EDITORIAL VIP JUSTICE DID CONTRERAS GET THE MEL GIBSON TREATMENT?

GOSSIPS may want to know what L.A. labor leader Miguel Contreras was doing on the afternoon of his death last year, but the more important question is what various L.A. public officials did shortly after his fatal heart attack -- and whether they improperly used their influence to protect a friend and political ally.

As the L.A. Weekly has reported, Contreras died at Botanica Inca, a South L.A. business that was, six months later, the subject of an LAPD prostitution sting. When his body was brought to Daniel Freeman Hospital, several local political leaders rushed to the scene, including then-City Councilmen Antonio Villaraigosa and Martin Ludlow and then-Mayor James Hahn.

Curiously, no autopsy was performed -- the result, perhaps of political pressure.

The sordid saga calls to mind the Mel Gibson episode from a few months ago.

Then, the Sheriff's Department seemingly tried to squelch news of the actor's drunken anti-Semitic outburst, after reportedly ignoring two previous drunk-driving incidents.

With Contreras, it once again appears that the well-connected are subject to VIP justice in L.A. -- and that's no justice at all.