Posts Tagged ‘Jim McDonnell’

The Long Beach Police Department recently made news when it detained photographer Sander Roscoe Wolff –who works for the Long Beach Post–for taking shots of a North Long Beach refinery. Asked to clarify the department’s policy on dealing with photographers, Police Chief Jim McDonnell told the Post that police can detain photographers for taking shots “with no apparent esthetic value.”

“If an officer sees someone taking pictures of something like a refinery, it is incumbent upon the officer to make contact with the individual.”

Makes a certain amount of sense…Kind of…Maybe not so much. Esthetic value is clearly subjective. As the National Press Photographer’s Association recently wrote to McDonnell, “photography is[n't] in and of itself a suspicious activity.”

We’ll recap: Chief of Police Bill Bratton has been touting this statistic about how LA, this LA – the LA we live in, is one of the safest cities in the country and crime is down to 1956 levels. Patrick Range McDonald at the LA Weekly wrote a piece refuting those numbers. Then Bratton on Patt Morrison‘s KPCC show said because of the piece rebutting Bratton’s stats everyone at the LA Weekly was smoking a little weed. Well played. Your move, Sir.

Today Bratton announced he’s leaving before his term is over and so we asked McDonald for his thoughts and he sent us this:

I’m mostly not surprised about Bratton leaving L.A. There have been very recent signs this was going to happen.

First, there was Bratton’s home going up for sale. Then a good source told me and other reporters at the Weekly about a certain event involving the chief that made us wonder about things. Lastly, Villaraigosa recently called an important press conference, saying he was against releasing criminals early from California prisons. It was the kind of high profile event that Bratton usually shows up for, so he can throw around his political weight. This time, Bratton sent over assistant chief Jim McDonnell. I thought that was interesting. It made me think Bratton was grooming McDonnell for the top job.

So, like I said, the signs were there.

McDonald is SO holding.