Posted on 02/14/2005 11:37:22 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Some of Arnold Schwarzenegger's political foes are wondering if Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is going a bit too far in his support of the governor.
On Feb. 6, a plane towing a banner that read "It's No Party for Nurses, Patients and Students — Arnoldwatch.net" flew over Schwarzenegger's Brentwood mansion while the governor hosted a Super Bowl party.
Groups representing nurses and consumers have criticized Schwarzenegger's opposition to proposals for expanding healthcare coverage, and they have been angered over what they say is the rollback of safety rules to assure minimum safe staffing in California hospitals.
Jerry Flanagan of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, one of the groups that hired the plane, said a Sheriff's Department helicopter intercepted the plane over Los Angeles and persuaded the pilot to abort his mission.
The pilot, who asked not to be identified, confirmed that a sheriff's helicopter started buzzing around him, and a pilot identifying himself as being with the Sheriff's Department said there had been some noise complaints and asked the plane to fly at a higher elevation, which would have put it in the cloud cover.
"I asked him: 'Are you politely asking me to leave?' and he said: `That's what the neighbors would like,' " the pilot said, adding that he cut his flight short ... snip ... even though he said he was flying legally.
Two days later, some nurses were staging a protest near the state Capitol when Donna Gerber of the California Nurses Assn. noticed two men with green Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department polo shirts and guns on their belts taking pictures of protesters.
When confronted, one of the men said enigmatically, "This is for background," and then the two men left in a marked Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department vehicle.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
http://www.kesq.com/global/story.asp?s=2942519&ClientType=Printable
LOS ANGELES The Los Angeles County Sheriff's money-saving practice of freeing inmates without serving their full terms is coming under increasing criticism.
This after two inmates allegedly went on killing sprees after being released early. Last month, a Los Angeles man allegedly killed his parents and ex-girlfriend one month after he was released from jail. He only spent three days of a 60-day sentence.
Last April, a man who was granted an early release from jail allegedly beat a Burbank woman to death with a hammer.
Two county supervisors say they have restored millions of dollars to Sheriff Lee Baca's budget -- enough for prisoners to serve their sentence.
Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Gloria Molina say they've given the sheriff's department 30 (m) million dollars last year, but they worry that extra money was not spent toward fixing problems in the jails.
But some of Baca's defenders blame the supervisors for cutting his budget by nearly 200 (m) million dollars in recent years, resulting in the loss of about 11-hundred deputies.
(APcredit: Los Angeles Daily News)
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