This is how Benavides feels about people standing up to the gang injunction! He doesn’t want people to care about what is happening in Townsend. He doesn’t care that it is his own constituents, both inside and outside of the Gi zone, that raised the issue. It is his own constituents who are fighting this injunction. He thinks he is the only one who has been affected by neighborhood violence. He thinks he is the only one who has visited people in jail. He thinks that people against a gang injunction are in favor of neighborhood violence. This shows how little he has paid attention to what people are saying. This shows how little he cares about the 24 people on the injunction. This shows how little he cares about the police violence in the area. This shows how little he cares about police corruption. He asks what have the activists done to help the 24 people. What have you done Benavides? Have you met with anyone of them? Have you attended any of the hearings? Do you care if they have lawyers? Do you care that there are people on the list who are working and have families? Do you care that one of your former mentees is on the list? Have you reached out to him? Have you offered any of them jobs or chances for community service? Have you spent hours walking the neighborhood, trying to inform as many people as possible? Did you read the 500 page document? Have you talked with people on other Gis In OC? We have done all of this. He mocks having a “cause?” What kind of person, no what kind of city council member, mocks caring about someone other than yourself. What kind of city council member mocks his own constituents when they exercise their rights? Who is he representing? He does not understand why anyone would care about the community in the GI zone. Has he read our solutions proposal? Does he know why we are against it? How dare he treat us like opportunists. He is the politician, not us. Many of us have our own histories regarding gangs, gang violence and police violence. Many of went to college to learn how to help our people. Yet, Benavides see this a bad thing. He sees learning from life experiences and using whatever skills we have to confront an issue and look for solutions, as bad thing. What is wrong with him? Is this because there are development interests in Townsend and he is in real estate? Is this because he is trying to regain the favor of the police union? Is this because he wants to someday be the new Mayor Pulido? Time will tell. What we do know is that he has no issue using community tragedies to justify his willing ignorance of the realities of a gang injunction.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 01:10:29 +0000
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