How dare you do free work! There are perfectly expensive contractors we could have paid with your tax money to do that if we gave a fuck!
Seriously though the stop signs are a problem but the stripes? Fuck the city.
this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
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'arrested at 1:30am'
That was his mistake. Do it at 10am on a weekday with cones and a high vis vest and they wouldn't have noticed for a couple months.
They didn't want people noticing that they arrested a guy who was trying to make the city a better place for free.
Issue is he was arrested while doing this in the middle of the night, ofc some annoying neighbour reported him.
If he did it in broad daylight with high vis nobody would have noticed.
You can't just decide to randomly paint crosswalks and stop signs. Every NIMBY asshole would do this on their street.
And a clipboard. Gotta have a guy with a clipboard and hard hat.
And a ladder!
I would be proud af of that arrest record if I were that father.
Put that paper on the wall in a frame, and keep it as a badge of honor!
that intersection needs a table or a hump, not just a stop sign
It's probably easier to cut into the road than add a hump to it
There should really be a crosswalk law where if a community petitions for a crosswalk they get it, even if they have to fund it themselves.
Also if the visibility is bad they need to restrict street parking.
For real. Did you see that hill halfway down the article? That's a completely blind street, that crosswalk is 100% necessary. Is the city planner's office reluctant to use the paint because they're all busy huffing it, or what?!
They should also add those extra curb lump things, to move parked cars farther away and get pedestrians out past the parked cars more visibly.
Why did they arrest him?
The charges include interfering with a traffic control device, grand theft, and vandalism exceeding $400, Sgt. Paul Saldana of the El Segundo Police Department said.
Repaint a crosswalk? Sure. Fill a pothole? Yeah I get that. Putting up stop signs gets a bit iffy though. Duder shoulda ran for city council about it.
What did he do that was vandalism? What did he steal that was grand theft? What traffic control device did he interfere with?
He painted the road with new markings (stop) that didn't exist, and took down signs indicating there was a crosswalk and replaced them with stop signs. Obviously none of these should be some sort og huge crime but you could definitely be an ass about it and charge someone for all of these crimes for it. Doubt it'd hold up in court for any actual punishment.
Painting on the road = vandalism
Changing the signs for different ones = interfering with traffic control device
Taking down signs that are government property = grand theft
Huh, I didn't get any of that by reading the article
Yeah it's not very clear, that part about painting stop on the road is just in the subtext of an image for example.
Some asshole near me put up fake "cyclists must dismount and walk down hill" signs.
While I think it's bullshit that the city seems to be continually ignoring these citizens concerns, this guy just taking it upon himself to install stop signs and other traffic signals is not ok.
If he wants action he needs more than just a handful of his neighbors' signatures. The city is a political entity, you want action you need to go for the political jugular. Admittedly, a story in a large newspaper or online publication like this is one way to get that sort of attention, but an arrest is not going to help your case. In this age where video surveillance is easy to set up I would have set up a camera at the location and documented every single near miss and if the city ignored that I would have taken it to YouTube and a local news station with a super cut of near misses at that location.
There are multiple ways of going about things like this, flouting the law is not the best.
He got the 50 signatures required for a study, the study just didn't meet the city's criteria for reevaluation. I couldn't be less interested in the validity of illegalism, root issue is that a community's concern isn't being addressed by their government. A smart rep would seize on this opportunity as an easy win.
Yes, and it's highly debatable as to whether or not they actually did the study. In order to move City councils you need political pressure.
The city is a political entity, you want action you need to go for the political jugular.
This is absolutely insane. No, residents should not have to "go for the political jugular" for something as basic as traffic safety improvement.
I disagree. Civil disobedience is a very effective way to get attention to situations that need it.
And arrests can absolutely help your case. I recommend the book "A blueprint for revolution" by Srdja Popovic.
I, for one, appreciate this man engaging in the exact grassroots direct democracy that LA prizes. Sometimes, illustrating exactly where the system fails and where the people prevail is the right approach. He did everything right. And when the government failed, he took it upon himself to do the right thing.
There is a kid that didn't get squished by a truck today. Why would I complain about that?