In an atypical take on the problem of illegal alien crime, Thursday's Times featured a front-page story by Jennifer Steinhauer [1] on how blacks in Los Angeles are angry that police officers cannot ask violent gang members about their immigration status. The center of the story is sympathetic:
Jamiel Shaw Sr. never gave much thought to the immigration status of gang members in his South Los Angeles neighborhood. With his military wife deployed to Iraq and two sons to raise, there were football practices to manage, shoes to buy, college applications to consider.
But in the two months since his older son, Jamiel Jr., was gunned down by a man the police say is a gang member who was here illegally from Mexico, Mr. Shaw has been able to think of little else.
"I don't care about illegal people who are working here and taking care of themselves," Mr. Shaw said. "I just feel I am obligated to target illegal aliens in gangs."
Steinhauer's story was sympathetic to Shaw and his loss, but it also explored charges that perhaps Shaw's son was a gang member, or that his assailant thought he was. The story also portrayed this battle on a larger canvas of black-Hispanic tensions, and noted Mr. Shaw wants his son's killer, Pedro Espinoza, prosecuted on hate-crimes charges.
Police officials, no doubt allergic to racial charges of any kind, weren't supportive. "I'm not going to aggressively pursue people whose only crime is to come into this country illegally," police chief William Bratton proclaimed. Steinhauer did find that the number of inmates in Los Angeles county jails who were interviewed by immigration and customs officials had doubled since 2004.
The reporter added "Many police officials and others believe that small pockets of racial tension are being exploited by anti-immigrant groups." But no "anti-immigrant groups" were quoted in the story.