I am six forty years later with Mokelly. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio
app and it's happening again and again and again. They were three separate and
unrelated attacks on metro buses or metro train platforms in the past twenty four hours.
Three two of them were stabbings. One was originally reported as a stabbing,
but it was actually attacked by wrench. Three different attacks, three different
areas of the city. It's not like we can relegate it to one portion
of town. It's not like we can say, well, it's only happening
at night. Know what's happening all times of the day, all areas of
La County. These three attacks, after my conversation with La County Supervisor Catherine
Barker, who has been very vocal about this issue, let me go back
to the beginning, the very beginning, when we first started talking about violence
on the metro, I received a number of notes from you, messages from
you cross various social media saying MO, to the effect of MO, you're
putting too much on it. You're exaggerating it's not as bad as here,
or it's not as bad as there over here in Washington, DC, it's
happening like this, It's not happening every day. It's more safe. I
remember someone was sending me a message saying it was more safe than driving in
a car, because people drive, and they getting accidents and die in automobile
accidents every single day. I've never heard much of people getting stabbed every single
day while driving in their car. But as the tide began to change,
I think, I think maybe I'm wrong. People began to see the undeniable
truth that the Metro as we know it is uncontrollably violent. And sometimes I
can be prone to hyperbole, but this is not one of those times.
It is getting close to becoming an everyday occurrence. A person was assaulted a
board a metro bus today, the third attack in the Encino area, and
a suspect was taken into custody. And as I said, this is a
third attack tied to the transit system within the past twenty four hours. According
to LAPD, officers responded around two o five to the reported attack near the
intersection of Ventura Boulevard and Balboa Avenue. The suspect, who apparently suffered from
a mental illness, stole a cell phone from the victim before slamming a wrench
into his chest. The victim was not seriously injured, thank goodness, and
did not require hospitalization. The suspect was taken into custody. That was the
most recent attack. Let me go back to Monday. At about seven h
five pm Monday, a teenage boy was stabbed during an attempted robbery a board
a metro bus. Remember we had been talking about these attacks on buses against
operators and passengers. Boy was stabbed during an attempted robbery a board a metro
bus near West Los Phelis Road and South Central Avenue in Glendale. And there's
something else that should be highlighted. This is not what I call garden variety
gang activity, where gang members or attacking gang members. You have people who
are not gang members. Maybe they're homeless, maybe they're suffered from mental illness,
maybe they're under the influence of drugs or a combination of these things.
They are attacking random people, civilians like you and me, mother's children.
It does not matter. Everyone is equally vulnerable and susceptible. But this teenage
boy was stabbed and there were three juvenile suspects who approached the victim and attempted
to steal his backpack. The victim was stabbed during the attempted robbery and the
suspects ran away from the scene. This is according to the Glendale Police Department.
They caught two of the three suspects. The third suspect is still at
large. Two hours later, about nine oh five pm last night, a
woman was stabbed at a Metro sea which is the Green Line station at South
Vermont Avenue and the one oh five Freeway. I know this stop and location
intimately. It is literally the closest pickup point for any metro bus or train
from where I live. I passed it every single day. And this victim
who was attacked on an elevator, I know that elevator. I know it
is on the freeway level as you exit the one oh five Freeway at Vermont,
and it will take you down to the street level where you can pick
up the train, and there's also a parking ride there. But this victim
was stabbed while boarding or riding an elevator going from the freeway level down to
the street level. A man wearing all black got away boarding a westbound train
toward Hawthorne, And as you know, these attacks are the latest incidents of
VYE all across the Metro transit system. I'm not talking about homelessness in general.
I'm not talking about people doing drugs on the trains or buses. I'm
not talking about fair jumpers. Those happen all day, every day in all
places on Metro. I am only talking about violence in which people are getting
shanked, getting hit with wrenches. It is something that we cannot ignore anymore.
And this is not about comedy. This is not about pointing fingers.
This is about having an honest conversation. Part of the reason we started talking
about Metro was because Metro was talking about everything except the violence. It was
talking about, well, it's a mental health issue, you heard Maorbassi.
We've heard about how we need to deal with the mental health aspect of it.
We've heard about how writers they want information. So they rolled out the
ambassadors as if that was going to change something. In fact, we got
more and more ambassadors over the previous months. We got slight acknowledgment of the
actual violence. And here is the bottom line. Until the violence is addressed,
nothing else matters. Absolutely nothing else matters. And I am not requiring
Metro to prevent all violence. That's not what I'm saying. Crazy and criminal
happen. You can't prevent crime, but you can't address it. You can
act like it's the singularly most important issue confronting the Metro. There is nothing
else that matters. I don't care about graffiti. I don't even care about
a cleanliness or it being unsanitary in nature. If you cannot do something honestly,
attempt to do something to address the violence being perpetrated on writers and operators,
nothing else matters. When we come back, we're going to hear some
audio Cafi's own Blake Trolley was out talking to different members of the subway and
also bus writing community. We'll also hear from LAPD interim chief Troy what he's
talking about relative to this violence and trying to propose solutions and more. You're
listening to later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty And Honestly,
I didn't choose this Metro story. It kind of chose me. I
say that because I was I'm gonna be completely honest. I had the privilege.
I was fortunate enough when I was riding the Metro. It was by
choice. It wasn't because I had no choice. I exercised the choice.
I had the option. I wanted to save money. I didn't want to
spend all that time in my car. I didn't want to burn all that
gas. I wanted to be able to use because time wise it was about
equal. It was gonna take me about the same amount of time with all
these transfers to go from home to the office via the subway and above ground
rail than if I were to actually drive. But I would save some money,
and if I were on the train, I could maybe get some work
done pull out my computer. But I was then not. Now I have
exercised a different choice, and I won't ever get on the metro, or
at least for the foreseeable future. I have no reason to get on it,
and I would not recommend anyone that I personally we care about getting on
it either. And just to let you know, we have a request in
too, Supervisor Catherine Barger to maybe come back on the show tonight. Issues
available. We had a very very insightful conversation last week, but that was
before all this has happened, and I'm sure what's happening in the La County
Supervisors meeting is all about this, and I would love to hear how that
body is deliberating over something like this. But I had a choice, and
I chose to get on the train each and every day. And I only
had to worry about and I was talking about this with Twala during the break.
The only thing I had to worry about, by and large, the
homeless people, kids who were acting up getting on the train, you know,
jumping fares, acting a fool. But I didn't have to worry about
random, unprovoked acts of violence. I didn't back then, and this is
maybe five six years ago. I didn't feel for my personal safety. I
absolutely would now KF I so owned Blake trolley was out in various areas around
the city and county getting people's thoughts about the Metro. Some people were willing
to give their name, others weren't. But here's the conversation that he had
with an unnamed writer what he thought because of these recent attacks, what he
saw on his daily commute, and whether any of this has changed how he
would approach commuting day to day. What do you make of a woman being
stabbed taking the elevator here, couldn't stab that's a little wild, it's a
little harmed. I don't know. I tell you, the truth makes me
double think about public transportation, just like the metro brilliant safe. Do you
ride Metro often? Not really? But hearing this might change my thought of
writing. That's again, God, Just so you took it today? Yeah?
I took it today, heading to work right now, a little late,
but all right. Did you see anything on your ride today? Nah?
Just a lot of homeless people. What you saw today? Yeah,
pretty much, that's it. That was pretty noticeable. Though, what could
you say you saw from your point of view as a passenger? No,
it makes me really feel unsafe when there's a lot of homeless people, especially
when the tweaking out and stuff makes you feel uncomfortable, makes you not want
to pay for the bus anymore. Did you take the rail system as well
today? Yeah? I take the rail system. I'm gonna catch the bus
right now, gotcha? All right, thank you, I appreciate it.
Thanks man. That's Blake Trolley. And there's some other statements which will be
coming in. We'll give that to you. As far as whether Ellie County
Board of Supervisors individually or as a body would have a statement about Metro.
What is going to be going on LAPD. Interim Chief Choy had some thoughts
as well in some public remarks. There's other discussions about potentially how how do
we keep weapons off? Do we need additional security at the gates? But
these are all ongoing discussions that we need to keep working with MTA. I
will say that we are looking at a variety of ways that we can help
our partners at MTA and the other agencies that are involved in policing this,
the trains and the bus. I'm not a member of law enforcement. I
can't begin to strategize what law enforcement would need to do to manage Metro,
but this I can say as a concerned citizen, as a voter, as
someone who cares about the community in which he lives. This can't continue as
it is. I don't know if the answer is putting an officer on every
platform, every train, and every bus, and financially that's probably not feasible.
But I do know the longer we wait, the more people who will
be hurt. And I get the sneaking suspicion that a lot of this crime
is probably reflexive in nature, where criminals know where they can commit crime and
there is a lesser path of resistance. I don't believe that one stabbing is
completely emotionally unrelated to other stabbings. I think the word is out that if
you're going to harm someone on a metro train, there's a good chance you
might get away with it. Or if you're going to go crime, go
crime on a metro bus or metro train. And here's something else we've heard
from the metro bus operators. They made it clear they had a sick out
and that was last week, that was before this was happening. I wonder
what that means for next week and a week after that, or the month
after that. Because with all due respect to lapd Item Chief Choy, nothing
has changed. With all due respect to the La County Board of Supervisors,
nothing has changed. We all can see the problem, we can identify the
problem. We all probably agree that this is unacceptable. This this amount of
crime. People, citizens, parents, grandparents, even children. I told
you about a boy, and we know about a grandmother who was killed.
It's all ages, all ethnicities, everyone is dealing with it. We all
can point at it and say this is unacceptable, But nothing has changed since
we all can agree as they say to Church, touch and degree, this
is unacceptable. Well, what is going to be the short term solution or
the short term strategy until we can get to the long term strategy. We
can't have tomorrow just like today. We can't have commuters and writers get on
a train or bus. We can't have operators operate a train or bus tomorrow
just like today, and expect tomorrow to be different. Friend, simply because
we all can agree that crime is a problem. When we come back,
I'm going to a attack this from a different vantage point and explain how there's
overlap with these ills pun intended here of society of La County, of La
City, and how crime on Metro, how homelessness on Metro is going to
have some unintended consequences because once we've stopped addressing one, then we have to
deal with the other and they start to overlap. Remember I was telling you
about this hepatitis outbreak, but it's coming from the homeless population. Well,
when you talk about the homeless population, you also have to talk about Metro.
So this hepatitis outbreak will have unintended consequences for writers on Metro. That's
next. You're listening to later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI for LA
County. You know, I talk a lot about civics, learning how your
government works, what office or elected official is responsible for this or that for
reasons like this, what I'm getting ready to talk about LA County supervisors.
They're responsible for managing facilities, resources services. They're kind of like mayors for
various portions of these cities, portion of La City, unincorporated areas of LA
County, and LA City. But they're like mayors without getting too deep in
the weeds. They're managing facilities, resources services. So when I talk about
La County Department of Public Health anything connected to that services resources facilities, or
talk about metro facilities resources services, there's overlap and the issues of one portion
are inextricably linked to issues of another. Talking about hepatitis, La County health
officials are continuing to investigate this outbreak of what is at this point, five
different Hepatitis A infections. Here's what's really important. These infections were identified among
the homeless population, and this is since March. The homeless population is not
one which is going to be tested consistently or tested frequently. I can't tell
you and I don't think La County Department of Public Health can tell you that
health status of all the homeless population. But this is what I can tell
you. It is a community which is not unto itself. It is not
self in case, it's not self enclosed. It is going to move in
and out of every portion of La County. They will get on Metro,
they will ride Metro, they will go to sleep on Metro. Some will
even do drugs on Metro. The point of it is saying that whatever happens
to the homeless population can happen to the general population. If there is an
outbreak of any kind, and I call it the hepatitis alphabet, be it
a hepatitis B or C, it is an outbreak which could easily jump over
to the general population. Why Metro alone is a conduit. Metro is that
literal intersection where the non homeless population and the homeless population intersect. We've told
you about the stories in which La Metro was trying to remove some five to
six hundred different homeless people per night from trains per night, and with that,
any type of disease probably remains. I know they clean the trains,
yes, yes, yes, YadA, YadA yadah, blah blah blah.
But you can't, and here's the larger point. You can't talk about a
budding or burgeoning hepatitis a outbreak and not talk about the possibility of its spreading
if only because of what's happening on Metro. These things are not unrelated,
they are absolutely connected, because whatever's happening in the homeless community is not going
to stay in the homeless community when the homeless community is very prominent on Metro
going anywhere and everywhere. And I'm not saying that they need to be somehow
ostracized or put on some sort of island. I'm saying that we need not
be ignorant of the reality here that if there's a hepatitis break within the homeless
community, that hepatitis outbreak is very well possibly going to move over into the
general community if only because of Metro. So the problems of Metro are not
limited to Metro. We may say the crime on Metro is the crime on
Metro, but if there's a hepatitis outbreak in the homeless community and the homeless
community is writing Metro well, then that hepatitis outbreak is more likely to spread
and As I said before, we don't really know If this hepatitis outbreak is
limited to five people, that's just five people that the La County Department of
Public Health officials know of and have verified. Metro. What is happening right
now is going to have untold consequences and untold impact on La County. And
in the way that I started talking about Metro from a crime and safety standpoint,
do you remember I also talked about the unsanitary nature of it, not
just dangerous, but it's a health issue. And if we don't deal with
all these things at the same time, then we will have multiple problems which
are out of control but traceable back to Metro. Specifically, watch this story
this hepatitis a outbreak, because there will be some intersection and will be overlap
with the problems and issues of Metro. It's later with mo Kelly can't if
I am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app And when we come back,
we're going to turn the corner. No pun intended for just a moment
as we talk about cameras which are watching Southern California drivers for rolling stops,
and it can here you go, mark negatively impact Oh no, your credit
will tell you about it in just a moment. You're listening to Later with
Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty and during the break, I
was saying to Mark Ronner said, this next story is for you because it
sort of continues our ongoing conversation about capitalism. I feel flattered when you think
of me. Actually I do, but not in the way that you want
me to. Oh no, I'm taking what a disappointment. Let me tell
you about the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority or at MRCA. It's a public
entity that oversees more than seventy five thousand acres of southern California parkland. They're
giving out tickets, in fact, the giving out tickets for more than a
decade. Well, they don't call them tickets. They call them administrative citations.
And they are one hundred dollars for each and every time you roll through
a stop sign. And it's not the same as a citation or ticket issued
by a law enforcement officer or a highway patrol officer. These citations do not
count against your driving record or your insurance rates. But if you don't pay
them, it's a bill. And they can come after you. They can
send debt collectors after you, they can ruin your credit score. It's almost
like you any other credit card, just any type of item in which you
actually purchased or enter into an agreement to pay, except there's no agreement here,
and there's a question of whether this public entity has the authority to charge
one hundred dollars for these citations and also come after you. It's pretty amazing
listen to this. They're engaged in a deceptive practice of pretending to enforce the
motor vehicle code when they don't have the authority to do that, and they're
tricking people into paying these tickets. They are. At twelve fifteen PM on
a warm sunny day last July, Andrew Rice's adult kid did a rolling stop
in a Prius while leaving the Temescal Canyon parking lot near Pacific Palisades. What
Rice's kid didn't know was that he was being filmed as he did so,
and the recording would result in a one hundred dollars administrative citations from the Mountains
Recreation and Conservation Authorities catch Up mrca republic entity that oversees more than seventy five
thousand acres to child in California. Start copying me. That's not the same
as a ticket issued by a cop or a highway patrol officer. Right,
it doesn't count against your driving record or your insurance rates Nope, but failure
to pay canon actor credit score and can possibly result in debt collectors coming out.
I wrote that that's what happened to Santa Monica resident Rice, the registered
owner of the car. He received a letter from a debt collector saying he
owed one hundred bucks for a citation issued by the MRCA. He says he
never saw the original citation, which may have appeared as junk mail. It
looks like it's a citation you might get from the city of Santa Monica,
the city of Los Angeles, from a police department. But the language in
it was strange, and so I researched the you know what is under it,
and as it turns out, it's a violation for breaking in park role.
Wait, let's rewind the tape. See that white car behind Rice,
it's doing a rolling stop at the exact same stop sign where his kid was
busting. I think everyone leaving this parking lot does that. Well, maybe
not everyone, but in the hours my cameraman and I were at timescal we
saw numerous drivers roll through stop signs. We even saw an MRCA truck doing
This is not a program that is meant for public safety. This is a
program that is meant to make income for the park system. A spokeswoman for
the MRCA told me no one would be available for a no on camera interview,
but she said by email that the stop sign cameras are all about public
safety. She said the agency operates seven cameras at four parks, Temescal,
Marvin Browdie, mohalland Gateway Park, top of Tipanga Overlook and Franklin Canyon.
The MRCA issues roughly seventeen thousand stop signed citations a year, bringing in about
one point one million dollars in revenue. To be sure, they provide ample
warning that rolling stops will result in fines, But is this the best way
to raise funds? So I think it is a terrible abuse, and the
fact that it's gone on for a decade or more without anyone doing anything is
really shameful. Mark Ronner reaction. I think this is exactly like the plot
of an Old Adventures of Superman episode. I'm not kidding you. They stole
this is people were getting pulled over a little postage stamp sized town on a
highway that people didn't know they were speeding through, and if they couldn't pay
the fine, they go to jail. I know that, and then Superman
had to come get Jimmy Olsen out of the jail. That's what I think.
How's that for a response. Well, it's a good response, But
I don't know how legally they're able to do this. Maybe they're not.
Well, we'll see what happens in the future now that more media coverage has
come to it. I don't know about you, Mo, but I've been
in this business long enough to know that sometimes people do right up to the
level that they can get away with until there's stops from getting away with it.
But imagine you're going through a park. There's not a lot of car
traffic through a park, state park, regional park, neighborhood park. There's
not a lot of car traffic, and you're giving out one hundred dollars citations
for rolling through a stop sign. Knowing good and damn well, most people
are going to ignore the fake citation looking thing. You're gonna get in the
mail if you receive it at all or or notice it. And the next
thing, you know, maybe you're trying to go get a car, maybe
trying to qualify for a house, you realize, oh my gosh, there's
this thing on my credit from two years ago from some rolling stop sign that
you don't even remember. And that's just the fine. I'm quite sure it
escalates, you know, if you don't pay it after three months, it
probably doubles. There's something stupid like that. Yeah, and Superman, it's
not gonna come help you either. No, it's it's horrifying. Uh.
And I I'm trying to look up this episode while we're talking, and apparently
I can't multitask. I was gonna say, and to put it into terms
of people who don't know the area, I know exactly where this is.
Uh. Think of the deadest, quietest area that you live in, wherever
you are in the entire world. Think of that and think, oh,
I don't need to stop, like there's literally nobody here. That's what this
is. Also, what's another word for a rolling stop California stop. And
you can't do that in California, not legally, but the enforcement agency happens
to be actual law enforcement, not ranger rick with a camera hiding behind a
tree. I don't know what to say. I'm not to say. I
don't know why people put up with it. Honestly, i'd be raising Holy
hell, Oh, it's the last time I drive through wherever that is.
Yeah, I'm out, but it is something else to think about the next
time you were on a public park or a golf course for that matter.
I remember I got a rolling stop ticket. I've gotten two in my life.
One was cal State Domingus Hills back in the early nineties, like ninety
three ninety four, and they back then they had I don't know how it
is now, but their on campus police were actual police. And this was
eleven thirty, twelve o'clock at night. I was creeping coming from this young
woman's apartment. What yeah, you know, it's what young people do.
And so I rolled through the stop sign at midnight, and so they pulled
me over, and I was hot. I'm wearing my fraternity sweatshirt. And
it says, uh, excuse me, so, uh, why are you
here on campus? It's a college campus. I'm wearing a fraternity sweatshirt.
You look at my car and as a fraternity plate, I'm doing some college
stuff, some fraternity stuff. Sounds like it negatively impacted you. It did,
it did. And then the officer, I remember, it's clear as
day, said, uh, is there anything we need to worry about in
your car? Do your mind if we search your car? Me At that
point, I'm just pissed off. I said, sure, go ahead search
my car. And I knew it was it was junking. It's like,
you're not gonna find anything. I don't do weed or anything, so I
had nothing to worry about. Well, it's a good thing. Police never
plant anything. Well, look, I could have taken a test and I
would have that would have passed with flying colors. I wouldn't worried about that
per se. And then they asked, do you have any weapons like grenades
or anything. There's a grenade in my pants, officer. And it's like,
this is how I end up in jail because I was so close from
telling where, telling him where to get off. Where would that have been
exactly? I'm not gonna say. All I'm saying is I understand what it's
like to be mistreated for a rolling stop. That's all I'm saying. And
if it turned out to be the MRCA, the MCA, the MTA,
whatever this fly by Night organization is, well we'd have a misunderstanding right then
and there. Show them that's right. Stop trying to act quiet to Alla.
You know exactly what I'm dealing with. It's later with mo Kelly,
can't I M six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeart ready at perfect
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