April 19 Update: NYPD Smear Campaigns, LA's Independent Journalists in Peril; Extremist Sheriffs Prepare Election Interference; Ohtani 'Cleared'; Southern California Special
An eventful week behind the Orange Curtain in Southern California: after six years, the trial of Atomwaffen Division member Sam Woodward for the January 2018 murder of Blaze Bernstein kicked off. The defense, surprisingly, admitted Woodward's culpability in opening statements, but challenged the prosecution's argument that Bernstein's killing was a hate crime. Defense attorney Ken Morrison took two days to lay out his opening statement and trial strategy: the erstwhile Neo-Nazi not only struggled with mental illness for his whole life, but was a closeted homosexual, much of which dovetails with reporting by Mother Jones magazine in 2019.
The trial is expected to last three months, and there will be blanket media coverage from the Orange County Register, Los Angeles Times, the Forward and most likely an episode of ABC's 20/20 in the future. I'll pick my spots downrange, but the most interesting aspect of this trial for me is the unprecedented look it will offer into the internal workings of the Atomwaffen Division circa 2018. A number of former AWD cadre will testify at trial for both the prosecution and defense, including Tristan "Kruuz" Evans, the young man who recruited Woodward into the defunct militant group and, more than half a decade later, is still active in the far right.
In Oakland, the East Bay Times (finally) stood up my reporting on OPD's metastasizing scandal where senior commanders short-circuited an Internal Affairs investigation into allegations that homicide Sergeant Phong Tran bribed a witness for false testimony that left two men in state prison for years. The San Francisco Chronicle also joined in yesterday, three weeks after my initial break. Safe to say, this is not going away any time soon.
For those in the Bay Area, Justin Phillips from the San Francisco Chronicle, Darwin BondGraham and I are holding a discussion of "law & order" politics and the current backlash against criminal justice reforms currently pushed by extremist thinkanks like the Manhattan and Claremont Institutes across the United States. Tuesday, April 23, 6 pm, Clio's Books on Grand & Perkins in Oakland. Oh, and we'll have paperback copies of The Riders Come Out At Night for sale.
Since I was in SoCal last week, the recommendations will be predictably themed. But hey - given this region's status as a cultural heavyweight and the California's population center, not to mention the high quality of food, film, music and bookstores down here (a big shoutout to Skylight Books in Los Feliz, Space Cowboy Books in Joshua Tree, and Page Against the Machine in Long Beach), it's appropriate.
Let's get to it.
BLEEDING EDGE JOURNALISM
-A chilling story of retaliation by the NYPD against a longtime police reform advocate, whose prior reports of sexual assault were apparently leaked out by the largest American police department once she turned critic of the NYPD. The details, first reported by The City, are fleshed out in a lawsuit and implicate some of the highest echelons of the NYPD, particularly Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, who has his own sordid past.
Yoav Gonen, Gwynne Hogan
-LA's independent journalism landscape is being devastated by funding cuts, changes in reader behavior, managerial fecklessness, and (surprise, surprise) the loss of eyeballs to generative AI and influencer-style videos on the world's largest tech platforms - one of which threw an absolute fit last week in response to California legislation that would tax tech firms and redirect that funding to journalism organizatons. Read Gustavo Arellano's columns, always, but especially this one.
Gustavo Arellano
-One of America's open secrets is the radicalization of law enforcement, immersed in over a decade of 'thin blue line' backlash politics that overlay resentment at Black Lives Matter-era movements for police accountability and the post-9/11 militarization of our society. Sheriffs, who are elected to office, are particularly vulnerable to this sort of extremism and have been cultivated specifically by the Claremont Institute to push back against the authority of the federal government in Washington D.C. and specifically act as a counterweight to non-GOP politics. WIRED's David Gilbert attended a conference for the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers' Association in Las Vegas earlier this Spring, where extremists like former Clark County, NV Sheriff David Mack ranted about the need for militias to patrol polling sites to stop 'illegal immigrants' from voting in the 2024 presidential election. Buckle up, November is gonna be rough.
-If continued military and financial support from the United States to Israel wasn't enough of a reason to consider withholding taxes, Corporate America's faculty for cheating the government sure as hell is another. David Sirota's Lever News, which I've cited previously for their reporting on Boeing, has an infuriating story about pharmaceutical behemoth Pfizer owes nothing in income taxes despite billions in federal funding for vaccine development and enormous profits. The culprit? Loopholes in the federal tax code and Trump-era tax cuts. Hat tip to Freddy Brewster for more solid reporting.
Freddy Brewster
-Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani appears to be clear of gambling allegations that emerged last month when his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, admitted to stealing millions of dollars from the once-in-a-generation player to feed his betting habit. The figure, now, is SIXTEEN MILLION DOLLARS. Reader, to say I am still suspicious is an understatement.
Nathan Fenno
-Rest in Peace Robert MacNeil, one of the anchors of PBS' MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour and a constant presence on the airwaves during my childhood.
BOOK OF THE WEEK- Several years back, veteran Los Angeles Times reporter Paul Pringle and his colleagues went after one of the untouchables of the Los Angeles power structure, the University of Southern California (or 'Spoiled Children' in common parlance), in a series exploring the sleazy drug and sex habits of Carmen Puliafito, the dean of USC's medical school.
The investigation was anything but straightforward - once the LAT team pinned down details of the story, they not only had to go to war with USC's high-powered lawyers and lobbyists...but their own newsroom, where the leadership sought to suppress the story and preserve the paper's relationship with a major business partner (hello LAT Festival of Books) and comfortable post-journalism landing pad for senior LAT employees. Pringle's account of the saga, Bad City (2022), is gripping, sordid and eye-popping.
FILM - To Live and Lie in LA is a strangely under-appreciated crime thriller from French Connection direction William Friedkin, who shook loose this mortal coil last year.
This is a masterful crime drama that features William Petersen as a US Secret Service agent pursuing a master counterfeiter, played with typical aplomb by Willem Dafoe. Featuring locations all over LA County, including an electric wrong-way chase up the 110 Freeway past the Valero Refinery in Wilmington just north of the ports of Long Beach and LA, To Live & Die in LA was iconic enough in SoCal to inspire a 2Pac classic of the same name - and the film's Wang Chung soundtrack is also a landmark of 1980's new wave.
Sadly, you're gonna have to hunt around for a DVD copy - this film is not available on a streaming service.
MUSIC - Kendrick Lamar is, pound for pound, the most interesting and profound rapper today. A product of Compton, Lamar broke away from the pack with 2012's Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City & 2015's To Pimp A Butterfly. However, it's 2017's Untitled, Unmastered that sticks in my head for Lamar's journeys into free jazz, improv and other territory that echoes Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders and even a bit of Gill Scott-Heron. Not to be missed.