LATIMES.COM THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2020B
CITY & STATE
After years of incremen-
tal reform, Los Angeles
County is moving to disman-
tle the largest youth justice
system in the country in fa-
vor of a “care-first” model
that would look less like pris-
on and would emphasize
emotional support, counsel-
ing and treatment.
The plan calls for chil-
dren and young adults who
have committed crimes to be
held in home-like settings,
with 24/7 youth centers and
supportive teams that de-
velop personal relationships
with young people who
might otherwise be locked in
facilities far from home.
The Los Angeles County
Board of Supervisors on
Tuesday took the first steps
to transition juvenile proba-
tion to a proposed Depart-
ment of Youth Development
in a three-phase approach
that will take at least five
years. Similar approaches
have been tried in San Fran-
cisco; Houston; New York
City; King County, Wash.;
and Oregon.
Supervisors Sheila Kuehl
and Mark Ridley-Thomas
said in their motion that, de-
spite the board’s best efforts
to reform a system beset by
controversy and abuse in-
vestigations, it has become
clear a new approach is re-
quired.
“The current youth jus-
tice model in the county re-
mains hyper-focused on
punishment and forced ac-
countability because that is
simply the nature of any
model rooted in the princi-
ples of probation and law en-
forcement systems,” the su-
pervisors said in their mo-
tion.
Interim Chief Probation
Officer Ray Leyva, who was
unavailable Tuesday for an
interview, said in a letter to
the board that he rejected
the notion by advocates who
he said want to “defund and
discard” the county Proba-
tion Department and have
focused much attention on
his agency’s past weak-
nesses, rather than its
“track record of recent re-
forms.”
He said there are sub-
stantial challenges ahead in
carrying out the overhaul
that youth advocates want
to see, including a lack of
county housing options and
the lack of a robust network
of community services and
supports.
He also raised concerns
about redirecting “substan-
tial work from dedicated and
committed county staff to
private agencies, without
sustainable infrastruc-
tures.”
The union that repre-
sents about 3,400 detention
service officers has similar
concerns.
Hans Liang, president of
the AFSCME Local 685
union, said his hope is that
the county supervisors
make good on their promisethat his union’s members
would have first dibs on jobs
in the Department of Youth
Development. Many proba-
tion officers already have ad-
vanced degrees, such as
master’s of social work, he
said.
Liang said he hopes to
see the supervisors create a
“hybrid type” model, cre-
ating a youth development
division within the Proba-
tion Department, rather
than a new agency.
Young people in custody
need to be held accountable
for their actions, but it’s
equally important that they
receive treatment and reha-
bilitative services to ensure
they can be successful
adults, Liang said.
“Within the current
framework, we can create
those specific outcomes and
specific models that are be-
ing advocated by these
youth groups,” he said.
The Probation Depart-
ment has been plagued in re-
cent years by scandal and
abuse investigations.
A Times investigation
last year found that, as use of
pepper spray by officers on
children and young adults in
custody has surged in recent
years, prompting recent
calls for reform, so too have
assaults on staff.
In 2004, the department
was put under federal over-
sight after a U.S. Depart-
ment of Justice investiga-
tion revealed unsafe and
abusive conditions in its ju-
venile halls. Four years later,
a similar investigation found
widespread civil rights viola-
tions in its then 19 probation
camps.
Since then, the Board of
Supervisors has worked to
shrink the juvenile justice
system. About 500 young
people are being held in the
county’s locked facilities, in-
cluding two juvenile halls
and six probation camps, ac-
cording to Kuehl’s office.
Kuehl, who has two years
left in her term, said that if it
were up to her, the majority
of young people in custody
would not be kept in locked
facilities.
“Now, we will always have
young people that need to be
isolated from the communi-
ty because they’re danger-
ous and it’s [best for] public
safety,” said Kuehl, who isn’t
planning to run for reelec-
tion. “So there will be locked
facilities, but I don’t believe
that we want to see them
look like prisons with barbed
wire.”
Youth advocates point
out that the system includes
startling inequities. Black
youths in L.A. County are
over six times more likely to
be arrested and 25 times
more likely to be incarcer-
ated than their white peers,
according to California De-
partment of Justice data
analyzed by county re-
searchers.
And the children and
young adults in custody
often have serious mental
health issues, further com-
plicated by significant child-
hood trauma, including
physical, emotional and sex-
ual abuse.
Over the next several
months, county officials
must determine how the
new department would be
created and financed, and
whether any state laws
would keep the county’s plan
from moving forward.
The plan approved
unanimously by the supervi-
sors Tuesday calls for a
gradual wind-down of the
Probation Department’s ju-
venile operations and an ini-
tial $75-million investment
in the Department of Youth
Development in the next
county budget, which is ap-
proved in June.
A new mentality is
needed to better serve young
people in custody, the super-
visors said in their motion.
“The county must resist a
narrative about these young
people that does not leave
space for hope and healing,
and insist on a structure
that promotes positive
youth development and re-
habilitation at all costs,”
Kuehl and Ridley-Thomas
wrote.
Ridley-Thomas later said
it more bluntly: “Our youth
can’t get well in a cell.”Times staff writer Matt
Stiles contributed to this
report.County moves
to overhaul
juvenile justice
Supervisors want to
create a ‘care-first’
model to replace the
focus on punishment.
By Jaclyn CosgroveThe Los Angeles Police
Commission ruled Tuesday
that an LAPD sergeant
acted within department
policy when he fatally shot a
31-year-old man who was
holding a bicycle part that
resembled a handgun in Cul-
ver City in January.
The unanimous decision,
justifying the sergeant’s ac-
tions and clearing him of any
punishment, came after
family members of Victor
Valencia told the commis-
sion during a virtual Zoom
meeting that Valencia suf-
fered from mental illness,
was of little threat and de-
served better.
“There’s other ways to go
about things,” said Sara
Cervantes, Valencia’s cous-
in. “What gave the reason for
this officer to shoot down my
cousin like he was nothing?”
Cervantes and another
family member said that of-
ficers should be better
trained to understand peo-
ple with mental illness and
see them as people deserv-
ing of compassion.
Commission President
Eileen Decker told the family
that the commission would
hear all the evidence in the
case and “adjudicate the
case fairly and objectively in
accordance with the law.”
The commission then
went into closed session,
where it agreed with recom-
mendations from LAPD
Chief Michel Moore and a
separate panel that reviews
police shootings that Sgt.
Colin Langsdale, who shot
Valencia, should receive a
tactical debriefing but was
otherwise in line with de-
partment policy and there-
fore justified in his actions.
Valencia’s killing has
been protested by activistsin the city who said Valencia
did not have a gun and
should not have been shot.
The commission’s ruling
comes amid a broader dis-
cussion in L.A. about the
role police should play in
cases involving people with
mental illness, with activists
and police agreeing that al-
ternative health providers
would be better equipped to
respond to certain calls for
help.
However, it’s likely the
call that brought Langsdale
to the Culver City street
where Valencia was would
elicit a police response re-
gardless, given its nature.
According to a report
Moore provided to the com-
mission Tuesday, Langsdale
responded to the area of
South Sepulveda and South
Venice boulevards about
12:45 p.m. Saturday after po-
lice received reports of a
man with a gun — with onecaller saying he was “waving
it around.”
Langsdale did not have
his body camera activated
when he first arrived at the
scene, according to police.
Once he activated it, it cap-
tured Valencia already on
the ground and Langsdale
standing behind the open
door of his police car, gun
drawn.
Langsdale said he be-
lieved Valencia had a gun.
Other witnesses at the scene
said they also believed he
had a gun. Surveillance
footage from a local gas sta-
tion released by police
showed Valencia holding up
the bicycle part and appear-
ing agitated.
Cervantes, Valencia’s
cousin, said L.A. needs more
services for people with
mental illness, and LAPD
officers need far better train-
ing on how to interact with
them.Fatal LAPD shooting is ruled justified
By Kevin Rector
THANKSGIVING EVE
Luis SincoLos Angeles TimesBeachgoers watch the sunset in Belmont Shore on Tuesday. Sun and mild temperatures are forecast for
Southern California on the holiday, though developing Santa Ana winds will raise the fire danger.Want to personalize your
California license plate us-
ing a racy term?
You’ll soon be able to. A
federal judge on Tuesday
struck down the state’s ban
on certain “offensive” vanity
plates, ruling that the pro-
hibition violates free speech
rights.
Although creative per-
sonalized plates regularly
make their way through a re-
view process, some never get
past the Department of Mo-
tor Vehicles. The state
agency prohibits plates it
deems to be “offensive to
good taste and decency,” in-
cluding those with sexual
connotations; vulgar, insult-
ing or degrading terms; pro-
fanities; or “negative conno-
tations to a specific group.”
But illicit messages may
soon pervade the roadway
after U.S. District Judge Jon
Tigar in Oakland ruled that
the DMV “unconstitutiona-
lly discriminates” with its
guidelines for deciding per-
sonalized plates.
“It really goes to show
that when you give depart-
ment officials the discretion
to ban everything that they
believe ‘offensive to good
taste and decency,’ they will
necessarily make subjective
and arbitrary results,” said
Wen Fa, attorney for the Pa-
cific Legal Foundation,
which backed the case. “This
decision could have impor-
tant ramifications in the free
speech world.”
News of the victory
thrilled Paul Chris Ogilvie,
one of five people who
brought the case against the
DMV. Ogilvie had requested
the plate “OGWOOLF,” a
combination of a nickname
his Army drill sergeant riffed
off his last name, “OG,” andwhat his friends at home call
him, “Woolf.” The DMV de-
nied his application because
the configuration “con-
tained a gang reference,” the
court ruling said. “OG” can
mean “original gangster.”
“To be able to get those
on my plates, I was so ex-
cited about it,” said Ogilvie,
who sports three wolf tat-
toos. “And then to be dashed
by gang affiliation, I was like,
‘You got to be kidding me!’ ”
The DMV did not im-
mediately respond to re-
quests for comment.
The court ruling does not
prohibit the DMV from po-
tentially banning certain
words that fall out of the
scope of the 1st Amendment
— such as profanity and hate
speech — but the court rec-
ognized that some surpris-
ing license plates might soon
abound.
“Of course, not regulat-
ing for taste means allowingspeech that many — includ-
ing this Court — might find
in poor taste or even offen-
sive,” the ruling said.
The DMV charges $53 to
personalize a license plate
and $43 for an annual renew-
al. The DMV processed
233,791 applications in 2019 —
slightly fewer than in 2018,
when the DMV denied over
30,000 of its 249,000 requests,
according to the suit.
“What we don’t know at
this point is whether the
DMV will enact a new, per-
haps more narrowly crafted
regulation, so I think that
would have some impact on
the number on the road,” Fa
said. “But certainly a lot of li-
cense plates that were re-
jected in the past would be
approved.”
Four other plaintiffs in
the case also had their li-
cense plate applications de-
nied, a Pacific Legal Founda-
tion news release said:8 SLAAYRR: James Blair
of San Mateo said he wanted
to pay tribute to his favorite
metal band, Slayer, but the
department found the re-
quest “threatening, aggres-
sive, or hostile.”
8 QUEER: Amrit Kohli of
Oakland established Queer
Folks Records in attempt to
reclaim the word “queer.”
The department denied his
request because it could be
considered offensive.
8 DUK N A: Andrea Cam-
panile of Monterey, who
owns two Ducati motor-
cycles, said she intended it to
mean “Ducati and Andrea.”
That request was found
“profane or obscene.”
8 BO11LUX: Paul Craw-
ford of San Diego wanted his
plate to represent his Shake-
speare Pub’s slogan, “Real
beer, proper food, no bol-
locks.” It was also denied be-
cause it could be construed
to be of a sexual nature.GNGSTA OK: Judge allows ‘offensive’ license plates
By Faith E. Pinho
As many as 76,000 South-
ern California Edison cus-
tomers could spend Thanks-
giving without power be-
cause of elevated wildfire
risk, the utility company
said Wednesday.
Communities from Hem-
et to Ventura may lose power
as part of a “public safety
power shut-off,” intended to
keep electrical systems from
becoming a source of wild-
fire ignition, as forecasts call
for gusty Santa Ana winds
and dry conditions across
the Southland.
The National Weather
Service said the powerful
winds are expected to begin
Thursday and last through
Friday evening.
Gusts of up to 65 mph
could pummel parts of the
San Fernando Valley, Santa
Monica Mountains, Santa
Clarita Valley, San Gabriel
Mountains and Malibu, said
meteorologist Ryan Kittell
of the National Weather
Service in Oxnard.
“We are expecting the
peak to be Thursday night
through Friday,” Kittell said,
“but Thursday afternoon
will also be pretty windy. It’s
not going to be the greatest
time for anyone with plans
for portable shelters or eat-
ing outdoors.”
It will be a colder Santa
Ana event than usual, Kittell
said, with temperatures hov-
ering in the upper 60s to
mid-70s, but no less danger-
ous. The weather service up-
graded a fire weather watch
to a red flag warning for
much of Los Angeles and
Ventura counties.
Red flag warnings indi-
cate ideal conditions for
wildfires to ignite.
Edison spokesman Reg-
gie Kumar said the decision
to shut off power — espe-
cially on one of the most an-ticipated holidays of the year
— won’t be taken lightly but
added that public safety has
to be a priority.
“We know public safety
power shut-offs are disrup-
tive to our customers and
communities, especially
during the Thanksgiving
holiday,” he said. “We are do-
ing all we can to keep the
power flowing and reduce
the number and length of
our shut-offs that could oc-
cur possibly [Thursday] or
Friday.”
The company has al-
ready notified customers
who may be affected by the
shut-off, Kumar said, which
includes more than 15,
customers in L.A. County,
42,000 in San Bernardino
County and 12,000 in Ven-
tura County, among others.
Kumar said Edison is
able to “isolate its circuits,”
meaning any shut-offs will
be as narrow and specific as
possible, in order to limit thenumber of homes without
power. Residents can enter
their address at
http://www.sce.com/wildfire/psps
to see if they may be affected.
Edison has already come
under scrutiny for its poten-
tial role in September’s Bob-
cat fire, which may have ig-
nited after tree branches hit
one of the utility’s power
lines. That fire burned
through more than 115,
acres and destroyed at least
80 homes, according to the
U.S. Forest Service.
But it’s not only winds
that pose a threat: Low hu-
midity and a lack of precipi-
tation can dry out vegeta-
tion, creating rife fuel for
flames.
“Rain chances are look-
ing pretty minimal to non-
existent all the way through
at least the first week of De-
cember,” Kittel said. “In fact,
there may even be another
Santa Ana event sometime
in the middle of next week.”Power could be cut to 76,
By Hayley Smith