Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin lashes out at his constituents – again [UPDATED]

Friday evening tweet storm also disparages rank and file L.A. police union that spent more than $45,000 supporting his campaigns

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It started in June, when Los Angeles Councilman Mike Bonin, long an advocate for increased policing in his district, jumped on the defund the police bandwagon. He staked a position far beyond most of his colleagues on council (except Council President Nury Martinez, who has had her own problems on the subject) and Mayor Eric Garcetti. He introduced legislation to cut LAPD funding, spoke out against the police, and posted pictures of defund protests, including a flier with the caption “F*** the federal police!” to his personal social media pages. His endgame, a declaration of war on the Police Protective League, the Los Angeles police union, came in the form of the plaintive Friday afternoon tweet pictured above. More on that virtual utterance in a moment.

Politics aside, Mr. Bonin’s constituents found his newfound evangelism on the subject of reduced law enforcement puzzling. He made increasing police resources in his district central to both of his campaigns for city council. As recently as January 2019 he boasted of putting more than 600 new patrol officers on the streets, having pushed to take them off desk duties. Even now his official council website features pictures of him with cops and promises to bring more officers to the Westside. [UPDATE: Mr. Bonin has removed the pro-police pages from his official council website.]

He’s also accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the PPL itself. According to a June 2020 Los Angeles Times story the PPL spent more than $45,000 backing his two runs for council (Mr. Bonin has said he won’t accept any more PPL money or support).

Mr. Bonin was for the police – and their money – before he was against them. A partial list of the PPL’s contributions to his campaigns over the years. https://ethics.lacity.org/data/campaigns/contributions#dt

Then there is the inconvenient – for Mr. Bonin – fact of his own experiences with LAPD. According to public records obtained exclusively by The All Aspect Report there were 29 police calls for service to his home between January 2015 and June 2020. According to a department analyst many of the calls – logged in the reports as Code 6 – were made either at the department’s or councilman’s initiative. Additionally, neighbors and constituents have documented at least six instances of police responses to Mr. Bonin’s residence not included in the logs, bringing the total to 35.

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For now the records raise more questions than they answer. The biggest questions surround the sheer volume of police activity at Mr. Bonin’s residence. The vast majority of people in upper middle class neighborhoods like his go years or decades without calling the police once. Thirty-five service calls over five years, regardless who initiated them or the circumstances surrounding them, is all but unheard of.

For example, records show that between April 2015 and August 2018 there were 15 “false alarm” calls to Mr. Bonin’s residence. The department analyst didn’t have additional details but suffice it to say either Mr. Bonin has the world’s worst home security system or there is more to those calls. Either way those 15 false alarms must have cost the councilman and his husband a pretty penny: According to the LAPD’s website, the penalty for a first false alarm is $216, assuming the system is permitted. By the fourth offense the penalty rises to $366, meaning all those calls cost more than $5,200. The All Aspect Report has submitted public records requests related to the fines.

There are other oddities in the records. One of the false alarm calls at his house – at 12:53am on June 25, 2015 – is listed as responding to a “government building,” as is a valid alarm call on the morning of June 8, 2017. Two other false alarms, on January 8 and May 24 of 2017, are listed as “acts of nature.” 2019 was a quiet year, with a 16th false alarm call in August 2019 (bringing the total to $5,566 and counting) and a call in October logged as “other.”

There was a spate of calls for service to Mr. Bonin’s home in April of this year. On the night of April 4-5 there were three calls between 11:19pm and 12:39am [UPDATE: Additional information provided by LAPD on August 12 indicates that there was only one call for service to Mr. Bonin’s house that night, at 11:19pm. The others are “administrative actions. We continue to investigate.] There were two more calls on April 7 and April 9, which a LAPD source told The All Aspect Report were “additional patrols.” The most recent calls were May 21 and May 24.

This information came out in response to California Public Records Act requests the All Aspect Report submitted to the LAPD earlier this summer, and to which the department responded last week.

On Friday evening FoxLA reporter Bill Melugin discovered the responses and tweeted about them. He wrote, “A public records request reveals that LA city councilman Mike Bonin, who voted to defund LAPD by $150 million, has called LAPD to his home 8 times since 4/4/20, including to provide extra patrols and protection from peaceful protesters at his house.”

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Unfortunately, Mr. Melugin and Fox did not get the entire story, but nevertheless his tweet went viral and sparked a local firestorm. Within hours it had more than 3,000 likes and 2,000 retweets – no mean feat on a Friday evening in the middle of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement. Mr. Bonin himself responded about a half hour later. He asserted that of the eight calls since April he only made one: A personal request to the captain of Pacific Division to remove hypodermic needles he alleged were left on his porch (suffice it to say discarded needles are commonplace in his district, but only Mr. Bonin himself can call the captain personally to deal with them).

[UPDATE August 9: The story appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight (Mr. Carlson also did not get the story correct) and even prompted a story in the UK Daily Mail]

Mr. Bonin said that the seven other calls were initiated by LAPD themselves “sending patrols without my request and often without my knowledge.” It’s an odd turn of phrase from a man who used to work as a newspaper reporter: “often without my knowledge.” Meaning, of course, that at least some of those eight calls so far this year, as well as some of the other 35 total calls, were at his request or with his knowledge. It also raises the question why he didn’t turn down the LAPD initiated patrols he did know about. Most importantly, why did LAPD feel the need to patrol his house so often in the first place?

Mr. Bonin’s tweetstorm continued:

When protests occurred at the homes of other elected officials and LAPD offered to send patrols to my home as a precaution, I specifically asked for no patrols at my home.

— Mike Bonin (@mikebonin) August 8, 2020

Which leads us full circle to the spectacle of a public servant who aspires to the mayorship and beyond, turning a legitimate question of public interest into a full frontal attack on his constituents, along with peaceful protestors, the rank and file of the Los Angeles Police Department, and anyone else with the temerity to disagree with or challenge him. It was an astonishing act of political self-immolation, made even more inexplicable by its gratuitousness.

To be clear: Mr. Bonin himself made his relationship with law enforcement an issue, both because of the number of times LAPD have served him personally and his newly discovered anti-police fundamentalism. Whether or not he called the police or the police provided patrols and checks at their own discretion on those 35 (at least) occasions, is irrelevant. At any point in the last five years he could have called up Pacific Division and asked the Captain for a stand down order. Would have taken five minutes.

Indeed, until seven or eight weeks ago Mike Bonin had that kind of relationship with the LAPD. He was one of the their biggest supporters both in his district and in City Council, as numerous news accounts and even entries on his CD11 web page attest. He could have used that goodwill – or leverage, for that matter – and played a central role in police reform efforts in Los Angeles. He could have been the guy who told hard truths and demanded accountability from LAPD while still showing support for police who despite months of attacks retain the respect of three quarters of the population, including the 81% of Blacks who don’t want police defunded. He could have shown national leadership on the issue and struck a brave, independent course that recognized the urgent necessities of the moment without discarding the men and women who risk their lives every day to keep the rest of us safe.

In response to Mr. Melugin’s tweet Mr. Bonin could have said something like, “Yup, I admit it, LAPD has come to my house a lot. Like most people calling the police has been my default, and as a public official with a young son I’m especially sensitive. That said, the last few months have caused me to reflect, and like many Americans I embrace the urgent need for change. We will have difficult discussions in the months and years ahead, and we won’t always agree. But I’m committed to working with my constituents and the incredible people of L.A., including our brave men and women in blue, to make this the best city for all of us.”

Thirty seconds, firestorm avoided, leadership established. Heck, that’s the kind of guy people start thinking of as mayor material.

Instead, Mike Bonin has declared war. On virtually everyone. He had a once-in-a-career opportunity not just to score political points with an increasingly hostile electorate but to show real leadership by doing right by the people of this city. He stepped on that opportunity and – well, complete your own metaphor. This isn’t the first time he’s turned on his own voters. See below for examples from The All Aspect Report and elsewhere. Most despicably, in January of this year he attempted to blame a bomb scare at the then under construction Bridge Home shelter in Venice Beach on his political opponents.

It’s enough to make you wonder how he made it this far. It’s also enough to make you wonder if this guy should have this job anymore.

A final note: The current political moment demands clarity on one issue. Mr. Bonin has not aligned himself with the overwhelming majority of passionate, determined, sometimes enraged protestors demanding real change and forcing long overdue conversations about race in America. By showing support for the likes of street rioters and defund the police – a project of the self-declared radical Marxist group Black Lives Matter, not the movement from which they appropriated the name – he has aligned himself with the likes of the (overwhelmingly white) bomb throwers who spent two months attempting to destroy the Portland federal courthouse. He has aligned himself with the likes of ANTIFA and those who practice violence for the sake of violence. Friday evening’s tweet, his declaration that he is “standing up to the police union,” after 25 years of using law enforcement both personally and politically, settles any doubt as to where his allegiances lie.

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For previous examples of Mr. Bonin turning on his own voters, see some of these stories from The All Aspect Report and elsewhere:

• L.A. Meltdown: Councilman Mike Bonin turns his back on a mentally disturbed homeless man playing with fire (All Aspect Report, October 16, 2019)
• Flailing to do damage control after a damning video, Mike Bonin lashes out at his own constituents (All Aspect Report, October 18, 2019)
• LAPD Investigating Pipe Bombs Left at Future Site of Venice Bridge Home (NBC L.A., January 4, 2020) (Mr. Bonin said, “This is an appalling incident perpetrated by a disturbed and cowardly person or persons. If it was meant to slow or halt progress on providing bridge housing, it failed. It is unacceptable and inhumane for people to be living and dying in sidewalk encampments in our neighborhoods. It is imperative that we get people off the streets. We will not be intimated, and we will not back down from providing solutions to our homelessness crisis.”
• Mike Bonin’s campaign to commandeer West L.A. media (All Aspect Report, August 6, 2020)

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