Dear Editor,
How did Fiesta La Ballona suddenly become so dangerous? I have lived here since 1989. I know many have lived here longer, so perhaps they remember what egregious thing occurred that caused the fiesta to become a guarded compound.
Each time I went, it struck me how crazy it was to have all these fences closing us in, all this overkill on security, and especially how taking these completely needless precautions gave the opposite message of Culver City providing safety, instead sending an unintended message: Culver City is NOT safe.
I’m not completely sure why it bothered me so much, but it deeply did and still does. It felt like a police state—to what purpose?
On Saturday evening when I got home, I called the Police Department and spoke with the Watch Commander. In response to my question of what has happened that caused this response he said, “Nothing’s jumping out at me.” Nothing jumped out at me, either. He said they have the usual number of officers—2-3 assigned, 2-3 “partner” officers, 2-3 at the booth who have always handled any situation that arose. He said this was the city’s decision and was unrelated to the police department.
I guess what did jump out at me was how unsafe it felt that we would have to go through a TSA check, how entirely unfriendly Culver City suddenly felt, and especially what an egregious waste of money it was.
It was several days later that a friend told me a teen had been stabbed to death at a pop-up carnival “in Culver City” (NBC got it wrong—it was Palms) on Venice at Keystone a few weeks before Fiesta. I now see the impetus for the crazy security, but the pop-up carnival was organized by the LAPD! These security measures are illusory and do not provide safety. Could anyone on the council really justify the reasoning for this distortion of reality?
Thank you,
Maggie Meinschein
