by Joe Delaplaine

This weekend, July 3-6, 2015, under the big metal “V” of the Venice boardwalk stands a traveling memorial to LAPD cops killed in the line of duty since 1907. Entitled, “End of Watch”, the memorial displays several “larger-than-life”, metal reproductions of LAPD badges designed by Timothy Lampros, and the wall itself is illuminated at night by LED lights. The problem with this memorial is not so much its subject matter, but rather its timing and location which is only a few yards away from the spot on Windward Avenue where, on May 5th of this year, LAPD officers shot and killed Brendon Glenn, an unarmed, homeless man.<\p>

Both the LAPD and its “Eagle and Badge Foundation” who sponsored this memorial are well aware of the especially heightened tensions between homeless and police in the wake of this recent shooting. So their choice of location comes across, at best as poorly timed, thoughtless and disrespectful, and at worst, a deliberate and provoking show of force on the part of the LAPD against people of color and the homeless. Either way many other, better options were available to display this memorial, such as: along Abbott Kinney, or in front of the Venice library, in fact almost anywhere where it would have been at least out of sight of where Glenn was killed.<\p>

Or perhaps an even better idea proposal is to make the LAPD’s “End of Watch” wall a permanent installation, located a mere feet away from the LAPD’s Venice neighborhood boardwalk station, under the condition that an equally permanent “co-memorial” be placed along side it, and display the growing list of names of people killed by the LAPD since 1907. This “co-memorial” would stretch the entire length of the Venice boardwalk, perhaps even reaching into parts of Santa Monica. (Photo Credit: Kelly Wine, July 3, 2015).<\p>