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From Krikorian's Notebook: When Will LB Police Chief Luna Come Clean About May 31 Downtown Long Beach Looting Frenzy?

by Doug Krikorian
Special to LBREPORT.com

Mr. Krikorian, an award winning journalist and author of two books, earned multiple awards in his 22 years of writing for the Long Beach Press-Telegram and 22 years for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. He is happily retired in Naples.


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(June 24, 2020, 6:30 a.m.) -- They held a Public Safety Committee hearing Tuesday [June 23] to finally get to the bottom of the unspeakable horror that unfolded in the downtown area of our beloved city on May 31st in an event that has become known as the Great Long Beach Memorial Day Pillage & Plunder Festival.

And after listening to the gentleman who was in command of the forces that failed to prevent at least 214 Long Beach businesses from being looted -- I'm talking about the sterling LB Chief of Police, Mr. Robert (Asleep At the Switch) Luna -- offer his insufferably Byzantine reasons for it occurring, I suffered a sprained neck shaking it so violently.

I mean, yes, Mr. Luna did say "we failed our individual business owners" and, yes, he did say "this will never happen again." And, yes he did say -- he really did! ---"`we did a good job."

But he also said, oh, at least 1,000 times that his greatest priority that evening was the preservation of life.

He certainly succeeded on that level as, blessedly, no one died as he held his cops -- about 50 of whom stood at rapt attention at Pine and Broadway as though they were rehearsing for a Dawn of the Dead zombie sequel -- back as establishments up and down Pine as well as the Pike area were being ransacked.

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It's been widely speculated that Mr. Luna was told by the illustrious Long Beach Mayor, the Honorable Robert (Ol' Blood And Guts) Garcia, to have his troops stand down, but he said at least another 1,000 times that such reports are untrue and that no one high up in the Long Beach political leadership issued such an inane edict.

Sure, and that's the reason at least five of his police officers the following day went over to what was left of the iconic Italian restaurant, L'Opera, and apologized to its owner Terry Antonelli, a long-time Long Beach police supporter.

Mr. Luna said that his field supervisors were in charge on the ground -- and that the proceedings became quite chaotic as he sat in his office at police headquarters where he found time to give an interview to a Channel 11 reporter while deplorable images were being streamed across local TV channels of all those Long Beach businesses and restaurants being looted without interference from Luna's cops.

"I'm not trying to de-emphasize what happened to some of our Long Beach businesses," said Mr. Luna who did de-emphasize what happened and gave long, complex, disingenuous reasons for his department's memorably embarrassing performance without accepting any accountability on his part.

Naturally, the chair of the Public Safety Committee, 3rd District Councilwoman Suzie Price, oh-so politically savvy, didn't dare press Mr. Luna for his lack of leadership, keeping the questions towards him within the safe bounds of the political proprietary that reeks odiously among our sainted local leaders, all of whom seem to agreed with one another in raising taxes, blowing money on ridiculous projects, caving in to the police union, etc., etc., etc, ad nauseam

  • Long Beach's very own celebrity bodyguard, Mike (The Hammer) DiMarzo -- his list of clients include Whoopi Goldberg (5 years), Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Anthony Hopkins, Katie Holmes, Chelsea Handler and many others -- is just back from a two-week gig doing minder work for CNN in such civil disobedience hotspots as Minneapolis and Chicago.

    "There were times when it became a little, shall we say, dangerous and I've never heard so much cussing, but fortunately I was never forced into any physical confrontations," says Mr. DiMarzo, who had more than his share during his Medal of Valor L.A. County Sheriff career which included a year working at the County Jail. "But there was a moment of slight embarrassment for me when a Fox News alert sound when off on my cell phone and a CNN anchor said to me, 'Oh, the irony. I'm actually being guarded by a Fox News fan'.". . .

  • One of the most impressive athletes in Long Beach these days is the spry, lean former University of Chicago swimming star, Dr. Mark Hoffer, a mere 85-year-old gentleman who early every morning can be found at Alamitos Bay swimming two miles.

    He is a retired prominent orthopedic surgeon, and was active in the medical field for more than 60 years. He resides in Spinnaker Cove. . .

  • Since I haven't imbibed in seven weeks, a streak unmatched since my teen years, it's ironic that two of my favorite Long Beach restaurateurs, Phil Trani and John Morris, have totally renovated their bars, with Morris actually moving his directly across from where it had been that will give his drinkers a dazzling view of Alamitos Bay.

    Mr. Trani didn't move his bar, but did modernize it and did expand the seating and did put in a beautiful huge mirror, which will prevent me from ever sitting at it since I haven't looked into a mirror for 20 years. The last time I actually gazed at myself I was so horrified by what I saw that I've never dared looked at myself again.

    Incidentally, Trani, whose Long Beach Blvd. restaurant opened in 1989 and has been visited so often by so many famous athletes across the decades, held a birthday party Thursday afternoon for the renowned Orange County deputy district attorney, Heather Brown, with four of her cohorts attending. . .

  • I'm looking forward now for an announcement any day from the new Long Beach Unified School District Superintendent, Dr. Jill (Thank God For Spendthrift Board Of Education Members) Baker, that she will sweetly decline her $58,000 raise -- she's now due to make a cool $357,000 a year -- and divert the money to the many needs of her beloved students, for whom such professes such deep adoration.

    That's about as likely to happen as, well, those Board of Education members being recalled as they should be for voting to give her such a bump these harsh Pandemic times in which the LBUSD has slashed its budget by 10 percent and $72 million.

    Is there any school administrator in America other than Dr. Baker who has received such a ghastly handout from a school district suffering vast monetary cuts?. . .


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    Previously by Mr. Krikorian:

  • My Beloved Long Beach: A Victim Of Irrational Government Overreach Beyond Reasoned Response To Virus
  • Speak Up, Mr. Mayor, On Governor's Unwise Edicts. You Can Do That And You Should
  • Hallelujah! LB Mayor Pleads For Sac'to Permission To Lift Closures That Needn't Have Occurred
  • Excuses By Long Beach Police & Poticians Dishearten Damaged LB Businesses
  • Mayor/Council Sounds Of Silence After LB Cops Let Some Pillage Our Village
  • Awaiting Governor's Dictate To Decide Fate Of This Year's (July 3) "Big Bang On the Bay"
  • Will LB's New School Sup't Allocate Untimely Pay Raise To Serve Students?
  • From Krikorian's Notebook: (1) LBUSD Mgm't Mulls Keeping K-5 Kids Indoors Without Normal Access To Playground, Cafeteria, Auditorium Activities; (2) And More...

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