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PRESIDENT DECLARES SANTA MONICA NATIONAL DISASTER AREA

 

(AP) November 9 LOS ANGELES

Police continue to investigate what caused a Santa Monica coffeehouse to implode last Thursday, taking the lives of at least twelve people and causing millions of dollars in property damage at one of the country’s most famous retail walkways. Lieutenant Sharma of the LAPD told reporters that the incident was “definitely Shine-related,” but indicated that they were pursuing many leads. Police were also able to confirm that at least one of the victims, Merena Johnson, formerly a San Diego resident, was a known and registered Shine who escaped from a nearby rehabilitative institution.

Many have speculated that Johnson in fact caused the destruction, which in some respects resembles what occurred in Seattle earlier this year. “How many cities are we going to lose before we do something to stop these girls?” tweeted the Reverend Algernon Trent of the Shine Surveillance System. A volunteer Shine-treatment program sponsored by the SSS held meetings at the coffeehouse that was the center of the implosion.

“Things are getting out of hand,” President Patterson said at a recent campaign rally. “I have always been a firm defender of the Constitution of the United States, but at this juncture of maturization we must consider softening the traditional conception of civil rights to insure the domestic tranquility and prevent collateral damage. There is some question whether Shines are even entitled to Constitutional protection, which traditionally only applies to members of the human race.” President Patterson traveled to the site of the Santa Monica incident to inspect the damage, and later declared the entire Promenade, the Santa Monica Pier, and the surrounding four-mile radius a national disaster site, qualifying it for federal relief.

“Let me make this one thing perfectly clear,” the president said. “I will not rest until we have eradicated this threat. Other presidents have defended our nation against threats from the outside. I will bring the same attention to this threat from within. As far as I’m concerned—we are at war.”