OK, what’s this?

Photographs by Larry Harnisch / Los Angeles Times

• That’s the mailbox Mahony was dropping mail into when the July assault
  allegedly happened, along with the cameras that might have captured the
  event.

That’s exactly right. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony has said that he was attacked in late July or early August on his way to a mailbox "near the cathedral" by a man who was enraged over the archdiocese’s sex abuse scandal.

As far as I can determine, there is only one outdoor mailbox "near the cathedral" and it’s in front of the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration on Hill Street just south of Temple, less than half of block from the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. (The cathedral is a beautiful building, by the way; be sure to visit).

People who are unfamiliar with downtown Los Angeles may not realize that this mailbox is in a heavily traveled part of the Civic Center. Like the cathedral, it is on Hill Street, a main artery feeding cars from the Pasadena Freeway into downtown Los Angeles.

Important cultural and government buildings are concentrated in this area, including including the Music Center (kitty-corner from the cathedral to the west), the Hall of Records (kitty-corner from the cathedral to the east), the Criminal Courts Building (one block east of the cathedral on Temple) and the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, which is just south of the Hall of Administration.

In other words, this area has heavy pedestrian traffic and lots of motor vehicles. With two courthouses nearby, it’s also crawling with attorneys and law enforcement officers. And then there are all these surveillance cameras, mounted on the Hall of Administration, above the intersections and even on the cathedral (trust me, there are even more that I didn’t photograph).

And yet, despite the presence of all these people and vehicles, and the heavy surveillance by security cameras, apparently not a single person saw one of the most prominent men in Los Angeles being viciously beaten and kicked in broad daylight (pickup at mailbox No. 9001200082 is Monday-Friday at 4:30 p.m. I have to assume that if the mail was so urgent that the cardinal was delivering it himself he was trying to get there ahead of the mail carrier).

Hm.

And what are these?

Mystery Item No. 1

Here’s a closer look

Mystery Item No. 2

Mystery Item No. 3

Mystery Item No. 4

Mystery Item No. 5

Mystery Item No. 6

Mystery Item No. 7

Mystery Item No. 8

Mystery Item No. 9

Mystery Item No. 10

Mystery Item No. 11

Mystery Item No. 12

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