STRIVE TO LIVE, Inglewood! — Killed by the Inglewood Police Department: Richard Tyson, 5/7/07; Michael Byoune, 5/11/08; Ruben Walton Ortega, 7/1/08; Kevin Wicks, 7/21/08 and Marcus Smith, 5/17/09. What can I say about Sunday morning’s killing of a citizen by the Inglewood police that I haven’t already said over and over and over and over again?

Wait, here’s something: Inglewood residents should know by now that they ought not to call the police unless they want somebody killed. It was reported on the TV news that popular community activist Big Money Griff summoned police to quell a disturbance caused by two guys wrestling at the party being held in the Osage Avenue apartment above his, where the cops found another one of their reasons to shoot and kill somebody — this time it was Marcus Smith, one of the partygoers. (I subsequently heard that the Inglewood PD was already on the way when Big Money called them, having been summoned by someone else.) But here’s what it is: Everybody in that city, especially Big Money, should know from tragic experience that calling the Inglewood police to the scene of any kind of trouble is like calling an arsonist to come put out a fire. They create a bigger problem than existed before they arrived — they kill people! So Inglewood residents, please, save yourselves, your loved ones, neighbors and friends; don’t cause cops to come anywhere near you. Handle your business yourself, and live!

THE UNITED STATES OF INGLEWOOD — The forces of evil tried to rid themselves of a persistent critic when one of Councilwoman Judy Dunlap’s minions sought a restraining order banning Ethel Austin from City Council meetings and from City Hall entirely. Unlike the typical Inglewood resident, Ethel is afraid of nothing and forcefully speaks her mind during the public comment portion of the council meetings — and everywhere else — for that matter, which is her constitutional right. She’s an activist who fully exercises her right to criticize elected officials, but those officials who are the usual targets of her wrath actually filed court papers to ban her from City Hall. But Mayor Roosevelt Dorn put on his lawyer suit and represented Ethel when the case went to court last week and argued against the order, which the judge withdrew.

Even though some officials over there don’t act like it, the U.S. Constitution is in full effect in Inglewood and residents of that city enjoy the same rights as those throughout this great nation — including the right to hurl brickbats at their public officials. Heck, the Los Angeles City Council allots a certain amount of time during each meeting for public abuse and frankly, that’s often the best part of the meetings. (That’s certainly the case with Inglewood Council meetings.)

SPOTLIGHT UPDATE — My neighborhood co-queen, Judy Johnson, and I went to the our neighborhood council meeting Monday to get the group’s support in dealing with those city-installed spotlights that are making our neighbors’ lives miserable. And we got it. We learned that in some instances the horrible DWP has responded to isolated complaints about the 51 disturbing alley lights by affixing shields around a minuscule number of them to lessen their adverse impact on individual homeowners. DWP says it costs too much to shield all of them. The neighborhood council passed a motion calling on DWP to shield all the lights and recommended that our councilman, Dennis Zine, expedite the shielding of those nine mind-numbing lights on our street. All the members of the neighborhood council voted for the motion, except one old codger who obviously has a close personal relationship with DWP.

DONALD T. STERLING?! — Two questions: Where is the Los Angeles NAACP getting all that money to buy all those ads in the L.A. Times congratulating itself on honoring developer Donald T. Sterling? And, where does the Los Angeles NAACP get off honoring who I believe to be the city’s biggest bigot, Donald T. Sterling? This man, who owns the L.A. Clippers, is a notorious racist. He’s been sued by all kinds of folks and organizations for racial discrimination in his business dealings and I wrote a story several years ago about his standing policy of refusing to rent any of his many Wilshire-area apartments to Black people. He had a well-articulated “Koreans only” policy for which the U.S. government and individuals sued him. Sterling fired basketball icon Elgin Baylor from his longtime post with the Clippers and Baylor is suing him for racism. Sterling’s racist acts are legion, yet, last week the Los Angeles NAACP gave him its highest honor — the Lifetime Achievement Award!! Oh come on! What’s this all about? Somebody please tell me, what’s the subtext?

THIS AND THAT — The City Council beat back an attack by Councilmen Bernard Parks and Greig Smith on the city’s network of neighborhood councils. The mayor had proposed in his budget that the neighborhood councils’ annual allocation of $50,000 be reduced to $45,000 to reflect the 10 percent cut almost all the departments are taking. But during a late night session of the Budget and Finance Committee, Parks and Smith devised and submitted a plan to reduce the councils’ allocation to $10,000. When the full council voted on the budget, it approved the mayor’s original proposal of $45,000. Dang, foiled again!

Theodore Irving, president of the United Homeowners Assn., is still jerking his members around about the outreach meeting he promised to arrange for them with the PXP oil company over their health and welfare concerns about increased drilling in the Yvonne B. Burke Oil Field in Baldwin Hills. They say Irving keeps changing dates, shifting places and posting notices for meetings after the meetings have held. Why is this man still in office?

The Buckingham Place Senior Housing development, which has been stalled by Chris Hammond’s bankruptcy and foreclosure proceedings, is moving one step closer to completion due to a settlement agreement reached recently by the CRA Board of Commissioners. If the settlement is approved by the bankruptcy court, it will resolve two bankruptcy actions and other litigation filed regarding Buckingham Place, which is a portion of that ill-fated Santa Barbara Plaza development project off Crenshaw. Just as a matter of information — for those of us who live for information — the development consortium of the senior housing project consisted for more than just the notorious Hammond and his Capital Vision Equities LLC, but it also included Phoenix Realty Group LLP and Mothers in Action Inc., a Brotherhood Crusade-related group. I did not know that.

The U.S. House of Representatives feted Assembly Speaker Karen Bass on the one-year anniversary of her historic election as the first African-American woman speaker of a state Assembly Tuesday. The representatives unanimously passed House Resolution 49 in honor of Bass’ achievement.

About a month ago, Joy DeMeek embarked upon a project to get a mentally ill woman off the streets in the Baldwin Hills area. The woman was so broken that she sat in urine, feces and maggots all day and was completely unable to care for herself. DeMeek posted a video of the woman on YouTube, entitled “Leimert Park Happy Mothers Day,” and urged people to e-mail the mayor, governor and other elected officials to demand hospitalization, treatment and other services for her and people like her. But just as the campaign was getting underway, the woman was struck and killed by a drunken driver May 15 as she sat at a bus stop. DeMeek is asking that we not let this woman’s death be as meaningless as her life. She has nine specific demands she wants us to make of the powers-that-be to improve the lives of the community’s mentally ill. We’ll discuss them next week.