Someone's shooting out my streetlights?

So this morning, my roommate points out to me that all of the streetlights on my block, and then a whole bunch on the cross street closest to my house are busted. Not in a "not working" kind of way, but in a someone blew out the glass cover and the streets (and at least one of my neighbor's cars) are covered in shattered glass. Of course, I called the LAPD, and they couldn't give two shits about whether or not someone in my already sketchy neighborhood was up to no good.

Massive Police Raid in Wilmington

Don't worry, the 400 police and agents aren't wasting our tax dollars shutting down Wilmington's taco trucks, it's a gang raid. The gang targeted is the 75 member Eastside Pain, who are centered around an area affectionately known as "Ghost Town." About 30 or so arrests were made.

Anyone know where Ghost Town is or anything about the Eastside Pain? I'm not familiar with either of them.

Daily Breeze coverage

LA Times coverage

Taco Truck Crackdown

So this is news to me - Apparently a police task force cracked down on four of Pacific Avenue's taco trucks on Friday night (Breeze story). I've eaten at too many taco trucks late at night to buy the police line that they are "magnets for crime". Sure there are sometimes a few drunk guys getting tacos, but 90% of the customers I see waiting in line at trucks are just regular folks, many of them on break from demanding nighttime jobs. I've never seen a fight or any sort of shenanigan go down at a truck, and I've been a regular customer at some of these trucks for years.

I'm not particularly sympathetic to food service regulations, either. Most of the world's great food is cooked up by street vendors who's unawareness of the kind of bacteriological nasties that get "1st worlders" panties in such a bunch, and I've eaten enough of it to not give a hoot for the kind of governmental hand-holding that is intended to keep us safe.

So I'm not buying this incident - two dozen cops to enforce regulation on four eateries? Something's fishy about the whole thing.

Have you seen this man?

As I think anyone with access to a TV or a newspaper is aware of, there's a major focus on gang activity in Los Angeles going on at the moment. Right now there's a three day summit going on to find new solutions to address the problem. The most concrete thing to come out of this for those of us in the Harbor Area is the attention that's being given to the 204th St. Gang in Harbor City, who have made the top 10 list for gangs to be targeted, largely because of the race motivated conflict that they've brought to their own neighborhood.

The LAPD has put out a list of their 10 most wanted gang members, which includes Mario Lemus, a.k.a. "Drek" (which means "Shit" in Yiddish, FYI), who's associated with Rancho San Pedro (side note - some googling dug up this blog post of San Pedro gang tags), and wanted for the October 15 murder of David Carl Franklin, who was beaten to death on the street.

Anyone with information on Lemus is urged to contact Harbor Area Homicide Detective at 310-522-2036. On weekends and during off-hours, call the 24-hour toll free number at 1-877-LAWFULL (1-877-529-3855).