By Susan Shelley
July 13, 2022
People who support the end of western civilization also support an L.A. County charter amendment to allow four votes on the five-member Board of Supervisors to remove the elected sheriff from office.
Seriously. On the blog PopularResistance.org, a June 2 post celebrates that “in a historic move,” the Civilian Oversight Commission voted in favor of a resolution to support a charter amendment that would give the supervisors the power to remove the county sheriff for “misconduct,” as defined. The most recent post on the blog is titled, “The End of Western Civilization — Why It Lacks Resilience, and What Will Take Its Place.”
At least we know where they’re going with this.
On Tuesday, the L.A. County supervisors advanced a motion to put a charter amendment on the November 8 ballot that would enable the supervisors to fire the sheriff, even though the motion itself admits that “the State Constitution makes each County Sheriff an independent elected official.”
The supervisors’ motion complained that the Board has been “limited in its ability to serve as a sufficient check against the Sheriff’s flagrant disregard of lawful oversight and accountability.”
Reasonable people can differ about whether the oversight is lawful or the lawless vengeance of politicians who have always disliked the very independent Sheriff Alex Villanueva.
There is definitely something strange going on in the politics around “law and order,” and not just in Los Angeles. Consider the story of the Border Patrol agents on horseback who were wrongfully accused of “whipping” Haitian migrants last September after a photo circulated that showed the agents twirling their reins as they used their horses to block people from entering the country illegally.
They were ordered to patrol the border, and the reins weren’t whips, and nobody was struck with anything, and even the photographer who took the photo said the image had been “misconstrued,” and he didn’t see anyone whipped or hit at all.
But this is what President Joe Biden said at the White House: “It was horrible what you see, what you saw — to see people treated like they did, with horses barely running them over and people being strapped. It’s outrageous, I promise you, those people will pay. There’s an investigation underway now and there will be consequences. There will be consequences. It’s an embarrassment. It’s beyond an embarrassment. It’s dangerous. It’s wrong, it sends the wrong message around the world. It sends the wrong message at home. It’s simply not who we are.”
The president pre-judged the outcome and promised retribution.
Four agents were placed on administrative leave and in late March, the investigation cleared them of all criminal wrongdoing.
But the president had promised “consequences.” The probe went on, this time as an administrative investigation.
Now that investigation is finally complete. It concluded that several of the Border Patrol agents acted unprofessionally and used “inappropriate and denigrating” language.
They were smeared from the White House podium, their lives and careers have been utterly disrupted, they’ve been dragged through an investigation for almost a year, and all they’re guilty of is rude language.
Just for context, tens of thousands of Haitian migrants arrived suddenly at the Del Rio border last fall, completely overwhelming law enforcement authorities and setting up a makeshift camp under a bridge.
For more context, in May, the government reported 239,416 “interactions” with immigrants at the border, the highest number ever in one month. Brandon Judd, the president of the border patrol agents’ union, said in a typical year that would normally be 30,000 to 40,000.
Rude language is not the only deficiency visible in this story.
Back in Los Angeles, the politicians’ war on Sheriff Villanueva continues, despite the fact that he successfully implemented a body-worn camera system and a website where the public can see the videos after a use-of-force incident, and sponsored successful legislation, Assembly Bill 958, to prohibit membership in “subgroups” or gangs within the ranks of deputies if the peace officer is engaged in illicit activity.
Some politicians may be courting the support of the end-of-western-civilization crowd, but most voters tell pollsters they want a secure border and public safety. We’ll see what they think in November.
Write to Susan at Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley.
This column was originally published by the Southern California News Group.
