Murder on Venice Boulevard

By Jim Smith

Devin Petelski had just finished her shift at a detox center near Costco. At 11:45 pm on Oct. 15, she pulled up to a stop sign at Glyndon and Venice Blvd and began a right turn onto Venice. She never saw the angel of death barreling toward her in the form of an LAPD police cruiser.

The car, with two officers, Eldridge and Vasquez inside, was hurtling east on Venice Blvd. at about 60 miles per hour, according to witnesses, with no headlights, flashing lights or siren.

There have been different explanations of the officers’ behavior from police. The day after the accident Lt. Paula Kreefft, a watch commander at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Pacific Division said the officers were not on a pursuit or responding to a call for service.

However, when contacted by the Beachhead, LAPD Detective Jesus Ravega said Eldridge (the driver) and Vasquez were responding to a backup call. However, he didn’t know if they had time to radio in their intention to respond.

Driving without lights is called “silent running,” a military term for stealthy cruising. Many Venice residents are familiar with this tactic of LAPD cars roaming on the streets of Oakwood and elsewhere. While silent running can be dangerous at any speed, it is foolhardy to drive at highway speeds on our streets without any lights. This time, it resulted in the death of an innocent.

The Los Angeles Police Department patrol car was headed east on Venice Blvd. According to a family friend, Christopher Medak, two witnesses saw the car turn off its lights and accelerate when it turned onto Venice.

They and two more witnesses saw the cruiser ram the side of Petelski’s BMW. Her car was spun completely around. She didn’t die until the next day, but was unconscious from this point.

The impact also threw the police car into a tree by the side of the road. Both officers were taken to the hospital where they were treated for minor injuries and released. An Emergency Medical Technician, who happened to be driving east on Venice behind the police car, rushed to give first aid to Petelski, who was beyond saving. He was one of the witnesses who saw the police car speeding without lights.

It took paramedics 15 minutes to respond to the 911 call, even though they were only blocks away. However, within moments, says Medak, between eight and 14 patrol cars arrived on the scene. Residents had heard a loud crash and began pouring out of the apartment buildings that line this part of Venice Blvd. Police declared the crash to be a crime scene and told residents to go back inside. Some protested and continued their photographing and observation. Detective Ravega said it was standard practice for police to converge on the scene if an officer has an accident.

Devin Petelski was in the prime of life. She had lived in Mandeville Canyon and in Brentwood most of her life. She went to good schools including Crossroads, Northwestern University and UC Santa Barbara. In her 25 years of life, her middle class upbringing had enabled her to travel the world and develop friendships with hundreds of people. She was not the typical person who runs afoul of the LAPD.

It will be impossible for the LAPD to claim she was a gang member or a homeless person as they often do without evidence. Already, anonymous comments have appeared on the internet alleging that she was drunk or ran a stop sign, or both. Neither charge will stand up. She had just moments earlier finished working at the Clearview Treatment Center, a detox facility down the street. She had been an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous for the past two years. As to running the stop sign at Glyndon, her family and friends have been active in lining up witnesses, including some who noticed that she had stopped before pulling out onto Venice.

There is a police investigation examining the incident. It will take two or three more weeks to conclude, said Ravega. He did not know whether there will be a separate Internal Affairs or Pacific Division investigation into the conduct of the officers. Ravega told the Beachhead he didn’t think there was any wrongdoing. He believes the officers are continuing to perform their usual duties. One wonders what would have been the police response if someone else had been speeding without lights and hit and severely injured or killed someone? Would not he or she have been arrested on the spot? Obviously, there seems to be a double standard.

This is not a death that the LAPD can brush aside. Petelski’s family has hired Mark Geragos, a celebrity lawyer,  who has represented Michael Jackson, actress Winona Ryder, politician Gary Condit, Susan McDougal, who was involved in the Whitewater scandal, and Scott Peterson. He has also been a frequent guest on the Today show, Good Morning America, 60 Minutes, and on the Larry King show. Interestingly, he is a criminal attorney, who likely will be after more than civil damages.

No matter what the outcome of the lawsuit, the policy that allows silent running must be stopped. Even if silent running helps nab drug dealers and petty criminals, it is not worth a single life. A better way to enforce the law must be found that does not endanger the public. At the very least, contact L.A. City Councilmember Bill Rosendahl at Councilmember.Rosendahl@lacity.org or 213-473-7011 to urge that the LAPD policy that allows silent running be ended.

It would be nice to be able to love the police for all the good things they do. But the constant misuse or overuse of the powers that have been granted them by the public they are sworn to protect, call for other emotions: anger and sadness for their victims.

On Oct. 23, hundreds of friends of Devin Petelski turned out for a memorial service at Brentwood Presbyterian Church. Many more have written condolences to the family including on Facebook. There has been no expression of sympathy from the LAPD, says Medak.

On Oct. 24, the LAPD dedicated the most expensive police headquarters in history, in spite of record budget deficits in Los Angeles. It cost $400 million and is already filled to capacity. The building, with two small exceptions, will be off limits to the public. If there were any justice in this city, it would be named the Devin Petelski Center, or after any of the other countless victims of police malfeasance.

Lincoln Place Tenants Going Home

Up to 83 one and two bedroom apartments will be reoccupied by tenants who were unceremoniously evicted by AIMCO (Apartment Investment and Management Company), the large corporation that owns Lincoln Place. AIMCO and the tenants’ association have reached a tentative agreement that will restore many of the 80 renters who were removed from their homes on Dec. 6, 2005.

No date has been set for accepting rental applications nor have rents been set.

The tentative settlement will maintain the historic exteriors of the  buildings and return the property to rental housing use.  The only new construction will be the replacement of 99 units which were destroyed by AIMCO and the previous owner.  No height or density variances will be requested in connection with new construction, which will return the project to its original 795 homes. However, city approval of the construction will be required.

The agreement also settles all outstanding litigation between AIMCO and former tenants.  While the agreement will be final after signature by all former tenants participating in the settlement and after judicial approval, it remains contingent upon a separate agreement between AIMCO and the city of Los Angeles and agreement with the returning tenants.

AIMCO also recently settled with historic preservationist Amanda Seward and 20^th Century Architectural Alliance, which spearheaded the drive to obtain historic protection for Lincoln Place. That protection remains in force.

The buildings together with their character defining features which were constructed in the 1950s will be preserved. “Under the agreement, this complex would be preserved for future generations,” commented Seward.

“The settlement allows members of our close-knit community to return, preserves the buildings which we love, and charts a positive future for Lincoln Place,” says Sheila Bernard, the Lincoln Place Tenants Association President.

“Clearly, collaboration with the former tenants, the city, and the community is far preferable to protracted litigation,” added Miles Cortez, Chief Administrative Officer of AIMCO.

Letters

Vending in Venice

Dear Beachhead,

I have just recently moved back to Florida after being a vendor on the Boardwalk for two years. I have listened to all the bickering between vendors, and between vendors and the Lottery Officials. Years ago Abbot Kinney wanted the Boardwalk area to be a place for artists and musicians. If he could only see what has happened to it.

I agree that there should be a lottery, otherwise chaos would ensue. But, what has happened is, it has become a swap meet. There is a place for everything in Venice. But too many genuine artists are being pushed out by junk.

Every third table has the same jewelry or Rasta type items. There are bugs in plastic, alligator heads, wind up toys, and more. All mass produced and bought downtown for pennies. How can the artists compete with that? Why should we give up what we were born to do, so that someone can sell alligator heads? I see nothing artistic about lopping off an alligator head. And I am sure the alligator didn’t either.

I understand times are tough and that those vendors have a right to earn a living. But, the Venice Boardwalk is for free speech. Artists, poets, musicians, photographers,handmade items. The artists have put their heart and soul into their creations. They did not go downtown and purchase items with “Made in China” on the bottom. The artists did not go to the Mall to buy their talent. It is something they were born with. And Venice needs to get back to that.

My idea is to get the real artists out there. And by “real” I mean, not the vendors who are buying art wholesale, and reselling it on the Boardwalk. Yes, there are people doing that out there. And they too, are taking away from the real artists.

In January everyone will have to renew their vendors permits. There is enough time to try this idea out. If you want to be in the “I” Zone ( the artists zone) you should have to show that you do what you do. At that point once you demonstrate, you receive your permit. Everyone else will have to go to the “P” Zone.

All psychics, tarot card and the like are performers. They need to stop taking up space in the artists zone.

On Labor Day weekend, before I left I counted only nine artists in two hundred spaces. I too did not have a space for the last big weekend. But plenty of swap meet, mass merchandise sellers did though.

Lottery officials and the city need to take a stand on this. Otherwise very soon it will just look like a giant garage sale out there. As it is, I have seen people bringing clothes and items from home and selling them out there. Another problem is how many permits does a family get? I have seen people at lottery with a half a dozen family members, all with permits. They don’t sell out there, only one of them does. That is not fair to everyone else. Sometimes all of them get lucky and get a lottery draw. Then the next problem comes from selling spaces. This can be very lucrative in itself. There are “vendors” who have never sold a thing on the boardwalk. All they do is say they are an artist or whatever to get a permit, and their sole intent is to sell the spot that day. I have seen it at lottery many times. The demonstration part of getting your permit in the artist zone would get rid of that. Now one other problem with an easy fix. There are many vendors on the boardwalk who have not gotten their Sellers Tax ID number from the State. And they are out there every day selling. The easy solution to this would be, when you go to Lottery on Tuesdays, if your name is drawn as you go up front to pick out your spot, you must present your sellers ID. If you don’t have one with you, you will not get a spot. It’s that simple.

All it comes down to is use it for what it was intended..Art, music, photography, handmade goods. Not all the mass produced crap. Prove you are an artist to get a spot in the “I” Zone. And since there seems to be so many of these swap meet vendors, they need to go to “P” zone.. And then divide the spaces in half. That will give them two hundred spaces to fight over and the artists can have the spaces they are supposed to have. The artists will have a hundred spaces, and all the artists will get a spot out there without the mass produced stuff taking up an artist’s spot.

My time in Venice was very educational. I got to see how people react when pushed. Let the “I” zone be for the artists only..Prove you do it, have a sellers tax ID number, and get your spot. There are less than one hundred true artists out there. Assign them their own spot, and that will be theirs for the year. Remember these are the people that can prove what they do.

The lottery will have to figure out how to deal with the “P” Zone. Too much of the identical items. I liked the idea of a message. But, that was not enforced. I see many in the P zone who do not go by the rules. It is supposed to be donation based. Not set prices. How they will fit hundreds of vendors into the “P” Zone, I don’t know. Check on sellers IDs. But what I do know is, they need to keep the junk out of the artist’s zone. No bugs encased in plastic next to a beautiful oil painting.

Thank you,  Vicki Zinn (Ashworth)

After Obama…American Idol?

By Alice Cramden

Let me get this right.  We are in the midst of an economic Armageddon the likes of 1929. Obama, the great savior for whom I worked tirelessly for six weeks, whacking my back in the process, canvassing from door to door, regaling every neighbor in every neighborhood in greater Albuquerque, that he was the change we had been hoping for is now endorsing many of the same Bush programs that we “the people” repudiated?  Obama said the public option was the only way to go on Health Care Reform. But now that is off the table.  Obama said he would renegotiate NAFTA?  Now his handlers say, oh that was just campaign rhetoric.  And while he promised to close Gitmo in one year, he supports rendition.  That means people are still going to get tortured, just not at Gitmo or in our country.  And there are to be no prosecutions for torture even though it is illegal; except if Eric Holder decides to; because we need to move forward.

We will leave Iraq, but will keep 50,000 troops there as peace keepers. That will not include the thousands more troops needed for the on-going war in Afghanistan and the troops needed to man the many bases which have since been built there.  They coincidentally follow the path of the oil fields.  We continue to have a huge footprint in the Middle East assuring our position in the battle of diminishing reserves of peak oil.

Now Obama, Bush and Congress have mortgaged our futures.  They’re selling us out to the Bankers who basically now own the world – lock, stock, and barrel – in the biggest scam ever.  I really fear for my children and grandchildren; what is to become of them now that their future is no longer theirs?? The whole thing reminds me of that PBS program about the Cherokees.  One of the wealthy Cherokee chiefs sold the Cherokee land against the will of the Cherokee Nation to the American Government and that paved the way for the Trail of Tears.

 

Get ready for our Trail of Tears.  Nader always said there was no difference between the Democrats and Republicans.  In his book, Don’t Start the Revolution Without Me, Jesse Ventura says politics is like wrestling; you all pretend to be adversaries, you know. . .  “I am going to kick your ass. . .” when in real life you go out for a beer.  It’s all show biz.  Everyone is basically on the same side, the money side and conspiring how to get more of it. . .money that is.

Well, now it looks like they have scammed us royally, sold us down the river and now that California (and probably the country) is on the verge of bankruptcy, they will have reasons why there needs to be cut backs for Social Security,  Medicare, Medicaid, programs for the poor, etc.  You already hear it echoing in every nation, state, city, town all over this planet.   How does that work.  Let me see, they create the problem and then they create the solution.

In her book, Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein writes about the misery the IMF and World Bank caused to Latin American countries when they conspired with puppet dictators and sold out the people through fraudulent investments.  These puppet dictators sold all the resources and future labor of the people to the global corporate elite at huge interest payments.  It took years for them to get out of the IMF/World Bank web.

It was the Milton Friedman, Chicago School of Economics model, capitalism run amok.  There was a slight wicked twist to it though.  They found that if a people were traumatized by either natural events such as a typhoon or war, they were more pliable and more complacent and more likely to go along with a program that under normal conditions they would fight.  Hence, the many wars, people disappearing, people being thrown out of airplanes, families having their children kidnapped, etc.  The people were brought to their knees literally.

Now we have our own version of shock doctrine being implemented here in America.  First 9/11 qualified as a 10 on the Richter scale of human traumas, wouldn’t you say? I mean it brought us to our knees.  There was Katrina; it’s stark message being that government is not there to help you but kick you in the butt.

And then the cherry on top, the coup d’etat: the Economic Meltdown.  It was orchestrated by the very same robber barons who would end up having the solution for the problem they created in the first place.  Alan Greenspan did admit he made a miscalculation by trusting the bankers would regulate themselves.  Bernacke kept his job at the Federal Reserve and got reinstated for another four years.

 

Geithner, Summers, et al. made sure the bankers all got their bonuses with TARP money.   Americans keep getting mad that these scoundrels keep getting promoted instead of getting fired for the jobs they are doing.  But hey, they are doing a great job.  They do exactly what the elite want them to do.

Events of late have been quite interesting to me.  It just all seems like a surreal movie unreeling.  The sheep have all been dumbed down over the last 20 years.  They are just trying to cope with all the new harsh realities.  They really have no clue other than they really love and miss Michael Jackson.  The only voting they will be doing anytime soon (after the Barak let down) will be on American Idol. The guys you thought were the good guys are just shams; empty shells of toothy smiles.  The same shell games are  carrying on the same program that the former presidential puppet employed—keeping the rich, well, rich.

Then there’s that talk again of the New World Order, and yes, even from the Messiah’s mouth.  I thought that nonsense was gone for good with the exodus of the old regime.  But there was Obama, in broad daylight, talking about the New World Order.  It made me lose my sensibilities and there I was again googling PrisonPlanet.com, the Bilderbergs and the Reptilian Agenda.  Ouch!

Alice Cramden is the pen name of a Beachhead Collective member in the 1980s and 90s.

In Brief

• Once More Into The Breach
• “Reform” City Attorney Still Wants OPDs
• Rapist On The Loose

———–

Once More Into The Breach

Just when you thought it was safe to park your RV, the Coastal Commission is holding yet another hearing on November 5 in Long Beach.

The announcement from the Coastal Commission says, “the purpose of this hearing is to consider the findings rather than to reconsider the merits of this project…” In plain English, they are going to adjust the staff report, which was in favor of Overnight Parking Districts (permit parking) in Venice. Since the Commission overruled the staff and voted against OPDs, they now have to have the staff justify their decision.

But just in case, it might be a good idea to attend the hearing if you feel strongly about the issue. The hearing begins at 9am. However, this item is number 19 on the day’s agenda and likely will not be heard until afternoon. There will be a webcast of the hearing on the Commission’s website – www.coastal.ca.gov – which might help you determine when you should leave for Long Beach. It’s about a 40 minutes drive.

The meeting will be held at the Long Beach Civic Center, 333 W. Ocean Blvd.

For more information, call 562-972-9854.

————-

“Reform” City Attorney Still Wants OPDs

Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich filed a “cross-complaint” in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Oct. 28, saying the city is not obligated to seek a coastal permit to impose permit parking on unwilling Venice residents.

Trutanich did not say if he knows a victory in this case could severely weaken the Coastal Commission’s authority.

————-

Rapist On The Loose

Calls to the Beachhead say that a rapist has attacked three women in the last few weeks on Ocean Front Walk.

The attacker apparently hangs out around the bathroom on the sand near Horizon Ave.

On the Boardwalk – Treasure Maps

By Ian Lovett

We start the walk back up 20th Pl. “I’m looking for a dresser, for my van,” Roger says.  “Hopefully closer to Rose.” We don’t touch anything on this street. Most of the dumpster lids here hang open, raided of anything of potential value. Some of the worst crack addicts hang out on this block, he says. But he still walks by, just to check.

We wind up Pacific, down 19th, up Speedway. He doesn’t even touch anything til we get to 18th Pl—presumably out of the crack addicts’ territory.  He opens the blue recycling containers looking for reading material.  Usually, a glance is enough—he lifts the blue plastic lid with one hand, leans forward, and gently lowers the lid again.  Occasionally, he reaches in, rearranging the cardboard or plastic bottles on top to see if there’s a magazine below, or removing a few glossy pages only to find a catalogue, not a New Yorker.

He leaves the trash containers beside the recycling untouched, but does lift the big metal dumpsters’ plastic lids—raising them with one hand, just as he does with the blue containers, peering in, very, very occasionally reaching his other hand inside to inspect something.  “I don’t like to dig around in there too much,” he says.

I lift lids, too.  I grab the handle between my thumb and forefinger, raising it up, peering in.  If it looks like there’s something of interest, I’ll reach inside, unlearning a gamut of childhood lessons to reach my hands into strangers’ trash.  I don’t want him to feel squeamish because I’m here—this is his livelihood, after all.  Yesterday, he took a trip up to Santa Monica to collect palm tree bark, to make treasure maps for tourists.  Early this morning, he collected shells on the beach—to make jewelry, or maybe to bury as treasure. And now, the recycling.

We keep winding our way back towards the lot at Rose. East on the even blocks, north on Pacific, west on the odd blocks, north on Speedway.  Roger says he usually makes $15 or so off what he find here, but as we exit the numbered blocks, turning up Windward Ct, he still hasn’t deemed anything worth keeping. On Zephyr, we find a pile of Sports Illustrateds, months of issues some girlfriend or mother got sick of seeing piled on the floor. Roger collects them together at the top of the bin, but decides to leave them there. He’s not a sports fan.

Our first keeper comes in a dumpster on Horizon. “Hmm,” Roger says, smiling.  He climbs up the dumpster to extract the prize, resting his waist on the edge while his torso dangles down inside.  Once retrieved, he examines it—a wind chime, with metal tubes suspended from a wooden blue bird.  He places it in the plastic bag with the shells he collected this morning and we keep walking. East, north, west, north.

At the corner of Breeze and Speedway, we see a kid—maybe 17 years old and sporting a small ‘fro—edging a dumpster away from the wall.  He leans behind it and extracts four skateboards—all without wheels—then pushes the dumpster back flush with the wall.  Roger says hello as we walk by—a polite, cursory greeting: hey, how are you, great, good to see you.  He doesn’t know the kid’s name, but, like most people who live down here, he’s seen him around. The kid helps Vegan Man get his cart down to the boardwalk and set up in the mornings—Vegan Man has a bad back.  I ask Roger where the kid stays. Roger doesn’t know, but the answer to the question is clear from what we’ve just seen.  During the day, sometimes, Roger lets people without their own places leave stuff on top of his van.  Or sometimes he let’s them just come sit in his van.

We keep walking, winding towards the lot.  And we find everything. I actually find a dresser. But it’s wrecked—one of the legs shattered, two drawers missing. We find a woman’s suit jacket. And shoes. And a duffle full of clothes. A couple weeks ago Roger found the vest Scotty was wearing at the lottery this morning.

We find books, a few of which Roger keeps. We find a beautiful, hand-carved wooden door leaning up against the dumpster’s side. A computer keyboard. The box for a drill. Roger digs around in that container more than usual.  “New drill means there’s an old drill somewhere,” he says.  He might make sure to come back and check this same one next week. But for now, we keep walking.

“Cats,” says Roger, as we start up Park.  Eight or ten empty tins sit at the bottom of the container—I don’t think I’d have noticed, or known what they were, but Roger identifies them right away.  “At first you don’t notice the smell,” he says.  “But once you see it, you start to pick up the smell too.”  And he’s right—now I smell the cat food.

As we round the next corner, we find all the bins empty, lids hanging open—the garbage truck has beaten us to the punch.  We catch up to it a few blocks later. The garbage men wear surgical masks and gloves. They pick up the bins by the handles and throw them into the compactor without so much as a glance at what’s inside, insulating themselves as much as possible from what’s around them, even the knowledge of what exactly it is.

What we’re doing, by contrast—actually looking through people’s trash—is incredibly intimate.  When I say this to Roger, he agrees. “Yeah, I get to see how they’re doing. If it’s been a good month, I can tell. Or maybe the next month I see it’s getting a little tighter with money.”  But it’s more than that—people’s whole lives are in here. What they eat, what they wear, what they bought this week, if they’re getting laid, when it’s that time of the month, and, perhaps most personal of all, what they do and do not value—it’s all right here in the blue and black plastic bins they set out once a week.

It’s no wonder Roger skips the cans if a tenet’s outside getting the paper or leaving for work.  Even though he’s not doing anything wrong—he’s putting things to use that would otherwise go to a landfill—there’s still an invasion of privacy involved.

By the time we squeeze around the side of the hulking, beeping truck, we’re almost back to Rose, and Roger’s enthusiasm has waned.  He peers inside, still, but stops digging around much.  One dumpster at the corner of Speedway he skips altogether. “That’s usually a nasty one.” He laughs.  “I don’t know, maybe it’s because it’s near the beach and people like to walk their dogs down here, but it’s always full of dog shit.”

We don’t find anything else, entering the lot with the bag of shells, the wind chime, and four books. In the shade between Roger’s van and Scotty’s, parked, as always, side-by-side at the south end of the lot, a few guys sit around, passing a joint.  Roger hands out the books, in case anyone’s interested. Vince flips through the one about John Lennon, setting the others on the ground. Scotty and Guy begin drumming. Next door, outside his van, Prospector plays chess against a guy with no shoes, carrying a loaf of bread in a plastic bag. Someone must have delivered bread this morning—bagels are scattered all over the nearby grass, where the seagulls pick at them.

Roger steps inside his van and shuts the door. Privacy, here, is hard to come by. This van is the only place that’s his—it’s where he sleeps and eats and shits and stores his stuff and watches TV. Even there, people are constantly knocking on the side, asking if he wants to smoke a joint, or if they can store something, or have a sit, or follow him in the alleys looking through garbage. And yet, he doesn’t shy away, doesn’t pretend to be asleep or refuse to answer the sliding door.

He emerges again a few minutes later, dressed just as he was before, in a Lakers shirt and the same jeans and zip-up sweatshirt he always wears.  He has no gloves, no mask. The goatee and slightly graying hair and those soft blue eyes are all in plain view.

Eyewitness to “Murder on Venice Blvd”

By Ruth Fowler

I live at the intersection of Venice Blvd and Glyndon Avenue in Venice Beach. On October 15, I went to bed early – about 11pm. I woke up briefly when I heard a horrific screech of breaks and a terrifying crash – but to be honest, when you live in Venice, you hear this stuff all the goddamn time and you learn not to pay attention to it. I’ve never been in a city so rife with traffic accidents.

Just before 1am, I woke up again as my puppy needed to pee, and when I walked into the living room my roommates were standing there looking shocked and shaken. “How the fuck did you sleep through that?” Rob asked me. “A girl just got killed right outside our apartment.”

We went outside together and a mangled black BMW was sitting inches away from my Mercedes Benz parked on the South-East corner of Venice and Glyndon. My car was covered in glass and detritus, but was otherwise completely, miraculously, untouched. The BMW was completely caved in on the driver’s side, and facing the wrong way. A cop car was on the sidewalk, at the steps to our apartment, smashed against a tree and with a broken sign next to it. Three fire engines were on the opposite side of Venice Blvd, and there were about ten cop cars.

Rob had told me everyone had been ordered off the sidewalk by police and into the apartments when the crash had happened, and only now were they being allowed outside.

I walked down to my car and spoke to a female cop. She said the girl in the BMW was in bad shape and they didn’t know if she was still alive. Perhaps she had been drunk, she said.

The cops had walked out of the car but had been taken to hospital with broken arms and concussion. She didn’t know whose fault it was.

I took some pictures and we hung out on the balcony to our apartment block watching the cops start to arrest a bunch of Mexican guys and lead them away. This confused us. Were they in some way responsible for this horrific crash? What had gone on? Was the driver of the BMW drunk as some of the cops implied? Why had the cop car t-boned the BMW as it eased out from Glyndon Avenue attempting to turn right on Venice?

I took some pictures with my cellphone and eventually went to bed at 3am.

The next morning I found out my friend Krysta had been a passenger in a car traveling right behind the cop car. Her friend Zach had been driving her home. They had seen everything. Krysta said the cop car had been traveling at speed on Lincoln with its lights on, and then had turned onto Venice, turned its lights off but had maintained the same speed – in excess of 50mph – and had veered into the curb lane. It had then t-boned the BMW easing onto Venice Blvd from Glyndon.

Krysta maintained the driver of the BMW had not been at fault. She and Zach had gotten out of the car to assist the girl in the BMW who was unconscious.

Apparently 10 or 12 cop cars then turned up to attend to the cops – but no one attended to the unconscious girl who was still trapped in the BMW, until Krysta started screaming at them.

Zach was an off-duty EMT guy so he gave the girl medical assistance. She could not breathe on her own. It was 10 or 15 minutes after the accident that an ambulance arrived, and according to witnesses, it departed at leisure without its emergency lights on. At this point the girl was still alive but in critical condition.

The story got worse. It turned out the driver of the BMW was a friend of many of my friends. She had been working as a counselor at a recovery center on Glyndon Avenue until late at night. She had left the center, driven down the road, and had then been subject to this horrific accident.

Later that day – I think if I’m correct, on Saturday – the girl’s life support was turned off and she passed away. Four of her organs were successfully used in transplants to save four anonymous people across the US.

The girl’s name was Devin Petelski and she was a 25-year-old Los Angeles native with two years sobriety who helped other addicts in their recovery and was in her last year at Grad school.

Thirty minutes before the accident Devin had been on the phone to her father, who had just told her he had managed to find the money to pay for her last semester of college.

Looking online at the reporting on the accident, I was immediately struck at the discrepancy of the news reports, many of which seemed to imply Devin had been responsible for the accident. None mentioned the speeding cop car with no lights on. No reports mentioned why it took seconds for ten or twelve cop cars to turn up at the scene, but 10 – 15 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. Some reports suggested the cop car was responding to an emergency call – if this was the case, why did it have no lights?

Other reports referred to a bus which had apparently pulled over on Venice Blvd, obscuring Devin’s view as she tried to turn right – but this bus was not noticed by any eye witnesses, nor was it made clear why this bus might have been allowed to leave the scene of such a horrific accident.

Many reports said Devin had gone through a red light at Glyndon, omitting the fact there are no red lights on Glyndon – only a stop sign. Others suggested there was a white van which had driven through the accident scene.

I don’t know what the truth is, but I do know Devin Petelski was a sober, intelligent, beautiful, loving girl who shared many of my good friends here in Venice. Her hospital reports show that she was indeed free of any intoxicants or drugs of any kind at the time of the accident. I know that Glyndon Avenue is full of speed bumps and it’s impossible to build any speed on that road. I know that the way the accident scene looked, it was clear that her car was hit at high velocity by the cop car.

I know that it must be a heartbreaking thing for her family to wonder why that ambulance didn’t arrive sooner, and why an off duty EMT guy who was a civilian witness had to keep their daughter alive while officers from 10 or 12 cop cars attended to the cops in the other car – victims who were luckily able to walk free from their wreckage while Devin could not.

This was a terrible, horrific night for many, and what’s worse is the fear that the LAPD will be unable to carry out a fair and unbiased investigation into the accident. The implications of this can be seen clearly here.

I was outside my apartment block today where many of Devin’s friends, family and loved ones gathered to pay their respects. There was sadness, there was anger, but there was also joy and happiness that their beloved Devin had helped save four people’s lives despite losing her own. I think all any of these people want now is a fair and unbiased investigation into what, exactly, happened that night on Venice Blvd and Glyndon Avenue. Was this a police joyride that went tragically wrong? Is there some kind of strange cover-up going on?

Responses to news reports have been overwhelmingly in agreement that the cops were at fault – though a few unpleasant internet trolls have made their own untrue assumptions.

I have to say, my faith in an institution that is meant to protect the people has been radically shaken since I arrived in America in 2005. Like many people who didn’t know Devin but saw the strange aftermath of this tragedy unfold, and have seen the grief and the pain of those left behind, I would like to know the truth, and I would like to believe that the justice system in this country will uphold the rights of an individual against the establishment when the establishment has acted in error. The people have a right to know the full facts. To know why those random men were being arrested at 1am at the scene of the accident. To know why a speeding cop car – which may or may not have been responding to a call – did not have its lights on. To know why it took so long for an ambulance to attend to an unconscious girl in a critical condition.

If you or anyone you know was a witness to this horrific tragedy, or saw the immediate aftermath of the crash, please email family friend Christopher Medak at Guvnor@mac.com

Rest in Peace Devin. I’m sorry I never got the opportunity to meet you. Thank you for touching so many lives while you were living, and after you have passed.

Universal Health Care Versus the Corporations

By Jim Smith

No matter what happens in Congress this year, the fight for real health care reform is just beginning. This year we are likely to see a bill that only the health insurance corporations can love. It will give them windfall profits by creating a true monopoly where everyone in the country is forced to become their victim. It doesn’t really matter which insurance giant carries your health care insurance. They are all owned by the same ultra-wealthy crooks on Wall Street. At the very least, this has been a lesson for the public of the vast power the corporations have over our elected representatives.

If a public option is included in the bill, it will likely be a watered-down version that takes the corporations off the hook for insuring the ill. When Wall Street crapped-out in its high-stakes gambling, Congress was there to reimburse them for their losses. Why should they be an less benevolent to the health care corporations who give them millions for their votes.

But health care reform means a lot more than who is going to carry the insurance. If those are correct who say America has the best health care in the world, if you are insured, then pity the rest of the world. Anyone who has been hospitalized or know some one who has been caught up in the health care system would not agree. In some ways the health care system is so bad, it is scarcely better than the criminal justice system (don’t go there, either).

Rosa’s strange adventure in a sick health care system

Here’s one example. A friend, who is a senior – we’ll call her Rosa – fell off a ladder on Sept. 5. She knew she had probably broken some bones. She crawled the length of her house into her bedroom where she called 911. The Fire Department paramedics promptly picked her up and took her to the hospital. This being Venice, the nearest hospital is in Marina del Rey. Rosa doesn’t recall being asked if she wanted to go to any other hospital.

After some time in the emergency room, where she was given morphine, she was taken to a hospital room. X-Rays and an MRI showed that she had a broken heel and fractured vertebraes in her back. A doctor told her that the heel could not be set until the swelling went down. She was given a body brace for her back. Rosa was unable to see her regular doctor since he works out of Cedar-Sinai Hospital, and the Marina hospital is off limits.

For the next few days, Rosa lay in her hospital bed, often in excruciating pain. She had a call button for the nurses by her bed, but most of the time when she would press it to ask for medication, no one would answer. Once, when I visited Rosa, her roommate, who had also buzzed for a nurse in vain, asked me if I would go to the nurses station, which was about 20 feet away, and ask someone to come to help her. I walked up to the station were an assorted crew of RNs, LVNs, secretaries, lab techs, etc. all seemed to be doing their best to ignore me. Finally, I said in a loud voice, “A patient in room so and so has been calling for assistance.” One of the nurses looked up from her pile of paperwork and told me, “We’re aware of it.” I tried to explain nicely that being aware of something and actually doing something were two different things.

I don’t believe the nurses and other health care personnel are the evil ones. In most cases, they are understaffed, and overwhelmed with paperwork. The hospital is owned by Doctor-Investors who are looking for a profit. How do you make a profit in health care – cut staff and raise fees.

The on-line ratings website, Yelp, gives MdR hospital two stars out of five. Here is one of the comments on Yelp, from Gail: “The people are very nice — but the bill you get later will make you feel like they had a gun to your head the whole time!!!  Buyer beware!!  I’m up to almost $2000 for a tiny cut that required 2 drops of superglue and one band-aid.  The band-aid alone was $90.  This is what’s wrong with America’s current medical system — too much unethical profit taking.”

Needless to say, Rosa was not happy with the care at the hospital. Little did she know that there are worse places than a hospital. They are called nursing homes, and sometimes they are called rehab centers/nursing homes. Rosa was shipped out to the Playa Del Rey Care and Rehabilitation Center, also known as Sunbridge Care & Rehabilitation, which is owned by the SunBridge Healthcare Corporation, a Wall Street firm. Well, Rosa took one look around the facility and promptly wheeled herself out to the street and caught a taxi home.

The next morning, she pressed the reset button and started over by having her son drive her to the Cedars-Sinai emergency room. After a few hours of extensive tests, she was assigned a nice room with nurses who came when they were buzzed. It should be pointed out that Rosa was still in a great deal of pain since she hadn’t yet had any treatment of her broken heel and back. The good times at Cedars only lasted two days. She was again sent to a rehab/convalescent facility. This one, The Rehabilitation Centre of Beverly Hills (in Los Angeles) is a much more impressive building inside and out. Its claim to fame is as the place where actress Shelley Winters died (see http://www.rehabcenter.com).

Curiously, integration seems to have failed in our schools and in convalescent homes. Nearly the entire staff were Filipinos and the doctors were Russians. A cynical mind might think that immigrants are hired because they can be paid less. This is one of the dirty secrets of the health care “industry.” It could not run without immigrants. A Filipina friend, who regularly visits the Philippines, tells me that health care in that former U.S. colony is declining due to lack of medical personnel. Many nurses receive their training there, and then immigrate to the U.S. where they gain employment through referrals by friends or relatives already working at health care facilities. The pay is much better than in the Philippines even if it is substandard by U.S. measures.

Despite its highfalutin name, the Beverly Hills facility is not accredited and it received the worst possible rating – one star out of five – in a U.S. News & World Report survey. Of course, it is another for profit operation. So far in her adventure, Rosa has encountered only one nonprofit facility, Cedars-Sinai, which is undoubtedly the best of the bunch.

At the Rehab Center, the staff naturally wanted to do rehab on Rosa. When a doctor forbid rehab on Rosa’s injuries until she had her operation, the staff protested. Apparently rehab treatments are a lucrative business. When the staff was frustrated in their attempts to rehabilitate a broken foot, they began working on Rosa’s arm, which had not been injured in her fall.

A Russian doctor gave Rosa a referral, at last, to an Orthopedic Surgeon at Cedars. Unfortunately, he was a hip specialist and didn’t do heels. But he knew someone who was a heel doctor. A week later, Rosa had her consultation and arranged for an operation two weeks later. By now, Rosa had had enough of institutionalized life, and again headed for home. But she had to go back again for the operation and a couple of days recuperating in a hospital room at Cedars. Then it was back home again. Rosa’s bandage around her foot cast is coming loose, and she still hasn’t had a consultation on her cracked vertebrae, but Rosa is happy to be out of the clutches of the health care facilities. She hasn’t seen the bill yet, which she hopes will be covered by Medicare and Medical, and she is in a three week waiting period to receive authorization for a homecare worker who can help her in and out of bed and wheel chair. Meanwhile, Rosa has to pay for a home care worker out of her own meager pension.

What can be done to cure our health care system?

In 2007, I worked with a statewide group of doctors, nurses and health care advocates to draft a ballot initiative called the Health Security Act. This proposed California constitutional amendment would have gotten rid of the big corporate insurers, in favor of a state government billing and payroll system, the so-called single payer, which could have saved Californians billions of dollars while improving health care.

The single payer initiative would have provided for medical care for all California residents without premiums, co-pays and deductible. In other words, free health care. What’s more it would have fully paid for all treatments, prescription drugs, devices, emergency care, preventive measures, rehabilitative care, longterm care, mental healthcare, dental care, vision care, women’s healthcare, and work-related injuries.

Like the Baucus bill in Congress, the state legislature wanted to know how much it would cost. The Attorney General’s office did an analysis and reported that this initiative, which provided for free health care in California would cost “the low tens of billions of dollars.” If it cost $20 billion, this could have easily been raised by taxes on the filthy rich, on food and drink that are unhealthy, and on big corporate landholdings in the state.

Unfortunately, the state Democratic Party machine would have nothing to do with the initiative, preferring to back the doomed Sheila Kuehl bill in the State Senate (doomed because they knew Gov. Schwarzenegger would never sign it). And the labor unions that had previously supported single payer bills and initiatives were involved in internecine battles. As a result we didn’t get enough signatures to put it on the 2008 ballot. Maybe next year.

In any case, the ultimate solution to what to do when people get sick is to remove the profit motive from health care. Why should anyone make a profit from your illness or injury? A single payer system works well in most civilized countries. In addition, no one should be allowed to warehouse our elders just because they can make a profit. If there is ever a time when love and caring is needed,  it is with those who cannot help themselves because they are too sick, too injured, or just to befuddled.

Don’t let anyone tell you that the giant corporations make health care better. They virtually steal new drugs, equipment and procedures from the universities, including our own public University of California. And then they sell these innovations back to us, even though they were paid for by taxpayer money. It is time for not just change, but a revolution in health care where we focus on making people well, not on making billions for corporations.

Skills Center Here to Stay

The Oct. 15 dedication of the new Venice Skills Center’s (VSC) permanent building after nearly 41 years of teaching out of many temporary structures gives the L.A. Unified school an all new feel.

Course offerings include computer repair, graphic design, business English and math, computer applications, optical dispensing, web design, Cisco networking and dental assistant. Most classes are open enrollment meaning that you can start the class anytime.

Classes at the facility are dirt cheap, with fees of only $30, plus some class expenses. Seniors over 60, the disabled, people on public assistance and unemployment insurance get their fees waved.

Unfortunately, VSC no longer offers its popular auto repair services where residents could get their cars fixed for cheap.

L.A. City Councilmember Bill Rosendahl and Steve Zimmer, L.A. Unified Board Member both spoke at the dedication. Principal Cynthia Y. Tollette chaired the celebration.

Steve Richmond, Venice Poet, 1941 – 2009

By Panos Douvos

On October 22, 2009, the West lost a great lyric poet. Steve Richmond’s work spoke raw truths while offering sharp inner awareness. He published ten books and also appeared in Kenyon Review, Wormwood and Partisan magazines.

Steve’s friends considered him a most important poet – an American Rimbaud – and that “He didn’t know how to be dull.” His series of poems, Gagaku, sprang from listening to Japanese Court Music that he was introduced to by a woman friend in UCLA’s Ethno-Musicology Department. They were considered among his best.

At UCLA, in 1964, Steve wrote his first poetry book, and with a boost from Kenyon Review, he left his law degree behind. Also while at UCLA he was asked by Jim Morrison to review his poems.

Steve arrived in the Venice area in the middle ’60s and in the early ’70s ran a bookstore/head shop at Rose Ave. and the Boardwalk. There he published a broad sheet, Earth Rose. Its most memorable front page was from a special “anti-war” edition. The entire front page simply read – FUCK HATE.

He became addicted to pain medication following surgery . . . An artist’s tough road began but he was a poet’s poet and prolific. Some philistines dissed him – the outsider, bear-baiting him for their own amusement – but as his good friend, Charles Bukowski,  said, “Hell never stops, only pauses.”

Spinning Off Bukowski is a very special book by Steve that is not to be missed. It details his spirited history with his friend and colleague Bukowski. [Sun Dog Press copyright 1996. 22058 Cumberland Lane, Northville, MI. 48167.]

Steve had his share of the “barnacles of life,” but he cleaned up the last several years, and now, after many pit-stops he has exited all too quickly.

We honor his talent, sharp intellect and active search for truths. He will be missed as we look for others to fill his space . . . He said he liked my poem about him. . . I appreciated that.

A memorial for Steve is being planned for some time in 2010. Details will be announced as plans are formalized.