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<\1$.\)' I [HUFFMAN - 0 ]
la. NAME OF INTERVIEWER: Julie Huffman
lb. DATE OF INTERVIEW: June 6, 1991
le. LENGTH OF INTERVIEW: l~ Hrs.
ld. NOTES:
2. I.D. CODE: 011
3. SEX: Male
4. RACE: Black
5. AGE:.
6 • DIVISION: 77th
7. CURRENT RANK/ASSIGNMENT:
8. MISC. PERSONAL BACKGROUND:
9. MISC. L.A.P.D. BACKGROUND:
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CONFIDENTIAL
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[BUl'l'HAH - 011] CONFIDENTIAL
This officer was assigned to 77th Division upon graduation
from the Academy and has stayed there for his entire career. He
did not have a choice in where he was assigned and actually
didn't want to be assigned to 77th. He explained that he had
grown up in that neighborhood and didn't especially want to work
there. He also said that he never wanted to work downtown,
because he didn't want to have deal with the drunks on skid row
or the weirdos at the bus station.
This officer indicated that he had never sought to change
divisions or to be promoted because he finds working 77th to be
"comfortable and convenient." He admits that he is in something
of a rut and believes that the Department should encourage people
to transfer.
10. FIELD TRAINING -- SELECTION OF F.T.O.s:
This officer has been working with probationers on and off,
since about 1972, although he has only been a PIII for about four
years. When he first started working with probationers, any
police officers could train new probationers. There was not a
special position for training officers. He eventually decided to
take the test and become a PIII because one of his sergeants
goaded him into it. He also indicated that many of the people he
trained as probationers are now in supervisory positions above.
11. FIELD TRAINING -- TRAINING OF F.T.O.s:
This officer believes that many of the current training
officers lack the basic skills to appropriately train
probationers because they themselves were not trained properly
when they were probationers. He thinks that the Department has a
large number of officers on the street who do not have good
people skills, and the Department should make an effort to
retrain the training officers so that they are better equipped to
train probationers.
12. FIELD TRAINING MISCONDUCT BY I DISCIPLINE OF F.T.O.s:
13. FIELD TRAINING EVALUATION OF F.T.O.s' PERFORMANCE:
14. FIELD TRAINING ASSIGHMENTCSl TO PROBATIONERS:
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• [HUFFMAN - 011] CONFIDENTIAL
15. FIELD TRAINING -- RELATIONSHIP WITH I TRAINING OF
PROBATIONERS:
This officer believes that the most important thing to teach
probationers, and the most common thing that is lacking in
officers who are currently on the force, is self-confidence. He
believes that if officers have self-confidence, they will learn
good people skills and they will be able to deal with the people
they encounter on the street. It's important to teach
probationers that not everyone they encounter is going to try to
bite your head off. Probationers need to learn how to recognize
whether a person is a threat and how to respond to that threat,
but until the threat comes along, they have to learn how to calm
down.
He also teaches his probationers to explain to people why
they have stopped or detained. It's something that you teach
probationers by example, just like you teach them by example how
to be able to judge the character of people they encounter. Some
people simply never learn good people skills. It's a question of
having judgment and common sense.
This officer expressed the opinion that is it not too hard
for the Department to terminate unsatisfactory probationers. He
thinks that many training officers have lost the attitude that
they are there to be teachers, and they now view themselves as
"hatchet men" whose job is to fire people. He thinks this is
because the training officers do not themselves have the skills
necessary to be a good police officer, and that they, like their
probationers, need more training in people skills. He thinks
that many training officers have also lost the attitude that
training officers and probationers are partners. He thinks this
is because too many people are becoming training officers too
quickly.
One of his favorite lessons to teach new probationers was to
teach them about physical space. Every person has an area about
them that they define as their personal space and that they don't
want violated. He likes to teach his probationers that if they
violate that personal space, if they get too close to someone
physically, they open themselves up to being touched. If they
can't handle being touched, they shouldn't violate the space.
16. FIELD TRAINING --EVALUATION OF PROBATIONERS:
17. ROLL CALL TRAINING:
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[HUFFMAN - 011] CONFIDENTIAL
18. USE OF FORCE:
Although this officer does not believe that the excessive
use of force is a serious problem on the LAPD, he did acknowledge
that excessive force occurs. He himself has been the subject of
criminal charges for using excessive force. He was acquitted of
the charges, because he was not actually involved in the use of
force. It was his partner who was "dirty" and that individual
was found guilty and terminated from the Force. That incident
occurred shortly after he started with the Police Department.
He recounted another instance in which he had used excessive
force. This incident also occurred shortly after he became a
police officer. He was at the home of a suspected gang member,
speaking to the gang member's mother when the gang member came
home. As he was speaking with the suspected gang member, the
gang member referred to his mother as "a bitch," and the officer
hit him in the face and knocked him out. The officer indicated
that his conduct was wrong, and that police officers would be
unlikely to do the same thing today. He thinks this is because
society has changed, and has become less tolerant of the use of
the force by police officers.
He thinks that many instances of excessive force happen
because the police officers involved lack the self-confidence to
handle being treated poorly by members of the public. In his
opinion, a lot of police officers have a really "macho" attitude,
they lack self-confidence, and they have to throw their weight
around in order to maintain whatever self-confidence they have.
So when they encounter people who exhibit a lot of disrespect for
law enforcement or authority figures, they feel as if they have
to do something to get back at that person. He thinks that,
especially in 77th Division, the fact that many citizens lack
respect both for themselves and for authority figures leads to a
lot of violent confrontations between police officers and
citizens. It used to be that people in the community exhibited a
lot of respect for police officers. Now, "it's a one way street,
cops have to eat it and eat it and eat it." Because there is so
much disrespect, police officers have to learn good people skills
in order to handle the people they come in contact with. In this
officer's opinion, most police officers do not emphasize good
people skills enough, because they themselves do not have the
training to do so.
19. RQDNEY KING INCIDENT:
This officer believes that the public ought to stop blaming
Chief Gates for the Rodney King incident because it is not his
fault. It's obvious to this officer that the police officers
involved in the King incident broke the rules and should be held
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• [HUFFMAN - 011] CONFIDENTIAL
accountable for t h eir conduct. This officer knows Stacy Koon
well, and commented that when he first saw the Rodney King video,
he said to himself, "Oh Stacy. Bad decision Stacy. You blew it
big time." He thinks that the King incident was a situation that
really got out of hand. Bad decisions were made at the beginning
of the incident and they just snowballed into something that none
of the officers there could control. The bad decisions included
the excessive use of force, and the failure to write accurate
police reports.
This officer believes that the King incident is not an
aberration. He has seen similar incidents himself. He
commented, however, that although beatings do occur, they do not
occur as frequently as they used to, and the officers who are
involved in that kind of conduct are only a small percentage of
the officers on the police force.
20. CITIZEN COMPLAINTS:
21. INTERNAL DISCIPLINE:
In this officer's opinion, a lot of cops do "stupid things
and they burn for it." Officer believes that the disciplinary
system works pretty well, but the people at IAD are overworked.
The Department needs to put more officers in IAD, so that the
Division can investigate personnel complaints more quickly.
22. PROMOTION:
This officer didn't have particularly strong feelings about
the promotion system. He did express the view that sometimes
people are promoted too quickly because they are good test
takers. Those people don't necessarily have good "cop skills."
As an example, the officer mentioned Capt. Elfmont, the captain
who was involved in the 39th & Dalton matter. This officer knows
Elfmont because Elfmont worked at 77th. He said that Elfmont,
"Didn't have a clue. This was a man who never grew up." He
indicated that Elfmont would frequently take a car out and make
traffic stops and take crime reports. "He was a manager who
wanted to play cop."
23. ASSIGNMENTS/TRANSFERS:
This officer believes the Department should encourage police
officers to transfer to different divisions periodically. He
thinks that officers who spend their time in a single division
get into a rut and should be encouraged to move to avoid that.
24. COMMUNITY POLICING I COMMUNITY RELATIONS:
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25. GAYS/LESBIANS:
This officer indicated that he knows some women on the force
who are definitely lesbians, although they are not open about
their sexuality. He thinks that being gay or lesbian doesn't
necessarily hurt a police officer's career, depending upon the
police officer's conduct. If being gay or being a lesbian
doesn't effect the way the officer does his or her job, or if the
officer "carries" him or herself "appropriately," the officer's
sexuality really won't matter. This officer acknowledged that a
number of police officers are prejudiced against gays and
lesbians, but he also indicated that he doesn't buy into that.
He stated that remembers not being accepted because he was Black
and he remembers a period of time when women were not accepted as
police officers because they women. He thinks that the prejudice
against gays and lesbians is, "just the leopard changing its
spots."
26. WOMEN:
This officer indicated that he did not have any problem
working with female officers and in fact stated that some of the
best partners he's ever had were women. He acknowledged that
most officers do not agree with that point of view. He thinks
that it's silly for a police officer to dislike working with
women because the officer believes that women don't have the
physical stature to do the job. In this officer's opinion, the
job no longer requires "brute strength," instead it requires a
person who can think .
. 27. RACIAL MINORITIES:
This officer had a lot to say about race relations in the
Department. Although he thinks that race relations in the
Department are a lot better now then they were when he started,
"things are far from being right." He believes that the racism
that exists in the Department is just a reflection of the racism
that exists in the rest of society.
This officer indicated that he has been on the force a long
time, and he has always made it a practice to point out to
probationers and to other minority officers the officers at 77th
who he thought were bigots. He said that he would sit in roll
call, and publicly point to the officer he thought was a bigot
and say, "That's the one. He's not your friend." He follows the
same practice with respect to police officers whom he believes
are "dirty cops," or police officers who are too aggressive or
engage in the excessive of force. He said that one time a friend
of his asked him, "Do you think you are accepted or just
tolerated?" He thinks it's a little of both.
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Right now, this officer is working with a Latino officer who
he believes is one of the most racist people he's ever met. The
officer looks down on everyone who is not Latino. The officer is
also a graduate of use, and thinks that, "if you didn't go to
use, you ain't shit." This officer makes it a point "cuss him
out," almost on a daily basis. Because the Latino officer knows
that he is wrong, and that most people of the Division don't like
him, the Latino officer is reticent to file a personnel complaint
against this officer.
28. ATTITUDES/OPINIONS RE: L.A.P.D.:
29. REFORM SUGGESTIONS:
This officer did not express strong feelings about what
reforms were needed at the Police Department. He did mention
that he thought patrol officers, especially those with seniority,
ought to be paid more money and get bigger pensions.
30. CODE OF SILENCE:
This officer acknowledged that there is a code of silence in
the Department, but he believes that is less strong than it used
to be. Wh e n he first started, he worked with an officer who he
described as "dirty." On one of his first days on the job, this
officer pulled out a bottle of alcohol and started drinking in
the patrol car. He turned to the officer and said, "Boy, do you
drink?" This officer told him that he did not drink. At the
point, the other officer took his bottle and splashed a little
alcohol all over this officer's uniform. The point was, that the
officer would be less likely to report his partner because his
uniform also smelled like alcohol. This officer indicated that
he took the hint and never reported what the other officer was
doing.
When he first started on the force, the watch commander's
offic was something of a "no man's land." Nobody went into the
watch commander's office unless they absolutely had to, or unless
they were a good friend of the watch commander. The watch
commander did not make himself accessible to other police
officers, or encourage police officers to come to him with
reports of misconduct. Now, he believes that both supervisors
and police officers are more willing to accept and to make
complaints about misconduct. The officer did not explain why he
thinks attitudes had changed.
50. MISCELLANEOUS: Although this officer indicated that he is
not a strong backer of Chief Gates, he did indicate that he
thinks the media and the public are being too hard on Gates. In
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this officer's opinion, Gates is a "product of Parker, who was a
world renowned bigot." No stage has ever been set for Gates and
Bradley to get along, because they come from such different
backgrounds. This officer believes that it is impossible to
bridge the gap between Gates and Bradley, the two men are never
going to get along.
This officer believes that Gates is not as sensitive to
racial issues as he might be. He thinks that Gates sometimes
makes comments that he ought not to make.
[HUFFMAN - 001] 8