There were four more homicides this weekend in just one division of the LAPD. In another, 14 year-old Byron Lee, Jr. was forced from his bicycle onto his knees and shot more than a dozen times as he begged for life. After decades of horror stories about gang violence, it sounds like just another LA weekend--unless you're one of the people who live with the killing year round. Both the Daily News and the LA Times have been reporting on this continuing epidemic of gang violence. So, why has it become an accepted fact of life for those of us who don't live with it day after day? Warren Olney speaks with police, the only grief counseling service for homicide in South LA, a frustrated LA Times reporter and a captain at the 77th Division, where homicides have increased more than 38% since last year, about the epidemic of violence that goes on under the noses of everyone else in LA.
- Making News: Election Reform Bungled
California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley is under fire from the statewide Association of Clerks and Elections Officials. They say that Shelley has failed to implement federal laws passed to make certain that the Florida election debacle of 2000 doesn't happen again. David Drucker, who reports for the Sacramento Bureau of the Daily News, has the details.
California Association of Clerks and Elections Officials
Help America Vote Act (HAVA)
League of Women Voters of California
Secretary of State Shelley on managing federal voter funds
Drucker's article on alleged bungling of election reform
LA Times article on residents' response to Lee slaying
Leovy's article on slaying of Byron Lee, Jr.
