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STATEMENT
OF
WARREN CHRISTOPHER
May 1, 1991
Public Session
Good morning. On behalf of Vice Chairman Justice
Arguelles and the other members of the Commission, I want to
welcome you to the first public meeting of the Independent
Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department. Please
allow me to introduce the Com.missioners and our General
Counsel and our Executive Director.
May I thank you all, including members of the
media, for turning out at this early hour so that we could
have the maximum time for public discussions. I want to
also thank the Tishman Corporation for making this
auditorium available without cost and Security Pacific Bank
for helping with the facilities.
Let me say immediately that these public sessions
are very important to the Com.mission. Those appearing today
will enable us to get the benefit of information and
opinions from leaders of community groups and members of the
public. We need your advice and ideas.
our Commission was formed just one month ago
today. We are proceeding with the strong support of the key
public officials of the City of Los Angeles involved in this
problem, including Mayor Bradley, City Council President
Ferraro, District Attorney Reiner, and Chief of Police
Gates.
The Rodney King incident has changed the
landscape. The home video of the incident has become the
most widely viewed news video since the tragic Challenger
explosion. Without prejudging any of the sensitive issues
surrounding the incident itself, there can be no doubt that
the underlying issue of excessive force in the name of the
law must be examined on an urgent basis. Few issues have
such a polarizing and disruptive potential, and few issues
present a more complex challenge to the City.
3K2ZOOSF
To respond, our Commission will make a thorough
and comprehensive review of the structure and operation of
the Police Department. It will be an objective, independent
and nonpartisan review. Our focus will be to study the use
of excessive force in the name of the law. While our
Commission was created in the aftermath of the Rodney King
incident, we will not focus on a single issue or individual
but on the entire length and breadth of the problem.
We begin without any preconceptions or assumptions
about the extent of the problem or its causes or cures. In
the spirit of open inquiry, we will examine the entire
system in the Police Department. We will look at selection,
recruitment, training, promotion, discipline, assignment,
leadership and retirement. We will also look at structural
issues such as the relationship of the Chief of Police and
the Police Department to the Police Commission and to City
Government as a whole.
As I have said before, we expect to make the most
probing study of its kind ever undertaken. We expect to
examine more than a million pages of documents from the
files of the Police Department. We plan to interview more
than a hundred former and present officers of the Police
Department.
This is the first of four public meetings that we
plan for the month of May. Today we will begin by hearing
from the leaders of important community organizations. At a
later time, we will hear from individual members of these
organizations who have relevant testimony to give. We also
hope to hear from individ~al citizens who have information
that they would like to give the Commission.
Let me emphasize that we are proceeding on a fully
independent basis. Our funds are supplied by a private
foundation, the Weingart Foundation, which is widely known
for its support of community causes, especially those
relating to the welfare of children. The members of the
Commission themselves are open-minded and uncommitted to any
particular point of view. We have recruited a staff of more
than 30 prominent lawyers who are giving their time on a pro
bono or without charge basis, and who approach their task in
an objective spirit.
3K2ZOOSF 2
It is important to recognize that our Commission
does not have the power to make laws or rules or
regulations. If we are to be effective, it will be through
the quality and persuasiveness of our findings and
recommendations. I should also add that our Commission does
not have a charter to consider all of the ills or
shortcomings of our society. It will be a severe challenge
for us to respond to the important charge that we have
within our limited timeframe.
The Commission has been hard at work during the
first month of its operation. We have been getting
organized and developing the background facts. We have had
a number of executive sessions. We have heard several
expert witnesses and have examined many pages of documents,
but we certainly have not reached any conclusions, not even
tentative conclusions. Thus, as I said, these public
meetings are of high importance.
We have established the practice that each of
persons providing information to the Commission will be
sworn in by Justice Arguelles. Before we swear our first
witness in today, let me say that 20 minutes has been
allotted to the representatives of each of the important
organizations that are appearing today. We hope you will
keep your statement as brief as possible so as to maximize
the time for questions by members of the Commission or by
our staff. We need to limit each appearance to 20 minutes
so that we can maximize the number of organizations making
presentations. We will be glad to receive and study any
longer written statement that you might like to leave for
the Commission.
After we finish with those who are specifically
scheduled to speak, there will be an opportunity for other
members of the audience to appear for statements from 3-5
minutes long.
Finally, let me say that although this is highly
emotional, our best opportunity to provide sound and helpful
recommendations will be through a calm and reasoned
discussion of these serious problems.
3K2ZOOSF 3
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Bryce Nelson or Abby Ullman
213/622-5205
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Los Angeles, April 30, 1991 -- The Independent Commission on
the Los Angeles Police Department announced Tuesday that
representatives of eleven citizens organizations are scheduled to
testify at the Commission's first public session Wednesday.
The Commission will also hear comments from members of the
public at the session which will be held from 8:00 a.m. until noon
on Wednesday, May 1 in the auditorium of the Security Pacific Plaza
(concourse level) at 333 South Hope Street in downtown Los Angeles.
The Commission also announced that its May 13 7:00 to 9:00
p.m. public session will be held at the MacClay Junior High School
at 12540 Pierce in the city's Pacoima section in the San Fernando
Valley.
The site of the May 13 meeting, which had not previously been
announced, is located near the center of the Foothill Division of
the Los Angeles Police Department, only a few blocks from where the
incident involving Rodney King took place on March 3. This
incident led to the creation of the Independent Commission, headed
by chainnan Warren Christopher and by Vice Chairman John A.
Arguelles. The Commission composed of 10 private citizens was
charged with conducting a wide-ranging study of the Los Angeles
Police Department, focusing on issues relating to the excessive use
of force.
-1-
Members of the public and news organizations are welcome to
observe all of the Commission's public sessions.
Other public sessions of the Commission will be held in South
Central Los Angeles on May 8 in the auditorium of the Golden State
Mutual Life Insurance Company at 1999 West Adams Boulevard, and in
East Los Angeles on May 20 in the auditorium of the Woodrow Wilson
High School at 4500 Multnomah Street. The May 8, 13 and 20 public
sessions will last from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
"We look forward to hearing comments from a wide range of
citizens at these public sessions. These comments from citizens
will help us formulate better recommendations on the work of the
police department," said Christopher and Justice Arguelles.
The following witnesses have been scheduled for the Wednesday,
May 1 meeting, lasting from 8:00 a.m. until noon:
s·2C a.m
9:00 a.m.
9:20 a.m.
Sooaker
· Geid\Tey Ta~ Gibb$. E'4
BoardM~
John M ~ori Bar AsscdaUon
StEMart J<woh. ESQ
E.xeieutive D~ecsor
Asian Pacif.c ~Center
~mer.a R•psion
E.xecutrw-e Dar eicior
Amencan CNt Libert~
Union Foo'"datk>n
Vtbia ~ Ardrade
R~Or"a! C,Ons8
Wes:em Regk>n
Mexkar: Amencan ~~ Defense
and Edt.>eation Fu~ (MALDE.F)
R. Sarrua Paz.. Esq.
Mexk:an Ai-nerican Ba~ Associatk>n (MABA)
-2-
lO :OC a.m
10 :40 a.m.
11 ~oo a.m.
11 :20 a.m.
Enc Rose
at~ 9n$ W"I Suppon cJ the Ch•
cJ. PciC::I fC.l .S CO. P.)
Bil L Lee . ESQ
Westen'\ RE!iQ~ Couns8
NA>.~~ Caf~ Fund
R~~E.sQ
O&recicx. l..e9af SerY1ces
LA Gay and L.esOOn Community
~Center
Lewis Custm
Vice Pr es.id en cJ Communications
M~chants & Manufacturers Associatk>n
Danny Sakeweli
p reskjetnt and Chief Ex~rve Off .car
Brothemood Cl'\JS.ade . Black Unhed
Fund, Inc.
U George Ariano
PreskSenl
Los ~eles Pola: Protective Le.ague
-3-
DIRECTORY
INDEPENDENT COMM~SSION ON THE LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT
MEMBERS
Warren Christopher
Chairman
O'Melveny & Myers
490 South Hope street
Los Angeles, CA 90071-2899
John A. Arquelles
Vice Chairman
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
800 Newport Center Drive
Suite 700
Newport Beach, CA 92660
Roy A. Anderson
Lockheed Corporation
2550 North Hollywood Way
Third Floor
Burbank, CA 91520
Willie R. Barnes
Katten, Muchin, Zavis &
Weitzman
2029 Century Park East
Suite 200
Los Angeles, CA 90067
Prof. Leo F. Estrada
Graduate School of
Architecture and Urban
Planning - UCLA
Perloff Hall - Room 1224
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90024-1467
-1-
- ·-- ---------· ·--------------------------~
INDEPENDENT COMMISSION ON THE LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT
Mickey Kantor
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips
11355 West Olympic Boulevard
Ninth Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90064
Richard x. Mosk
Sanders, Barnet, Jacobson,
Goldman & Mosk
1901 Avenue of the Stars
Suite 850
Los Angeles, CA 90067
Andrea Sheridan Ordin
Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz
444 South Flower Street
Los Angeles, CA 90071
John Brooks Slaughter
Occidental College
Arthur G. Coons Administration Center
Third Floor
1600 Campus Road
Los Angeles, CA 90041
Robert E. Tranquada, M.D.
U.S.C. School of Medicine
Keith Administration Building
Room 500
1975 Zonal Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90033
-2-
Object Description
| Title | Public session, 1991-05-01: materials from organizations (1 of 2), 1991 Mar.-May |
| Description | Public session, 1991 May 1: materials from organizations (1 of 2), 1991 March 14 - May 1. 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 | 1991-03-14/1991-06-13 |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California |
| Date created | 1991-03-14/1991-06-13 |
| Type | texts |
| Format | 128 p. |
| Format (aat) |
clippings (information artifacts) correspondence faxes lists (document genres) presentations (communicative events) press releases |
| 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 | Public Sessions |
| Box and folder | box 24, folder 23 |
| 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-box24-23 |
Description
| Title | Christopher, statement, 1991-05-01 |
| Description | Transcription - "Statement of Warren Christopher" at Public Session |
| Coverage date | 1991-05-01 |
| Date created | 1991-05-01 |
| Type | texts |
| Format | 8 p. |
| Format (aat) | presentations (communicative events) |
| Format (imt) | application/pdf |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Series | Independent Commission File List |
| File | Public Sessions |
| Box and folder | box 24, folder 23, item 6 |
| Physical access | Contact: Special Collections, Doheny Memorial Library, Libraries, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189; specol@dots.usc.edu |
| Full text |
STATEMENT
OF
WARREN CHRISTOPHER
May 1, 1991
Public Session
Good morning. On behalf of Vice Chairman Justice
Arguelles and the other members of the Commission, I want to
welcome you to the first public meeting of the Independent
Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department. Please
allow me to introduce the Com.missioners and our General
Counsel and our Executive Director.
May I thank you all, including members of the
media, for turning out at this early hour so that we could
have the maximum time for public discussions. I want to
also thank the Tishman Corporation for making this
auditorium available without cost and Security Pacific Bank
for helping with the facilities.
Let me say immediately that these public sessions
are very important to the Com.mission. Those appearing today
will enable us to get the benefit of information and
opinions from leaders of community groups and members of the
public. We need your advice and ideas.
our Commission was formed just one month ago
today. We are proceeding with the strong support of the key
public officials of the City of Los Angeles involved in this
problem, including Mayor Bradley, City Council President
Ferraro, District Attorney Reiner, and Chief of Police
Gates.
The Rodney King incident has changed the
landscape. The home video of the incident has become the
most widely viewed news video since the tragic Challenger
explosion. Without prejudging any of the sensitive issues
surrounding the incident itself, there can be no doubt that
the underlying issue of excessive force in the name of the
law must be examined on an urgent basis. Few issues have
such a polarizing and disruptive potential, and few issues
present a more complex challenge to the City.
3K2ZOOSF
To respond, our Commission will make a thorough
and comprehensive review of the structure and operation of
the Police Department. It will be an objective, independent
and nonpartisan review. Our focus will be to study the use
of excessive force in the name of the law. While our
Commission was created in the aftermath of the Rodney King
incident, we will not focus on a single issue or individual
but on the entire length and breadth of the problem.
We begin without any preconceptions or assumptions
about the extent of the problem or its causes or cures. In
the spirit of open inquiry, we will examine the entire
system in the Police Department. We will look at selection,
recruitment, training, promotion, discipline, assignment,
leadership and retirement. We will also look at structural
issues such as the relationship of the Chief of Police and
the Police Department to the Police Commission and to City
Government as a whole.
As I have said before, we expect to make the most
probing study of its kind ever undertaken. We expect to
examine more than a million pages of documents from the
files of the Police Department. We plan to interview more
than a hundred former and present officers of the Police
Department.
This is the first of four public meetings that we
plan for the month of May. Today we will begin by hearing
from the leaders of important community organizations. At a
later time, we will hear from individual members of these
organizations who have relevant testimony to give. We also
hope to hear from individ~al citizens who have information
that they would like to give the Commission.
Let me emphasize that we are proceeding on a fully
independent basis. Our funds are supplied by a private
foundation, the Weingart Foundation, which is widely known
for its support of community causes, especially those
relating to the welfare of children. The members of the
Commission themselves are open-minded and uncommitted to any
particular point of view. We have recruited a staff of more
than 30 prominent lawyers who are giving their time on a pro
bono or without charge basis, and who approach their task in
an objective spirit.
3K2ZOOSF 2
It is important to recognize that our Commission
does not have the power to make laws or rules or
regulations. If we are to be effective, it will be through
the quality and persuasiveness of our findings and
recommendations. I should also add that our Commission does
not have a charter to consider all of the ills or
shortcomings of our society. It will be a severe challenge
for us to respond to the important charge that we have
within our limited timeframe.
The Commission has been hard at work during the
first month of its operation. We have been getting
organized and developing the background facts. We have had
a number of executive sessions. We have heard several
expert witnesses and have examined many pages of documents,
but we certainly have not reached any conclusions, not even
tentative conclusions. Thus, as I said, these public
meetings are of high importance.
We have established the practice that each of
persons providing information to the Commission will be
sworn in by Justice Arguelles. Before we swear our first
witness in today, let me say that 20 minutes has been
allotted to the representatives of each of the important
organizations that are appearing today. We hope you will
keep your statement as brief as possible so as to maximize
the time for questions by members of the Commission or by
our staff. We need to limit each appearance to 20 minutes
so that we can maximize the number of organizations making
presentations. We will be glad to receive and study any
longer written statement that you might like to leave for
the Commission.
After we finish with those who are specifically
scheduled to speak, there will be an opportunity for other
members of the audience to appear for statements from 3-5
minutes long.
Finally, let me say that although this is highly
emotional, our best opportunity to provide sound and helpful
recommendations will be through a calm and reasoned
discussion of these serious problems.
3K2ZOOSF 3
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Bryce Nelson or Abby Ullman
213/622-5205
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Los Angeles, April 30, 1991 -- The Independent Commission on
the Los Angeles Police Department announced Tuesday that
representatives of eleven citizens organizations are scheduled to
testify at the Commission's first public session Wednesday.
The Commission will also hear comments from members of the
public at the session which will be held from 8:00 a.m. until noon
on Wednesday, May 1 in the auditorium of the Security Pacific Plaza
(concourse level) at 333 South Hope Street in downtown Los Angeles.
The Commission also announced that its May 13 7:00 to 9:00
p.m. public session will be held at the MacClay Junior High School
at 12540 Pierce in the city's Pacoima section in the San Fernando
Valley.
The site of the May 13 meeting, which had not previously been
announced, is located near the center of the Foothill Division of
the Los Angeles Police Department, only a few blocks from where the
incident involving Rodney King took place on March 3. This
incident led to the creation of the Independent Commission, headed
by chainnan Warren Christopher and by Vice Chairman John A.
Arguelles. The Commission composed of 10 private citizens was
charged with conducting a wide-ranging study of the Los Angeles
Police Department, focusing on issues relating to the excessive use
of force.
-1-
Members of the public and news organizations are welcome to
observe all of the Commission's public sessions.
Other public sessions of the Commission will be held in South
Central Los Angeles on May 8 in the auditorium of the Golden State
Mutual Life Insurance Company at 1999 West Adams Boulevard, and in
East Los Angeles on May 20 in the auditorium of the Woodrow Wilson
High School at 4500 Multnomah Street. The May 8, 13 and 20 public
sessions will last from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
"We look forward to hearing comments from a wide range of
citizens at these public sessions. These comments from citizens
will help us formulate better recommendations on the work of the
police department," said Christopher and Justice Arguelles.
The following witnesses have been scheduled for the Wednesday,
May 1 meeting, lasting from 8:00 a.m. until noon:
s·2C a.m
9:00 a.m.
9:20 a.m.
Sooaker
· Geid\Tey Ta~ Gibb$. E'4
BoardM~
John M ~ori Bar AsscdaUon
StEMart J |
| Filename | indep-box24-23-06.pdf |
| Archival file | Volume82/indep-box24-23-06.pdf |
