…three reasons why…
Here are three reasons why the July 26th meeting at James Woods was so toxic and offensive.
1) July 26th was the first meeting of the Central City East Action Committee with the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council. James Woods Community Center is right in the heart of Skid Row. For many years it’s been back and forth between Skid Row and DLANC over using the name of the Neighborhood everyone knows — Skid Row — and not the obscure official name of Central City East. Very few people, even government agencies, use Central City East these days. Anyone who knows anything about these dynamics knows that DLANC bringing a Committee about Skid Row into Skid Row without Skid Row being in the title is an aggressive action.
2) On April 6th, the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council system held a vote to see if Skid Row would “subdivide” from DLANC to create the Skid Row Neighborhood Council. The Skid Row effort lost the vote 826 to 766, but serious evidence quickly surfaced over DLANC being involved in voting improprieties. A City authorized Election Challenge Panel, a two hour meeting that lasted five, recommended City Hall either overturn the election and grant Skid Row their own Neighborhood Council or hold a new election. The City Hall Department overseeing Neighborhood Councils dismissed the recommendation. The effort today: the Skid Row Neighborhood Council Formation Committee is pursuing a possible lawsuit against the City, and the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council unanimously passed a resolution calling for a separate City Department to conduct a full investigation.
3) From the July 11th LA Weekly article: “Amid Downtown L.A. Crime Surge, a Vigilante’s Aggression Backfires”:
“Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck says that after a few years of relatively small but embarrassing spikes, citywide crime is starting to level off. But in downtown L.A., violent crime is up nearly 14 percent compared with the same time last year. Homicide is up a whopping 180 percent, according to LAPD data.
The situation is exacerbated by loft-dwelling newcomers attracted to redeveloped buildings, bustling restaurants and bars and a re-energized arts scene, critics say. It was only a matter of time before street life clashed with newly arrived scenesters, they say, and that time was last month when a local neighborhood council member confronted men he claimed were dealing drugs at Broadway and Fifth Street.
The video has emerged as a rallying point for both sides: those who believe the city should be tougher on crime, especially as more and more middle-class people move downtown, and those who say working-class and homeless folks are being displaced and harassed by newcomers.
The video shows Jacob Douglas Van Horn, who taped the confrontation, telling an apparent transient man on the corner, ‘Yes, you are going to go get on a train and get the fuck out of this neighborhood.’ He also repeatedly tells the men he’s a ‘councilman.’ ‘I’m the councilman for the Historic Core of downtown Los Angeles,’ Van Horn says.
The result was a beating. The 35 year old, who moved into the area five years ago, says he suffered facial contusions, a black eye and some swelling after he confronted the men, at lease one of whom he claims was following the behavior of drug dealers along Fifth who allegedly set up a boom box and play music to attract customers.
Long time downtown leaders Brady Westwater says he stands with Van Horn. ‘People shove you off the sidewalk, and there’s nothing you can do about it,’ he says. ‘All this stuff you have to put up with that didn’t exist two years ago. Nobody gets arrested anymore.’
But critics say Van Horn went too far. In the video, he tells the men, ‘Of course I’m harassing you. Yes, I am.’ Journalist and LAPD critic Jamyne Cannick posted the video to her Twitter feed. ‘He made it seem like he was going to address some drug dealing,’ she says. ‘But he just started harassing old men. He definitely should be kicked off the neighborhood council for that.’”
There is a racial dynamic here. Skid Row is about 65% black. The two Co-chairs of the Central City East Action Committee are white. Jacob Van Horn is white. The elderly men he harassed on the video are black.
The problem is DLANC had their monthly public Board meeting after the video went viral without addressing Van Horn’s behavior and so this unresolved situation hung like a dark cloud over this first Committee meeting held in the heart of Skid Row.
The final book by Dr. Martin Luther King was “Chaos or Community: where do we go from here?” And so that seems to be the question — Where do we go from here??