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December 16, 2002
ATTENTION CIVIL SUIT LAWYERS
Sue The City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County and make millions for you and your clients.
Los Angeles leaders have virtually welcomed illegal alien gang members, criminals, and terrorists, to come to our city. They have done this with Special Order 40 which mandates that the LAPD not cooperate with the INS in identifying and deporting illegal alien gang members and criminals (see Doc 1 and Doc 2). Special Order 40 is not a law -- it is a Los Angeles Police Department mandate issued in 1979 by then police chief Darryl Gates. But in 1992, then California Attorney General Dan Lungren gave his opinion that Special Order 40 was unconstitutional. But this was not good enough for the Los Angeles then Mayor Riordan and the then city council.
Then in 2001, Attorney General Bill Lockyer gave his opinion which basically agreed with Dan Lungrens -- and that was not enough for our "Leaders." See LockyerOpinionOnSpecialOrder40.pdf
Presently, not only is city attorney, Rocky Delgadillo, unwilling to revisit Special Order 40 for possible repeal or modification, but in fact endorses its continuation. See "Outlaw City."
Special Order 40 was mandated to prevent the LAPD from randomly questioning people about their immigration status, but it was never intended to mandate the LAPD from determining the immigration status of known gang members. The leadership of the LAPD, the mayor, and the city council, continue to chant the mantra that Special Order 40 is necessary so that undocumented witnesses and victims of crimes will not be afraid of coming forward in fear of being turned over by the LAPD to the INS for deportation. But these leaders know that identified gang members are not innocent victims or witnesses. Moreover, undocumented innocent witnesses and victims are not afraid of the LAPD -- they are afraid to come forward to testify against criminal gang members because they are afraid of retaliation by them.
As an activist for the last ten years, I and many members of the community have been appealing to the key members of the LAPD, the Los Angeles City Council, the mayor, the city attorney, and other leaders to examine the possibility that Special Order 40 is a key cause in the proliferation of gang murder. But instead of choosing logic and reason, our leaders instead, chose to take back our streets with candlelight vigils.
These leaders who jeopardize public safety need pressure from the community to repeal or modify Special Order 40 in order to significantly reduce gang crime. That pressure will be felt when the city (and county) is drained of its funds by compensating innocent victims and/or their survivors who were killed or maimed by illegal alien gang criminals whom the LAPD should have turned over to the INS for deportation before they had a chance to commit their crime.
I call upon all qualified Lawyers to sue Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County on behalf of victims and survivors, for their (LAPD) parts in not turning over to the INS, known illegal alien gang members and criminals before they had a chance to commit their crimes.
There are many cases in Los Angeles where an innocent person was killed or maimed in cross fire by a gang member who was later caught and convicted. In most of the cases, the gang member was already listed in the police gang files as a known gang member. In about 60 percent of the cases, the police already knew that the gang member was an illegal alien.
It would seem to me that the survivors of the victims could sue the LAPD for failing to determine the immigration status of a known gang member before that gang member committed his crime; and failing to turn that gang member over to the INS for deportation if known to be illegally in the U.S., before the crime took place. If the LAPD had cooperated with the INS, the crime could NOT have occurred in the first place. Thus, a wrongful death or maiming case.
Of course, the LAPD has its excuses:
Excuse #1: As pointed out, the LAPD claims that undocumented innocent witnesses and victims won't report crime for fear that the LAPD will turn them over to the INS for deportation. But undocumented witnesses and victims do not fear the police as much as they fear retribution by gang members for testifying against them. Moreover, gang members are not innocent witnesses and victims.
Excuse # 2: They will say that any illegal alien gang member deported will return anyway (which is true in some cases because the INS doesn't do their job). But if the INS doesn't do their job, that doesn't give the LAPD the right not to do their job. Moreover, the LAPD should turn over known gang members to the INS for deportation whenever they can and lobby the INS to do their job on behalf of the citizens they (LAPD) are supposed to be protecting.
Excuse # 3: Many point to a federal court order that invalidated Proposition 187 on the grounds that local police could not lawfully enforce immigration law. But merely turning an illegal alien gang member over to the INS for deportation isn't enforcing immigration law anyway, any more than a citizen turning over a drunk driver to the police, is enforcing state law). But for the sake of argument: on Oct. 4, 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a landmark decision by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in USA v. Vasquez-Alvarez, confirming that state and local law enforcement officials are free to arrest criminals solely on the basis of their illegally being in the United States.
This ruling finally put to rest any question that local governments have about their authority to join the federal government in the fight against illegal alien criminals.
In the case of the Los Angeles County, the Chief Probation Officer, Richard Shumsky, has mandated (by articulating) to all probation officers, not to recommend deportation to judges, of gang members who are having probation hearings. It is well known that most gang members who go on probation are repeat offenders and will commit crimes again. Crimes they would not have committed if they had been deported.
It is also important to know that a Federal law legislated in 1996, says that any non-citizen who is a legal resident (has a green card) and is convicted of a crime that carries a sentence of over one year (365 days), even if the sentence is suspended, must automatically be deported after they serve their time. I believe that there are probably scores of cases where some innocent persons were killed by gang members who had a police record indicating they served a year for previous crimes but were not released by the LAPD for deportation, allowing the gang members to commit other crimes.
This is a win-win situation. Lawyers win, clients win, and Los Angeles wins because, albeit, it will initially cost the city millions, it must be considered a wise investment if it means the end of Special Order 40 and a significant reduction in gang crime.
Hal Netkin
