I am six forty years later with Mokelly. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app and it's happening again and again and again. They were three separate and unrelated attacks on metro buses or metro train platforms in the past twenty four hours. Three two of them were stabbings. One was originally reported as a stabbing, but it was actually attacked by wrench. Three different attacks, three different areas of the city. It's not like we can relegate it to one portion
of town. It's not like we can say, well, it's only happening at night. Know what's happening all times of the day, all areas of
La County. These three attacks, after my conversation with La County Supervisor Catherine Barker, who has been very vocal about this issue, let me go back to the beginning, the very beginning, when we first started talking about violence on the metro, I received a number of notes from you, messages from you cross various social media saying MO, to the effect of MO, you're
putting too much on it. You're exaggerating it's not as bad as here, or it's not as bad as there over here in Washington, DC, it's happening like this, It's not happening every day. It's more safe. I remember someone was sending me a message saying it was more safe than driving in a car, because people drive, and they getting accidents and die in automobile accidents every single day. I've never heard much of people getting stabbed every single
day while driving in their car. But as the tide began to change, I think, I think maybe I'm wrong. People began to see the undeniable truth that the Metro as we know it is uncontrollably violent. And sometimes I can be prone to hyperbole, but this is not one of those times. It is getting close to becoming an everyday occurrence. A person was assaulted a board a metro bus today, the third attack in the Encino area, and a suspect was taken into custody. And as I said, this is a
third attack tied to the transit system within the past twenty four hours. According to LAPD, officers responded around two o five to the reported attack near the intersection of Ventura Boulevard and Balboa Avenue. The suspect, who apparently suffered from a mental illness, stole a cell phone from the victim before slamming a wrench into his chest. The victim was not seriously injured, thank goodness, and did not require hospitalization. The suspect was taken into custody. That was the
most recent attack. Let me go back to Monday. At about seven h five pm Monday, a teenage boy was stabbed during an attempted robbery a board a metro bus. Remember we had been talking about these attacks on buses against operators and passengers. Boy was stabbed during an attempted robbery a board a metro bus near West Los Phelis Road and South Central Avenue in Glendale. And there's something else that should be highlighted. This is not what I call garden variety
gang activity, where gang members or attacking gang members. You have people who are not gang members. Maybe they're homeless, maybe they're suffered from mental illness, maybe they're under the influence of drugs or a combination of these things. They are attacking random people, civilians like you and me, mother's children.
It does not matter. Everyone is equally vulnerable and susceptible. But this teenage boy was stabbed and there were three juvenile suspects who approached the victim and attempted to steal his backpack. The victim was stabbed during the attempted robbery and the suspects ran away from the scene. This is according to the Glendale Police Department. They caught two of the three suspects. The third suspect is still at
large. Two hours later, about nine oh five pm last night, a woman was stabbed at a Metro sea which is the Green Line station at South Vermont Avenue and the one oh five Freeway. I know this stop and location intimately. It is literally the closest pickup point for any metro bus or train from where I live. I passed it every single day. And this victim
who was attacked on an elevator, I know that elevator. I know it is on the freeway level as you exit the one oh five Freeway at Vermont, and it will take you down to the street level where you can pick up the train, and there's also a parking ride there. But this victim was stabbed while boarding or riding an elevator going from the freeway level down to
the street level. A man wearing all black got away boarding a westbound train toward Hawthorne, And as you know, these attacks are the latest incidents of VYE all across the Metro transit system. I'm not talking about homelessness in general. I'm not talking about people doing drugs on the trains or buses. I'm not talking about fair jumpers. Those happen all day, every day in all places on Metro. I am only talking about violence in which people are getting
shanked, getting hit with wrenches. It is something that we cannot ignore anymore. And this is not about comedy. This is not about pointing fingers. This is about having an honest conversation. Part of the reason we started talking about Metro was because Metro was talking about everything except the violence. It was talking about, well, it's a mental health issue, you heard Maorbassi. We've heard about how we need to deal with the mental health aspect of it.
We've heard about how writers they want information. So they rolled out the ambassadors as if that was going to change something. In fact, we got more and more ambassadors over the previous months. We got slight acknowledgment of the actual violence. And here is the bottom line. Until the violence is addressed, nothing else matters. Absolutely nothing else matters. And I am not requiring Metro to prevent all violence. That's not what I'm saying. Crazy and criminal
happen. You can't prevent crime, but you can't address it. You can act like it's the singularly most important issue confronting the Metro. There is nothing else that matters. I don't care about graffiti. I don't even care about a cleanliness or it being unsanitary in nature. If you cannot do something honestly, attempt to do something to address the violence being perpetrated on writers and operators,
nothing else matters. When we come back, we're going to hear some audio Cafi's own Blake Trolley was out talking to different members of the subway and also bus writing community. We'll also hear from LAPD interim chief Troy what he's talking about relative to this violence and trying to propose solutions and more. You're listening to later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty And Honestly, I didn't choose this Metro story. It kind of chose me. I
say that because I was I'm gonna be completely honest. I had the privilege. I was fortunate enough when I was riding the Metro. It was by choice. It wasn't because I had no choice. I exercised the choice. I had the option. I wanted to save money. I didn't want to spend all that time in my car. I didn't want to burn all that gas. I wanted to be able to use because time wise it was about
equal. It was gonna take me about the same amount of time with all these transfers to go from home to the office via the subway and above ground rail than if I were to actually drive. But I would save some money, and if I were on the train, I could maybe get some work done pull out my computer. But I was then not. Now I have exercised a different choice, and I won't ever get on the metro, or
at least for the foreseeable future. I have no reason to get on it, and I would not recommend anyone that I personally we care about getting on it either. And just to let you know, we have a request in too, Supervisor Catherine Barger to maybe come back on the show tonight. Issues
available. We had a very very insightful conversation last week, but that was before all this has happened, and I'm sure what's happening in the La County Supervisors meeting is all about this, and I would love to hear how that body is deliberating over something like this. But I had a choice, and I chose to get on the train each and every day. And I only had to worry about and I was talking about this with Twala during the break.
The only thing I had to worry about, by and large, the homeless people, kids who were acting up getting on the train, you know, jumping fares, acting a fool. But I didn't have to worry about random, unprovoked acts of violence. I didn't back then, and this is maybe five six years ago. I didn't feel for my personal safety. I absolutely would now KF I so owned Blake trolley was out in various areas around the city and county getting people's thoughts about the Metro. Some people were willing
to give their name, others weren't. But here's the conversation that he had with an unnamed writer what he thought because of these recent attacks, what he saw on his daily commute, and whether any of this has changed how he would approach commuting day to day. What do you make of a woman being stabbed taking the elevator here, couldn't stab that's a little wild, it's a little harmed. I don't know. I tell you, the truth makes me
double think about public transportation, just like the metro brilliant safe. Do you ride Metro often? Not really? But hearing this might change my thought of writing. That's again, God, Just so you took it today? Yeah? I took it today, heading to work right now, a little late, but all right. Did you see anything on your ride today? Nah? Just a lot of homeless people. What you saw today? Yeah, pretty much, that's it. That was pretty noticeable. Though, what could
you say you saw from your point of view as a passenger? No, it makes me really feel unsafe when there's a lot of homeless people, especially when the tweaking out and stuff makes you feel uncomfortable, makes you not want to pay for the bus anymore. Did you take the rail system as well today? Yeah? I take the rail system. I'm gonna catch the bus right now, gotcha? All right, thank you, I appreciate it. Thanks man. That's Blake Trolley. And there's some other statements which will be
coming in. We'll give that to you. As far as whether Ellie County Board of Supervisors individually or as a body would have a statement about Metro. What is going to be going on LAPD. Interim Chief Choy had some thoughts as well in some public remarks. There's other discussions about potentially how how do we keep weapons off? Do we need additional security at the gates? But
these are all ongoing discussions that we need to keep working with MTA. I will say that we are looking at a variety of ways that we can help our partners at MTA and the other agencies that are involved in policing this, the trains and the bus. I'm not a member of law enforcement. I can't begin to strategize what law enforcement would need to do to manage Metro, but this I can say as a concerned citizen, as a voter, as
someone who cares about the community in which he lives. This can't continue as it is. I don't know if the answer is putting an officer on every platform, every train, and every bus, and financially that's probably not feasible. But I do know the longer we wait, the more people who will be hurt. And I get the sneaking suspicion that a lot of this crime is probably reflexive in nature, where criminals know where they can commit crime and
there is a lesser path of resistance. I don't believe that one stabbing is completely emotionally unrelated to other stabbings. I think the word is out that if you're going to harm someone on a metro train, there's a good chance you might get away with it. Or if you're going to go crime, go crime on a metro bus or metro train. And here's something else we've heard from the metro bus operators. They made it clear they had a sick out
and that was last week, that was before this was happening. I wonder what that means for next week and a week after that, or the month after that. Because with all due respect to lapd Item Chief Choy, nothing has changed. With all due respect to the La County Board of Supervisors, nothing has changed. We all can see the problem, we can identify the problem. We all probably agree that this is unacceptable. This this amount of
crime. People, citizens, parents, grandparents, even children. I told you about a boy, and we know about a grandmother who was killed. It's all ages, all ethnicities, everyone is dealing with it. We all can point at it and say this is unacceptable, But nothing has changed since we all can agree as they say to Church, touch and degree, this is unacceptable. Well, what is going to be the short term solution or the short term strategy until we can get to the long term strategy. We
can't have tomorrow just like today. We can't have commuters and writers get on a train or bus. We can't have operators operate a train or bus tomorrow just like today, and expect tomorrow to be different. Friend, simply because
we all can agree that crime is a problem. When we come back, I'm going to a attack this from a different vantage point and explain how there's overlap with these ills pun intended here of society of La County, of La City, and how crime on Metro, how homelessness on Metro is going to have some unintended consequences because once we've stopped addressing one, then we have to deal with the other and they start to overlap. Remember I was telling you
about this hepatitis outbreak, but it's coming from the homeless population. Well, when you talk about the homeless population, you also have to talk about Metro. So this hepatitis outbreak will have unintended consequences for writers on Metro. That's next. You're listening to later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI for LA
County. You know, I talk a lot about civics, learning how your government works, what office or elected official is responsible for this or that for reasons like this, what I'm getting ready to talk about LA County supervisors. They're responsible for managing facilities, resources services. They're kind of like mayors for various portions of these cities, portion of La City, unincorporated areas of LA County, and LA City. But they're like mayors without getting too deep in
the weeds. They're managing facilities, resources services. So when I talk about La County Department of Public Health anything connected to that services resources facilities, or talk about metro facilities resources services, there's overlap and the issues of one portion are inextricably linked to issues of another. Talking about hepatitis, La County health officials are continuing to investigate this outbreak of what is at this point, five
different Hepatitis A infections. Here's what's really important. These infections were identified among the homeless population, and this is since March. The homeless population is not one which is going to be tested consistently or tested frequently. I can't tell you and I don't think La County Department of Public Health can tell you that health status of all the homeless population. But this is what I can tell you. It is a community which is not unto itself. It is not
self in case, it's not self enclosed. It is going to move in and out of every portion of La County. They will get on Metro, they will ride Metro, they will go to sleep on Metro. Some will even do drugs on Metro. The point of it is saying that whatever happens to the homeless population can happen to the general population. If there is an outbreak of any kind, and I call it the hepatitis alphabet, be it a hepatitis B or C, it is an outbreak which could easily jump over
to the general population. Why Metro alone is a conduit. Metro is that literal intersection where the non homeless population and the homeless population intersect. We've told you about the stories in which La Metro was trying to remove some five to six hundred different homeless people per night from trains per night, and with that, any type of disease probably remains. I know they clean the trains, yes, yes, yes, YadA, YadA yadah, blah blah blah.
But you can't, and here's the larger point. You can't talk about a budding or burgeoning hepatitis a outbreak and not talk about the possibility of its spreading if only because of what's happening on Metro. These things are not unrelated, they are absolutely connected, because whatever's happening in the homeless community is not going to stay in the homeless community when the homeless community is very prominent on Metro
going anywhere and everywhere. And I'm not saying that they need to be somehow ostracized or put on some sort of island. I'm saying that we need not be ignorant of the reality here that if there's a hepatitis break within the homeless community, that hepatitis outbreak is very well possibly going to move over into the general community if only because of Metro. So the problems of Metro are not
limited to Metro. We may say the crime on Metro is the crime on Metro, but if there's a hepatitis outbreak in the homeless community and the homeless community is writing Metro well, then that hepatitis outbreak is more likely to spread and As I said before, we don't really know If this hepatitis outbreak is limited to five people, that's just five people that the La County Department of Public Health officials know of and have verified. Metro. What is happening right
now is going to have untold consequences and untold impact on La County. And in the way that I started talking about Metro from a crime and safety standpoint, do you remember I also talked about the unsanitary nature of it, not just dangerous, but it's a health issue. And if we don't deal with all these things at the same time, then we will have multiple problems which
are out of control but traceable back to Metro. Specifically, watch this story this hepatitis a outbreak, because there will be some intersection and will be overlap with the problems and issues of Metro. It's later with mo Kelly can't if I am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app And when we come back,
we're going to turn the corner. No pun intended for just a moment as we talk about cameras which are watching Southern California drivers for rolling stops, and it can here you go, mark negatively impact Oh no, your credit will tell you about it in just a moment. You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty and during the break, I was saying to Mark Ronner said, this next story is for you because it
sort of continues our ongoing conversation about capitalism. I feel flattered when you think of me. Actually I do, but not in the way that you want me to. Oh no, I'm taking what a disappointment. Let me tell you about the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority or at MRCA. It's a public entity that oversees more than seventy five thousand acres of southern California parkland. They're giving out tickets, in fact, the giving out tickets for more than a
decade. Well, they don't call them tickets. They call them administrative citations. And they are one hundred dollars for each and every time you roll through a stop sign. And it's not the same as a citation or ticket issued by a law enforcement officer or a highway patrol officer. These citations do not count against your driving record or your insurance rates. But if you don't pay them, it's a bill. And they can come after you. They can
send debt collectors after you, they can ruin your credit score. It's almost like you any other credit card, just any type of item in which you actually purchased or enter into an agreement to pay, except there's no agreement here, and there's a question of whether this public entity has the authority to charge one hundred dollars for these citations and also come after you. It's pretty amazing
listen to this. They're engaged in a deceptive practice of pretending to enforce the motor vehicle code when they don't have the authority to do that, and they're tricking people into paying these tickets. They are. At twelve fifteen PM on a warm sunny day last July, Andrew Rice's adult kid did a rolling stop
in a Prius while leaving the Temescal Canyon parking lot near Pacific Palisades. What Rice's kid didn't know was that he was being filmed as he did so, and the recording would result in a one hundred dollars administrative citations from the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authorities catch Up mrca republic entity that oversees more than seventy five thousand acres to child in California. Start copying me. That's not the same
as a ticket issued by a cop or a highway patrol officer. Right, it doesn't count against your driving record or your insurance rates Nope, but failure to pay canon actor credit score and can possibly result in debt collectors coming out. I wrote that that's what happened to Santa Monica resident Rice, the registered owner of the car. He received a letter from a debt collector saying he owed one hundred bucks for a citation issued by the MRCA. He says he
never saw the original citation, which may have appeared as junk mail. It looks like it's a citation you might get from the city of Santa Monica, the city of Los Angeles, from a police department. But the language in it was strange, and so I researched the you know what is under it, and as it turns out, it's a violation for breaking in park role. Wait, let's rewind the tape. See that white car behind Rice, it's doing a rolling stop at the exact same stop sign where his kid was
busting. I think everyone leaving this parking lot does that. Well, maybe not everyone, but in the hours my cameraman and I were at timescal we saw numerous drivers roll through stop signs. We even saw an MRCA truck doing This is not a program that is meant for public safety. This is a
program that is meant to make income for the park system. A spokeswoman for the MRCA told me no one would be available for a no on camera interview, but she said by email that the stop sign cameras are all about public safety. She said the agency operates seven cameras at four parks, Temescal, Marvin Browdie, mohalland Gateway Park, top of Tipanga Overlook and Franklin Canyon. The MRCA issues roughly seventeen thousand stop signed citations a year, bringing in about
one point one million dollars in revenue. To be sure, they provide ample warning that rolling stops will result in fines, But is this the best way to raise funds? So I think it is a terrible abuse, and the fact that it's gone on for a decade or more without anyone doing anything is really shameful. Mark Ronner reaction. I think this is exactly like the plot
of an Old Adventures of Superman episode. I'm not kidding you. They stole this is people were getting pulled over a little postage stamp sized town on a highway that people didn't know they were speeding through, and if they couldn't pay the fine, they go to jail. I know that, and then Superman had to come get Jimmy Olsen out of the jail. That's what I think. How's that for a response. Well, it's a good response, But I don't know how legally they're able to do this. Maybe they're not.
Well, we'll see what happens in the future now that more media coverage has come to it. I don't know about you, Mo, but I've been in this business long enough to know that sometimes people do right up to the level that they can get away with until there's stops from getting away with it. But imagine you're going through a park. There's not a lot of car
traffic through a park, state park, regional park, neighborhood park. There's not a lot of car traffic, and you're giving out one hundred dollars citations for rolling through a stop sign. Knowing good and damn well, most people are going to ignore the fake citation looking thing. You're gonna get in the
mail if you receive it at all or or notice it. And the next thing, you know, maybe you're trying to go get a car, maybe trying to qualify for a house, you realize, oh my gosh, there's this thing on my credit from two years ago from some rolling stop sign that you don't even remember. And that's just the fine. I'm quite sure it escalates, you know, if you don't pay it after three months, it probably doubles. There's something stupid like that. Yeah, and Superman, it's
not gonna come help you either. No, it's it's horrifying. Uh. And I I'm trying to look up this episode while we're talking, and apparently I can't multitask. I was gonna say, and to put it into terms of people who don't know the area, I know exactly where this is. Uh. Think of the deadest, quietest area that you live in, wherever you are in the entire world. Think of that and think, oh, I don't need to stop, like there's literally nobody here. That's what this
is. Also, what's another word for a rolling stop California stop. And you can't do that in California, not legally, but the enforcement agency happens to be actual law enforcement, not ranger rick with a camera hiding behind a tree. I don't know what to say. I'm not to say. I don't know why people put up with it. Honestly, i'd be raising Holy hell, Oh, it's the last time I drive through wherever that is.
Yeah, I'm out, but it is something else to think about the next time you were on a public park or a golf course for that matter. I remember I got a rolling stop ticket. I've gotten two in my life. One was cal State Domingus Hills back in the early nineties, like ninety three ninety four, and they back then they had I don't know how it is now, but their on campus police were actual police. And this was eleven thirty, twelve o'clock at night. I was creeping coming from this young
woman's apartment. What yeah, you know, it's what young people do. And so I rolled through the stop sign at midnight, and so they pulled me over, and I was hot. I'm wearing my fraternity sweatshirt. And it says, uh, excuse me, so, uh, why are you here on campus? It's a college campus. I'm wearing a fraternity sweatshirt. You look at my car and as a fraternity plate, I'm doing some college stuff, some fraternity stuff. Sounds like it negatively impacted you. It did,
it did. And then the officer, I remember, it's clear as day, said, uh, is there anything we need to worry about in your car? Do your mind if we search your car? Me At that point, I'm just pissed off. I said, sure, go ahead search my car. And I knew it was it was junking. It's like, you're not gonna find anything. I don't do weed or anything, so I had nothing to worry about. Well, it's a good thing. Police never plant anything. Well, look, I could have taken a test and I
would have that would have passed with flying colors. I wouldn't worried about that per se. And then they asked, do you have any weapons like grenades or anything. There's a grenade in my pants, officer. And it's like, this is how I end up in jail because I was so close from telling where, telling him where to get off. Where would that have been exactly? I'm not gonna say. All I'm saying is I understand what it's
like to be mistreated for a rolling stop. That's all I'm saying. And if it turned out to be the MRCA, the MCA, the MTA, whatever this fly by Night organization is, well we'd have a misunderstanding right then and there. Show them that's right. Stop trying to act quiet to Alla. You know exactly what I'm dealing with. It's later with mo Kelly, can't I M six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeart ready at perfect
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