Phil_Shuman's Blog

Spent a morning with a task force of cops from federal state and local agencies.... out on a sweep looking for people with outstanding warrants  . business is good. there are ''only'' two million folks like that out there in the u.s. of a.     I came away from it with the impression, cultivated over many years and confirmed.. that most cops.. the vast vast majority of cops...want to do one thing.... PUT BAD GUYS IN JAIL.  it really doesn't  matter if they're white, brown, black, green, or purple.... man or woman .... young or old... If you're a criminal, they'd love to put you in jail.. legally.... If. say.. you''re walking down the street,  you happen to be an illegal immigrant and you're minding your own business and earning a living or whatever, you're not likely to get hassled... but if you happen to say...shoot someone ... rob someone... you're going to jail,  whether you were born here , there , or anywhere... 

Before you tell me how naive i am, i'm not.   I 'm watching a story on the news now that the la times broke about cops allegedly lying to put someone away in a drug deal. believe me i understand they aint all angels out there.. i've been in la. since '83 and have see it all along w/ the rest of you.... i've even been arrested  a couple of times myself and it's not a lot of fun.... having said that, again, my point is that the majority of cops want to do the right thing and keep the streets safe for my wife and kids and yours.  You got a problem with that ?

Controversy.... that's another word for '' offshore drilling'... The prez says we need to increase domestic oil production cause gas is like 9 dollars an ounce.   ... so now the argument begins again... should we sink new wells and explore like miles off shore which we'll never see,  and run the risk of an oil spill like the one in 1969... ( 30 years ago !  that's all you got for me ???)... well.. it's tough to argue against protecting the environment... and keeping beaches clean.. and fowl from becoming fouled... we're all for that.... on the other hand, should we do nothing and continue to help assorted  saudi princes buy more yachts and planes and countries ?   probably not... no easy answers... Opponents of any new energy source are formidable... case in point.. long beach's now aborted plans to build an in -port liquified natural gas terminal.   opponents raised the spector of a new terrorist target, of the risk to population, etc etc... and arguments that say, there were already enough oil tanks and other terrorist targets in the highly industrialized long beach port to create a major disaster  were not effective.  result.. no lng... 
 Any new oil drilling will require congressional approval and that  will no doubt be tied up in lawsuits if and when that permission is granted.. and i'll have great grand children by the time any oil flows off the coast of california.. or , more accurately, any new oil... oil is drilled off the coast every day, you can see the platforms off the 101 on the way up north..... an untold # of leases exist with existing permission to drill that have not yet been tapped. the prez hasn't discussed that aspect of the controversy..... and the question of 'what are they waiting for '' is an excellent and still unanswered one...... So..... folks on both sides are well meaning and make strong arguments.... but the betting here is that the ''no '' votes will ultimately triumph... in particular if barack is the new man in the white house.. that's a no brainer.  meantime, we continue to pay a small fortune for gas with no realistic alternative in the short term except not driving as much or at all.... or as far.. or as fast..... .. in covering this story about lifting the 27 yr old federal ban on offshore drilling, at a gas station today in santa barbara, it was instructive the the ''person on the street'  interviews in reaction to the prez's proposal yielded a ''yes'' from a woman who could only afford to put 25 dollars in her block long suv... and a ''no'' drill vote from a young man who was literally putting 2 gallons of gas in his small car.  so.. no easy answers.. if there were, any one could figure it out and we wouldnt be in this mess... meantime, while oil companies are making profits even larry flynt would consider obscene, as how long is that waiting list for the prius ? and figure out where you can pump up your bike tires....  later.

To reinforce what my friend and fellow reporter Al Naipo wrote... last nite I had the remarkable good fortune of attending and reporting on the 8th annual Holocaust remembrance event at Chapman University in Orange, which is a gem of a school in a most unlikely but charming setting.  There were literally some 100 survivors of the Nazis there.. it was just overwhelming to hear about their experiences and the horrors they witnessed and overcame.  One man was among a brave few in the Warsaw Uprising who held off hundreds of trained German soldiers for days with nothing.  Another, now ''only'' 78  was the youngest of the famed ''Schindler's list " group... Schindler managed to get him a factory job when he was only 13 when most young people were immediately exterminated... that man was extremely fortunate in that his parents and other siblings were also spared due to Schindler and he went on to have a long career as a teacher in the LAUSD.  Another man, in his 80's immediately broke down and wept telling me that he lost 70 members of his extended family.  Another, 91, told me that if he survived he'd dedicate his life to preserving Jewish tradition and has funded Univesities in Israel.   I mean these memories are as raw and real as yesterday...... So... the reason i bring this up, because we've heard these terrible stories before, is that it's a reminder to stop and think about your supposed 'problems' and keep things in perspective.  This was only 60 years ago.... these folks are still with us, as are their children and grandchildren,  they can appreciate what it's like to live in America free ( mostly ) of persecution , and they're a powerful reminder of the worst and also the best of humanity. 

White Rolls Royce.... Range Rover... Mercedes... Lamborghini ( orange ? ) ... another Rolls...( black...)    Bentley... Mercedes... Lexus ( get that out of there ).... Navigator... Mercedes... Bentley .... Escalade... Bentley... Mercedes.... Navigator... Jag..... you get the idea.. no it's not the LA Auto Show.. it's the LA Lakers auto show.. specifically the valet parking area outside Staples after a Lakers game... it's an ostentatious unbelievable display of automotive excess and conspicous consumption.... as one obvious tourist said '' it's LA baby"... So for all of those worried about 4 dollar a galloon gas, the housing crunch, the scarcity of rice, the declining economy, the election, health care, child care, education.... paying for more cops... etc etc.... rest assured.. there are PLENTY of really really rich folks in LA who could care less as long as they get their front row seats and their cars back from valet parking QUICKLY.    Enjoy the show.. it's free.. and appearing every nite at a Lakers home game near you.  As for the Clippers crowd..... well.....  
(( p.s. I recognized a lot of those rich folks.. and i dont really really think they don't care. completely.. i know they give money to good causes... also , Jerry Buss, who has his own brand new black Rolls the size of Montana, was escorted to his car by some young babe ( surprise) and like 4 aides... He climbed into the right front passenger seat ! and pulled away slowly.  His vanity license plate read 9Xchamps   .. which means he got this like 5 championships ago... or didnt count Milwaukee ? i havent researched it yet... anyway,,, nice wheels but the Doctor was moving mightly slow )

     This is about gangs.. or more specifically how to 'get rid' of them.   Forests have been sacrificed to writings on this subject, however, that shouldnt stop us from trying to contribute.  "Gangs" are hot right now, to be cynical, because of some high profile gang murders and Mayor V's budget , but that's cyclical.  ( Not of course, to the families and friends of the dead)  .  Much has been made of late of the need to spend money on the programs that work, which would be a lot easier if we could figure out which programs work  . Having said that, i'm thinking that the key to all this is basically two words... education and jobs.  Again, not radical concepts.  But in spending a long nite w/ some honest to goodness gang bangers... past and present, tough and not so tough, and hearing their stories,  it was crystal clear to me that if we offered a way to see them thru school, and a guaranteed job with health benefits in exchange for saying good bye to their local clique... we'd be a long way down the road towards ridding ourselves of the gang violence that is bred by turf wars, the drug trade, and macho posturing.  Father Greg Boyle has been proving this for years .  and dont even start in about another whiny liberal in the media who wants to provide babysitting services for gang bangers...

       Now this is of course way too simplistic.  There is a small percentage of gang bangers who are hard core criminals and to them I say lock em up and throw away the key, and if they happen to have something worse happen to em along the way i will shed no tear, but they didn't get that way overnite.   

    So, how do we do this.. hmmmm  let's see... money..?  that's the key, as always... and we aint got enough, right ?  Well, it's a question of priorities.  The last LAPD budget in round numbers i believe is a billion dollars... The amount of money the city of LA spends on intervention and prevention is about 20 million.. you do the math..... and we aren't even talking about LA County yet.... So that's why community leaders and politicians who have the courage to be ''non P.C.'' say that much of the talk about fighting gangs is lip service cause we ain't putting the cash on the line to fund the programs that can make a difference...,and if someone like Janice Hahn proposes a 'parcel tax " to specifically fund anti gang programs, everyone criticizes her for wanted to raise taxes....  but she and many others have been to the funerals and also been to the intervention and prevention programs that make a difference.... so the basic concept is 'put up or shut up' and continue to live in violence and fear and tragedy and another generation or two of gang bangers lives are wasted when  they should be able to  say '' i want help'' and get it.

    It's tough to not want to watch the news when you do the news.... yet I understand and often sympathize with people out on the street when I ask them what news they watch and they say  " I don't.... it's depressing, it's scary''.  I hear ya. it is, but ,  sometimes it's uplifting too and even fun and ecuational,  but you gotta watch closely to get that.   Just this morning while getting ready for work i've got Good Day LA on and I see Suzanne Marques w/ the shooting of a man on the 101 freeway in the Valley, .. Sherman Oaks!!! Wow.. even white people might start getting scared at this point..... What ? oh .. a relief in this his death might be an unfortunate and bizarre suicide in an apparent reaction to his girlfriends suicide the day before. .. then Bob De Castro's in Glendale w/ a police gun battle there... in Santa Ana a man and an off duty cop apparently exchange gunfire.... This isn't even the ''gang'' violence that we've become almost numb too while proclaiming outrage.  So... as Gigi wrote in another post.. things seem crazy lately..crazier than usual. Is it because we're in such a big area that there's always something violent and bad going on ? Would we have this in Bar Harbor Maine? Probably not... but that's small consolation. This is our home, where we're raising our kids,  and when it's a disaster zone, we don't like it....but do we do anything about it ? Volunteer ? TEach ? Mentor ? Join the Neighborhood Council ? Write a letter ?  Who are are heroes that will help once and for all to get rid of the guns and the gangs and the crime and restore the pride we should feel in living in one of the most beautiful and diverse places in the world?   Maybe it's easier just to fight traffic alone in your car... get home, and lock the door.

 Sitting in traffic on my home away from home, the 405 , listening to radio news... and hear the state's likely laying off thousands of teachers due to our alleged budget crunch.. i'm thinking.. what kind of country do we live in when we're spending a    BILLION  and change per month in Iraq for very dubious reasons while we lay off teachers ?  Don't get me started. 

Have we no shame ? I'm flipping around the channels and I see Larry King the Ancient and a guest named Jason Itzler.. the second line under his name is " Ashley's Pimp".. as in Ashley the hooker that cost Spitzer his job... He's on national TV talking about it like it's the best thing on his resume.. which it probably is. .... . I'm thinking his mother must be so proud " My son's on national TV... !!!! ...But he's a pimp... !  Oh.. but he's on national TV !!!!   Last time I checked... being a pimp is still illegal in this country ?   He's on TV talking about it ? Is he retired ? Has the statue of limitations run out ?   And we have to have  Dr. Laura, who has her own issues believe me.. come on and chastise Larry for having the pimp on and treating him like he's some honored distinguished guest.  I'm not sure Larry got the point.. I"m not sure Larry has a pulse. THAT'S  a job I would love to try.    Later

Well, another funeral of a young kid shot down by a gang banger with no conscience.... this time it was Jamiel Shaw Jr.... i went to his funeral and believe me this kid had it all going on .. school, church, family, sports... what a waste of a life... it was gut wrenching to listen to his father.... Years earlier you might remember Karen Toshima.. killed in the middle of Westwood Vvillage back in January of 1988.. caught in rival gang crossfirel....!!! that shocked a few people..and shut down Westwood for a while..  more recently.. Cheryl Green...14..... Harbor Gateway... December 2006.... the list goes on and on.  It could've been more at the bus stop shooting a couple of weeks ago or the wounding of the 6 year old while riding in the back of his family's car.    And after each outrageous incident.. the same deal.. crackdown on gangs.. calls for unity... the mayor and police press conferences.. the pleas to make sure that the lives aren't lost in vain.. etc etc etc.. yet it continues.  I have no ultimate solutions other than to keep working with young people. and to ban guns.... . the prevention and intervention programs in place, over which politicians continually fight ... are all basically good.. the problem is you can never reach EVERY kid.. and it's the ones you don't reach that cause the most tragedy.   What are we spending in Iraq.. one billion dollars per month ? that amount of money is incomprehensible.  Do you know how many cops we could hire, how many gang prevention programs we could fund with some of that money ? you could hire every gang member in los angeles county... or send em all to Harvard.... I mean where are our priorities ?  Where's the outrage ?  What more has to happen ?

     I shot and killed a man on Monday.  I was serving a search warrant in a suspected drug house when my partner and I went in.... there were two suspects inside.. one had a gun  clearly visible in his belt.. we were ten feet apart... bright daylight... heart pounding....I ordered their hands up.. the one with the gun put his hands up right away.. as the other one turned, reached into his waistband, pulled out a dark gun and brought it up as if to point it at me... Boom Boom Boom Boom ..... i fired four times into his chest....... He went down... The whole thing took five seconds.....   Score one for the good guys , right ? almost.. turns out my suspect was pulling out a cordless telephone to call his attorney.   Oops... 

     All this was part of the "DEA's citizen academy.". a remarkable effort by the government to give ''real people'' a behind the scenes look, an insiders  sense of what agents go thru on a regular basis in terms of building cases.. doing drug investigations.. .learning to fire various weapons...our ace producer Bob Tarlau and I were there for a story.... at the range near Castaic... in this case.. the training scenario was serving high risk search warrants.... entering houses where you dont know what you'll find... Does the name Randy Simmons mean anything to you ?

     This particular shooting, quite frankly, would likely have been ruled '' legally justifiable''... i honestly believed in that split second that my life and the life of my partner were in danger.. so I fired.. End of story.  Nowhere in the rules or the law does it say that a cop has to wait to be actually fired upon to fire back... or wait to be run over by a car, or etc etc... after all we're in LA we here about these things way too often unfortunately..  Most of us know this , or at least have been told it, but we still are justifiably concerned.. even outraged, when unarmed people get shot.. and we should be... but we have to look at both sides.. so to speak.. 

     So when it comes to my " shooting, ", the internal investigation and the prosecutors review would almost certainly clear me.. It was a ''clean'' shoot....Legally I'm covered,,...but guess what.. the next day the LA Times headline and the story on Fox 11's News at Ten  would very likely be....... "....DEA agent shoots unarmed man ".  So sue me... I'm going home to my wife and kids.. the bad guy isnt.. .. even if maybe he wasnt totally bad.....so I"m thinking .. if you're so inclined to be in trouble, next time a cop  with a gun tells you to put your hands up.. do it... cause if it's him or you, it's going to be him.

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Post Oscar thoughts ( thankfully not related to fashion. ) Let's see... Best Picture.. celebrating a psychopathic killer who calmly dispatches victim after victim with no apparent concern for the swath of death he leaves behind..... also an Oscar for that best supporting actor who we really come to love despite his murderous ways.... ... Best actor ? .. a twisted violent man who doesnt hesitate to kill ( but he also has entrepreneurial skills !) who bashes in a youngsters head in a most skilled and horrific way... Let's see.. Best picture that wasn't nominated, 'American Gangster'....celebrating.. hmmm.. another cool yet violent drug dealing merchant of death who thinks nothing of shooting first and not ever bothering to ask questions as he struts his stuff in fur while driving slick rides.... And that actor, one of our finest and most respected,,, who also won an earlier Oscar for being... let's see.. a violent sadistic drug dealing out of control cop who abused shot and otherwise took people out.... I could go on.. let's go to TV.... let's see... CBS brings over from cable a series that seems to glorify a... could it be a sadistic mass murderer who gets joy out of bizarre torture and gruesome murder scenes ? At least he doesnt seem to be too into guns. ..... and among their top shows week to week is already a celebration of death and destruction but it's investigated by hot chicks with major cleavage in pastel hues with loud music.... so that's ok ? softens the blow of death a bit perhaps ? ... over here.. we can't get back to the Keifer fast enuf, so he can maim, torture, shoot up and otherwise blaze an almost comically violent path thru the world while saving it every 24 hours... So.. my point, ultimately, is given all this and more..., why is anyone shocked or outraged when someone in the 'real world' picks up a a gun in Winnetka and wipes out their family and a police officer, or at Northern Illinios University or .... Columbine..,or today, Yorba Linda.... the list goes on and on. ....Of course the studios, at which no executive would likely agree to address these kinds of questions, they always say '' we don't influence society.. we just reflect it.... " sure. I just hope Smith and Wesson doesn't cut a product placement deal with Simon and his sidekicks on AI.

later

phil

Nothing can match the power of TV when it comes to letting you experience the power and emotion and reality of an event.  I'm thinking of the Randy Simmons funeral this past Friday, carried live by us on Fox 11 and some of our colleagues.   With all due respect to our print and radio friends, nothing compares to TV when it comes to letting you feel the pain of Simmons  sister as she hunched over the microphone and whispered her eulogy.....or the way we could show you  the proud way that son Matthew stood tall as he talked about his ''daddy'' or the way Simmons former partner's chest puffed out as he told stories about his friend.  So,  I know we in the TV news biz sometimes take hits for our extended Britney /Michael/Paris/Lindsay coverage, and I can't really defend that, but i'll put our coverage up against the best that TV has to offer...  and in particular our Chris Blatchford's masterful recap of that gut wrenching day long funeral.  So next time you want to complain about us, remember the good with the .... not so good. thanks. .   

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If you've ever been to or watched a police officers funeral, and haven't cried or at least teared up. you're not human. Now we'll be going to another one, and if not for the fortunate angle of another bullet, we'd be going to two. Most of us of course never knew Randy Simmons but from the sounds of it he was one of the truly good guys. So.. next time you're a little steamed cause the 405 is backed up, try to keep things in perspective and remember what 's important. ... chasing Britney Spears around and around isn't the real world... the real world has a lot of bad people in it who can get guns way to easily and like to use them. And we all , in some way, pay the price.

Going to the Iowa caucus. Going to be outside. A lot. At nite. Late at nite.  Have goretex boots, the basics of gloves hat scarf coat..rthermal undergarments..e tc etc.... however,  any sure fire ideas for keeping warm would be appreciated.

thanks

Had a chance to cover Mike Huckabee up close and personal at the lovely Marriott Courtyard in West LA.   Very low key. no entourage, seemed like a nice enough guy... if he was leading the pack you'd never know it.     Will be seeing him and everyone else in Iowa in a week or so ... never been to the Iowa caucus before.. looking forward to it.   Long hours but fun... except for the weather.  Got Goretex boots...that's the key.....!!!!!!