Proto New

Dummy headline on test story

2012-04-01T22:23:32Z

Bryan Stow's family website marked Saturday's anniversary of the attack outside Dodger Stadium that left the father of two and Giants fan from Northern California brain-damaged and unable to live outside a care facility. Stow recently turned 43.

The emotions we felt when we found out what happened are still with us to this day. Its painful to think back to that day, and the following days, weeks, even months, and think about what we went through emotionally and at times, physically. This literally took our lives and turned them upside down. We have always tried to take as much good from this as we possibly can, but to be honest, at times that is hard to do. Because Bryan still has so far to go, it's easy to get discouraged, feel down and even get angry for what happened to him. We feel sad for Tyler and Tabitha, who need their dad. We feel sad for Bryan, for having to go through what he's been through and what he will go through for the rest of his life. But, because he has his life we are forever thankful.

Earlier in March, the website posted that Stow recently had to move to a new facility and was not taking it easily. Also this poignant reminder of how difficult things are for Stow and his community of caretakers: he did not remember his birthday party the next day.

He was moved Thursday to a facility with aggressive therapy that will help him become as independent as possible. He shares an apartment with 2 other TBI patients and has someone with him at all times helping him. He still needs someone to transfer him to and from his chair, dress him, make his meals, etc. Unfortunately there are no rehab places fitting for Bryan close to home. Being so far away, the move was tough. We think the long drive, combined with being in an unfamiliar place set Bryan back a bit, which we suppose is to be expected. He hasn’t been sleeping well since he got to the facility, barely has an appetite and at one point he said he was scared. All we can do is hug him, tell him he isn’t alone and try not to cry in front of him.

Previously on LA Observed:
Bryan Stow speaks on camera for first time
Bryan Stow has Thanksgiving with family
Sports Illustrated: The day that damned the Dodgers
Key witness in Bryan Stow beating case suddenly dies
How LAPD case against wrong Dodger Stadium suspect unraveled
Bryan Stow returns to San Francisco, family thanks people of LA

Photo: Bryan Stow with children Tyler and Tabitha/Support2BryanStow.com

George Kelling and James Q. Wilson's original article on 'Broken Windows'

2012-04-01T07:04:23Z

This piece ran in The Atlantic in March 1982 and is credited as an influential argument in the movement toward community policing embraced here and in New York by William J. Bratton. The magazine posted it online in its entirety following Wilson's death on Friday. Excerpt:

These findings may be taken as evidence that the skeptics were right- foot patrol has no effect on crime; it merely fools the citizens into thinking that they are safer. But in our view, and in the view of the authors of the Police Foundation study (of whom Kelling was one), the citizens of Newark were not fooled at all. They knew what the foot-patrol officers were doing, they knew it was different from what motorized officers do, and they knew that having officers walk beats did in fact make their neighborhoods safer.

But how can a neighborhood be "safer" when the crime rate has not gone down—in fact, may have gone up? Finding the answer requires first that we understand what most often frightens people in public places. Many citizens, of course, are primarily frightened by crime, especially crime involving a sudden, violent attack by a stranger. This risk is very real, in Newark as in many large cities. But we tend to overlook another source of fear—the fear of being bothered by disorderly people. Not violent people, nor, necessarily, criminals, but disreputable or obstreperous or unpredictable people: panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed.

What foot-patrol officers did was to elevate, to the extent they could, the level of public order in these neighborhoods. Though the neighborhoods were predominantly black and the foot patrolmen were mostly white, this "order-maintenance" function of the police was performed to the general satisfaction of both parties.

Wilson, a professor emeritus at UCLA, died at 80 of leukemia. The New York Times obituary began like this:

James Q. Wilson, a wide-ranging social scientist whose “broken windows” theory of law enforcement laid the groundwork for crime reduction programs in New York, Los Angeles and other cities, died on Friday in Boston....
Probably his most influential theory holds that when the police emphasize the maintenance of order rather than the piecemeal pursuit of rapists, murderers and carjackers, concentrating on less threatening though often illegal disturbances in the fabric of urban life like street-corner drug-dealing, graffiti and subway turnstile-jumping, the rate of more serious crime goes down.

And now very short story

2012-04-01T06:34:03Z

Surprisingly little, despite Disney selling the film company to an investment group led by construction magnate Ron Tutor and including Colony Capital's Tom Barrack. In fact, the new owners have not produced a single film - nor put any into development. THR's Daniel Miller has a lengthy piece that examines the company and Tutor's involvement.

Here's a shorter story

2012-04-01T06:33:04Z

Since August 2010 -- about four months before the Miramax transaction closed -- Tutor has sold $188 million of Tutor Perini stock, doing so at increasingly lower prices. The liquidation has at least partly funded Tutor's film ventures, he said in a March conference call with analysts who cover Tutor Perini, and has considerably reduced his stake in the company. In 2008, when his namesake firm combined with Perini Corp., he owned about 43 percent of the new company's shares; he was down to about 23 percent by the end of 2011. And in a September federal filing, Tutor Perini's board allowed Tutor to sell 100 percent of his stock if he chooses. "I hated every sale of stock I've made since the first one," said Tutor in a call last year.

Here's a long story with a two-line headline or so

2012-04-01T06:30:46Z

Since August 2010 -- about four months before the Miramax transaction closed -- Tutor has sold $188 million of Tutor Perini stock, doing so at increasingly lower prices. The liquidation has at least partly funded Tutor's film ventures, he said in a March conference call with analysts who cover Tutor Perini, and has considerably reduced his stake in the company. In 2008, when his namesake firm combined with Perini Corp., he owned about 43 percent of the new company's shares; he was down to about 23 percent by the end of 2011. And in a September federal filing, Tutor Perini's board allowed Tutor to sell 100 percent of his stock if he chooses. "I hated every sale of stock I've made since the first one," said Tutor in a call last year.
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From the outset, some observers scoffed that the nearly $700 million Tutor and partners paid to Disney was too pricey for a library without an A-list franchise like Twilight or The Hunger Games to exploit and no Weinsteins (who partnered with supermarket investor Ron Burkle to try to reacquire their company) at the helm to generate future hits. Weinstein Co. COO David Glasser says that under the Weinsteins, Miramax would have been run differently. "It wouldn't have just been monetizing the library but growing it by adding new titles to it. For us and Ron Burkle, that's where we saw the value," he says.

Tutor's other big headache is with embattled film financier David Bergstein. The two have been tangled up in several legal disputes related to Bergstein's ventures.

Fake Marilyn

2011-12-31T05:22:16Z

On the sidewalk outside Hollywood and Highland, in Hollywood. By Kevin Roderick.