by John Phillips, heard Noon-3pm Monday-Friday on 790 KABC
At the urging of the West Hollywood Public Safety Commissioner Nika Soon-Shiong, daughter of Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the West Hollywood City Council voted to defund the police, which in their case meant reducing the size of the LA County Sheriff’s Department from approximately 60 deputies to 56.
In such a short period of time, Soon-Shiong has put some pretty serious numbers on the board as a– you should pardon the expression– Public Safety Commissioner. On her watch last year, West Hollywood saw a 32 percent increase in violent crime, a 126 percent increase in property crime, and an increase of 137 percent in overall crime including murder, assault, rape, arson, human trafficking, and burglary.
In January and February of this year, 137 incidents of pickpocketing were reported at West Hollywood’s most popular bars. Of course, some of these incidents may have just been Kevin Spacey being ‘friendly’.
Am I nuts or is she gunning to become the next District Attorney of Los Angeles County?
To be fair, we’re still waiting for the figures on COVID-19 mask compliance Nika was able to achieve.
Crime has gotten so bad in West Hollywood that the iconic ‘Big Gay Starbucks’ on Santa Monica Boulevard, which opened in 1995, is closing. This is terrible news for local java lovers and also people who like to take sink showers.
But over on the editorial page of Nika’s daddy’s paper, they’re all-in for chaos in Weho!
West Hollywood City Council member Lindsey Horvath is the deranged crackpot who made Nika a Public Safety Commissioner. Predictably, the LA Times then endorsed Horvath for a position on the LA County Board of Supervisors based, in part…on her approach to law enforcement!
“She has been on the cutting edge in demanding law enforcement accountability, deep coordination among municipalities, thinking through unarmed responses to people experiencing mental health breakdowns or other crises, and getting services to people living on the street,” the paper editorialized.
Otis Chandler must be rolling over in his grave.
This isn’t the first time Nika has used her father’s money and power to push her radical agenda.
According to reporting from Wehoville, “Over the past two years, she [Nika] has emerged as a leading voice at the Times, advising her father on the direction of the paper and gaining clout and influence in the newsroom for her progressive viewpoints and her rapport with the editorial staff.”
Nika’s first big contribution, post-George Floyd, was banning the word ‘looting’ from LA Times stories about looting. So now when teenagers swarm through a Rodeo Drive jewelry store stealing everything in sight they’re not looting, they’re actually ‘liberating’ the merchandise from the now-smashed glass cases.
Great.
This is what happens when a billionaire physician (wait, what?) takes over one of the world’s biggest newspapers, then lets his virtue-signaling, social justice warrior, spoiled, clueless 20-something daughter run the thing. It makes no sense.
It’s almost as stupid as letting some parking meter mogul buy the Dodgers.
And here’s the cherry on top of the sundae. After throwing West Hollywood to the wolves, Soon-Shiong promptly resigned her position as Public Safety Commissioner and announced that she’s moving to London, England to finish up her doctorate…and presumably launching an initiative called ‘De-Fund The Bobbies.’
Of course she can’t be bothered to stick around and live with the consequences of her reckless actions, that’s for the non-billionaires in West Hollywood to worry about.
Lives will be destroyed because of the flippant and extreme actions of Soon-Shiong. It will be up to future city councils to undo the damage that she created before she skipped town.
Hopefully this means we’ve seen the last of clueless social activist Nika Soon-Shiong.
And not a moment too Soon-Shiong.