City Councilman Martin Ludlow has urged those he represents to put pressure on Sacramento — to get more money for police officers.

I’m still wondering where my current tax dollars are going. All my phone calls, e-mails, and faxes to Martin Ludlow haev been ignored. Many in my neighborhood — as in many predominately minority neighborhoods in the United States — can’t get any response from the police when they call them.

Yet they want MORE money. They’ve got to be kidding. Just last week a high ranking officer from the South (Central) Los Angeles division of the Los Angeles Police Department was crying on television when he asked for the public’s help in solving dozens of unsolved murders.

No matter how many police officers a city has — the already underserved population never seems to get more service.

The police or fire department not showing up or refusing to show up is ingrained in the stories my family tell — from the 1920s until today.

My office — when I was a criminal defense attorney — was littered with stories of how the police wouldn’t come unless the 911 caller lied. The most often used fib to get the police to come — “He’s got a gun!” What people use to absolutely guarantee the police come to the scene, “Officer Down!”

Now don’t get me wrong — too much policing scares us as well. The stories of police brutality in Los Angeles, Compton, and Cincinatti — give many of us a healthy fear of the police. We know if we call them, we may end up dead ourselves. Quite a dilemma — but throwing more money at it — not that answer I would choose.

(more…)