LA City Council Weighing Controversial Funding of Neighborhood Security Groups
How Did A Guy Wearing An InfoWars Hat End Up Standing Behind Karen Bass?
Los Angeles is weighing putting $1 million in city funds into neighborhood non-profit security groups. The primary recipients would be Magen Am and the Jewish Federation. A quarter of the money is earmarked towards a more opaque “nonprofit organizations to support community safety initiatives in the Jewish communities of Los Angeles.” Some of these potential recipients have made or continue to make questionable statements; others have into racism or transphobia.
Los Angeles City Council tomorrow has listed on its agenda a motion to to enter into a contract with multiple “Jewish community organizations. $400,00 to the Jewish Federation’s Community Security Initiative which provides among other services threat monitoring, vulnerability and security training as well as a database linking hundreds of sites. $350,000 to Magen Am, a physical and often armed security service for community patrols which also provides martial arts and self-defense training. The Jewish Community Foundation would also receive a contract for $250,000 to fund grants to nonprofit organizations to support community safety initiatives in Los Angeles’ Jewish communities.
A Protest On June 23rd
On Sunday, June 23rd dozens of pro-Palestine protesters went into Los Angeles’ Pico-Robertson neighborhood and in front of Adas Torah Synagogue. Violence at the protest started early. First, there were shoving matches between participants. Then attacks on pro-Palestine protesters rapidly increased.
Throughout the day, members of LA Shmira and Magen Am attempted to keep members of both sides apart from each other. At times, they were successful in de-escalation. Shmira Los Angeles is a volunteer public safety organization whose street patrols and organization provide “security and support for the Jewish community in Los Angeles.”
Anti-LGBTQ, anti-Arab, anti-Asian, anti-Black language was heard on multiple occasions coming from pro-Israel counter-protesters; they also made several threats of sexual violence. There were also anti-LGBTQ slurs from the pro-Palestine demonstrators.
As the day continued, attacks and threats on journalists were widespread. Counter-demonstrators threatened a female with a burning at the stake, threatened sexual violence against another female reporter. US Press Tracker states on social media that at least nine journalists were assaulted or had their equipment damaged during the day. The writer of this piece was kicked in the groin and hands, as well as punched in the back of the head twice by counter-demonstrators.
Many politicians including Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and President Biden have called the protest antisemitic due to its location at Adas Torah in Pico-Robertson, which has a majority Jewish population.
Many of the pro-Palestinian protesters’ stated purpose on social media was blocking a real estate event at Adas Torah hosted by My Home In Israel. My Home In Israel was the first company listed on the real estate event’s advertisement. At time of writing their website lists at least one property in the occupied territories: a 5-bedroom home in Efret. Efret is situated in the West Bank. Expansion of Israeli settlements there have been declared illegal both internationally and recently condemned by the United States.
An InfoWars Hat And A Lot Of Fallout
One day later, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass hosted an invite-only press conference at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Politicians and representatives of the Simon Wiesenthal Center stood behind her in what she called a "united front," condemning a pro-Palestine protest the day before outside of a synagogue in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood of Los Angeles the day before.
Adam King Is Back Row, Second From Left. Wearing an Infowars Hat.
Source: City of Los Angeles
The "united front," included Bass, Los Angeles City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, LAPD Interim Chief Dominic Choi, County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, members of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and others. One of those others, wearing an InfoWars hat, was Adam King. How did a man wearing an InfoWars hat end up invited and allowed to stand directly behind Los Angeles' Mayor? It's not quite sure.
King’s statements have veered directly into Islamaphobia, anti-LGBTQ and anti-feminist hate speech. Much of his following tunes in to see him "debate," prominent antisemitic voices like neo-Nazi Eljah Schaffer, Proud Boys founder Gavin McGinnes, neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes and white supremacist Vincent James Foxx. When King’s presence at the event became public, many on social media took to calling King a neo-Nazi. King is Jewish, and has denounced overt antisemitism. King has also interviewed indicted right-wing political operative Roger Stone, who has documented relationships with hate groups.
Whether a debate assists the message of hate speech or King or defeats hate is unclear. Debating members of hate groups has long been controversial in extremism research circles. The Southern Poverty Law Center guides people: “do not debate hate group members in conflict-driven forums.”
The only person who seems to be positive about an answer publicly has been King himself. King states that he was invited due to his involvement with his nonprofit foundation Magivim and "is invited to all these things, we are never not included." He also states that Bass did "the right thing," to include [King] today."
Bass' Deputy Mayor stated that "the mayor doesn’t know this person and the Mayor’s Office did not invite him to participate in yesterday’s event." King ran against Bass for the 37th District and received 14% of the vote several years ago. When asked if King was vetted for the closed door event, Bass’ office did not respond to further inquiries.
Katy Yaroslavsky did not respond to several requests from AWCN for comment or clarification. But King did claim that he received a phone call several minutes after AWCN from Yaroslavsky’s office.
Emails to LAPD's Public Information Office requesting clarification on LAPD’s relationship with King were answered with a press release regarding the Pico-Robertson protest. LAPD’s PIOs stated they had a response coming, but did not do so in time for this piece.
AWCN reached out to Sergeant Scott Albert, a Public Information Officer who has been photographed with King. An hour later King reached out via social media to AWCN saying "So you are digging around LAPD looking for information on me?"
Magivim
King’s nonprofit Magivim could potentially qualify as a recipient of the city grants. It touts that it brings “experience in preventive and proactive safety, and community service together to create positive action.” Magivim has participated in at least several LAPD events under the banner of community safety.
First Photo:
Front Row, Second From Right: Adam King. Second From Left, Front Row: Sgt. Scott Alpert
Source: Facebook
Second Photo:
A Man Who Appears To Be A Detainee At The Pico-Robertson Protest On 6/23
Source: Instagram
AWCN inquired King about a photo taken with several police officers to Sergeant Alpert. King confirmed it was him and told AWCN the event was from when “we saved the city from the democrat riots of 2020.” Alpert would later say in a voicemail that Magivim “try to give us some information sometimes that will help out the community if they can but that’s about to the extent,” of their involvement.
Another event at which Magivim, LAPD, Shmira and another security group Shul Guard, featured Ronit Edry as a speaker. Edry is the co-founder of Magivim. In the background of the photo, a man who was detained after being involved with multiple instances of violence at the Pico-Robertson appears to be present. Edry was also seen assisting with the coordination of security at Adas Torah on June 23rd.
Shmira
LA Shmira has existed for more than a decade and their visibility markedly increased in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood after two shootings of Jews in an antisemitic hate crime in 2023. A neighborhood-centric patrol often arrives at the scene of emergencies before city response services. Usually patrolling dressed in trademark orange vests, they’ve even helped the author of this piece get home safely after a verbal altercation.
During the Pico-Robertson protest on June 23rd, for hours they could be seen attempting to de-escalate tempers and physical attacks. Braum claimed during a July 1st South Robertson Neighborhood Council meeting that LAPD had grossly underestimated the potential for large protest during the protest. According to him, he’d been told by LAPD before the protest that they’d only planned to send five officers ahead of time but negotiated for more.
LA Shmira was described by several South Robertson Neighborhood Council members during a July 1st public safety committee as a necessary recipient of a portion of the grant funds from the city. LA Shmira’s longtime Director of Operations Daniel Braum also sits on the Public Safety Committee for the South Robertson Neighborhood Council. Braum often insists publicly that he and LA Shmira do not engage in politics, but Braum has made numerous statements which conflict with that.
Braum’s Facebook profile occasionally shares content from rightwing websites like Turning Point, and Prager U. There are also several derogatory comments or jokes about Transgender people. In a podcast, Adam King calls pro-Palestine demonstrators at the June 23 protest “monkeys,” and refers to them as “white Jihadis,” with no pushback from Braum.
King stated he was a co-founder of LA Shmira on his podcast with Braum present. On Adam King’s podcast as a guest, Braum echoed a longtime antisemitic trope regarding George Soros by spreading rumors that pro-Palestinian protesters are paid. He’d repeat some of the same rumors on an online July 1 South Robertson Neighborhood Council meeting, claiming that photos of buses he’d seen were filled with pro-Palestinian protesters. He’d later call on LAPD to investigate bus drivers and bus companies which were operating in the area.
AWCN sent a request for comment to Braum but they have not been responded to.
While LA Shmira itself has for the most part evaded criticism, other Shmira and similar groups throughout the country have engendered public controversy. Andrew Charles, the Black son of an NYPD officer was reportedly attacked with a nightstick and pepper spray by a member of Brooklyn’s Shmira in 2008. In 2010, a Baltimore Shomrim volunteer was charged with first-degree assault, reckless endangerment and false imprisonment after allegedly striking a Black teenager and yelling “…you don’t belong here, get outta here!” A year later in Borough Park, New York members of Shomrim were accused by members of NYPD of both vigilantism and delaying and not calling police soon enough after an 8-year-old girl went missing.
LA Shmira (and all of the community safety patrols profiled in this piece) state that they provide safety to anyone in the community “serve our entire community, irrespective of faith or affiliation,” on their website.
Magen Am
Magen Am for its part has controversial connections as well.
Renato Ackerman, a member of Magen Am, held demonstrations in Hollywood in support of right-wing former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Attacks on pro-Palestine demonstrators in May at UCLA were observed by Magen Am members who did nothing to prevent the violence. A statement after the June 23 protest in Pico-Robertson characterized the pro-Palestine demonstrators as “pro-Hamas.”
Stop LAPD Spying said on social media of funding groups like Magen Am, “this is all another example of how public and private policing forces collude in shared goals of social control and repression.”
Some in the LAPD appear to have been calling for a more direct partnership between themselves and Magen Am and similar groups since at least 2020. Commander Davalos of the LAPD said in a video purporting to be taken at a 2020 Magen Am graduation “I see Magen Am as the next evolution of an organized public/private first responder partnership in the community.”
This story is still developing and may be updated
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There are so many non profits here💻