During yesterday's conversation with Mayor Stothert and Chief Schmaderer, they both referenced "racist" posts by Tony Caniglia Jr., an 11-Worth Cafe employee who is also the son of the restaurant's owner. They agreed that offensive social media posts resulted in the protests, but declined to share what the posts said.
This resulted in every single NewsRadio 1110 KFAB listener e-mailing me non-stop asking what the posts said.
After some digging, I believe I found all of them (and I did a little white-out work on the profanity and graphic image of the injured man's face):
No statement from the Caniglia family since yesterday's comments by the mayor and the chief or owner Tony's meeting with them earlier this week. The restaurant remains closed (the owner says it's permanently closed), and no charges related to allegations of protester threats or extortion have been issued thus far.
My thoughts on these posts: I don't know this family, but I ate at the 11-Worth Cafe several times when I lived near there in '97-98. Great food. I don't like seeing protesters shut something down THEY don't like. If I don't like something, I just choose not to go there. The Caniglia family has served and hired enough people of all walks of life over the years, so I give them the benefit of the doubt: I don't think they're racists.
But it's hard to defend these posts by Tony Jr. While I get the sense they're born out of frustration for a lack of law and order, they reek of "shoot first, ask questions later." We don't need more of that. They don't give benefit of the doubt to any protesters who aren't there for criminal behavior. It's easy to get the impression that the poster sees black protesters as expendable. And maybe he does. Like I said, I don't know the guy.
And, as a lifelong Lakers fan, I can't allow anyone to talk sh-t on Kyle Kuzma. Go find a Celtic to pick on.
These posts put his family, their reputation, the restaurant, and the livelihoods of their employees at risk. There are some opinions that are worth putting all that at stake. These aren't.