Free Republic

A Black man who allegedly punched a deputy and had a handgun was shot and killed by deputies Monday afternoon in the unincorporated Westmont area near South Los Angeles. .....

Could Ferguson happen here? Some would say it already did — nearly five decades ago. Days of sometimes violent demonstrations in Ferguson, Mo., erupted after Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen, was shot dead by a police officer Aug. 9, allegedly in self-defense. At the height of the civil rights movement, the Watts riots were triggered after a young black motorist was pulled over and arrested by a white California Highway Patrolman on Aug. 11, 1965, on suspicion of drunk driving. The struggle to arrest him sparked six days of rioting that claimed the lives of 34 people, injured more...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE!!! July 14, 2011 Contact: (323) 556-2623 LOS ANGELES—The newly formed black led South Central L.A. Tea Party group will hold a major rally to expose the lies and misinformation of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) during its 102nd annual convention in Los Angeles on July 24. The purpose of the rally is to bring attention to the failed liberal big government agenda of the NAACP and to expose their lies and hypocrisy on race issues. Who: South Central L.A. Tea Party What: Rally to expose the failed big government agenda and lies...

Los Angeles - Deep inside the bunker. Your erstwhile war correspondent clacks out another column on life as lived in America's second-largest city. That popping sound you hear in the background isn't the Orville Redenbacher or my stiff joints snapping as I stretch for one more M&M. That's the sound of sporadic small-arms fire, incoming rounds pinging off the new armor plating I have recently installed around my writing compound. It's called "defensive architecture," but I won't object if you find it offensive. Big Bill Bratton, the politician's favorite cop, tells us crime is down; race has nothing to do...

Hines has pleaded not guilty to a series of felonies that could bring him a life prison term. Police are still searching for the intended victims, who have not come forward. Hines is a Four Trey Crip, said Los Angeles Police Lt. Paul Stalker, commanding officer of detectives in the department's Newton Division, which covers 10 square miles of South Los Angeles, a shifting mosaic of gang territories. The gunman's intended victims, investigators believe, were probably Bloods, perhaps members of a branch called AFC, or "All for Crime." Generally, Bloods control the east side of Central and Crips the west....

The sun splashed onto the roof of a church, filling the faces of two golden statues of angels who opened their arms to the sky. It was the first light of the morning, which made everything look pretty, even the hardened heart of South Los Angeles. Don't be fooled, said 50-year-old Darrell Pruitt, waving a crooked cautionary finger. He walked down Central Avenue, carrying a dripping cup of coffee back to his one-room apartment, as he does each morning before work.

On April 12, a Wednesday, a boulder-size concrete block was hurled at my car as I passed the Janie Poe public-housing complex on Central Avenue in Sarasota's Newtown. [The predominantly black neighborhood north of downtown.] It narrowly missed the windshield and, after swerving out the way of oncoming traffic, I hotheadedly pulled a U-turn back toward the 15 or so youths -- who appeared to be 12- to 18-year-olds -- standing in front of and just beyond the wall of an apartment at the edges of Janie Poe. I turned into 23rd Street and called 911, and several of the...

Wary of public anger over Stanley Tookie Williams' pending execution, local leaders on Friday called for peace if the Crips gang co-founder is put to death next week for four shotgun murders in Los Angeles County. Authorities have received reports of possible plans to commit violence if Williams is denied clemency, calling the threats a "credible concern."

During the absolute sham that happened on the floor of the United States House of Representatives on Thursday afternoon, Rep. Maxine Waters of California finally admitted for the official record what many of us have known for a long time - Michael Moore runs the Democratic Party. Waters took to the well of the House near the end of what can very loosely be called a debate on the question of objecting to the certification of the Ohio electoral votes of the 2004 presidential election. In a quivering voice that betrayed either an oncoming eruption of tears or outright fury,...