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November 23, 2004
Update on an old post -- the band plays on
On Oct 20 I wrote a long post on California's Proposition 66 which would have gutted the current 3 strikes law. Happily, it did not pass. To this day the post is still generating comments and emails. (Interestingly, if you put *california prop 66* in the Yahoo Search, my post is #2)
One of the startling things about Prop. 66 was the attempt to remove several crimes from the list of strike-able offenses. If passed, Prop 66 would have removed gang crimes from strike designations. Somehow, I get the impression that a lot of people really don't understand how dangerous and pervasive gang crime is. It is more than graffitii or drugs. It's more than gangbangers fighting amongst themselves over "turf." Even as much as I see the results of it through my work, when it almost touched my family, it still shocked me.
My oldest daughter, Jenn, works as a paramedic. She loves her job (she even has a license plate frame on her car that says "My other care is an ambulance"), even though it sometimes takes her into pretty mean territory.
A couple of months back, in an area her company services, there was an altercation between a gang member and a police officer. The officer was jumped, the gangbanger wrestling way the officer's baton then trying to beat him with it. The gangbanger was shot and killed. He was a member of a gang with a pretty violent reputation and, true to their billing, they put the word out on the street they were looking to assassinate this officer. That, in a of itself, is not unusual. From time to time these "hits" are announced, most come to nothing. But within a couple of days, the threat changed.
Now the gang wanted to get to any cop. And the way they wanted to do it was to send out false medical emergency calls and then take hostage the paramedics/emts. They then would kill any cops who rolled to rescue the hostages.
For several days Jenn's unit did not roll without being accompanied by a SWAT member and having SWAT arrive on the scene first. As time wore on, it was having regular black & whites get to the scene first then allowing the ambulance to roll. Eventually, the threat was withdrawn and life went on.
For all of that, if the gangbanger who issued the order (and later stood it down) was found and charged with making a criminal threat, under Prop 66 it would not be allowed to be considered a strike.
That is unacceptable.
Posted by Darleen at November 23, 2004 12:13 PM
Comments
The story is really illustative! I'm also happy Prop 66 didn't pass.
Posted by: Ambulance Nurse at July 7, 2005 06:45 AM