To put it succinctly, I haven’t been posting lately because the government usurped my productive time. I’ve been fighting legal matters constantly for the last 30 years straight but the last five years has required more of my time and energy than usual. Now that I have the upper hand, I can squeeze out a bit of time to write again. The legal matters I’m dealing with are minor and common, but of high significance to me.
The police have been pressing me for 30 years straight, pulling me over and accusing me of various traffic violations and potential crimes (I “fit the description”). Parking authorities have shown Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) to be little more than a revenue generating operation. Ever since I learned the Constitution’s significance, I’ve been adamant about directly addressing the legal matters that come my way. Being so many, I’ve gained a degree of experience and skill.
My First Traffic Citation
My very first encounter with police as an adult was at the age of 18. We lived in a housing project (actually condos), where, because of the drugs and crime, the city permanently closed one of the two vehicle entrances. My Father had given me the family car and I was just enjoying my newfound freedom and mobility. My friends and I were driving home and when we turned on the street that leads into the complex, there was a swarm of police cars at the entrance. There were two motorcycle cops near the corner we turned on, positioned to stop anyone who tried to leave. We were trapped!
The Police were conducting an operation to check residents for drugs, wants and warrants, valid driver license and proper registration. Not being a drug user, having a valid driver license, proper registration and a clean criminal record, I joined the long line of cars pulled over. Confident in my standing, when an officer approached and demanded my license and registration, I politely said “hi” and gave it to him. Being “straight,” a ghetto term we used indicating we had no legal issues, I looked forward to the officer handing back my license and telling me I could go on, however, that didn’t happen. The officer returned with a citation for not wearing a seatbelt. When I reached across my chest to show I was wearing it, he became irate, yelling at me, saying, “DO YOU WANTED ME TO TOW YOUR CAR AND TAKE YOU TO JAIL!!!” I accepted the citation and went home.
So was my introduction to traffic citations. This was also a confirmation that officers function in the reality that serves them best, no matter how fictional or contrary to reality it is. I was wearing my seatbelt yet the officer created his own truth and levied legal obgligation against me based on his truth. I have been in plenty of encounters with law enforcement because I “fit the description” of a suspect, however, I simply accepted their contention that there was an actual suspect they were looking for. I suspected they were lying but their authority overrode these notions and I submitted to their, likely unconstitutional searches.
Acting “White” and Pleasant Got me out of a Lot of Tickets
After the seatbelt ticket I got pulled over countless times by police; on one occasion I was stopped and searched four times in one day. It got to the point I was no longer scared of them. It was routine; they stopped you, say they “smelled weed,” made you and your friends get out of the car and sit on the curb, search the car’s interior, find nothing, and let you go. They were canvassing for guilt. I learned from the officer that gave me the seatbelt ticket, that the less you oppose officers, the less likely they would be to increase your troubles. I began acting pleasant as they violated my rights and realized it nearly guaranteed me they wouldn’t stick me with frivolous violations.
One night I was out with four friends, Tony, Omar, Mikey and Marlon. We represented a range of Black youth types. Tony was solidly middle-class, extremely articulate and a “preppy” dresser. Omar was ghetto but a preppy dresser and not gang affiliated. Mikey lived across from me as was a Crip. I saw his sister get shot in the head years later. Marlon was a Blood from my ‘hood I grew up in. I was honestly a mixture of all these architypes, being part gangster, a preppy dresser, somewhat nerdy, but a leader who could put this group together and cause them to get along.
This night I took them all to a party and when I dropped Omar off at home and asked for the gas money he promised me earlier, he tossed some change in my lap and ran. We jokingly chased him for 5-10 feet then went on our way. However, the police, who were always nearby, did not see the humor. They pulled us over. As we waited on them to approach the car, I got an idea. I told my friends, “watch this.” In my “Whitest, nerdiest” voice I asked the officer, “How are ya?” My friends in the back seat giggled quietly. I maintained this nerdy, White character throughout the whole stop and acted oblivious to officers’ violations of my rights. The officers made us sit on the curb and searched the car’s interior. Suddenly an officer walked around the car with a bag of weed in his hand. Somebody lied to me when I asked if they were clean. This is where one of my greatest life lessons occurred. The officer walked right past me and Tony, went directly to Mikey and Marlon and asked “who’s weed is this?” It was like Tony and I weren’t even there; the officer subconsciously excluded us. It was a revelation for me; I could totally evade the guilt radar by creating a White/nerdy persona. Now, officers may have excluded Tony and I because the weed was in the back seat where Mikey and Marlon were sitting, but I had plenty of friends who had their car towed away where a passenger in the back seat had weed in their pocket. The lesson I took is the more White, nerdy, pleasant and oblivious to the violations you seemed, the least likely officers were to make your life harder. This likely got me out of hundreds of tickets.
Bonus Story about Being Pleasant.
My Step Mother used to let me borrow her Mercedes to go out. By this point Mikey and Marlon had gone their own direction, Tony joined the military and Omar and I were road-dogs. We were cruising Crenshaw Blvd. one evening and officers pulled me over for not having a front license plate. Guilt-canvassing was standard on Crenshaw during cruise night. The officers issued me a fixit ticket. Later that month I picked up my Step Mother’s car to take to the police department and show the correction. As we approached the police station, a police car began following us. I made a right and he made a right. I made another right and he made another one. Finally, the red and blue lights came on and we pulled over. The officers pulled us out of the car and suddenly we were handcuffed in the back of the police cruiser with no explanation. The officers were doing a deep search of the car. By this point I was tired of being overly pleasant to officers, especially when I was getting pulled over while trying to resolve the penalties from another time getting pulled over. However, as we watched one officer pull my step-Mother’s car apart as the other ran our IDs for warrants, I saw the searching officer put latex gloves on and figured he was going to plant something. I immediately began joking with the officer in the police cruiser and being pleasantly conversational. Suddenly, the officer left the cruiser and said something to his partner. His partner then took his gloves off and they both returned to the cruiser and released us with no citation or explanation.
20+ Police Guns Aimed at Me
Scenarios like this were the theme of my early adulthood. By the age of 25 I had been at police gunpoint four times. Here’s one story: My friends and I went to a “White party” or, a party hosted by White people, in a White neighborhood and with majority White attendance. This was 1997 or 1998. By this age I was an employed optician, attempting college and hanging out with a majority middle-class Black crowd. I had a BMW, my buddy Mike had a Honda Del Sol, and Stan had a new BMW M3. The party was fun but our main focus was women and frankly, we weren’t into White women. Suddenly there were gunshots outside. Being the only Black people there and having all my friends in range, it certainly wasn’t one of us, which means a White person was shooting. The crowd began scattering, running to their cars to leave, as did we. The long line of cars exited the only way out to the main road as police gathered on the main road watching each car. As we made a left turn onto the main street the red and blue lights came on behind us. We immediately pulled over and police cars blocked the road ahead. A helicopter hovered above and we had at least 20 police guns trained on our car. Suddenly from a loudspeaker I hear,
“DRIVER, WITH YOUR KEY IN YOUR RIGHT HAND, PUT BOTH HANDS OUT THE WINDOW.”
“DROP THE KEYS ON THE GROUND.”
“OPEN THE DOOR USING THE OUTSIDE HANDLE”
“STEP OUT FACING AWAY FROM US.”
“PUT YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD.”
“PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD INTERLOCKING YOUR FINGERS.”
“GO DOWN TO YOUR KNEES.”
“LAY DOWN FACE DOWN WITH YOUR ARMS OUTSTRETCHED.”
This incident in Chico, CA. is similar to what happened to me.
My other two friends followed the same process then suddenly knees came crushing down on our backs, we were handcuffed and all put in the back of separate police cruisers. From the back of the police car I watched the police rip my car apart, throwing my back seat onto the street, ripping my carpet up and throwing my speakers on the ground. Needless to say, they didn’t find anything and suddenly officers became pleasant and nice. One even said “I knew it wasn’t you.” I asked for badge numbers and suddenly they all started disappearing. I managed to get one or two of the involved officers’ information. When I complained, the department said they knew nothing about the matter. Facts are police bias made them conclude that the only Black people they saw were responsible for the shooting and they dealt as if something other than our race indicated it was us. This bias gave the White perpetrator cover to leave. That is a form of White privilege America never discusses.
Anyway, I started this post to explain how the government took my writing time away but the trauma of countless experiences causes me to start reliving them. The legal issues taking all my time currently all begin with me doing nothing, authorities accusing me of something, and when I take them to task to make them prove my guilt, all semblance of “law and order” and “civility” go out the door and the government uses its power to hide members’ wrongdoing.
Matter #1.
In the three years leading up to 2019, security guards at my local park had been harassing me, claiming I was parked illegally. In reality, I was parked perfectly legally and, in the manner the White people they do not harass park all the time. They just wanted to mess with me. This tendency to mess with me is common with security guards. They have boring jobs and since all humans have a need to feel effective, they use their power against those who they can be optimally effective against. Plus, the vast majority of security guards are wannabe cops and emulate what they feel cops’ main duty is, enforcing against Black people. I’ve grown used to it and in the leadup to 2019, I just told them to leave me alone or tow my car if they felt they had grounds to. They would usually leave. However, in November of 2019 the usual harassment was followed by LAPD officer Emilio Zacarias’ arrival. Officer Zacarias approached my vehicle telling me I was parked illegally. I explained to him that I wasn’t and he disagreed, threatening to cite me. Being a man of law and principle, and someone who will not let security guards and officers create special rules or a two-tiered parking system, I asked Officer Zacarias to write the citation and we would let a court decide the legality of my parking. When he returned with the citation I video-recorded our conversation and explained the law to him, specifically 80.69a of the municipal code (the law he cited me with). This law requires signage so I challenged the officer no less than five times on the absence of a sign, giving him a chance to explain either where he saw a sign or why a sign was not required. He had wordy, superfluous response after response, but none of his rambling responses told me where a parking sign was, because there wasn’t one.
I was just preparing to watch a sunset and out of nowhere LAPD suddenly commanded my time and energy. Normal citizens might simply move their car or pay the ticket but one must realize that America is supposedly a nation of freedom and laws. I am free to go to my local park and watch sunsets. Security guards not liking me should not lead to enforcement, rather actual law should. Sworn officer shouldn’t acquiesce to the agenda of unsworn security guards yet this one did. Anyway, I appealed the ticket through the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT), which, jokingly, only requires employees to take a one-hour course before adjudicating matters of law. Of course, they upheld the ticket. Next, I went to an in-person hearing with another “hearings officer” who took a one-hour course. This person, “C. Manuel,” upheld the ticket claiming signs on the opposite side of a road govern curbs 150 feet before the sign.
I see these first two steps as merely obstacles to real legal consideration, which happens on the third step, appeals court. In the ticket appeals scheme, appeals court is the first time a qualified person, a duly appointed judge, considers your matter. The first two steps are merely to wear appellants down hoping they would accept the penalty. The third step involves a legally qualified person applying legal logic, based on actual law, to your matter to decide if you are liable for the citation.
My hearing with Judge Blancarte brought a notion I had been considering full circle. Judges I dealt with often seemed aligned with my opposition when they do not appear in court. When I sued T-Mobile some years back, I left the courtroom feeling the Judge was a corporate sympathist only to find out in his written decision that I won the case. As frustrating as it is, in the absence of an opposing party, good judges will often use objective questioning to form a counter argument to consider. Much like me questioning racists to understand racism better, judges were questioning me to understand a fuller scope of the case at hand. It’s genuinely brilliant and I use this in my daily life today. A second cool aspect I learned about myself is my respect for qualified, meaningful authority. As I left the courtroom, I complimented Judge Blancarte on his technique of probing those who went before me. I recognized his earnest effort to fully understand the facts of the cases he considered, regardless of how small or insignificant the case seemed. I then told him that I couldn’t wait for his decision on my matter because I didn’t want to have to stop parking there. He immediately replied, “No! You are on notice until my decision.” I remember walking out of this courtroom resolved not to park where I was cited, not because I feared consequences, but because an authority I respected, and who had considered the details of my case, gave me an order. I was proud to do for the judge exactly what I adamantly resisted when LAPD commanded me to; it was my duty as a citizen! A few weeks later I received the decision. I WAS RIGHT! The Court declared that I was legally parked and that Officer Zacarias wrote an unlawful ticket.
Ultimately Officer Zacarias’ unlawful order, the City of Los Angeles’ mechanized narcissism and outright inability to admit it did something wrong, cost the government $10s-of-thousands of dollars. LADOT administrator time and energy responding to me and considering my dispute paperwork, an appeals Judge, clerk, bailiff and judicial assistant time in a courtroom, Officer Zacarias’ seven appearances in court assisted by counsel and a third person, LAPD complaint response correspondence and Office of Inspector General correspondence has likely cost the City of Los Angeles $10s-of-thousands of dollars. Sadly, the matter isn’t resolved and will likely cost the city even more money when it could have put the issue to rest at any stage by the City of Los Angeles and its various departments simply recognizing the law.
Matter #2
In February of 2023 I received my registration renewal. The amount was nearly double the usual amount so I looked in the details and, added to the registration costs was a charge for a parking ticket and penalties for never paying it. I knew nothing of this citation. The City of Los Angeles usually mails notice of the citation followed by a warning of delinquency and finally a delinquency notice. I never received any of these mailings yet was being charged for never responding to them. Something was up! The ticket was for parking on Hollywood Blvd. in front of the El Capitan Theatre where Jimmy Kimmel Live shoots its episodes. This curb has been red for the last 10+ years and there are clearly visible “No Parking Anytime” signs spread thought that block of the Walk of Fame. I would never park there and since there’s no ambiguity in the rules I could exploit if I did get a citation, there’s absolutely no possibility this violation was based on fact. Thirdly, I simply don’t have the level of disdain for law to park at red curb like this; I respect the law too much and understand the overall scheme enough to recognize the purpose of the red curb and signs is to help society be safer and more efficient. Succinctly put, I would have never broken this law because I have no reason to park there, it’s illegal, and I couldn’t get out of it if I were caught.
I immediately contested the citation, stating on the form that I, “had no prior knowledge of the citation.” I also requested under applicable law, for them to send me any and all information they had on the matter; I wanted to figure out how I got a citation that fully matured and caused penalties, without any knowledge whatsoever. There’s a piece of me that feels someone at LADOT, whether they be the parent of a child I did not cast in a movie, or a disgruntled relative of someone I fired from a film crew, that gave me this citation and kept me from learning of it. Without information, I had and still have no way of protecting myself from this happening again. I am vulnerable to having my car taken from me because thousands of dollars in unpaid fines accumulated for alleged offenses accumulated without my knowledge.
LADOT, rather than sending any and all information about the citation, sent a photo copy of the citation. They didn’t include any information about when and how they notified me, or any photos or proof the alleged violation actually occurred. I immediately wrote a letter to LADOT, this time citing California Civil Code, section 1798.34, which obligates government to make available citizens’ government-held records. In response, LADOT pledged to refund the penalties only. I immediately wrote another letter reemphasizing that LADOT was legally obligated to make the requested information available. Not only was I incensed that they felt they could avoid transparency by partially refunding my money, I really sought to find out why I never received any mailings.
After several letters, LADOT never gave me the information the law obligated them to give me. Then, without my consent, it declared the matter “closed.” It didn’t mail the partial refund check until nearly a year later. The whole situation seemed spiteful and demonstrated the de-facto value of law when wielded by citizens like me.
Being stonewalled, I wrote Mayor Karen Bass and when she didn’t respond I wrote Governor Newsom imploring him to compel some level of authority to behave lawfully. Ultimately no one responded, meaning a citizen was fined for a violation the government unlawfully refused to prove happened.
When inexplicable occurrences happen to a person, they are well within their right to consider out-the-box notions to gain clarity. In this case, I am well within my right to consider if my being a Black man causes a diminished effectiveness of law. Here I am with a law that obliges the government to give me certain information yet the government simply doesn’t do it. Clearly something is causing that law to fail when used by me yet be steadfast when used against me. More likely though, the city is covering its tracks. Whatever caused this citation doesn’t appear to be lawful. The citation has no vehicle identification number (VIN) on it, which means whoever issued it did not have access to my car. Being the place alleged has “No Parking” regulation as opposed to “No Stopping” the citation is a statement I left my vehicle standing at this red curb. A citing officer can simply look through the windshield to view my vehicle’s VIN.
Rather than dismiss the citation when I initially contested it, a government narcissism likely caused LADOT to continuously double down in efforts to lock in this fabricated guilt. It has costed the city 10s of thousands of dollars thus far.
I Sued the City
Not letting things go, and to gain more practice fighting a 30+year guilt-manufacturing system, I sued the government in Superior Court. I’ve sued the city several times in small-claims court and have won, however it’s a coin toss if you will get a judge that will take your case seriously. The vast majority of small claims court judges pretend to hear your case then award you half the claim amount. Some give your case attention but they deal with 20+ cases per day and couldn’t possibly give your matter the attention it deserves. This time around I sued in real court, learning how to properly file a lawyer-style complaint. It took a lot of work but I filed a one-to-two-inch-thick document with Los Angeles Superior Court and served the City of Los Angeles a month later. In contrast to my earlier letters, I got a call right back from the City Attorney’s office from a lawyer who “wanted to discuss the matter.” I didn’t return his call because I knew they simply wanted to trick me to avoid their legal obligation to respond to my complaint within 30 days; anything needing to be discussed should occur after I have the information I had been requesting for over a year. The Attorney for the City of Los Angeles, Carr Tekosky, continued to attempt informal discussion but I refused. Then he informed me he would “demurrer” my complaint. I had never heard that word in my life. I instantly looked it up and gained an understanding of what it was.
A demurrer is a motion that challenges the validity of a lawsuit “on its face,” meaning without digging into the evidence, is there a valid issue to bring before the Court? For instance, if I were to sue Joe Biden for being a Black man, he shouldn’t have to hire an attorney to fight me to prove he isn’t; rather he can file a demurrer and have a judge look at him versus the charges and throw it out.
Filing a demurrer requires a “meet and confer” at least five days before it is filed. A meet and confer is a conversation between the two parties to discuss the legal issues the demurring side plans to demur on and, perhaps, resolve them without a hearing. Accordingly, the City’s attorney’s lawyer, Carr Tekosky contacted me to discuss the complaint. Honestly, he was winging it and I highly doubt if he read any of the complaint or knew any of its details 24 hours prior. I asked him if I could record the conversation but he was adamant about there being no recordings. The conversation was quick, covering the fact I filed the complaint prior to filing a claim with the city and that discussing the amount of the claim, which he expressed was too high. He also promised to contact LADOT and get me all the information I had sought since the matter began. The matter being unresolved, the attorney began drafting the city’s demurrer.
Some days later the deadline for him to file January 6th came and went. Suddenly, on January 8th,I received an email with the motion. I immediately began combing through the laws to see if it was really late. They must know something I don’t, right? I looked at the legal definition of what “30 days” meant and found out the first 24hours doesn’t count. I also found some other regulations regarding holidays, but they didn’t apply. OH SHIT! HE FILED LATE!!!
I learned I could file a default judgement request with the Court Clerk. This would make me the automatic winner of the case and obligate the them to go through many measures to revive it. I felt like I had reached a new level in a video game. However, the Court Clerk rejected my request. I must have missed something, right? The Court Clerk listed the fact of the upcoming hearing as the reason for rejection. I was lost! The law said the response to the complaint must be filed within 30 days and here I was with a response filed two days late yet the Court Clerk rejected my request for a default judgemen? I began to wonder if Los Angeles Superior Court practiced the same lawlessness LADOT practiced. Surely a duly appointed judge would sort this out.
To make sure my arguments were heard and to compensate for my lack of ability to raise all relevant points when put on the spot, I filed an opposition to the City of Los Angeles’ demurrer. I pointed out that the City of Los Angeles demurred to items it failed to discuss with me during the “meet and confer.” They also claimed I received some type of due process, when the complaint clearly stated that no due process happened. The only valid point the City had was that I filed the complaint out of sequence with a claim. This was true. Winging it, I simply asked for “excusable neglect,” a term meaning, “please give me a break.” I made the point that the city filed its demurrer late and that demurrer aimed to disqualify my complaint for being filed late. To both hear and sustain the demurrer would be duplicitous.
The City of Los Angeles replied to my opposition admitting it had filed its motion late and giving the excuse, it calendared the response wrong. It claimed the Court Clerk accepted the motion on time yet filed it late. Then it gave some nonsensical explanation of the dates, where they claimed they were served a month after they actually were. Here I am proofreading my motions over and over again so the judge will take me seriously, and the City of Los Angeles’ attorney was making more mistakes than a high school student taking a pop quiz. I thought attorneys were sharper than this.
Although entitled to a default judgement, the Court Clerk made me attend the Demurrer hearing. On the date of the demurrer hearing, I arrived in court in my blue Donna Karan suit with brown Jimmy Choo leather dress shoes. Although nervous, I walked into the courtroom looking confident. This is a ghetto lesson that serves me well in the non-ghetto world. In the ‘hood when someone wants to fight you, you are expected to enthusiastically take on the challenge no matter how doomed you may be. This ghetto social trait greatly benefitted my professional life. Sometimes on set, I have to deliver hard truths or bad news to powerful people. It may be telling Leonardo DiCaprio that he can’t wear what he wants to in a scene, or telling the head of a studio that my crew will not be doing what he wants. While there’s an art to it, the resolve to complete the mission is the exact same as in the ‘hood when someone does something irreparable to you and it has to be resolved with a fight. It has to be done, and more importantly, the person on the receiving end has to be convinced of your resolve. My determination to see the matter of this ticket through was no different. I’ve read several books on the Constitution and even have the Constitutional Convention transcripts on my bookshelf. I understand the gist of what the framers were trying to accomplish. I was a man who had been fined for a violation I never heard of and the authorities were refusing to explain why they feel I committed the violation. You can’t do that! Or, at least, the Constitution says you can’t. The City of Los Angeles was doing something different.
When I entered the court and checked in with the clerk, she asked if I had read the “tentative ruling.” I was confused. I had never heard of such a thing. The clerk informed me that a tentative ruling was available online. Still looking confused, she was nice enough to print it out for me. Courts cursorily review cases and issue tentative judgements prior to the parties appearing. It is a “broad strokes” handling of the case prior to getting into details. If something is obviously wrong with the overall case, both parties can agree to the ruling and save both the court and themselves time.
I read the tentative ruling and it was hard-nosed. I made a procedural misstep and since no law reverses it, it would sustain the city’s demurrer. It even mentioned my request for “excusable neglect,” claiming that no legal basis was alleged for this relief and thus, I would not receive it. Very cut and dry; this court demonstrated that procedural missteps disqualify parties’ actions. I chose to argue the case in court.
Judge Cindy Panuco presided over the matter. She was a recent, Gavin Newsom appointee but was actually the second judge on my case. The first, a Judge Pro-Tempore, or, lawyer playing judge, had the same unique last name as a real estate agent I work with, plus, legal records showed she was sued
in a shady-looking lawsuit. I did not agree to her hearing my case and had it removed to a Judge Cindy Panuco’s department 26. Judge Panuco opened the matter and I immediately objected to its being heard on the grounds that it was filed late. This part of the law was cut and dry, however what Judge Panuco did to the law was abhorrent. First, she said she couldn’t overrule the Court Clerk’s decision to deny my request for a default judgement. It did not cite any law for the denial but rather just the fact of an appointment set for a hearing; appointments do not function in lieu of filings and it is the Judge’s job to correct lawless mistakes like this. Judge Panuco thought I was stupid. The Judge leads the court and it is its job keep all of its subordinates’, including its clerks’ decisions, lawful. I was torn. I wanted to challenge the judge’s notion but at the same time not get on her bad side. I’m sure she noticed that I couldn’t keep a straight face as she completely battered law from the bench. She also said that since I replied to the late-filed demurrer, that I somehow made it compliant. I advised her, to no avail, that I only replied consequent to the unfounded rejection. Judge Panuco also asserted, with no legal foundation, that because I didn’t file for a default judgement prior to the City’s late filing, that the motion somehow became complaint. There was no legal basis for this assertion. A person has 10 days (California Rules of Court 3.110(g) to file a default judgement after the breeched deadline. That’s the law. I have no idea what this judge was doing other than protecting the city. She surely wasn’t basing her decision on law.
Understanding that the Judge was working with my opposition to make me unsuccessful, I fought like hell to get as much of this judge’s contempt of law on record. At one point she cut me off, let my opposition speak for me, interpreting my words in the ways that served his case best, then accepted what she heard as my argument. I advised the court that I can speak for myself. Judge Panuco kept referencing the “higher courts” and “case law” to legitimize the double standard the Court was applying. Finally, I looked her in her eyes and said, “will the court advise me of what cases it’s is basing its decision on?” Judge Panuco’s body language said it all. Judge Panuco immediately began to squirm in her seat. She had nothing to say. Then she sought safety by grabbing her computer mouse and looking towards the screen. She had nothing. Then she told me she would put the cases in her decision. I made my point! I stumped her by calling out her bullshit. You see, I purposely kept giving her rope by not calling out her vague notions of “higher courts” and “case law” sooner. She thought I was stupid and had no idea that law works based on authoritative guidance from higher courts and ultimately the Constitution. I base my own interpretation of treatment by my government the same way, which is why my cases make sense and cause the City to abandon law to win against me. After a labyrinth of vague references, I pulled the rope and caught her. It felt good, however, I should have emphasized that she was making a ruling based on vague notions. If I were really bold, I would have made bigger light of the Judges contra-lawful decision-making.
After the Court steamrolled me with all sorts of unfounded legal decision making, we moved to the matter at hand, the merits of the demurrer. The Court then parroted my opposition and attempted to sustain the demurrer. In a last-ditch effort to keep the matter alive, I advised the Court that although the claim I filed with the City was out of sync, letters I wrote to the Mayor and Governor qualified as claims and thus, made the matter compliant. The Court gave me 30 days to amend the complaint. The Court, the City Attorney, the Clerk of the Court, the Judicial assistant had to dedicate nearly an hour of its time towards a parking ticket. This is not my fault, rather it’s the City of Los Angeles incessant narcissism causing this resource drain. At any stage it could simply admit the ticket is unfounded and the matter would be over immediately.
Following the hearing, I waited and waited and waited for this decision from the judge. Judgements come out on average 72 hours later. However, weeks later the Judge still had not issued a written ruling or entered the minutes into the clerk file so I could pull a transcript. My lawyer friends and I joked that the Judge was still looking for those cases she couldn’t cite during the hearing. I visited the courthouse to ask the clerk about the delay and got no response. She also asked me if I had called earlier, which I didn’t. She said someone claiming to be me called earlier. Something was amiss.
Prior to receiving the judgement, I filed a Writ of Mandate, or, an order for the Court to do its job and follow the law. I enumerated several factors that showed the demurrer to be unfair and biased. I filed this motion before receiving the judgement so it wouldn’t seem reactionary. The Judge never responded to it and I’m glad she didn’t. I had bad information and thought the City’s procedural error and mine were equal. THEY’RE NOT! My mistake is governed by Tort law and is “jurisdictional,” meaning a Judge can’t use its discretion to change it. The City’s procedural error is “non-jurisdictional,” so the Judge can change it. If the Judge had prepared and had this information she could have crushed me with one striking blow during the hearing. The Defense could have raised this issue had it be prepared too. But they both weren’t! Instead, they cheated; the government was so adamant about cheating me of the law, that it neglected to see a perfectly legal means of achieving the same end. By cheating they compromised the whole matter and despite there being an actual reason to dismiss my case, their cheating gave my case a lifeline.
Finally, on May 6th, 13 days after the hearing, I received the judgement. I was excited to see how this judge would rationalize the injustice she did. I enjoy engaging with judges and lawyers because unlike average Americans, they tend to tie their reasoning to fixed points and factors; they are somewhat bound to reality. Whereas the average American tends to tie their understanding of subject matter to emotional stances, vetting various ideas according to their emotional leanings, lawyers can’t do this because their opposition will place them and the courtroom face to face with reality and crush them. I really enjoy the feeling of having a subject completely thought out only for my friends to raise a simple point that throws my logic on its head. It humbles me to the reality that you can’t know it all.
In this case I expected a brilliant ruling with laws I never heard of and case law I overlooked. Instead, the judge’s ruling was no better in logic than average Americans who “just know they’re right, despite being face-to-face with solid contrary logic. At the hearing I argued that the City’s motion could not be heard because it was late, period. The judge inserted its own strawman argument that I argued the City’s motion couldn’t be heard because it wasn’t heard before I filed for a default judgement. I didn’t say that!
Next, the Court doubled down on its notion that as long as the City filed its late motion before I filed for a default judgement it is somehow compliant. There’s no legal basis for this.
Thirdly, Judge Panuco completely abandoned her promise to list the cases she couldn’t cite during the hearing. I read through her judgement looking for these cases that permitted her to permit the City’s procedural misstep while simultaneously denying mine. However, nothing! Instead, the Court enumerated the tenets of California Code of Civil Procedure §473(b), the law that the City would have to use to undo a default judgment. WAIT! So, the Court sustained an unlawful rejection of a default judgement to preserve the City from applying for and going through the process of CCP473(b), then cited the law it avoided, as a basis for its ruling. YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS UP!!! The judge did not cite, as she promised, any cases that differentiated the City’s procedural misstep from my own. FAIL!
I immediately appealed the judge’s decision. The appeals process is new to me so who knows how far I will get. I’ve learned thus far that appeals have two degrees, limited civil and unlimited civil. The Unlimited Civil process is very in-depth while the Limited Civil process is complicated but somewhat doable. Limited Civil Appeals are processed in two degrees, one of which works within the Superior Court level and the other at the federal level. I submitted my appeals paperwork and paid the filing fee. Following this, I submitted my request for the Court Clerk to prepare the case file to send to the appeals judge. Once received, I will be invited to submit a trial brief and possibly argue my appeal in open court. I am prepared to go all the way!
All this fighting over a parking ticket. This matter would have been settled on day one when LADOT realized it never mailed (assuming they didn’t) a citation notice to me. Instead, it has been spending money and resources pretending this citation was Constitutional.
UPDATE:
I received an order to pay for the Court Clerk to make a case file for the Appeals Court judge to review.
Matter #3
The last legal burden was a traffic citation I received in 2023 and just successfully fought off. On the day of the citation I had just left a store turning right onto Sunset Blvd. going Eastbound. Soon after, I saw two police officers on the opposite side of the road on an adjacent street prepared to make a right to go Westbound. We made eye contact, one was a White man and the other was darker. They continued mean-mugging me as they made their turn going in the opposite direction as me. I watched for them in my mirror as they faded into the distance. Theoretically we should have never 
seen each other again, however, after I carefully made a left turn onto Vermont Ave and continued up the street, I saw the patrol car’s blue lights signaling me to pull over. I immediately pulled into a gas station parking lot, grabbed my iPhone and pressed record. None of this is new for me so rather than ask about them profiling me, I allowed the officer who approached me, Officer Derek Weikert, 37 years of age, to commit to his reasoning for stopping me. If you object too early, officers can modify their explanation to accommodate your concerns. For instance, had officers known I saw them travelling away from me, they could say they turned to answer a call but it was cancelled. To avoid this technique, I allowed him to explain. Officer Weikert gave some unintelligible disjointed explanation, saying when the turn arrow turns red you can’t make a turn. O…K… Then I blindsided him, asking if he made a right turn going Westbound, how was he in a position to allegedly observe me making a left turn at Vermont? GOT EM!!! Officer Weikert immediately went on the defensive and lost all tact in his approach. He also, never fully explained to me how my behavior related to the stop. UH OH! That’s a violation of Assembly Bill 2773, a new law that requires officers to explain why they stopped someone before conducting the business of the stop. We had a quick back and forth about the details, then Officer Weikert said, “you seem to think we were following you and, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He then insisted that I give him my license so he could write the citation, so I did.
Both officers left me alone at my car, which is weird. Normally one stands menacingly behind the passenger door of your car while the other one
writes the ticket. They were up to something. Finally, the other officer, Officer Julian Guzman, 27 years of age, approached with a citation. He asked me to sign it and I did. With their business finished, I attempted to clarify why they pulled me over but they refused to answer any more questions acting as if they were ridiculous and ran to their car claiming they had stuff to do. Usually, I drive off first but in this unusual case, they left me. It was bizarre.
After the officers left, I immediately retraced my path, looking for cameras that documented what happened. I wish I had been more thorough and contacted more businesses but I didn’t accurately note what street I saw the officers turn onto Sunset Blvd. from. I contacted the City of Los Angeles for footage from the intersection and was surprised to find out that none of that footage is recorded. Two businesses along the route had cameras I thought might have caught what happened. They both refused to turn over footage. Then I wrote a persuasive letter and one turned over the footage. The other, Kaiser Hospitals, put me through hell to get the footage. Honestly, their resistance did nothing more than expend energy that could have been used somewhere constructive. Fighting to get their footage did, however, help me learn how to subpoena business records from companies so it certainly wasn’t a loss for me; I gained knowledge! Kaiser has cameras up and down Sunset Blvd. at its various facilities. It even has one facing the intersection in question, which likely caught the turn in question. I wrote Kaiser requesting the footage and they refused to release it without a court order. I advised them to preserve the footage for it would be part of future legal proceedings. Long story short, they gave me the runaround for a year, nitpicking at every detail of the subpoena and when I finally got It all right, they claimed they didn’t believe there was a real case. Finally, I sent them the case information and a stern letter, which made them release the footage to me. Unfortunately, I don’t believe they took my request to preserve the footage seriously. Despite having several cameras along Sunset Blvd. Kaiser only preserved footage from one, single cameras. They claimed a server error caused them to lose all the other cameras’ footage.
The Footage
Yup! LAPD was chasing me before the alleged offense even occurred. The footage from business #1 shows me travelling at 31mph through an intersection. 27 seconds later the officers flew through the intersection at 61mph, 26mph over the speed limit. Kaiser’s footage showed the officers overtaking car after car but the choppiness made it impossible to calculate the speed. I could calculate the follow time and it showed that officers closed the distance between them and I, which means either they sped up or I slowed down; I would guess the latter.
I made a few videos to present in court including one demonstrating that the light in question doesn’t function the way Officer Weikert said. Officer Weikert claimed a yellow arrow turned into a red arrow. His exact words were, “…and then it (The turn arrow) turned red.” However, the signal in question does not have a red arrow at all. It uses a common red light for people turning and going straight. Additionally, the common red light never turns red after a yellow arrow. It is constantly red, meaning officer Weikert likely did not observe a turn.
I also subpoenaed LAPD to get the dash and body camera footage. They thumbed their nose at laws requiring them to release this footage to me. I have always been dumbfounded by the fact “law enforcers” are so predictably lawless.
I had to reschedule my court date several times and still couldn’t avoid losing work to appear in court. The arraignment was a joke. Judge Pro Tempore Hess, pleaded on my behalf when I attempted to raise the issue of LAPD not producing evidence. I told him I needed the information in order to plea but he plead on my behalf telling me to get the evidence in the meantime. This is completely wrong but I had no choice. Plus, I knew this meant I could appeal the case if I lost.
Over the next couple of months, I prepared my case. I didn’t subpoena LAPD again because they were under the continued duty to make the evidence available. Beginning the trial under these conditions gave me even more grounds to appeal a loss.
Finally, the court date arrived. I put on my blue Donna Karan suit again and went to the courthouse. I was positive the officers wouldn’t show up but as I gave advice in the lobby in came Officer Guzman dressed semi casually. Uh oh! Things suddenly got serious. I was 90% sure he wouldn’t show. I immediately began modifying my questions for him. I figured I would be fighting Officer Weikert since Officer Guzman just wrote the ticket. I planned a strategy. First, get the ticket disqualified for being falsified; Officer Weikert was completely omitted from it. If unsuccessful I would exercise my 6th Amendment right to confront Officer Weikert. If unsuccessful, I would then cross examine Officer Guzman, making light of the fact they didn’t comply with Assembly Bill 2773 (AB2773) procedures. Finally, I would go directly into battle intellectually jousting with Officer Guzman to poke holes in his story to discredit his testimony. Surely these steps will get this ticket dismissed. Right?
Wrong! I didn’t take into account how unlawful judges could be. The Judge of the day was a judge Pro-Tempore so I opted to have the case heard by a duly appointed judge. Officer Guzman and I then
went up to department 75 presided over by Judge Esther Ro, a new, Gavin Newsom appointee. I like grey-haired, White, male judges because they are generally unencumbered by social inadequacies. In other words, they are not trying to prove themselves to White men because, well, they are White men. It’s still a coin toss but you have the best chance of getting a judge who believes in the principles of law if he’s White and male. I have had great debates with old, White, male judges in the courtroom, and even when I lost, I appreciated the meaningfulness of their reasoning; some mention that they enjoyed debating me too. Unfortunately, in this case, I had a new, Asian, Woman judge, the exact type of judge with something to prove to White men. The main thing they need to demonstrate is that laws mainly work against Black men and laws are not for Niggers; they are for White men. Judge Ro did not disappoint.
First, as to the citation being falsified, I asked Officer Guzman why Officer Weikert was omitted from the citation despite being the main, arresting officer. Judge Ro allowed Officer Guzman to simply declare himself the arresting officer despite doing no more than writing the ticket. I described the criteria for an arresting officer and Officer Guzman agreed with my characterization, only to declare later that there was no designated role of an arresting officer. Officer Guzman then said LAPD officers never fill out the section of the citation indicating who the arresting officer is. He then gave some wild explanation of when it is appropriate to fill it out; he said it’s for undercover operations where the citing officer didn’t observe the violation. It made little sense. A fair judge would have challenged this statement or at least probed for context. Judge Ro accepted it at face value.
I then asked to confront Officer Weikert, asserting my 6th Amendment right. Judge Ro had to call a recess and go to her chambers to research the matter. As she left the bench she said, “this is an infraction hearing” implying the matter was somehow, sub-Constitutional. I immediately put the Court in check saying, “It’s Constitutional.” If I were more on it, I would have asked her to explain what her comment meant. Judge Ro came back 10 minutes later ruling that the “Crawford” case allowed the trial to proceed without me confronting Officer Weikert. I had no idea what the Crawford case was but later learned that the 6th Amendment, when wielded by me in Judge Ro’s court, is worth no more than the paper it was written on. Judge Ro was steamrolling my defense, vetting every single motion I made yet not questing any of Officer Guzman’s assertions. She was propping him up.
The Crawford Case
I attempted to use my 6th Amendment Right to confrontation to mandate Officer Weikert’s presence and testimony. Judge Ro ruled that Officer Weikert’s testimony was not required “because of the Crawford Case.” I later read the Crawford Supreme Court Decision and found it to bear no relation to my request. In Crawford v. Washington, the Defendant, Michael Crawford sought to have his wife, Silvia’s incriminating statement disqualified because he didn’t have the opportunity to confront her in open court. Washington’s Marital Privilege Exemption exempted her from testimony, which means the prosecution couldn’t not compel her to back her statements up. The Supreme Court held that her statement could not be used because Mr. Crawford had not been given the opportunity to confront his wife. While Judge Ro pulled the wool over my eyes due to my inexperience with that case, I wasn’t seeking to exclude any testimony as the Crawford decision gave guidance on, rather I was seeking to compel, or, include testimony from an involved officer imposed on me by the state. This was an egregious abuse of authority and a trick conducted by a trial court judge in open court to diminish a citizen’s Constitutional right. If it wasn’t a trick, it was incompetence.
Next, I declared that I wanted to confront Officer Weikert on the AB 2773 compliance. Officer Guzman stated he also did the compliance “after the fact.” I didn’t catch that last part but AB 2773 requires an explanation before the fact. The Judge surely should have caught it but somehow the trial continued. If Judge Ro didn’t recognize the officer did not allege compliance, she’s incompetent. If she did, she was unlawfully propping Officer Guzman up and no amount of non-compliance would prevent her and the officer from manufacturing my guilt.
With all my measures exhausted, I went into direct battle with Officer Guzman, asking question after question, forcing him to take definitive positions on every aspect of the stop; what he was doing immediately before, after, what his vantage point was, what criteria makes an “arresting officer.” I took Officer Guzman to task. I made him contradict himself a few times, yet Judge Ro somehow didn’t notice. I didn’t either, for this was my first time getting any information from LAPD about the matter despite subpoenaing it. Not having any information ahead of time, the details I received through Officer Guzman’s testimony was new to me and I could not use it on the spot as effectively as I could had I had previous knowledge.
Finally, I raised the issue of discovery again. I emphasized that I was entitled to information LAPD had denied me. The Judge somehow found it in her to finally recognize I was entitled to the information I requested. She asked me for proof I requested the information and took it back to her chambers. She returned and asked officer Guzman if there was bodycam and dashcam footage. Officer Guzman then revealed that he had dashcam footage with him. Wow! What a surprise! Despite me raising the issue of them disclosing dash and bodycam footage, Officer Guzman failed to mention it. Officer Guzman started desperately emphasizing that the footage didn’t capture the violation because it only captures 60 seconds of footage before activation. He kept emphasizing this 60 second figure, which raised a red flag in my head. Then Judge Ro and Officer Guzman again, tried to swindle me. Judge Ro asked Officer Guzman to play the dashcam footage for me from his smartphone. I was pissed and immediately emphasized that I was entitled to have the footage for review. Officer Guzman walked over to me and began playing the footage on a 2–3-inch screen as if that would suffice. I couldn’t make out any detail and immediately protested. I offered to have Officer Guzman airdrop the footage to my iPad and he got scared and refused, citing “protocol.” I knew it! Something was amiss. I complained that the footage could be incomplete or edited because 60 seconds wouldn’t elapse from alleged violation to initiating the stop. Judge Ro then shot down my legitimate concerns declaring that she would accept anything LAPD gave her as a complete record of what happened. She then court ordered the dashcam footage. I asked her to court order the bodycam footage and she refused, citing that it was irrelevant. Judge Ro was helping LAPD manufacture my guilt. Although I objected, Judge Ro set another court date to give me time to get the information I requested. We were set to return and fight again.
I left the courtroom with lots of information I was looking for before. With this information I could easily crush LAPD. I began preparing a new approach and setting up a plan for destroying the complaint. First, I was forced to give LAPD a preview of my defense by being forced to proceed despite not having the information I was entitled to. I was forced out of my confrontation right. The Court accepted conflicting statements from LAPD.
Preparing for the Next Appearance
I spent the next couple of months preparing to confront Officer Guzman. I mailed a subpoena to LAPD to cover my butt but I was sure they wouldn’t send me the footage. I also learned that I could order the courtroom recording and have a transcript made from it. WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE! I immediately ordered a recording and later ordered an official transcript. This was a godsend! I’ve never heard myself in action. I was certainly intelligent and more on it than I thought I was. I also caused Officer Guzman to contradict himself multiple times during the hearing. First, he claimed he was the driver. Then the passenger once I mentioned video footage. I got him to agree with a description of what an “arresting officer” was then got him to say there was no criteria for what an arresting officer was. He claimed traffic was too heavy for them to immediately pull me over yet the street was empty enough for monitor me from 40 feet away, DURING RUSH HOUR. I couldn’t wait to get into court.
Finally, the court day arrived. I put on my plum Kenneth Cole suit with a new tie. I grabbed my vintage Cartier leather briefcase and went to the Courthouse. When I arrived, I didn’t see Officer Guzman, and my name wasn’t on the docket. I was worried they did something shady like moved departments or changed a date without my knowing. I checked in with the bailiff, who did not see my case. I looked at my paperwork again to verify the time and date. 8:30am. I was right. I pulled out my camera to document that I was there when I was supposed to be. The bailiff informed me to wait in the hallway until called. I took as much notes as I could. Suddenly the bailiff called me. WHEW! No tricks. I appeared before Judge Ro, who already knew Officer Guzman hadn’t shown. She dismissed the ticket smiling at me as if I should be relieved. I didn’t smile back. I shouldn’t be there. I didn’t commit the offense, I was entitled to discovery, I was entitled to my 6thAmendment right. My appearance that day was the result of a system used to pick certain citizens and levy a burden on them by manufacturing their guilt. This matter had been a huge drain on my time, energy, resources, and, I didn’t get the fight I prepared for. What a copout!
L.A.P.D’s Slave Patrol Tendencies
I thought deeper about the citation and events thereafter and realized it’s no more than American law enforcement reverting to its original form; the Slave Patrol. Law Enforcement is so ingrained in Western society that Western citizens neglect to realize the institution is an accommodation for Western society’s inadequacies. In other words, White men can’t build a cohesive social model with minimal dysfunction and have to create institutions to manage the chaos its inadequacies cause. The solution is to maintain an internal army geared towards using violence to deter the dysfunctions their social model cause. England’s, Sir, Robert Peele formed the West’s first police force. The U.S. followed suit converting its Slave Patrol institution into America’s first metropolitan police force. Prior to conversion, Slave Patrols had one function; to ensure that White people enjoy all of Black people’s labor fruits. In return they received a commission. Escaping meant a Black person might gain the ability to work for themself, so the American government created an institution to counter what it saw as a dysfunction.
Fast forward to 2024 (when I received this citation) and one realizes that my encounter with LAPD as merely a reversion to the Slave Patrol’s purpose. Officers Weikert and Guzman spotted me driving my luxury car and decided I was enjoying too much of my labor fruits. They chased me down and cited me for something I didn’t do. This was a unilateral process. And while it may just seem like a matter of a fine, it goes deeper. The fine amount is more significant than the laws say; nearly THREE TIMES more. Penalties and assessments cost $29 per $10 dollars fined. Yes! There is an amount they tell the public and a significantly higher amount they actually charge citizens. Additionally, a moving violation means for the next three years I will be paying an increased insurance premium. The added insurance cost would likely exceed $10,000. Who will get such a large portion of my hard-earned money??? YOU GUESSED IT! A WHITE MAN! Yes, my insurance company and most insurance companies are owned by White men. This means that L.A.P.D’s pursuit of me was no more than a sophisticated and thinly cloaked slave patrol effort; LAPD gets a commission for ensuring White people benefitted from a larger portion of my labor. A leopard never changes its spots.
America’s evil tendencies never cease. As I write this, this country is reverting back to the undemocratic monarchy. Donald Trump has trumped the Supreme Court, supposedly a co-equal branch of government. Congress is scared to oppose him. The Monarchy is reforming as surreptitiously as the slave patrol has. We can consider the Monarchy and Slave Patrol Western society’s natural tendencies and the best it can do; after 250 years, this is likely unresolvable, and no one other than White people are willing to waste generation after generation trying to get what has proven itself unsuccessful, right. Dictatorial, slave societies may just be the highest form of society White men are capable of building. Perhaps the forefathers were disillusioned by the plenty Native Americans enjoyed and thought they were capable of more. Perhaps they psychologically blocked out all the free human labor they were stealing from Black people and truly thought they achieved the thus far unattained sustainable, higher level of productivity that would stop the destructive Western tendency to always seek MORE. All of the intellectual devices they created to mask truth like, “manifest destiny,” “the curse of Ham,” scientific racism, race, caused them to think thing were going well, when they were actually standing on other people’s backs while truly thinking they were 6’5” tall. Now that those they were standing on are standing on their own feet Western society is falling apart.
All this Fighting has Limited My Potential
Anyway, I digressed, as usual. The point is, several situations where I’m doing nothing yet my government not only accuses me of something, but puts significant effort into manufacturing my guilt, has detracted from my own personal productivity including my writing. A few years back I had an idea for an invention. In 2024 I finally filed for a provisional patent only to find out Microsoft released a similar idea around 30-days earlier. Do you think all this effort defending myself from my government might have gotten me to that patent 30 days sooner? Of course! Possibly a couple of years earlier. Had I filed for my patent I would be sending Microsoft a “cease and desist” letter and waiting on a seven-figure offer for them to buy my patent. Instead, I have to share the idea with them and possibly fight their legal objections. The White man is truly holding me back. My blogging has suffered and as I began this one, my prose is more geared towards legal briefs I expect a judge to read rather than the smooth but informative style of my previous blog posts. Now that my efforts are mainly offensive, I am back and will finish the backlog of blogs I started but cut short to begin some legal research. Keep a lookout for new subjects!