On a cold and rainy day in March, I met up with LA producer JoogSzn in Los Angeles at Raw Suga Shack Studios for the second part of an interview that started in 2021. Since our initial meeting, when my Youtube channel was just beginning, both of our careers have developed so much. I worked as A&R for a compilation tape featuring various artists I’ve interviewed and known personally releasing the projecttitled “FreeWorldOrder” just over a year later. Both this project and JoogSzn’s debut album, Where’s Joog?, released on June 3, 2022,  are available on all digital streaming platforms ..read more

(Photo: Sunrise@dawn Photography | Getty Images) This article was produced by Capital & Main. It is published here with permission. When Amy Schulenberg drives around Boyle Heights, she said she gets distracted looking at the trees. “My daughters call it trunk driving,” she said, laughing.   Schulenberg knows every species and seemingly almost every street in this historic working-class neighborhood east of downtown Los Angeles. Between 2021 and 2023, she walked hundreds of blocks in Boyle Heights to find space to plant new trees. She rattles off the names of the species tha ..read more

Santa Ana Mayor Valerie Amezcua sitting at the dais. January 16, 2024. (Photo: Ben Camacho | Knock LA) In what appears to be a political favor to the Santa Ana Police Officers Association (SAPOA), Santa Ana Mayor Valerie Amezcua played a pivotal role in the removal of then-City Manager Kristine Ridge and then-Chief David Valentin, as revealed by public records acquired by Knock LA. The role of the police labor union and Mayor Amezcua in the ouster of Ridge and Valentin was revealed in a legal claim submitted to the city by Ridge. In that claim, Ridge alleged that she experienced “discriminatio ..read more

(Graphic: Christine Kao | Knock LA) Shot in the head and just out of a five-month coma, 20-year-old Mario Carr, a young Black man, could barely nod his head when Long Beach police first interviewed him. Even so, he would go on to become LA County prosecutors’ star witness. Investigators would come to rely almost exclusively on his testimony, even as they failed to follow up on other leads and evidence. A patchwork of limited evidence and conflicting eyewitness statements should have flagged reasonable doubt in prosecutors’ minds. Yet together, the flimsy evidence would be crucial in “winning ..read more

LAPD removes property from an encampment as part of Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program. March 7, 2024. (Photo: Ben Camacho | Knock LA) More than a year after what was touted to be a historic and forward-thinking move toward reducing homelessness, Inside Safe has been a mixed bag at best and continues to be a lightning rod for controversy. Since its signing, the plan has seen criticisms regarding transparency, accusations of unhygienic conditions, and even a battle over audits with City Controller Kenneth Mejia. In December 2022, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed two executive directives ..read more

Then-Captain Timothy Murakami. This story was published in partnership with Los Angeles Public Press. After two years of fighting a subpoena issued by the Los Angeles County Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission (COC), former undersheriff Timothy Murakami testified Thursday that he received the tattoo of the Cavemen deputy gang while he was a deputy at the East LA station in the 1980s. The commission issued the subpoena to Murakami and former Sheriff Alex Villanueva in June of 2022, but they defied the order for nearly two years. Villanueva appeared willingly in January, but Murakami ..read more

Shot in the head and just out of a five-month coma, 20-year-old Mario Carr, a young Black man, could barely nod his head when Long Beach police first interviewed him. Even so, he would go on to become LA County prosecutors’ star witness. Investigators would come to rely almost exclusively on his testimony, even as they failed to follow up on other leads and evidence. A patchwork of limited evidence and conflicting eyewitness statements should have flagged reasonable doubt in prosecutors’ minds. Yet together, the flimsy evidence would be crucial in “winning” the attempted murder case against t ..read more

Jordan Henry holding a megaphone at a rally on June 6, 2023. (Photo: Kelly Stuart | Knock LA) Towards the beginning of the 2023/2024 school year, Daniel*, a Glendale Unified School District (GUSD) high school teacher, was taking a shower late at night when his home phone rang. Daniel lives with his parents, and they answered the phone. A man angrily demanded to talk to their son. After the caller got frustrated with Daniel’s confused parents, he hung up. Around the same time, Daniel also received an email containing a death threat. These threats followed Daniel speaking out at school board mee ..read more

Entrance to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Medical Campus. Photo courtesy the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. (Photo: L.A. County Board of Supervisors) This article was produced by Capital & Main. It is published here with permission. Last summer, officials at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in South Los Angeles made a decision: If they didn’t start yelling for help, their facility was headed for a total shutdown. In the abstract, the problem seemed to make no sense. How could this hospital be in trouble? Not only is MLK (as locals often call it) a newer facility with co ..read more

En 2024, Los Ángeles se encuentra en un punto de inflexión política. El movimiento progresista de la ciudad logró avances significativos en las elecciones del 2020 y 2022, lo que condujo a cambios significativos como protecciones más sólidas para los inquilinos y una reforma de la justicia penal. Pero ahora las asociaciones de policías, los propietarios corporativos y otras entidades que se benefician del status quo se están preparando para gastar millones de dólares para revertir la ola progresista. Así que los votantes se enfrentan a una difícil elección: volver a las políticas fallidas de ..read more