It’s a story that I am sure will find it’s way to Bollywood soon. Two brown brothas, one desi and one latino, tied together by a common passion, risked everything to stick it to the MAN and got caught. Tipster RP alerted us to the story of “Kartik Patel and Gabriel Murillo [who] pleaded not guilty to felony charges Monday” in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is not going to be a fun place to drive… officials took the threat seriously
Patel and Murillo were members of a shadowy brotherhood, an organization I’ll bet you’ve never even heard of, called the “Engineers and Architects Association, ” a city union devoted to the dark arts of engineering and architecture. By going on strike, the union grabbed the city of Los Angeles by the golis. They warned:
“Los Angeles is not going to be a fun place to drive.” City officials took the threat seriously. [Link]
<
p>You bet your rims they took the threat seriously! The only things that Angelenos fear more are disruptions to its cocaine and its silicone supply.
<
p>These two men were the elite of their organization, the special ops as it were:
one a renowned traffic engineer profiled in the national media, [and] the other a computer whiz who helped build the system. [Link]
<
p>They executed their daring plan with steely nerves. This scene will need to be scored delicately, with a whole song written for it by A.R. Rehman:
Fearful that the strikers could wreak havoc on the surface street system, … [the MAN] temporarily blocked all engineers from access to the computer that controls traffic signals.
But officials now allege that two engineers, Kartik Patel and Gabriel Murillo, figured out how to hack in anyway. With a few clicks on a laptop computer, the pair … allegedly tied up traffic at four intersections for several days. [Link]
“Tied traffic up”?? No, dear readers, these two did far far more than that. They used an ancient technique known to brown people in India and Mexico to bring the MAN to his knees. They didn’t merely stop traffic at a few lights. No, they were far more subtle than that. Using their ancient cultural wisdom, they selected the most vulnerable locations in the city, its vital nerve clusters, and hit them with a strike that didn’t paralyze … it just slooooooowed everything down. Now traffic was moving like Bombay or Mexico city!
But authorities say the pair picked their targets with care — intersections they knew would cause significant backups because they were close to freeways and major destinations.
They didn’t shut the lights off, city transportation sources said. Rather, the engineers allegedly programmed them so that red lights would be extremely long on the most congested approaches to the intersections, causing gridlock for several days starting Aug. 21, they said.
Cars backed up at Los Angeles International Airport, at a key intersection in Studio City, onto the clogged Glendale Freeway and throughout the streets of Little Tokyo and the L.A. Civic Center. [Link]
Unfortunately, the ending to this caper is both Hollywood and Bollywood, but in the wrong places. It’s Bollywood in that they got caught, and are going to trial. It’s Hollywood in that neither gets the girl. In fact, they’re both married (What, an 34 year old desi Engineer, married? You’re surprised?). As a matter of fact, this photo of what looks like Patel being scolded by his wife might provide the psychological underpinnings for the character’s motivations 
.
UPDATE:
Here’s a simpler version for those readers having trouble following my bollywoody rewrite of what happened:
Gabriel Murillo, 37, and Kartik Patel, 34 … allegedly hacked in to the Los Angeles city traffic center to turn off traffic lights at four intersections last August.
The two men were able to turn off signal control boxes just hours before a job action by city engineers, the LA district attorney said. What’s unclear is why they wanted to do this. [Link]
I can’t believe these guys are adults. I assumed they would be teenagers pulling a prank.
Kartik’s really gunna get it from his wife!
Sonia, you mean like this?
LOL, these two sound like they have a lot of fun. I would say it would be fun to join, but i’m sure the CIA monitors all these forums for potential terror supporters, so i’ll instead say they are hilarious.
That’s just the public scolding – wait until they get home!
Seriously, why did they do it? They were on strike or something? The articles don’t make that clear.
Hey ennis! where you been, machang. you were missed. happy new year old frootie.
to add something positive to the thread – there’s a stream of thinking that believes that urban traffic should not be directed and should be organic and collaborative, much like mexico city and mumbai actually. i think parts of scandinavian europe mihte even be experimenting withe it.
Oh this is brilliant and hilarious all at once. I’m actually jealous. Sticking it to the man the g
reek way is so sexy.It’s not clear from your post what this incident is about. Maybe I have to dig the links.
Doing some Sikh-ret agent man stuff in Al Andalus for the Mutiny. Will blog about it soon.
that pic needs speech, thought bubbles.
desichica : “What were you thinking Kartik? Hunh? Did you think about me and Pappu, even? What about Pa, Ma? How do you think it makes them feel? I’ll give you a tight slap”. patel: “Stop picking on me. I hate you. I’m going back to my club”. murillo looks down, chuckles : “whipped!! hee hee. at least i control my woman”. latina thinks: “plush butt. sharp tongue. hmmmm… the possibilities”. shivers.
Oh, I probably should have dedicated the post to Coach Diesel, and the possibilities of Desi-Latino (ahem) partnership in America.
Terrible:
It was a union action, a strike.
I agree, I pity the fool when he get home!
This looks like a scene from the Italian Job (not the messed up new one) the original one.
After living there 8 years of my life, when is it EVER a fun place to drive? Yeah, thought so.
What a twisted post. Had to go around looking at the links to understand what on earth ennis is saying.
I am sure it is some writing style well known and enjoyed by 2-3 friends of ennis who think he/she is a great writer, but looks like I am not the only one confused by this post and tried to figure out what ennis is going on about.
iFOB:
Almost everything is in the post:
The only thing I didn’t explicitly say was that this was part of a traffic engineers strike. But the rest is all there, either in the quotes from the article or in my own writing.
iFOB WTF how lazy are you that you can’t read the article yourself? And WTF does anything have to do with Ennis being or not being a good writer?
There’s more! My friend has been following the story, which has been getting more LA press than the LAT. Trying to find links as I type this, as I find this hard to believe, but apparently, kickbacks arebeing questioned. Why hard to believe? I went to college with Karthik!
Aha! The missing piece of the puzzle. Every evil genius gets his start because he was spurned by the woman he loved. Tell us, Saira, what did you do to so cruelly break poor Kartik’s heart and start him on this life of crime and wanton destruction?
Film at 11: When traffic engineers go bad!
The picture of Karthik and crew looks like it’s part of some glossy magazine advertisement, or an ad for The Apprentice. Is it wrong that I think he’s cute?
Ennis: Sorry to say Karthik was an honourable gentleman. No broken hearts with him, btu a wicked sense of humour kept class interesting. In LA, we are following the story out of sheer curiousity, so I’ll break in when news breaks out.
Saira – what about the day he sent his giant robot crashing through the lab wall to deliver you flowers and you laughed and said “Kartik, silly, you’re like a brother to me. That’s why I had you tie a rakhi! Besides which, you know I’m dating Biff, the captain of the football team.”
How soon they forget how cruelly they break the hearts of young geeks.
brown latino? would the same link be made with a black latino? a white latino?
in many places in latin america, the browner a latino is the more black they actually are, and some brown latinos would just be called black by most people, if they didn’t have a spanish name.
most black people are more brown than actually black.
some indian people are more black than they are sepia
is sepia a nicer word for brown because even though you can’t say white, you can at least say not black
i am actually far more sepia than i am black, more brown than i am black, love black but feel african is more accurate
is it obvious that i am a little bored at work? hope nobody takes offense at my musings about language choices
Ennis, puhleeze! Why would I date the captain of the football team…it would be cricket or nothing else.
a pullquote in an SM blog? wow, thats real fancy ennis.
In #6 I had alluded to new thinking that wants to emulate the controlled chaos in modern traffic. here’s the news report that i’d come across earlier – .
In principle this makes sense – and i do believe that the mumbai model is the way to go. traffic in north america is controllable largely because it is so sparse – compared to india – in the foreseeable future, with the sprawl giving way to hyperdense cities because of resource constraints – this traffic model will see catastrophic breakdowns unless we adopt a new operating model. there has to be a collaborative model, as opposed to the organized adversarial model in place today – “i am right. so you must be wrong” leads to road rage. it will be a model in which there will be hyperdense urban areas will have expressways and superways among each other – but will have minimal rules within the urban limits. it is very realistic. i think city planners are the sexiest thinkers in the world. i think i will write a novel about this.
Only the ones who have a desperate psychological need to cling to delusions would be offended by your musings, which happen to be very true.
Besides the “brown brothas” baloney, what rubs the wrong way about this post is the romanticization of criminal, anti-social behaviour. At least unlike in South Asia these “heroic” delinquents weren’t stoning or burning public transportation. How “the Man” is “brought to his knees” by disrupting the lives of fellow citizens is beyond me.
damn the lights! Let’s get some more roundabouts in this country…make driving more interesting!
On most days, I feel like Peter Gibbons from “Office Space.” My lane is never moving.
I am all for Desi-Latino (ahem) partnership…if that’s what they call it these days…;)Me gusta el tiempo que passamos junto en el rebelion marron.
I hear you brother. Ummm Peter about those TPS reports…
Well, this particular latino (Murillo) isn’t that dark, and the Patel is a very similar complexion to him, as are the two women.
Apologies to Kartik and Gabriel that I’ve made use of their plight to earn my first tip->post conversion.
Among other features of this story that set it apart from the whole “2 guys hack system, create inconveniences, and get caught” theme, I wondered most about the implication of these:
Btw, I lost the link to the TOI-reframed story, but the paraphrase was “NRI hacks huge LA system, causes havoc for city.”
Some people need to add ‘sense of humor’ to their new year resolutions.
There’s a rather entertaining book called “Metzger’s Dog” with a similar plot, in which a small group of criminals manages to bring LA to a standstill.
Some people need to add ‘sense of humor’ to their new year resolutions.
No shit. You said it girl.
Personally, I liked Ennis’ use of ‘brown brothas’. I thought it was cute.
I find it really irritating though, that there has to be some psuedo analysis of white latino vs, black latino on this thread Paging Razib, please. Maybe then, we can get a real analysis of how genes play into skin color and how some latinos end up darker than others.. Terminology like that ranks right up there with terms like shudra and mulatto in offensiveness. For those clueless few, within families you will have some so-called ‘black latinos’ and ‘white latinos’. It’s la familia babyyy!
It’s latino. Period. We’re trying to move away from the whole complexion, ‘who’s a real latino?’ barrier shit that is so divisive and get wit some self-love instead.
You said it…NO kidding! Peole leave India but can’t leave the shitty castist nonsense behind. Fair vs Dark Indians / Black Latinos vs White Latinos. Up yours I say to that!
Oh trust me, we’ve got plenty of that going on …
Ennis
So thaaaaat’s where you’ve been this whole time.
Great stuff, Ennis! Missed your posts for quite sometime. I was laughing really hard as I read this and the photo you picked is brilliant as well.
um, exactly wat kind of system exists in bombay???
been here for a long time and all i can see is that the person who cares more about his/her car makes sure no one else comes near them, by braking harder and steering carefully.
other than that its all the same.
Hilarious! Almost as good as the Ethai Pacific, Othai Atlantic wisecrack.
What’s even more amazing about you bloggin’ fools is how you folks will run with what the paper wrote as being gospel. The paper is no more fact based than the distortion in this blog. Kartik and Gabriel are innocent until proven guilty. They have been charged. It doesn’t mean they have been “caught.” I’ll tell you for sure that the intersections that were at first out, then rigged to stay on red for extended periods can be proven to be functioning just fine on the so called target days. The Brown Brutha’s might in fact be targeted by another brutha with big aspirations. Both defendants are exceptional men who have spotless work and criminal records. I guess you guys just can’t figure that the union head was highlighting the fact that beacuse all of the traffic engineers sans only a few were out that day that it would stand to reason that traffic could be affected. The union leader is not to well liked in their circles because of his agressive style. He was creating hype. It sure didn’t tie into these gentleman. Make sense? Kartik and Gabriel are very intelligent. No one is going to risk everything for a couple percent on their contract. For the record, the wife was addressing the photographer.
That is reportedly to be “out” and then on another day “staying red”. That was the LA Times account. And of course the Mayor went on and on about the strike having no impact which in that instance it didn’t. A.V. can’t have it both ways. The media reported exactly nothing on malfunctioning lights. It didn’t happen people. Wake up!
We don’t need an analysis – some latinos end up darker than others for the same reason there are african-americans who are darker than other people. It is called AFRICAN ancestry. The fact that one even needs a ‘real analysis’ indicates some denial and ‘lack of knowledge.’ How else would they end up darker than others? Magic????
Celia Cruz, brown or black? Latino or not? Uhm, perhaps if one thinks that mexicans are the only latino people, you’d assume that all Latinos are about the same skin complexion? Of course, there are Afro-Mexicans. Are they brown or black? I think if you are going to applaud the ‘brown brothers’ you may want to consider the term a little more deeply? Okay, maybe not.
Brief historical sharing: Some Africans brought to the Americas as slaves, ended up in the United States, MOST ended up in Latin American countries, with spanish/portugese, rather than english colonizers. The fact is that many BROWN spanish-speaking people and ‘BLACK’ african-americans, have the same African origins. In some Latin countries the indigenous population was numerous in the society, in others the populations were and are, largely African and European in origin. There are ethnic, historical differences among latin american countries. The brown of mexicans, isn’t the same source of ‘brown’ in cubans, dominicans, etc.
They are all real latinos — that isn’t at question. Is it if one says “black and latino” that a question about ‘real latino’ comes up, but when you say ‘brown’ then this automatically indicates ‘real latino?’ Maybe they are ‘real latino’ regardless of their skin tone? But how about considering that many of them have other identities, such as indigenous, african, that they love and celebrate, and they don’t want to be forced into a mold of ‘brown and spanish-speaking’ just because some want to obscure the other elements of latino society?
And no, unfortunately most have NOT left the caste system behind in India. You may not apply it to other Indian people in the US, but perhaps you apply it in your view of people who aren’t indian – who have darker than ‘sepia’ skin colors? Perhaps then you don’t have to call it a ‘caste’ system, you can just make it racial, ethnic, cultural differences and then pretend you didn’t really inherit a pre-determined skin color value chart in your heads.
REALLY, my musings were about why BROWN would leave out people who are African-American, black? Why are Latinos included in BROWN, when many of them are no less black than those called african-americans, and many of them are no less white, than those called white in america (and elsewhere?) What about those latinos who identify themselves as black, as African, as brown-skinned? I just thought BROWN seemed ‘lacking.’
Latino isn’t a race, it is essentially a name for people of countries colonized by Spain or Portugal. And people from Spain and Portugal, may as easily call themselves EUROPEAN. They can be of indigenous americas origin, they could be african, they could be descended from those who came from europe, they could be a mix — but perhaps no less a mix than those who are African-American. Considering that more Brazil has more black people than the US does, why are these people BROWN because they speak Portuguese but BLACK if they speak English?
Why demand or expect that anyone “latino” be BROWN rather than BLACK? Why foster a divide between english speaking black people and spanish/portuguese speaking black people? Many latinos are PROUD to be black — as a social and political identity, proud to be of African descent, and proud to have brown skin. And culturally, isn’t much of the cultural indicators of latino across the country (not just in places where Mexican dominates) really straight out of Africa? Salsa? Merengue? Son? Rumba? Samba? Tango? Guaguanco? If you think not, then you need a history lesson to inform your social politics.
Maybe what you see as ‘divisive’ to a latino identity, is actually ‘unifying’ to a much larger African identity or indigenous americas identity? Perhaps you’d consider that not everyone wants to wrap their identity around WHO COLONIZED THEIR PEOPLE? Maybe some of us don’t so closely identify with our spanish-speaking colonial masters, we don’t have light tan skin colors and we don’t(pretend to have)spanish conquistador ancestry. Perhaps you should carry the banner for the colonizers without calling others divisive simply because they aren’t as enthusiastic on that point.
Maybe the caste system being pushed is one that feels more comfortable in linking “Latinos” and “Indians” because of a mutual culturally-inbred disdain for the color BLACK. Maybe its a cynical social ploy for Indians to link into the ‘new majority minority?’ (hey, we’re brown too!)
Maybe some of you have improved upon your parents and grandparents because they still favor “fair” and “white” — but maybe you still have to struggle with not being so welcoming of anyone darker than [light] sepia and [light] brown.
Really, most African-Americans, Africans, Jamaicans, etc. are BROWN. One of the reasons for African-Americans to say “African-American” and not “black” is to go beyond skin complexion holding up paper bags to test skin color as a measure of social, political, ethnic unity that goes across lingustic, national, colonial lines.
Maybe just too brown to be acceptable, or maybe the nose isn’t straight enough, maybe the hair isn’t the right texture. Maybe you just don’t like how you feel ‘their culture’ is, but if you go by skin color, they are still BROWN. (and hey, quite a few indian people are probably darker than you’d want to fit in your ‘brown’ category. Maybe you can forget them since a bunch of them are still in India and “untouchable”)
And oh, West Indians are BLACK in general, with varying amounts of Indians imported/migrated under British colonial rule (to help keep the caste system intact?). History folks, Columbus, thought he was in India, called it the West Indies, blah blah blah.
I am a (little) surprised at the pretense of horror from a few people about the mention of REAL skin color issues. Consider some self-examination about your own racial issues (what your parents taught you, how you were raised) that makes you not as ‘progressive’ and ‘non-caste’ as you claim.
True true
As to the traffic ‘prank,’ think of it from the perspective of the people, drivers and pedestrians, trying to navigate safely. Imagine the younger children, the older people, the handicapped people who were on those streets? Traffic just slowed? What happens at an intersection when the lights don’t work? Traffic doesn’t move? No, people from all directions trying to go at the same time, squeeze around one another, try to back up, go in directions away from the pile up. People speeding, going slow, turning left, turning right, backing up, all in the same lanes, at the same time. I would have been terrified to worry about someone I love out in the middle of that mess.
They targeted areas near freeways and major destinations? Great, because we know how organized people will drive when they are going on and getting off of freeways, and when they are trying to pull into the same parking lots. Nope, no reason to worry about not having traffic lights working in those spots.
It is immaturity to pull a prank without regard to the safety of others, it is arrogant disdain for people when two seemingly ‘educated’ people do it to show how smart they are. What kind of people think either of these counts as some political statement? Why not just two jerks putting other people at risk? If they weren’t ‘educated’ if they weren’t ‘brown’ would it still entertain you so much? What if someone was hurt, killed, would you still admire the ‘exceptional’ ‘genius’ brown ‘bruthas’?
At worst, I think it reeks of political immaturity, shallow thinking, superficiality, to confuse a dangerous and stupid prank (i don’t care how much technical intelligence it took) with anything even remotely ‘political’ or ‘social rebellion.’ If one wanted to think politically, they’d question ‘brown’ ‘black’ and real issues in society, instead of applying it to an immature prank.
I read their story and think of how so many like them, the “Brown(thank god we aren’t black) people” channel their energy and intelligence into a disregard for real political thinking, a disdain for ‘average’ people, and a political immaturity that ensures they will be the “model minority” because they’ll but never really challenge ‘the man.’
Perhaps the problem for some is that the world really isn’t Bollywood, not even for most people in India. Maybe there is some elitism, and perhaps a little shallow-thinking?
Maybe there is more to this politics stuff, more to the label of ‘brown’ in society, than a few smart-pranks? Hence my questions and I am really sorry if they offended anyone.
I strongly recommend a listen to Indie Arie’s song “Brown Skin” to understand how others can see brown skin.
Azucar Negra!