SUNDAY, APRIL 7, 1991 MJ:
AL STEPHENSON I for lhe Times
Jefferson Morley is the political correspon­dent
for Spin magazine. He spoke with
Patrick Murphy at the former police chtef s
office in Washington .
Patrick ' . ' Murphy
. One of Nation's Foremost Cops
!Brokenhearted by the Brutality
By Jefferson Morley
WASHINGTON P atrick V. Murphy, former police commissioner of New York City, combines
the geniality of Irish cop walking the beat ; with the erudition of
professional bureaucrat maneuvering his way through crisis. In one breath, he
speaks proudly of four generations of his family who have served in police
departments. In the next, he acknowledges that as recently as 25 years ago,
many police chiefs were racist reactionaries. There are few law-enforcement
professionals as respected as Murphy. Last week, he was named as an adviser to
Mayor Tom Bradley's commission studying the Rodney G. King incident.
Murphy grew up in New York, earning a BA from St. John's University. After
serving as a Navy pilot during World War II, he became a New York City cop.
He rose to the position of deputy inspector. In 1962, he was named the police
chief in Syracuse, N . Y., the first in a rapid succession of top law-enforcement
posts. He was the public-safety director in Washington in 1967-68. He served in
the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration-where he first met Warren
Christopher, the lawyer who heads Bradley's commission. He became police
chief in Detroit, then returned Lo take the lop job in New York.
Police departments in crisis is not a new subject to Murphy. His tenure as
public-safety director in Washington included the widespread rioting that
followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. When he was chief
in New York, the Knllpp Commission was documenting pervasive corruption in
the depllrtrnent by day, while a terrorist group, the Black Liberation Army was
gunning down cops by night. In 1973, Murphy retired from active-duty police
work, but remained deeply inrnlved in law enforcement. He became president
of the Police Foundation, a po s ition he held through 1985. Since then, he has
worked as a consultant to the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington.
Murphy, 70, has eight grown children. He is married and lives In Bethesda, Md .
) .
·· ~ 'When the officer starts thinL~g of
~~, ,. himself as the thin blue line wfu has ,
..•. il bring people to justice bccau~ho one .·
·,
i ~ , · . .
: ~ - . . i· f 19' .\ft:ere's llot e~ough proper political •
:.:.. ~ 9vers1ght of police departments ·
l, else will, that is trouble.' ~: i·
. . '" . '
, ': , ~-J>ecau:5C 1nayors and elected officials ·
h: ~ 1~~n,'tkno'Y ~ow complex thej~~ ~/. ' .. ·
n ucstlon: Is it a help to a local
~police department, especial-ly
one under criticism, to
have people who aren't from Los
~\ng:-les, such as yourself, coming
m m the midst of a political
controversy? How' can this be
help/ ul to police officers?
Answer: I won't have a vote.
I'm kind of a technician.· I just
assume the commission will look
at !the LAPDJ structure and be
calling on me for information
about how do other departments
do this, · how do other depart­ments
make policy about the use
of force. How do they do it in
Detroit? How do they do it in
New York? Policing in the Unit­ed
Stales is a great mystery. We
have 15",000 independent, isolat­ed,
fragmented depar_Lments.
Q: What if somebody said .
"Chief, you may think that's what
you're going to do, but this com­mission
is really a vehicle for
gelling 1id of !Daryl Jt'. J Gates.
'l'hut' s its mu in purpose?" Whut
would you say to that?
A: I don't sec it that way. My
view of it is to be offered an
opportunity to contribute to
something better in the future.
Chief Gates is G1 years old-if he
·stays another year or two, Chief
Gates will still go. What can be
• done to make policing even bet­ter
in Los Angeles in the years
ahead? That's rny view.
..• ..
. : 1
Q: What's your impression of
the strong-chief setup? Where
does that come from?
A: It's very nice, and every
police chief would like to have life tenure,
I guess. I would have liked to have had
that power~and he has great power. I
acknowledge there must be civilian over­sight
of a police department. Otherwise, ·
you could see things like what {J. Edgar}
Hoover did with the FBI. Hoover was too
powerful. It was never written down, but
in effect he had life tenure and he stayed
until he was 77 or something.
There's not enough proper political
oversight of police departments-simply
because mayors and elected officials don't
know how CO{Tlplex the job is. The citizen
walking down the street thinks he could
do a police officer's job in a minute, and
most people think they could do the
chief's job better. It's not like that. It's
very complex work because you're deal­ing
with human behavior.
Q: What, in your e.xperience, generates
police brutality incidents? Not talking about
a1iy individual case, but in departments
where there 11as been a problem or as many
complaints as there has been in L.A.?
A: {In} any large police department,
there will be outlaws. No matter how
carefully you screen and train and super­vise,
there will be an individual off the
reservation, and you've got to catch them
and prosecute them. What's so shocking
about {the King incident} is that so many
officers were involved .... I'm a firm
believer in accountability .... In no
uncertain terms I would say "I will not
tolerate brutality. I'll hold you accounta­ble."
If you're smart, you'll hold the
people under you accountable right down
the line, because "I'll chop your head off
as fast as I'll look at you." ....
Q: What's your impression of liow Clitef
Gates luu done so far, as far as disciplinary
action?
A: I kept watching to see tr people
above the level or sergeant would be held
accountable.
Q: That hasn't happened.
A: Well, I haven't seen that yet, and
that's why I'm surprised. My bias would
be to make a decision about that, and send
a message. . .
Q: In this case, though, does the life
tenure of the chief encourage accounta­bility?
If he's not afraid for his job, then
maybe there is less of a· need to hold other
people accountable in a way that would
make the department look bad.
A: I, frankly, tlon't know the answer to
that .... I'm d great admirer of the Los
Angeles Police! Department. I wrote a
book in which i:said the best policemen in
the country were in Los Angeles. That's
why I'm so brokenhearted about this; I
can hardly believe it ....
Q: Will the police be better for the King
incident? i ·
A: Well, I think it revea_ls something.
Look, if it shocked me, what must it do to
the public? I've been around a long time,
and I've dealt with all kinds of brutality
and corruption, and I am shocked by that.
I can't believe that 20 cops would stand
around like that, and a sergeant. That's
the ultimate. It just surprised me that a
bright chief couldn't control that better. I
was so shocked.
1.
I·
Q: Can goo~ come out of it?
A: Well, like any abuse that comes out
of the closets, once it's exposed to the '
light of day, then some reforms will be
instituted, or the problem will be watched
more. 1
· Q: There was an ad in the paper, taken
out by the police department, mentioning
all the police officers who had been killed.
\Vlrnt' s your rcuction?
A: I didn't sec the au. I certainly agree
that the number of officers killed and shot
is often igTiored. We don't think about the
terrible price police officers pay. I would
hope the ad also condemned what was
shown on the videotape, because not one
of us can · claim to be a professional police
officer without condemning that. So if
they're calling attention to the other side
of the problem, in all fairness, I would
hope they condemned that.
Q: There was a published report that
arrests fa L.A. are down. Nobody could say
definitely whether this was related. But do
you think just the furor discourages police
officers from doing their job?
A: So it's a terrible experience that
they're going through, and they have my
sympathy, every one of them. The leaders
have an even tougher at>sig11mc11t to
support them, encourage them: "You
know If you're a good cop, and 98% of you
arc, and something went crazy there. But
we're protecting these people. Let's go
out and do our jobs and try and put it in
per5l)ective. There will be better days
ahead. This will be behind us one day." To
try lO give them that kind of support and
encouragement. .And, of course, they
cannot tole~ale any kind of a mutiny
within the department. There must be
discipline, direction, and that's what, at
every level, the top- and middle-man­agement
supervisors, must do.
Q: What about the numerous brutality
complaints tn Los Angeles?
A: I know they've had many. Unfortu­nately,
we don't have good statistics to
compare. And we get complaints of exces­sive
force every day. What many people
don't understand is that police have the
right to use force. It's their duty to use
force.
Q: To a wt of people the King case says
this vindicates the view that there ts a
pattern, a practice of brutality. Does this
· case vindicate that vtew?
A: That problem could not exist in any
major police department ....
Q: Ktng wouldn't have had a prayer if
that video camera hadn't been on. Nobody
would have believed his story. Nothing
would have happened.
A: .... That may be true.
Q: What if incidents .like lite King
incident are necessary for cops to do their
jub lo maintuin public orcler?
·A: They're not necessary. It's ncccs- .
sary to use as much force as required to •
control the subject. Once the handcuffs
are on, fine. Not one more blow after that.
With that many officers on the scene?·
There is no excuse for that. No excuse.
Q: In a situation where the officers may
feel order is breaking down-maybe a
di/ f erent level of police response is required
just to maintain their own safety.
A: They have every right to protect
themselves ... . They have every right
to use 10 cops to subdue one guy, because
that's our job .... But when the officer
starts thinking of himself as the thin blue
line who has to bring people to justice
because no one else will, that is trouble.
This fellow needs counseling.
(l: Is more cops an answer?
A. Well, they have a very low ratio of·
police officers !in Los Angeles! .... But
this city, Washington, has twice as many
police officers, and it has the highest.
murder rate in the country.
Q: Is more black officers the answer?
A: Our police departments should be·
representative, no question about that::
The police should be of thEt people, for ·the :
people. . . . ·
Q. What about some of the larger issues
that are going to af feet the police officers? ·
Do you think gun control can help toward
the police brutality problen;t?
A: Yes, very much. It is such a sad ·
commentary on this society that thou­sands
and thousands of police officers .
have to put bulletproof vests on every
day. Unlike the soldier in combat who's
taken off the line for R&R, we have police·
officers pulling bulletproof vests on every
day for 20 years .
. . . . That affects the way you think.
"Why am I having to put this uncomfort­able
thing on and perspire? Because there
arc guns out there. Because cops arc
getting shot. And because if I work in a
certain precinct and it's Friday or Satur­day
night, I am going to respond to eight
calls with a gun." ... When they roll up
on these calls and they say, '.'Freeze! ·
Throw your hands up!" and (the suspect!
keeps walking, you're thinking, 'Tm in·
the funeral parlor." ...
Q: Is there a risk of wider ci!Jil disorders
following this? I'm thinking of Miami,
where higl1ly publicized police brutality
ca!ieR were followccl uy widespread rioting.
A: There's no question about the fact
that that incident gives a little platform to
some of the people who like to attempt to
radicalize communities. I read Al Sharp­ton
was ... [inJ L.A. Good luck ....
But obviously it's ammunition for peo- .
ple who want to incite communities. I
don't know where it goes. I hope to God it'.
doesn't mean anything like disorder, be- .
cause 1 had to deal with one riot, and 1
never want to wish that on any other
police chief. But things are difrerent from
25 years ago. However, Miami had one.
Q: What if you saw Ktng? What would
you say to him now?
A: Well, I'd tell him I'm sorry about
what happened to him-and yet when the
police pursue you, it's always better to
immediately respond. That's a human.
being in that car, and maybe that officer .
who's pursuing you took a dead baby out
of a crash last week, killed by a drunken
driver. I le'll astmme maybe you're a
drunken driver. Why press that officer by
not pulling right over? When you gel out
of the car, be under control. Don't horse
around, because they're human, again.
They can get a little out of control. None·
of this is to justify what happened, but it.
explains, maybe, why the situation can
begin to get a little out of control in the .
first place. O