Political Gumbo: Change Starts with Knowledge and Understanding

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X understood the system and each worked in their own way to combat racism and segregation to bring about change.

One man was about education and nonviolence and the other advocated that equality came by any means necessary and Black awareness.

Malcolm X once said “A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself.”

I love that quote.

But the group that intrigued me the most has always been the Black Panthers.

Led by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, the armed brothers in black started their movement in Oakland, feeding people and serving the community and openly carrying weapons on the streets to monitor police activity.

The first two I recommend, the last one is not a good idea.

They showed up at the state’s capitol with their guns, also not a good idea, and it didn’t take long for politicians in the state to change the gun laws, which was not the result they wanted.

It’s no wonder Hoover, Reagan and others considered them one of the greatest threats to the system of that day.

Of course, infighting and efforts by undercover FBI agents working within the group decimated it by the early 1970s, and like the post-Civil War days, several of them ended up in Altadena where I grew up.

But it wasn’t just the Panther’s guns, King’s oratory, or X’s fire that instilled fear in racists and those who opposed change across the country.

Dr. King, X and the Panthers understood the laws of the land and the way the system works.

That education allowed them to reach others and it resonated.

On Monday, city employees from the Pasadena Police Department and the city attorney’s office laid it out in simple terms: the City Council cannot fire police officers or order the City Manager to take action against subordinate city employees.

It was a pretty simple presentation, peppered with a court case. and the city charter was explained over and over.

Immediately after that, more than 23 callers called in to demand the City Council fire the police officers that fatally shot Anthony McClain.

Yes, after it was made clear the City Council could not fire the police officers, people still demanded they do so.

The policy has been made clear at several council meetings, and pretty much the same presentation was made at the Public Safety Committee last year and the same conclusion was reached there.

If an information item is presented in the forest and no one listens at home, does it make a sound?

If you want change, it takes understanding the same system you are fighting against.

If you are still claiming the mayor cannot limit comment time, don’t understand the item you are commenting on or are tossing the N word around when you call in, your efforts are futile and the only thing people are listening for is that bell informing you your time to speak is ending.

As the Greatest Muhammad Ali once said “It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.”

Remove the pebble and take another look at the mountain.

On the city manager search firm item, one caller demanded the council not hire “that person” who no one ever heard of and went on and on.

But there was no item discussing a candidate for the job on the agenda.

Having done this for years and having interviewed every councilmember and City Manager and Police Chief for at least 20 years, I can tell you the majority of them take time preparing for meetings. That includes asking questions before the meeting, site visits to projects and research.

Yet, some of the folks calling in do little to no homework and just pass around talking points, and many times those talking points are shot down before public comment.

Yes, it’s obvious when commenters have not read the staff reports or the information in the agenda.

Harriet Tubman understood the laws of slavery and freedom and knew the Underground Railroad.

It would take charter change at the ballot box by Pasadena residents to establish the policy.

Yes, that means residents in Altadena and other nearby communities would not have a voice in the ultimate decision.

I suspect that many residents expected something different on Monday that would result in policy change, but the item was clearly marked an information item.

I do wish comprehensive investigations could be concluded quicker and sometimes they do.

It took less than a year for the district attorney to clear the police officers that shot Leroy Barnes.

Barnes was shot and killed by Pasadena police officers in 2009 during a traffic stop on Mentone Avenue, just south of Washington Boulevard. Police shot Barnes 11 times — seven times in the back — after he refused to remove his hands from a backpack after one of the officers had entered the backseat and attempted to take Barnes’ hands out of his backpack, which contained a gun.

Barnes gained control of the weapon, fell out of the car and brandished the gun, but was shot before he could fire his weapon.

Although the D.A. didn’t take a lot of time in that case, it took two years and six months for the district attorney to render on the police officers in the far more complicated fatal shooting of Kendrec McDade.

In that case, the fatal shots were fired after a brief car and foot pursuit ended on Sunset Avenue near Orange Grove Boulevard. The pursuit began after Oscar Carrillo-Gonzales told a 911 dispatcher that McDade and a companion robbed him at gunpoint.

The officers, believing McDade was armed, shot the teen seven times. Local investigators spent 48 hours searching for a weapon before Carrillo-Gonzales admitted he had lied about the gun.

But keep in mind even though one investigation stretched into years and one was brief by investigatory standards, in the end the probes typically fail to change the minds of critics.

But did the quicker investigation change anybody’s mind about what happened in the Barnes case?

In the Anthony McClain case, police say McClain had a weapon, police say they found a weapon at the scene and that his DNA was found on that weapon.

In that case, a 90-day investigation by PPD would have already cleared the officers involved and most likely probes into policy violations may not have been completed.
Would anyone calling into council be pleased under that scenario?

Nope.

In the end, Mayor Victor Gordo got it right.

Gordo said the long investigations don’t enhance public safety or trust and recommended the police chief draft a letter asking the L.A. County District Attorney to dedicate more resources to investigating shooting incidents, and asked her to reach out to other departments.

He also asked the item be agendized when the council meets with Supervisor Kathryn Barger at its annual meeting.

John Lewis was a voracious reader who tried to read everything he could get his hands on at a time when libraries were segregated in the south. That led him to Dr. King, a lot of “good trouble” and eventually to Congress.

Read the charter, learn the system.

Happy Black History Month.