Facebook account hacked, Online bullying from CWC continues - LAPD investigating

Just a few days ago, I saw more personal information about my family posted online, including screen shots of my wife's facebook account, by someone from the CWC community. It's sad that someone from their community would continue to use anonymous, cyber bully tactics to try to scare me and my family. This is the same person (or people) who harassed me and tried to intimidate me from speaking at the Del Rey Neighborhood Council.
   I'm not posting a link to the comments, because the comments have tracked links. In a lapse of judgement, my wife clicked on one of the links from an email this person that said "Log in to your FB [Facebook]...and you will see what I mean." Of course, it was a tracked link and next thing she knew, her facebook account had been hacked. It was few days before she had realized the breach and changed her account settings.
   Is this really how the CWC community conducts itself? Cyberbullying and hacking people's accounts? As "true" citizens wouldn't you want to engage in our democratic process and encourage dialog, not silence opposition by harassment and hacking.

   On the plus side, since the harassment and cyber bullying from the CWC community has continued and only gotten worse, LAPD has opened an investigation on the email threats we have received in relation to Citizens of the World charter school.

Enlightening conversation with CWC parent last night

Informational flier on car

Yesterday, evening I had a very enlightening conversation on Stoner Avenue with a CWC parent who was volunteering for an open house that night.

_____
    Early in the evening my family started noticing traffic on our residential street. Car were speeding, driving erratically, driving in the middle of the road, make fast U turns in driveways. When you see this kind of dangerous driving on our street, it can only mean there was a Citizens of the World Charter Mar Vista event going on. I pulled my daughters inside the house and told them they would not be able to play outside that evening like we usually do because of the traffic danger.
    I went to see what the activity was all about and saw CWC was having yet another open house. I decided to distribute some informational fliers to those attending so that they could have a broader understanding of what was going on with this co-location.
   As I was distributing fliers, a CWC parent called out to me "You are only hurting the children!" Oh on, I thought. Anytime a CWC parent has talked to me on the street, it ends with them yelling at me. I responded with a question "What about our children and what your school is doing to them?"
   I reached out my hand and introduced myself. "Hi, I'm A--- Benitez. I live where those palm trees are." She gave a look of surprise like she had just seen the devil. She obviously knew who I was. So, I continued, "Yes, I'm that neighbor. The one CWC is placing all the blame on for the problems. I'm the only one with a yard sign. I'm the only one who signed a petition. I'm the only one who was present at all the demonstrations. The only one who is causing problem. I'm that neighbor." I took a breath and calmed down.
  I told her I was well aware of what was being said about me and my family by the CWC community, and told her that the CWC community had made my family a target and that we had received gang threats and threats from the CWC community because of this.
   She was surprised "Wait, I thought we [CWC] were the ones receiving gang threats." I explained to her the threat I received from some one who was representing themselves as part of the CWC community and the Culver City street gang. I explained how that threat from their community ultimately resulted in the graffiti on their school fence. She had no idea of any of this. I told her to check out my blog. I hope she's reading this right now. (Hi! Thanks for the conversation.)
   We continued to talk about other issues with the co-location including the competition for resources on campus, the separate entrances, the parents in the bathroom, the spikes left by the CWC parents and a few other issues.  It seemed like this was the first time she was hearing any of this. She didn't believe the spikes and I told that I could probably point one out right now. We walked a few feet before we found a spike inside campus under a CWC lunch table. I told her about the ordeal with the spikes.

   The more we talked, the more I realized that the CWC community is not being told the truth.  They are receiving a whitewashed, varnished version of the truth where anyone who brings up a problem is made a scapegoat for bringing up their concerns and this is exacerbating the problem with the co-location. Just like the April 8th CWC communication about the gang activity and traffic problems minimizes both problems and places the blame for the traffic problem on "A resident", CWC is sending a distorted message to their community about what is really going on and is trying to shift blame on to others. This is helping to fuel the tensions between the communities and is creating more problems for both communities.

   

[special snark edition] CWC does not take safety concerns seriously. How can we take them seriously?

[Advisory] Generally, I take the situation caused by the CWC co-location very seriously. However, I'm well aware of the absurdity and comedy of the situation. Stoners vs Citizens, a mainly minority school vs a mostly white school, poor working vs well off...sometimes it sounds like a bad joke and you just have to laugh. And so today, I'm presenting a extra special snarky edition of the blog.Yes, there will be rudeness. Yes, there will be mockery and condescension in today's post, but today is a chance to step back and laugh at the comedy of errors that is this co-location. Please, be advised.
____________


Considering the graffiti this month and that my family was almost run over by a CWC parent, I wanted to see what CWC was telling their community about the gang and traffic safety issues. I made a California Public Records Act request and was , frankly, not surprised to see that CWC was minimizing the gang problems and placing blame for traffic/safety problems on  "A neighbor" and not on the actual unsafe driving by the CWC community, but we'll get to all that in a second.

   This letter was sent out to the CWC community by the CWC Executive Director on April 8, 2014. A JPG of the document is below if you'd like to see the original released document. Here on the blog, we are going to go through this document line by line and adding some annotations in red.
______

Hi all,

Hope you are doing well! Writing with a quick update about the graffiti on the fence banner and with some traffic safety reminders. (I hate to start off being picky, but this is a fragment sentence and this communication is very informal. Is this really an official communication from a professional educator?) Wanted to let you all know that, thanks to amazing parent volunteers, we're painting over the graffiti right now. I know it's troubling to see. We reached out to LAPD and they came by this morning (What took CWC so long? We contacted LAPD on 4/7 in the morning. In the evening on 4/7, LAPD told us CWC had not yet returned their calls and were not available when they went by campus twice that day.) and said they'd be having additional evening patrols to try and deter this in the future (When I spoke with LAPD, they strongly recommended removing the fence covering. Why no mention of that option, considering it is the option CWC ultimately chose?). We have seen this at other locations and LAPD definitely mentioned there's tagging in the neighborhood generally. (Yes, there is definitely tagging in the neighborhood, but in my four decades in the area, I've never seen a direct "F--- You!!!" written in a tag. The graffiti does not look like your general run-of the mill tagging. This was definitely a message to the people behind the fence. I would not take this message as a general message.) We will be looking at other measures we can take from installing cameras to moving the banner to the interior of the fence (Really? Why because spray paint won't go through a chain link fence?). More to come on all of that.

In other news, wanted to let you know that in addition to Alison and Jim (Principal of Stoner) (This took me aback. "Jim?" Again, is this really an official communication from an education professional? Or maybe "Jim" is just cool with all the CWC community like that...)  meeting regularly, the liaison groups established with Stoner (small groups of teachers and parents from both schools) are meeting and collaborating as well (except that the CWC parents have cancelled the last two meetings and the group has not meet in close to two month, which is very upsetting since there are serious safety issues that need to be addressed. See: link). We're also working closely with the neighborhood council and their education committee that created an ad hoc committee specifically devoted to resolving the co-location/ community tension (The local community is boycotting the ad hoc meetings since the DRNC is not representing its concerns on this issue.).

I also wanted to remind everyone to please drive safely at all times around the school. A neighbor is repeatedly photographing and taking videos (Yes, that's the problem "A neighbor" is taking photos & video, not the actually unsafe driving by the CWC community. Also, I wonder how they concluded it is only "a neighbor" since many neighbors are upset and are taking pictures and video. As a community, we are only starting to get organized about collecting this evidence. Also, why is CWC placing the blame on one person and thus making them a target? We have seen the CWC community make targets out of our community members before. Instead of dealing with issue, they blame the people who bring attention to the problems.) of cars running stop signs, backing up into intersections, blocking driveways, parking in red zones or in front of hydrants (It's sad that she doesn't even mention the incident that sparked this reminder, that my family was almost run over in a crosswalk by a CWC parent driving backwards down the street) . Mornings in particular are harried times, please take care to drive extra safely especially when running late. While we definitely aim to start on time, it's better for folks to be tardy than to risk an accident (and run over a whole family). Thanks for your help with this. 

Thank you, as always, for your patience and steadfast support in the face of what is

definitely a frustrating situation. We do know from other charters that they have

faced this too and in time it has passed (It's upsetting to see how the CWC administration minimizes the problem and says that it is a passing thing.  The local community and Stoner ES community are not a passing things.  This is where we live and we aren't going anywhere.) Definitely come grab me in the office or shoot me an email if you have any questions or specifics you want to connect about.

Another week, another threat from the CWC community

   Last week it was an email threat from some representing themselves as part of the CWC community and part of the Culver City street gang, this week it came from a "neighbor" with a hushmail.com account.

    The menacing emails began at 4:38 pm Monday, Feb 17 and continued until 4:20 am the following day. The emails talked about my family, listed our assets, listed my parents and brothers addresses, and even said they were going to tell my parents on me. (...no, really they were going to tell on me...) They were basically trying to intimidate me so that I would not speak at the Del Rey Neighborhood Council Education Committee meeting on Feb 18.

   
 
    In the second to last email, the writer even threatens to air my "dirty laundry" at the meeting  as a way to scare me in to silence.
    On the morning of Feb 18, a letter was thrown into my parents yard containing a print out of the emails. (So, they did tell on me!) Maybe they would humiliate me me at the meeting with some dark, long forgotten secret. Or, this was just another attempt to scare and silence me.


    This is just sad.  Is this how citizens of the world behave themselves? Anonymous menacing email threats? As "citizens" wouldn't they want to engage in our democratic process and encourage discussion, such as at a neighborhood council meeting, not silence opposing voices with threats of public humiliation?