The Los Angeles Times, which has published my editorial cartoons about Los Angeles and California since 2009, has fired me. The reason: the LAPD supplied them with “evidence” they say proves I lied when I wrote in May that the LAPD falsely charged me with jaywalking and treated me roughly and rudely in 2001. Listen to the audiotaped “evidence” — mostly unintelligible garbage — and read my detailed reply to this disgusting example of journalistic cowardice in the face of a violent and corrupt police department willing to lie to protect itself here, at ANewDomain.net.
Added at 8:08 EDT: Here’s a collection of videos that proves that handcuffing alleged jaywalkers isn’t unusual in LA, and may in fact by standard procedure.
21 Comments.
Well, now you have the theme for your next book.
So, basically, the cops have admitted to illegally recording you. Sue the bastards. You can even show harm (you got fired)
http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law
CrazyH,
Actually, the recording was legal. (Public place has no expectation of privacy, I believe.)
Yes, Ted can prove harm.
I think a legal mind would be most welcome at this point.
hrm, you may be right (I hate that! 😉
I wonder if the court would say the same thing if I recorded the next pig who pulled me over?
Great minds…
Quoting from that site:
*If you are recording someone without their knowledge in a public or semi-public place like a street or restaurant, the person whom you’re recording may or may not have “an objectively reasonable expectation that no one is listening in or overhearing the conversation,” and the reasonableness of the expectation would depend on the particular factual circumstances. Therefore, you cannot necessarily assume that you are in the clear simply because you are in a public place. *
In my mind, it comes down to a question of credibility. Has Ted Rall ever faked evidence, used unnecessary force, or otherwise violated peoples’ civil rights?
Can the LAPD make the same claim?
Unbelievable in every way! Hard to put this action in perspective with all the cartoons you did for them and the flack they could or did take in response from the LAPD – Just ridiculous! My best wishes for gaining support in response to this – “I just picked up my pride from underneath the payphone, and combed his breathe right out of my hair.” Sometimes, it’s not so easy…
Thanks, @Rikster. All I need people to do is listen to the audiotape.
To paraphrase:
“LATime’s Ted Rall crackdown: Don’t they have something better to do?”
Ted,
I never comment on the Times’ website, but I’ve been reading the paper for over 35 years. I thought it was April 1st and I was reading a joke when I saw Goldberg’s “For the Record” comments
You’ve been making me laugh with your usually spot on observations and opinions (It IS still the opinion pages isn’t it) for decades.
I simply can’t believe this happened. If memory serves, Lopez has written about the practice, and the Times has published articles condemning the practice. I’m sneaking this off at work, so I’m not listening to the tape yet. But I’m a “concerned citizen” of our great city who just can’t understand how this could happen.
It’s not as if you’re reporting hard news. You’re a cartoonist, for crikey’s sake.
I just registered, and am looking forward to seeing your next cartoon.
Welcome aboard!
I looked up this site when Ted got kicked off an aggregator site, and I missed one of my favorite cartoonists.
Here you’ll find erudite discussion, well-thought-out commentary and … oh, hell who am I kidding? It’s still the internet. Reading the article and being knowledgeable about the subject are not prerequisites for posting.
Ted,
I’ve just finished listening to the tape. Perhaps it’s the quality of my headphones, but I cannot hear pretty much anything. Yes, yes, I had the sound turned up. I mean that pretty much the entirety of the recording is just the sound of wind blowing and traffic going past. As you say, the audio quality is atrocious. I hear the occasional whistle, a few words from what sounds like a policeman, and occasionally I hear some woman’s voice but at a level where I can’t even figure out what she’s saying. Is she chewing out the cop? Complaining about the heat? Mentioning the price of a gallon of gas? At the end, you mention you ask about dining options. Even knowing that that was coming, I couldn’t make out what you said.
I’d like to ask for clarification about the things you’ve written about your L.A. Times “conversation” on this matter. Did a reporter who collects a paycheck from a major U.S. newspaper actually ask you why he couldn’t hear the sound of handcuffs or the sound of a laminated license hitting the ground? I’m not trying to be smartass here. I mean that as an actual question: Did an L.A. Times reporter ask you those things? Especially after hearing the sound quality of the recording?
Second, did an editor unilaterally decide you were lying and fire you? Is that how the L.A. Times does it? One person makes the call? Who else was involved in the discussion? Or was it a star chamber meeting? Do you even know who was on the jury?
Third. The focus on “details” that have changed — e.g., license flipped into the gutter vs. wallet thrown into the sewer. Doesn’t that seem, well, straw-graspy? Shouldn’t the L.A. Times have at least had the audio tracks examined by a sound engineer? Or interviewed the cops involved? Seems like a lot of loose ends were simply left untouched.
@ alex_the_tired –
Now try listening to the enhanced version(s):
http://anewdomain.net/2015/07/31/ted-rall-lapd-latimes-battle-cops-lied-new-tape-shows-listen-here-anewdomain-exclusive/
A scary thought occurred to me while I was wondering when I’d fall asleep last night. That is: maybe we’re NOT living in a police state. In a police state, the president-for-life holds the reins.
I suspect that nobody is holding the reins, instead we’ve got a heavily-armed gang out-of-control of sociopaths running around loose. They’re above the law, they cover for each other, and we’re just moving targets.
Ted,
Why did the police covertly approach your boss (The LA Times) first regarding this evidence and not you? Did the LAPD do this with their lawyers permission? When the cops want to confront a private citizen regarding some kind of use-of-force issue, is it their general policy to go behind that citizen’s back and use (what was initially) secret evidence that has no CHAIN-OF-CUSTODY provenance? They’ve done this with the specific purpose of maligning you, and the evidence is technically no more supporting of them than it is of you, and yet they just assaulted your good name and ability to make a living.
Furthermore, if this officer was secretly audio-recording his work hours, does this mean that all officers of that time were doing the same? Was this recording officially produced? What LAPD rule of implementation established this officer’s conduct as SOP? How many of these recording were used as secret evidence against alleged suspects? You obviously didn’t see any microphone (nowadays, you can see if an officer is wearing a body-cam) on the officer, otherwise you may have been verbally more precise (“officer, why did you just toss my license in the gutter?”). Again, it concerns COC provenance, how do you know that this recording hasn’t been altered in some way, since it has been used to “injure” you. Somebody somewhere at the cop-shop AND the LA Times are playing kind of fast and loose and they’ve both colluded in this, or so it seems to me.
DanD
Nice!
Also, this happened more than 10 years ago. Does the LAPD keep this kind of evidence in perpetuity? Why not do an FOIA request and get a whole week’s worth of this officer’s recordings … as mentioned elsewhere, what kind of technology was being used?
D
http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law
D
http://anewdomain.net/2015/07/27/jaywalking-hope-dont-get-stopped-cops-video-roundup/
D
It’s now three days or so along in this story, and I’m noticing something I do not think I have ever seen before in a similar media “the reporter’s a liar and got fired for it” type foofah:
There’s almost no coverage of this. Ted’s made a lot of enemies. There should be a lot more gloating, shouldn’t there? Brietbart and Mediaite put up an item so they could chew out a liberal. Poynter hasn’t put up anything. JimRomenesko has nothing. CJR, AJR, ditto. No bloviators discussing Serious Heavy Journalism Thoughts.
So I went to the DailyKos site. Long-time readers know that Ted is–I was going to say nearly universally despised, but I think it’s safe to simply put universally–universally despised at that site. And if there’s one person who’ll shout it from the rooftops when something bad happens to you, it’s an enemy.
There is not a single comment about this. No diary entries at all. (Unless my Internet abilities have rotted away to useless.)
The whole thing seems muted somehow. Or perhaps it’s just me. But it seems like the height of summer (the news “silly season”) is the perfect time for this story to be dragged out in excruciating detail.
Alex, yes, that’s right. The height of summer, when one’s usual editor is on a three-week vacation in Japan.