
Taxes have played a major part in the presidential race, though most of the attention has been focused on the returns of Republican nominee Donald Trump.
It's a much sexier topic than actual tax proposals for Americans.
When it comes down to it, however, what Donald Trump did or didn't pay won't affect American pocketbooks too much come 2017. But a new tax proposal put forward by Hillary Clinton Tuesday just might.
Clinton's recently proposed tax plan shines new light on the child tax credit, and it could impact American families living in extreme poverty. Los Angeles leads the nation in poverty, with more people living below federal thresholds than any big city in the nation.
For more on how the Clinton plan could impact the city, Take Two spoke with two guests:
- Eva Rosenberg, enrolled agent and founder of TaxMama.com
- Michele Stillwell-Parvensky, senior policy and government affairs manager at the Children's Defense Fund
Press the blue play button above to hear the full interview.
A Nation Engaged: 'To me, being an American is a bunch of hyphens'
All this week on Take Two, we're exploring what it means to be an American through the eyes of Southern California residents. It's part of a collaboration between NPR and local member stations titled "A Nation Engaged."
Sonia Smith-Kang, is a designer for the multi-cultural fashion line for kids, Mixed Up Clothing. Her mixed heritage has played a crucial role in shaping her identity as an American:
"We're pretty used to getting the question of 'What are you?' And I say, 'I'm mixed, Mexican and black,' and the follow-up question is always, 'Well, what do you identify with more?' As if giving an answer wasn't enough. You're asked to kind of explain that further and for me, I always felt both. I am what I am. I'm 100 percent of each. Those kinds of microaggressions, call into play somebody's identity and to me that's harmful."
Smith-Kang's husband is Korean and they have four children together. As a mother raising multiracial children she found herself faced with constant conversations surrounding identity.
"One of the most important things I teach my children about being multiracial is that they don't have to pick. They don't have to pick what culture they are, they don't have to go into: 'I'm 25 percent this, 50 percent this...' I want them to know that they are whole people and that they are also American and it doesn't mean stripping away their other cultures in order to be an American. Korean, Mexican, they're black and they're American. There's no choosing.
One of the other points that I teach my children is they don't have to have somebody understand them, it's their right as a multiracial person to decide what they'd like to share, and what their identity is and they don't have to convince anyone else."
These questions and conversations led Smith-Kang to create something special for her children, and for multiracial children everywhere.
"I always wanted my children to be proud of their cultures and ancestors and so I started making clothes that I sourced fabric and different trims from all over the world and each one comes with a different story that celebrates our cultural diversity. So, Mixed Up clothing was born out of that want and that need for not only my children but children that look like them to have a place where it's okay to be of different backgrounds."
Smith-Kang is grateful to be part of a movement that helps those of mixed heritage embrace their 'otherness'. However, she recalls a time when that type of sentiment, wasn't there.
"I grew up in a Latino household where Spanish was spoken, but it was discouraged by the school system. It was almost as if you were asked to shed your culture in order to come out and be what "America", what the others think that you are and so we were asked to kind of shed our culture.
Now there's a shift, which is a great shift, that I'm fortunate to be a part of this movement where checking 'I am other' is actually empowering."
As Smith-Kang looks towards the future, she shares her hopes for a mixed America.
"I think in our educational system we need to teach about different cultures and diversity and inclusion. We also need to encourage and have more representation. There are different organizations that support the Latino, the black, the Asian, LGBTQ and other cultures. I think the multiracial culture needs to have its own representation as well. We're the second fastest growing population and it wasn't until the year 2000 that we were able to check more than one box. We're not going anywhere and I think we need to continue to learn about one another through education and representation to move us to the next level. And I'm hoping to see that from the next president."
To hear the full interview, click the blue play button above.
Share what being American means to you in the comments below.
Series: A Nation Engaged
NPR and KPCC's coverage of critical issues facing the nation before November's presidential election. The stories seek to build a nationwide conversation around focusing on a specific question each time.
Read more in this series and let us know your thoughts in the comments section below or on Facebook.
Measure M promises 15 percent less traffic — by 2057
What would you do with an extra 10 minutes before driving to work each morning? Would you sleep in? Cook breakfast? Watch YouTube?
The gift of 10 minutes back for every hour’s commute by car is one of Measure M’s biggest promises. It’s supposed to reduce L.A. traffic by 15 percent.
"When certain projects are completed, some people will notice improvement right away and some not so much," said Pauletta Tonilas, chief communications officer for Metro.
Anyone who’s lived in L.A. for the last decade has personally experienced traffic getting worse. If you do a lot of screaming and pounding on the steering wheel now, just wait. Congestion is expected to double over the next 20 years as population here grows.
And Metro’s projections for traffic relief will mostly be felt by those driving in the areas where Measure M projects will be built — once they’re built. Over the span of 40 years.
"Currently we have about 10 million people," Tonilas said. "By 2057, we'll have 12.4 million."
Others predict the growth will be even faster. Bloomberg projects that just nine years from now, L.A. will be the most crowded city in the country with almost 16 million people.
All those new people mean millions of new cars on the roads — unless transit or some other mobility product presents a better solution.
As the great automotive sage Jay Leno likes to say, for a technology to succeed, it has to be better than what currently exists. And it’s pretty hard to beat a car when it comes to convenience, cost and expediency.
For the month of October, I've parked my car and vowed not to use it. Instead, I've mostly been taking Metro.
My first de-carified working day was pretty routine, except I wasn’t using my car.
My first order of business was a 9:30 a.m. interview with an executive from Ford Motor Co. He was at the Universal City Hilton. I live in Highland Park, 13 miles away. According to the travel-planning app, Go LA, I’d need to take two trains and walk the last half mile to get there by Metro.
Driving would have taken 21 minutes, according to the app. Metro: An hour and 8 minutes.
On the up side, the ride was just $1.75 compared with $4.60 if I’d driven — plus $28 for hotel parking.
But the last part of my trip involved a long walk uphill in heels on a hot morning, so I was a little sweaty when I arrived just in the nick of time.
"Your experiment is very telling because people are looking for choices for how to get around in cities like L.A. where it's congested," said Ken Washington, Ford's vice president of research and advanced engineering. "Commutes are long... so people are wanting to use different techniques, like you. You’re doing this experiment trying to get around without using your car, but it’s probably hard today."
It is. Two days after my trek to Universal City, I had to get to a press conference at the Petersen Automotive Museum, which started at 11. Again, I had to take two trains, only this time the final leg was by bus. Total trip length: 1 hour and 21 minutes — more than three times as long as it would take by car.
And when the press conference was over, I had to do it in reverse and take the train even further — to KPCC in Pasadena for a meeting— then catch a bus for Silver Lake to pick up my son after school then hitch one last ride to get home.
What I'm finding is that I can get everywhere I need to get using Metro because the system is so well mapped. It’s just time consuming. Going everywhere I need to go usually takes two to three times longer than a car.
And that brings me back to Metro’s promise of 15 percent less traffic if Measure M is voted in. The only way that seems possible is if the people who currently have cars are convinced to get rid of them or to use them a whole lot less. And that’s already happening. It just hasn’t happened enough to make a significant difference.
Yes, Metro says weekday ridership on the new Expo Line has increased 42 percent since it opened in May. And it says two-thirds of riders on the recently opened Gold Line extension to Azusa are now taking the train instead of driving.
But that’s pretty cold comfort to drivers stuck in gridlock on the 5, the 101, the 210, the 405, the 605 or the 710.
Bill Hader reads the role of Roger Corman on LSD
There's a screenplay that's been floating around for a while about the legendary and prolific filmmaker Roger Corman ("The Wild Angels," "House of Usher") called "The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes!" It's about the time Corman took LSD in anticipation of making his movie, "The Trip."
And this Wednesday, October 12, there will be a live reading of the script at the Vista Theater in Los Angeles as part of Cinefamily's new "greatest films never made" series.
Actor Bill Hader of Saturday Night Live fame will be playing Corman.
Alex Cohen spoke with the man behind the film, Joe Dante, known for his work on "Gremlins" and "Piranha."
To listen to the interview, click on the blue button
Easy, Breezy, Beautiful, Coverboy
Cosmetics company, Cover Girl now has a Cover... boy!
For the first time in its 56 year history, Cover Girl has tapped a make up artist named James Charles to be the face of their new mascara campaign.
17-year-old YouTube sensation, Charles couldn't contain his excitement on Instagram.
He posted "I truly hope this shows that anyone and everyone can wear makeup and can do anything if you work hard"
For more on how the news is resonating with other young people, Lori Duron author of the book and blog, Raising My Rainbow: Adventures in Raising a Fabulous, Gender Creative Son, joined Take Two.
To listen to the interview, click on the blue button
The Styled Side: Election style is in season
The positions of political candidates are important, but so is how they present themselves to the public.
So how does sartorial expertise lead to electoral victories?
We looked at political fashion on today's Styled Side, from a red sweater that swept the last presidential debate to a blouse worn by Donald Trump's wife that came with what's known as a Pussy Bow.
Ken Bone is the human version of a hug ;)
— Cooke Keitha (@PokemonGoMeme12)