Correspondence: complaints against LAPD, 1978-1991, p. 345 |
Save page Remove page | Previous | 345 of 368 | Next |
|
small (250x250 max)
medium (500x500 max)
Large (1000x1000 max)
Extra Large
large ( > 500x500)
Full Resolution
All (PDF)
|
This page
All
|
Loading content ...
The Mind-Set Is 'Us Against Them'
■ Police: Chief Gates gets away with
outrageous expressions of intolerance
because LAPD operates in a world of its
own.
By JOE DOMANICK
It's all too easy to dismiss Los Angeles Police Chief
Daryl F. Gates' extraordinary comment that casual
drug users "ought lo be taken out and shot" as merely
the sad ravings of yet another of William Dennett's
inquisitor priests gone over the edge in our continuing
holy war on drugs. It would be equally as simple lo
regard the chiefs refusal to recruit gay police officers
as just another bout of homophobia—no different from
that, say, ot Andy Rooncy or the rapper Heavy D.
The chief, after all. is a man whose view of the world
was forged in lhe insular blue-collar streets of
fl|ppdaji», whrtf he waj bjprjgj y^earii ago Like other
while working-class communities, Glendalc was then
a place wilh many virtues, but first among them was
never its inhabitants' ability to empathize wilh others
From such neighborhoods have sprang generations
of men like Daryl Gates who would proudly swell the
ranks of America's urban police departments, righteously operating under an assumption that liberals,
blacks and Latinos—and then hippies, gays and
career-minded women—were separate and apart from
the "real" America.
The chief, often inadvertently, has said as much. Of
the slow rise of f-Uinos through the LAPD's ranks, for
example, Gates once "joked" lhat it just might bo
because they were "lazy." Of the influx of Soviet Jews
into Los Angeles, he voiced the fear that some were
agents sent to disrupt the city's 1984 Olympic Games.
Of the high percentage of blacks who died from the
vigorous application of chokeholds by his officers, the
chief volunteered lhat it might be because the ".
veins or arteries of blacks do not open up as fast as
they do in normal people."
So to have expected him to answer a question aboul
hinng gay cops, as he did several years ago, with
anything other than a disgusted, "Who'd want lo work
wilh one?" or to have reacted in any other way to a
profound spiritual problem we've mislabeled a "war."
"would have been lo expect far more of Daryl Gales
than he was capable of delivering.
Out granting that, (suspect there's more to the
. chiefs hatred of casual drug users than mere zealotry,
and more to his refusal to recruit gay officers than just
an inability to accept gay men and women as valid
human brings Fnr underlying hoth issues is not just a
way of viewing the world, but a way of training police
officers that demands that they see life with a
uniformity lhat seems to begin and end with Gales'
limited tolerance.
" • In this cily wc have a relatively liberal, relatively
mmmttittm mmSMmU' -■■ .«« **i lit -**.
weak council and mayor who arc often loo cowed lo
take on an entrenched, conservative and politically
potent LAPD hierarchy. Which is exactly what makes
the chiefs remarks so troubling. For as Gales thinks
and acts. so. too, do 8.100 of the most powerful police
officers in America.
This situation goes back to 1%0, when William II
Parker became chief and made the LAPD. alone
among big-city police forces, virtually immune to
civilian controL
True, it is the' Police Commission, appointed by the
mayor, that nominally sets lhe department's policy,
but the part-time, frequently divided commission is no
match for Cales, who plays it with the skill of a
Ilorowiu on a baby grand.
The result; the country's most powerful, most
independent urban police department. The benefit: a
police force that for 40 years has been relatively free
of the corruption and inefficiency thai has plagued so
many other big cities.. The down side: a police force
lhat has flaunted—as it is now doing over the issue of
gay officers—a remarkable unwiBingnes*- lo concede
lhat the mayor, the council, community groups or any
civilian should have input into lhe running of the
department. The message: the LAPD belongs to the
police, not the people.
Over the past 25 years, on almost every occasion
lhat a controversy has surfaced involving the LAPD.
lhe department has responded initially as if it is
answerable to no one—from the Walls riots of the 'fiOs;
lhe excessive shootings and chokehold killings during
the 70s and early '80s; the large-scale, frightening and
illegal spying on its critics during lhal period; Ihrough
the fiercely fought court mandate to hire and promote
women, blacks and latinos in the early '80s.
When he was chief in the 70s. Kd Davis used to my:
"I don't want to be mayor of this city. That position has
no power. I already have more power than the mayor."
Today, it's obvious lhat nol much has changed when
the police chief can simply say no to the mayor and
council as Gales is doing on the issue of hiring gay
cops; and can defiantly defend his shoot-the-users
statement while the mayor refuses to gel involved and
most of the council reacts with an ~oh.~ wcllrthafV
Daryl" shrug.
Someday, the LAPD may break through lhe "us
against them" mind-scl. Someday, the department
may be open to gay officers. Uut I wouldn't bet on il.
not as -long as Gates and others of his generation-are-
around, running things as if 1/js Angeles is still the
mostly white Peoria-wilh-palm-trccs of memory, not
the cosmopolitan, world-class city of reality. Until,
then, the best wc can hope for is police officers in the
ranks who don't automatically assume lhat someone is
a "bad guy" because of his skin color or sexual
orientation, or thai someone who "blasts some pot on a
casual basis" (Cales' choice words) is a candidate for
ihe death penalty.
Joe Donutnick is n writer in Istx A ntjclc*.
Object Description
| Title | Correspondence: complaints against LAPD, 1978-1991 |
| Description | Newspaper clippings (Los Angeles Times, L.A. Weekly, Los Angeles Daily News, New York Times, Sentinel) and magazine articles (U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek) documenting Los Angeles Police Department misconduct under Chief Daryl F. Gates, 1978-1991, compiled by Irving Kessler and Lynn F. Kessler. Includes: Introduction, Contents, Excessive force, Rodney King, Mexican nationality, Civil rights, Property, Silence, Discrimination, Accountability, Gates intolerance, Recommendations. PART OF A SERIES: Materials in the series fall into one of several categories related to the Independent Commission's work product: (1) Commission meeting materials, which include meeting agendas, work plans, memoranda, and articles about police misconduct that were circulated and reviewed during the Commission's internal meetings; (2) public correspondence, which includes citizen complaints against the LAPD in the form of written testimony, articles, and an audio cassette tape, as well as letters drafted by citizens in support of the LAPD; (3) summaries of interviews held with LAPD officers regarding Departmental procedures and relations; (4) public meeting materials, which include transcripts, supplementary documents, and witness statements that were reviewed at the Commission's public meetings; (5) press releases related to the formation and work product of the Commission; and (6) miscellaneous materials reviewed by the Commission during its study, including LAPD personnel and training manuals, a memorandum of understanding, and messages from the LAPD's Mobile Digital Terminal (MDT) system. |
| Coverage date | 1978/1991 |
| Creator |
Kessler, Irving, compiler Kessler, Lynn F., compiler |
| Publisher (of the original version) | Los Angeles Times; L.A. Weekly; U.S. News & World Report; Los Angeles Daily News; New York Times; Newsweek; Sentinel |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California, USA; Washington, DC, USA; New York, New York, USA |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California |
| Date created | 1991 |
| Date issued | 1978/1991 |
| Type |
texts images |
| Format | 368 p. |
| Format (aat) |
clippings (information artifacts) articles summaries |
| Format (imt) | application/pdf |
| Language | English |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Part of collection | Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department, 1991 |
| Series | Independent Commission File List |
| File | Complaints, suggestions, and support |
| Box and folder | box 23, folders 7-9 |
| Provenance | The collection was given to the University of Southern California on July 31, 1991. |
| Rights | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Manuscripts Librarian. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained. |
| Physical access | Contact: Special Collections, Doheny Memorial Library, Libraries, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189; specol@dots.usc.edu |
| Repository name | USC Libraries Special Collections |
| Repository address | Doheny Memorial Library, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189 |
| Repository email | specol@dots.usc.edu |
| Filename | indep-box23-07_09 |
Description
| Title | Correspondence: complaints against LAPD, 1978-1991, p. 345 |
| Format (imt) | image/tiff |
| Physical access | Contact: Special Collections, Doheny Memorial Library, Libraries, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189; specol@dots.usc.edu |
| Full text | The Mind-Set Is 'Us Against Them' ■ Police: Chief Gates gets away with outrageous expressions of intolerance because LAPD operates in a world of its own. By JOE DOMANICK It's all too easy to dismiss Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates' extraordinary comment that casual drug users "ought lo be taken out and shot" as merely the sad ravings of yet another of William Dennett's inquisitor priests gone over the edge in our continuing holy war on drugs. It would be equally as simple lo regard the chiefs refusal to recruit gay police officers as just another bout of homophobia—no different from that, say, ot Andy Rooncy or the rapper Heavy D. The chief, after all. is a man whose view of the world was forged in lhe insular blue-collar streets of fl|ppdaji», whrtf he waj bjprjgj y^earii ago Like other while working-class communities, Glendalc was then a place wilh many virtues, but first among them was never its inhabitants' ability to empathize wilh others From such neighborhoods have sprang generations of men like Daryl Gates who would proudly swell the ranks of America's urban police departments, righteously operating under an assumption that liberals, blacks and Latinos—and then hippies, gays and career-minded women—were separate and apart from the "real" America. The chief, often inadvertently, has said as much. Of the slow rise of f-Uinos through the LAPD's ranks, for example, Gates once "joked" lhat it just might bo because they were "lazy." Of the influx of Soviet Jews into Los Angeles, he voiced the fear that some were agents sent to disrupt the city's 1984 Olympic Games. Of the high percentage of blacks who died from the vigorous application of chokeholds by his officers, the chief volunteered lhat it might be because the ". veins or arteries of blacks do not open up as fast as they do in normal people." So to have expected him to answer a question aboul hinng gay cops, as he did several years ago, with anything other than a disgusted, "Who'd want lo work wilh one?" or to have reacted in any other way to a profound spiritual problem we've mislabeled a "war." "would have been lo expect far more of Daryl Gales than he was capable of delivering. Out granting that, (suspect there's more to the . chiefs hatred of casual drug users than mere zealotry, and more to his refusal to recruit gay officers than just an inability to accept gay men and women as valid human brings Fnr underlying hoth issues is not just a way of viewing the world, but a way of training police officers that demands that they see life with a uniformity lhat seems to begin and end with Gales' limited tolerance. " • In this cily wc have a relatively liberal, relatively mmmttittm mmSMmU' -■■ .«« **i lit -**. weak council and mayor who arc often loo cowed lo take on an entrenched, conservative and politically potent LAPD hierarchy. Which is exactly what makes the chiefs remarks so troubling. For as Gales thinks and acts. so. too, do 8.100 of the most powerful police officers in America. This situation goes back to 1%0, when William II Parker became chief and made the LAPD. alone among big-city police forces, virtually immune to civilian controL True, it is the' Police Commission, appointed by the mayor, that nominally sets lhe department's policy, but the part-time, frequently divided commission is no match for Cales, who plays it with the skill of a Ilorowiu on a baby grand. The result; the country's most powerful, most independent urban police department. The benefit: a police force that for 40 years has been relatively free of the corruption and inefficiency thai has plagued so many other big cities.. The down side: a police force lhat has flaunted—as it is now doing over the issue of gay officers—a remarkable unwiBingnes*- lo concede lhat the mayor, the council, community groups or any civilian should have input into lhe running of the department. The message: the LAPD belongs to the police, not the people. Over the past 25 years, on almost every occasion lhat a controversy has surfaced involving the LAPD. lhe department has responded initially as if it is answerable to no one—from the Walls riots of the 'fiOs; lhe excessive shootings and chokehold killings during the 70s and early '80s; the large-scale, frightening and illegal spying on its critics during lhal period; Ihrough the fiercely fought court mandate to hire and promote women, blacks and latinos in the early '80s. When he was chief in the 70s. Kd Davis used to my: "I don't want to be mayor of this city. That position has no power. I already have more power than the mayor." Today, it's obvious lhat nol much has changed when the police chief can simply say no to the mayor and council as Gales is doing on the issue of hiring gay cops; and can defiantly defend his shoot-the-users statement while the mayor refuses to gel involved and most of the council reacts with an ~oh.~ wcllrthafV Daryl" shrug. Someday, the LAPD may break through lhe "us against them" mind-scl. Someday, the department may be open to gay officers. Uut I wouldn't bet on il. not as -long as Gates and others of his generation-are- around, running things as if 1/js Angeles is still the mostly white Peoria-wilh-palm-trccs of memory, not the cosmopolitan, world-class city of reality. Until, then, the best wc can hope for is police officers in the ranks who don't automatically assume lhat someone is a "bad guy" because of his skin color or sexual orientation, or thai someone who "blasts some pot on a casual basis" (Cales' choice words) is a candidate for ihe death penalty. Joe Donutnick is n writer in Istx A ntjclc*. |
| Filename | indep-box23-09-03~26.tif |
| Archival file | Volume77/indep-box23-09-03~26.tif |
