Listening to the coverage of the man that was killed by an off-duty LAPD officer, I am wondering if there are others out there in my community who are asking if that altercation was even necessary? What about the child? Can any body guess what would immediately happen to any ordinary citizen with a child, who decided to chase another individual at speeds reaching 100MPH? Can you say "CHILD ENDANGERMENT"? Why didn't local agencies take the child into protective custody? These officers are not above the law, are they?
I'm wondering because this happened about a mile from my neighborhood and I would like to believe that my local agencies would do the right thing. What about the end result? My neighborhood is home to many types of law enforcement personnel, we have our incidents of chaos here, but I never have seen these people get involved personally. Our local agency always handles our problems.
So why was it so important for this off-duty officer to risk the safety of his toddler son, traveling at extreme rates of speed and then killing an unarmed man with his toddler nearby? Why couldn't he just call in the hit and run to the CHP and let justice take it's course? It would seem that option was available to him since he did chase/follow him for over 5 miles. I wonder who's husband, father, brother, uncle, or friend he killed? I guess it wouldn't matter to him since he was so callus to not even take into consideration the safety of his own child.
I pray that justice will prevail and that this officer will be held accountable, just as any other citizen would be, even more so, since he represents the example that we should model our law abiding lives by.
Recent developments in the state budget has Governor Schwarzenegger suggesting massive cuts across the board. Schwarzenegger, who is a strong supporter of education (at least that's what the email sent from his website said) plans massive cuts for K-12 funding.
In an effort to reduce spending California school officials have made cuts by layoffs, canceling pupil services, and anything else that they can think of. I should say that the teacher layoffs were a last resort for these officials. In a local school district officials have decided to start charging families for transportation in order to offset their budget and keep from laying off teachers. This is nothing new to most districts as it has been in effect for a number of years at most.
OK, so here is the catch, the cost is $365 for one student, $300 for the second, and $235 for the third, every child after the third is no charge. There are also some cases that the district will waive the charges, here is one. Any child who receives free and reduced lunch will have the fee waived, however effective the new school year any parent applying for free and reduced lunch for their children) must provide their W-2 to show hardship and must show proof of citizenship.
The reason the district has asked for this documentation is two fold, one-too many individuals that really don't qualify are taking advantage of the program, two non-citizens who are disqualified from the program and this should reduce costs signifigantly.
