The debate over the impounding of cars of unlicensed drivers heated up as a national lawyers group has called for the recusal of an LA City Councilman who they accuse of having a conflict of interest.
The National Lawyers Guild charged in a letter this week that LA City Councilman Mitchell Englander has a conflict because his uncle, Michael Englander, and his public relations firm, Englander, Knabe & Allen represent the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which has lobbied LA City Council members to block a change in policy that would bar officers from towing the cars of unlicensed drivers.
The letter also says Englander received campaign contributions from the Official Police Garage Association between 2009 and 2011.
“It is unlikely that Councilman Englander can objectively analyze the Chief's proposed policy change given the financial windfall that 30-day impounds have created for those close to him in the towing industry,” National Lawyers Guild member Colleen Flynn wrote in a Jan. 18 letter to Council President Herb Wesson. “Councilman Englander’s close financial and familial ties to the Police Protective League and the Official Police Garage Association completely compromise his ability to make decisions that are in the best interest of the City of Los Angeles and its residents.”
Englander was insulted by the letter because it mentions the name, Michael, an uncle who was killed in a botched robbery in 1994. He said Michael Englander didn’t even own the PR firm. His uncle, Harvey, did.
“It’s disgusting,” Mitchell Englander said of the letter in a phone interview with NBC4. "They’re lying. They’re making stuff up. This is a group of folks whose vice president is in jail for killing a police officer.”
The National Lawyers Guild is an association of progressive lawyers, law students, paralegals and legal aid workers formed in 1937.
Its vice president for jailhouse attorneys is Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was sentenced to death for killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981.
The news about the LAPD’s impound policy comes as several hundred residents at a Tuesday night L.A. Police Commission meeting came out mostly to air opposition to the proposed policy change. Forty five people took to the podium for three hours. Some of the speakers were spurred to attend by KFI (640 AM) radio talk show hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou and the news of a recent death of a woman by an unlicensed driver.
Local
Get Los Angeles's latest local news on crime, entertainment, weather, schools, COVID, cost of living and more. Here's your go-to source for today's LA news.
The impound policy issue wasn’t on the commission’s agenda that night.
Englander, who was at the meeting, announced his opposition to the proposed change, saying that any change that goes easier on unlicensed drivers would further endanger the motoring public.
At issue is California’s vehicle code statute that calls for police to impound for 30 days the vehicles of motorists who are found driving without a license or whose licenses are suspended or revoked. The LAPD is considering changing its policy to allow first offenders caught driving without a license to call a relative or friend to have them pick up the vehicle, instead of having it towed.
The policy has come under criticism after some said it unfairly targets illegal immigrants, many of whom are unlicensed.
A tug of war between LAPD brass and the Los Angeles City Council has broken out over whose authority it is to change the city’s policy.
Councilman Bernard C. Parks, a former LAPD police chief, has called on the chief to hold off on making any changes until the full City Council has had time to review it. The City Council has also called on the City Attorney to address potential liability that could result from a policy change.
“The members of the Public Safety Committee and the Los Angeles City Council need to better understand how this proposed policy change may impact LAPD’s ability to uphold and enforce policies that make the drivers safe on our roads,” Parks wrote in a City Council motion.
The city’s Chief Legislative Analyst, the City Attorney’s Office and the LAPD are expected to file reports on the matter in three weeks to the Public Safety Committee.
Follow NBCLA for the latest LA news, events and entertainment: Twitter: @NBCLA // Facebook: NBCLA
