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From Los Angeles Times

The Alameda incident: 'First responders' who don't

Police and firefighters stood by and watched a suicidal man drown. We need to restore the principle that the real constituency for public safety is the public, not bureaucrats and government workers.

by Steven Greenhut

July 20, 2011

On Memorial Day, a suicidal man waded into San Francisco Bay outside the city of Alameda and stood there for about an hour, neck deep in chilly water, as about 75 bystanders watched. Local police and firefighters were dispatched to the scene after the man's desperate mother called 911, but they refused to help. After the man drowned, the assembled "first responders" also refused to wade into the water to retrieve his body; they left that job for a bystander.

The incident sparked widespread outrage in Northern California, and the response by the Fire Department and police only intensified the anger. The firefighters blamed local budget cuts for denying them the training and equipment necessary for cold-water rescues. The police said that they didn't know if the man was dangerous and therefore couldn't risk the safety of officers.

After a local TV news crew asked him whether he would save a drowning child in the bay, Alameda Fire Chief Ricci Zombeck gave an answer that made him the butt of local talk-show mockery: "Well, if I was off duty, I would know what I would do, but I think you're asking me my on-duty response, and I would have to stay within our policies and procedures, because that's what's required by our department to do."

If you stand a better chance of being rescued by the official rescuers when they are off duty, then what is the purpose of these departments, which consume the lion's share of city budgets and whose employees — in California anyway — receive exceedingly handsome salaries?

In Orange County, where I worked for a newspaper for 11 years, the average pay and benefits package for a firefighter is $175,000 a year. Virtually every Orange County deputy sheriff earns, in pay and overtime, more than $100,000 a year, with a significant percentage earning more than $150,000. In many cities, police and fire budgets eat up more than three-quarters of the budget, and that doesn't count the unfunded liabilities for generous pension packages, which can amount to more than 90% of a worker's final year's pay. It's hard to argue that these departments are so starved for funds that they're entitled to stop saving lives.

After I wrote a newspaper column deploring the Alameda incident, I received many emails from self-identified police officers and firefighters. Though a few were appalled by the new public safety culture they saw on display, most defended it; some even defended Zombeck's words. Many made reference to a fire in San Francisco that week that had claimed the life of at least one firefighter.

The message they sent was clear: Don't criticize firefighters, because they put their lives on the line protecting you.

There's no doubt that firefighters and police have tough and sometimes dangerous jobs, but that doesn't mean the public has no business criticizing them, especially if they have become infected with the bureaucratic mind-set spread by public-sector union activism. The unions defend their members' every action; to the extent that they admit a problem, they always blame tight budgets.

The unions that represent first responders also have a legislative agenda to reduce oversight and accountability. I recall when a state Assembly member closely aligned with public-safety unions contacted me about a union-backed bill that was too egregious even for his taste. Sponsored by a firefighters union after a district attorney prosecuted an on-duty firefighter for alleged misbehavior that led to a death, the bill in its original form would have offered immunity to firefighters even for gross negligence on the job. The legislation failed after the media started paying attention and ignited a contentious public debate.

Perhaps the outrage at the Alameda incident will likewise cause a far-reaching discussion, one that helps restore the principle that the real constituency for public safety is the public, not bureaucrats and government workers.

Steven Greenhut is the director of the Pacific Research Institute's Journalism Center and editor in chief of CalWatchdog.com. He continues to write a column for the Orange County Register. This piece was adapted from the summer issue of City Journal.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-greenhut-police-firefighters-un20110720,0,5560004,print.story

California's hidden hunger strike

It's hard to assess the claims of prisoners when reporters are being denied access to them.

July 20, 2011

Conditions in California prisons are so bad that a panel of federal judges ruled that they violate the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, but until recently the ensuing protests came mainly from lawyers rather than the inmates themselves. That changed on July 1, when thousands of inmates at one-third of the state's prisons started a hunger strike.

A core group of at least 400 inmates in four prisons continues to refuse food, protesting the way the state treats prisoners deemed to be gang members. The strike began in the Special Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison, where 1,100 inmates are isolated in soundproof cells for 22 1/2 hours a day. Their sole reprieve: one hour a day outside in a small area with high concrete walls.

Prison officials say this treatment is necessary to discourage membership in prison gangs, to obtain information on gang activity and to prevent "shot-calling" — the passing of orders from gang leaders to members in other prisons or out on the streets. Moreover, they say the hunger strike is being organized by gang leaders, and some strikers who would rather not participate are being coerced. Prisoner advocates, meanwhile, say such prolonged isolation leads to mental illness and is tantamount to torture.

So who's right? We might have a better handle on that if prison officials weren't refusing requests by The Times to interview striking inmates. Oscar Hidalgo, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, told Times staff writer Jack Dolan that media weren't being allowed into Pelican Bay "due to security and safety issues." We'd be more inclined to believe that, and not that prison officials were trying to avoid adverse publicity, if California's prisons didn't have such an extraordinary history of shoddy medical care and inhumane conditions. As it is, we think the public has a right to firsthand accounts of what goes on behind the barbed wire.

Isolating inmates might indeed be appropriate to prevent shot-calling; then again, that problem would probably be better solved by stopping the widespread smuggling of cellphones into state prisons. Isolation might also be good for temporary punishment, but it's not clear that such treatment is temporary. Hidalgo says one way to obtain release from the Special Housing Unit is to refrain from gang activity for six years — a remarkably long time to keep someone in solitary confinement simply for being a gang member.

But we'd rather not second-guess corrections procedures. It's hard to assess the rightness or wrongness of the hunger strikers without access to them, and until officials provide it, they're doing a disservice not just to inmates but to the people of California.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-prisons-20110720,0,2519338,print.story

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