2 car bombs meant as attacks on UCLA research *

Here we go again. There's word this afternoon of another attack by animal activists involving UCLA researchers. Details from the Associated Press:

Anti-animal research activists are claiming responsibility for torching two vehicles they thought belonged to a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Activists connected to the Animal Liberation Front say they destroyed the vehicles on Nov. 20 to protest the work of Goran Lacan, a researcher who used animals while investigating treatments for morbid obesity and eating disorders.

The group accidentally targeted the wrong address, according to a UCLA press release. University police with the help of Los Angeles police, fire officials and the FBI are investigating the incident.

-- Shelby Grad

* Update: Here's a link to the story by The Times' Andrew Blankstein.

Comments

[Mahatma Ghandi]

They were wrong when they chose to attack people in the first place. This proves how much more wrong their are.

[Bookkeeper]

But didn't the guy from Planning and Safety -- the one who so frustrated Eric
Garcetti in Council recently, that even he finally got on board the billboard blight and illegal billboard problem -- say that his dept. would have to verify all these counts anyway? By sending out inspectors whose job it was to do this in the first place? But who hadn't because the list to catalogue was too long, and because ClearChannel/ CBS OUtdoors and Regency (who between them have about 87% of the billboards) weren't paying even the nominal inspection fee Rocky negotiated (actually, reduced) for them, and were suing the city instead?

So what's going to happen next? Will that guy from B & S, who personifies ineptitude in government, make this list a priority to verify, or what? Then what? Meanwhile, Councilmembers like Reyes, Perry and Wesson and Hahn have been actively creating or lobbying to create "billboard districts" which are basically, side deals with these 3 main companies, which were cited by the courts as invalidating the city's ban -- that is, by creating selective enforcement? (Although it would make sense to have different residential/ crassly commercial zones for billboards in a future ordinance, but apparently that doesn't exist now, at least not clearly enough to have suited the courts.)

The L A Weekly and KCET have estimated that the LED/ lighted billboards, which are central to those "billboard districts," earn upto $100-150,000/ month for those big billboard companies, while the inspection fee is still the same old $186 and they don't pay that. Then there are the safety issues of having some of these sign districts right on highways, blinding speeding motorists.

If the Governator can try to impose sales tax on everything from private training to dog grooming, can't the city impose at least a sales tax on all that revenue? (The Republicans scotched Arnold's diea, but not because it was illegal -- surely the Democrat-controlled City could manage to get a fair share of billboard revenue, in light of raising fees for everything else, from trash to parking to traffic fines and zoo admissions?) Meanwhile, some people on Curbed L A and elsewhere wonder why they can't just remove illegal supergraphics as long as they're not ON private property/ buildings,.

Some people have those things shining into their homes 24/7 and lose sleep and property values -- sounds to me like the issue is heating up and the City needs to reprimand that B & S guy and the City Attorney which is advising him, as a start.