Thugs Attack The Working Man
It's utterly sickening, what they're doing to somebody's taxi after the NBA finals. I'm late to seeing this because I was at an evolution conference in Oregon, but I'm compelled to post it for anyone who hasn't seen it.
Click on the video to watch it in larger format. If anyone can identify any of the scum in this video, please call the LAPD at 213-485-6095. Please link to this and post the number. Hope they catch these fuckers.
Great critique on Pajamas Media by LAPD cop "Jack Dunphy" on the department's mishandling of the post-game riots:
But what these celebrants encountered once out in the fresh air, no doubt to their great disappointment, was phalanx upon phalanx of helmeted LAPD officers stretching in every direction. There are few sights more demoralizing to the aspiring rioter than that of a few hundred cops ready and eager to have a good whack at you at your first toss of a brick.And so it was that for those first few minutes after the game the atmosphere on the streets was one of jubilation, not destruction. But what those aspiring rioters soon discovered, as they ventured out from the immediate area of the Staples Center, was that those phalanxes of police officers that had at first glance seemed to stretch for miles, in truth extended only for a block or two, or perhaps three depending on which route they took. And beyond that suffocatingly secure perimeter: blissful freedom, with abundant supplies of large windows just begging to be shattered and a wide assortment of other property at their disposal to be stolen, broken, marked with graffiti, or set ablaze to suit their whims.
On a side note, how many of you think these thugs have both a mommy and a daddy in the home?
Very sickening to see. I never understood the appeal to destroy something random after a sports victory. Hope the taxi firm had good insurance.
Yazoo at June 21, 2010 8:52 AM
So being happy makes you want to destroy someone's car? That makes perfect logical sense.
vlad at June 21, 2010 9:04 AM
Nothing says "I support my local sports team" like wearing a team jersey while vandalizing and filming it with your iPhone.
Nanc in Ashland at June 21, 2010 10:21 AM
I really hope they catch those fuckers. That is just disgusting.
Sabrina at June 21, 2010 12:53 PM
Since we're into public financing for sports arenas, how about requiring the teams competing for the championship to post a refundable bond which would be used to pay back the losses created by their fans? Once you take public money, there are no ends to what can be required. BP put up 20 billion, and basketball wouldn't need anything like that.
Fund it with a surcharge on the ticket prices, or put thugball on pay-per-view.
MarkD at June 21, 2010 12:54 PM
> Nothing says "I support my local sports
> team" like wearing a team jersey while
> vandalizing and filming it with your iPhone.
You're on to something there. I've been in LA for more than 20 years... And every time I see a local sports jersey –supercheap (but oh-so-durable!) fabric in garish colors, with stitched with primitive commercial messages– there's this feeling that I'm dealing with a thug.
That's a stupid way for me to feel. Most sports fans are happy-family people, well-intentioned souls who're nice to their little sisters and take out the trash and remember to call Granny on Mother's Day, too.
But in L.A., we have to worry about the riots. The identification people have with these players isn't appropriate, even when the players AREN'T raping troubled teens in Colorado.
For many years I had a rule: Don't wear another man's name (or logo) on your body. Calvin Klein doesn't wear my name, no reason I should share his with my friends. (I've loosened up in recent years, because the Red Cross sometimes offers T-shirts after donations, and they make great sleepwear.) When you think of all the resentments that stew in urban America about oppression from an economy that doesn't care, it's tragic to see so many kids and rap-type stars dropping brand names as if they were psalms.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at June 21, 2010 1:07 PM
As I saw on twitter:
BadAstronomer: RT @ARockLegend 40 cop cars lined up in anticipation of Lakers riot. None for E3. Now, which games promote violence? [Via @dblackanese]
Dwatney at June 21, 2010 5:48 PM
Please note that they didn't have riots in Boston when the Celtics won.
I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader as to why that is so.
brian at June 21, 2010 7:46 PM
Branding:
I like the rule mentioned above about not wearing other's name or logo. The best fitting, best made stuff for men tends to not be about names and logos. I don't know if the rule would apply to brand shirts with obvious logos. I really like Jos. A Bank traveler shirts which fit me as though they were tailored and can be worn without ironing after being packed in my carry ons.
Post-championship riots:
It does seem like L.A. uniquely does this. I don't know of it happening in other U.S. cities, anyway (soccer fans seem to riot from time to time, though). My guess is that a big part of it is that the Staples center is gang hood adjacent. And that the L.A. police never seem to be well prepared for these sorts of things.
Christopher at June 21, 2010 11:16 PM
Should have been, "I don't know if the rule applies to brand name shirts without obvious logos.
Christopher at June 21, 2010 11:18 PM
"...how about requiring the teams competing for the championship to post a refundable bond which would be used to pay back the losses created by their fans?"
The problem with this: the real fans are not the rioters. The people looking for an excuse to riot are just taking advantage of the opportunity of having thousands of people on the street after a game. Many rioters will travel to any nearby city that is having a game large enough to provide such an opportunity. Punishing the teams, the stadiums or the genuine fans just doesn't help.
bradley13 at June 22, 2010 12:06 AM
"...even when the players AREN'T raping troubled teens in Colorado."
WTF???...oh, you mean that little white *thing* that pursued Kobe Bryant to his room after banging a couple of her friends and tried to say he'd raped her so that she could extort some hush money out of him? Her?
Jim at June 23, 2010 3:19 PM
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