Editor,
Last Wednesday night at 9 p.m. two Laguna Beach residents encountered a woman panhandler in downtown Laguna whereby a brief exchange of words ensued. Our panhandler then denied any assistance to the public restroom, gave the finger dropped her pants and began to defecate and urinate on the Forest Avenue public bench.
Our residents recorded the final act of defiance on a smartphone and called the Laguna Beach police for assistance. An officer drove past the scene but did not stop. A second call to dispatch was made and the request for assistance repeated, this time a second patrol car arrived with an officer to investigate.
The officer explained to our residents the police department had prior calls for this same woman (now a celebrity on YouTube) and the same violation. But despite the photographs taken moments earlier, the LBPD cannot cite her when an officer has not witnessed the misdemeanor. The officer then refused to take any further action and left.
This incident reminds me of another procedural snafu when recording photographic evidence for driving altercations. According to an LBPD officer, a photographic record such as GoPro video of altercations between hostile motorists and a bicyclist is not admissible as court evidence when an officer has not witnessed the altercation.
I wonder how well this works on Coast Highway. If an officer has not witnessed the infraction then jaywalking must be permissible. Oh, bring back 1968!
Maybe it’s time our city’s legal counsel and the chief of police re-visit the LB rule book – those statutes about protection of the public and please make the obvious improvements required.
Les Miklosy, Laguna Beach
Digital evidence goes both ways. Since the homeless person was perceived as being in an altered state of consciousness the caller who decided to call for their own assistance should have instead called for the assistance of the homeless, and which in not doing could have been self incriminating and in violation of their own constitutional 5th amendment rights.