Managing marginalization from Watts to Rodney King: the struggle over policing and social control in Los Angeles, 1965-1992

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Managing Marginalization from Watts to Rodney King:
The Struggle Over Policing and Social Control in Los Angeles, 1965-1992

Max Felker-Kantor

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISTORY)

2014

Copyright 2014 Max Felker-Kantor

ii

For Mom, Dad, and Er

iii
Acknowledgements

There are so many people who deserve a world of thanks for their guidance, support,
friendship, and patience during what was, at times, a long and arduous process of researching
and writing this dissertation. I first want to thank my advisor Robin D.G. Kelley for his support
and positive reassurances of the value of my scholarship. I always left meetings with him feeling
better and more energized than when I entered. The rest of my dissertation committee have
provided crucial support and guidance. Phil Ethington offered invaluable readings of multiple
drafts and sharp critiques, George Sánchez pushed me to think about big questions, Bill Deverell
offered crucial support at an important stage of the project and thoughts on the history of Los
Angeles, and Laura Pulido has provided an important perspective and been a constant source of
support of all my work.
This dissertation could not have been possible without the help of Michele Welsing,
Raquel Chavez, and Yusef Omowale at the Southern California Library. From the first day I
went to the Southern California Library Michele offered invaluable aid and guidance into some
of the key collections that served as the foundation for the entire project. The archivists and staff
at UCLA Special Collections, including Susan Anderson, Megan Fraser, Kelly Besser, Robert
Montoya, and Cesar Reyes offered key insight into large and unprocessed collections. Dace
Taube at USC Special Collections helped me navigate collections and provided access to
important material from the 1992 Los Angeles uprising. Renee James at Cal State Los Angeles
Special Collections and the archivists at the Urban Archives Center at Cal State Northridge were
also especially helpful. Polly Armstrong at Stanford’s Green Library Special Collections
facilitated my research during a short period of time. The staff and reading room supervisors at
the Huntington Library made it an enjoyable place to research and work.
iv
A number of institutions lent crucial support to this dissertation. The USC History
Department provided financial support to attend a number of conferences during my research
and writing. The Pacific Coast Branch of the AHA provided a travel grant for conference
presentation. The USC Institute on California and the West provided key funding for research at
the beginning of the project to explore archival collections outside of Los Angeles. The USC
Shoah Foundation also provided travel funding through the Resisting the Path to Genocide
Research Cluster for important research trips to Stanford and UC Berkeley.
My friends and colleagues made research and writing all the more bearable. Heather
Ashby and Monica Pelayo have been comrades from day one of graduate school and put up with
my constant stress, anxiety, and workaholic tendencies. Christian Paiz came late to our group but
has always tried to keep me sane and grounded however unsuccessfully. Other members of my
cohort have been key sources of support, especially Annie Johnson who commiserated over topic
changes and the rigors of the dissertation process. Other students in the USC History Department
provided guidance and freindship including Matt Amato, Pat Wyman, and Jen Black. Colleagues
including David Levitus, Lily Geismer, Hillary Jenks, and Alyssa Ribeiro have been important
sounding boards through the various stages of this project. Caitlin Parker has provided important
insights into late-twentieth century Los Angeles history, shared research, and collaborated on
panels and talks. My long-term history crew of Lauren Acker, Caitlin Verboon, and Allison
Gorsuch were also important sources of support, inspiration, and insight.
During the course of my research and writing a number of scholars at other institutions
offered support and guidance that was crucial to keeping me going, although they may not know
it. Heather Thompson offered valuable advice and guidance, Julilly Kohler-Hausman read early
drafts of chapters and was an important sounding board, and Donna Murch read and commented
v
on the last chapter as I was frantically trying to complete the dissertation. Eric Avila has also
offered key words of advice and guidance over the course of the last few years of my graduate
work. The Los Angeles Metro Studies Group also provided me an important venue to present
work near the end of the project.
A number of professors and USC administrators have been influential and helpful
throughout my graduate career. Deb Harkness always offered support and advice, often in areas
unrelated to the academic world. Karen Halttunen was a source of valuable advice on the nature
of the historical profession and teaching. Steve Ross helped me think about my approach to
teaching, offered hands-on advice for the job market, and provided important insight into
research and writing. History department administrators Lori Rogers and Sandra Hopwood have
helped me navigate through USC and always been there to answer questions.
Along the way a number of family and friends offered up their homes, couches, and extra
rooms to me for research trips and conference presentations. Dave and Elaine Posner kindly
provided unparalleled accommodations minutes from a Central Coast beach during a nearly
three-week stay at their Santa Cruz-area home. Chris Berggren and Sharon Dam offered up a
couch in San Francisco. Lauren Bassi also graciously let me invade her one bedroom apartment
in Brooklyn. Steve and Ross Rachel Posner provided great fun and a relief from the academic
grind in Washington, D.C. on multiple occasions. Kimberly Shephard, along with helping me
keep graduate school in perspective, provided a room during a conference presentation in
Denver. Dina and Charlie Goodman offered up a room in their Minneapolis home as well as
some very good company. Carey Carlock and Jack Henry, along with their three children, Lucy,
Nick, and Tucker, made for a great (and eventful!) conference trip to Chicago.
vi
Most importantly, my parents and sister have been a constant source of support and
encouragement. Mostly they have been patient. Without them this dissertation would not have
been possible. I am incredibly lucky to have parents who are overwhelmingly supportive and
also able to offer critical insight into my scholarly work. My father, Harvey Kantor, read
multiple drafts of every chapter and offered insightful, constructive, and critical comments. My
mother, Janet Felker, also read a number of chapters and provided a key outside voice on my
writing. My twin sister, Erica, has always been my champion, especially when I am not. I could
not have made it through the final stages of this process without Mary Appel, who has been a
source of constant support and voice of reason keeping me grounded. She has been more patient
than I deserve and overwhelmingly understanding of the rigors of dissertation writing and
academic work. At every point she pushed me to see the value in my accomplishments however
small. For this I owe her immeasurably.
vii
Table of Contents

Acknowledgements iii

List of Figures viii

Abbreviations x

Abstract xi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 40
“Raceriotland”: The Watts Uprising and its Aftermath

Chapter 2 102
Reasserting Authority in the Streets: The Politics of Law and Order and the
Militarization of the Police

Chapter 3 169
The Score on the Killing Ground: Challenging Police Violence
and Alternative Visions of Law and Order

Chapter 4 238
“Police Discipline, Is it JUSTICE”: Excessive Force, Community
Mobilization, and the Battleground of the Crime War

Chapter 5 301
Preventing Future Misconduct: The Public Disorder Intelligence
Division, “Subversive” Behavior, and the Struggle Over Police Spying

Chapter 6 351
“You can’t put them all in jail”: The War on Drugs, Gang Violence,
and Punitive Urban Policy during the Crack Era

Conclusion 416
Coming Home to Roost: The 1992 Los Angeles Uprising

Appendix 440

Bibliography 449
viii
List of Figures

Figure 1: The Municipal Spaces of Los Angeles County: 1850-2000 24

Figure 2: Los Angeles Police Department Divisions, 1977 26

Figure 3: Race-Ethnic Majority Map, Los Angeles County, 1960 28

Figure 4: Race-Ethnic Majority Map, Los Angeles County, 1970 29

Figure 5: Race-Ethnic Majority Map, Los Angeles County, 1980 29

Figure 6: Race-Ethnic Majority Map, Los Angeles County, 1990 30

Figure 7: The Geography of Landed Wealth, 1990 33

Figure 8: Darkness Falls on Watts, August 13, 1965 49

Figure 9: Burned residence from Watts Riots, October 15, 1965 50

Figure 10: Watts Summer Festival parade, August 14, 1967 82

Figure 11: Charcoal Alley in Watts, July 16, 1967 98

Figure 12: Governor Brown and Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty 132
exit riot conference, March 15, 1966

Figure 13: Police officer threatens suspect with shotgun in 136
Watts, March 15, 1966

Figure 14: Armed police officers stand watch on a roof in Watts, March 15, 1966 137

Figure 15: Police officers search suspects in Watts, March 15, 1966 180

Figure 16: Mayor Yorty, “The Big Lie” 190

Figure 17: Black Panther Party Newspaper 218

Figure 18: Black Panther headquarters, December 9, 1969 220

Figure 19: Rioting following Chicano Moratorium Committee 229
antiwar protest, September 17, 1970

Figure 20: CAPA Protest, undated 275

ix
Figure 21: Mayor Tom Bradley, Police Chief Daryl Gates, and 286
Police Commission President Stephen Reinhardt, October 16, 1979

Figure 22: Needed: A Civilian Police Review Board, February 28, 1980 298

Figure 23: The Rap Sheet, March 1979 319

Figure 24: South Central residents demonstrate against crime, July 10, 1983 374

Figure 25: LAPD Battering Ram in action, February 18, 1986 393

Figure 26: Los Angeles County Gang Map, 1992 405

x
Abbreviations

ACLU – American Civil Liberties Union
BCP – Basic Car Plan
BDC – Barrio Defense Committee
CANDLE – Coalition Against Negative and Discriminatory Law Enforcement
CAP – Community Alert Patrol
CAPA – Coalition Against Police Abuse
CASA – Centro Accion Social Autonomo
CCOPR – Citizens Commission on Police Repression
CCRB – Citizens for a Civilian Review Board
CHP – California Highway Patrol
CRASH – Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums
CYGS – Community Youth Gang Services
DDCP – Disposition Data Coordination Project
FATF – Forfeited Assets Trust Funds
GLAUC – Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition
GRATS – Gang Related Active Trafficker Suppression
GREAT – Gang Reporting, Evaluation, and Tracking
GWJC – Greater Watts Justice Center
HEAVY – Human Efforts at Revitalizing Youth
IAD – Internal Affairs Division
ICBO – Interracial Council for Business Opportunity
INS – Immigration and Naturalization Service
L/CSC – Labor/Community Strategy Center
LAPD – Los Angeles Police Department
LASD – Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department
LEAA – Law Enforcement Assistance Administration
LEIU – Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit
LCJC – Latino Community Justice Center
MALDEF – Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
MAPA – Mexican American Political Association
NAACP – National Association For the Advancement of Colored People
NCLR – National Council of La Raza
OEO – Office of Equal Opportunity
OIS – Officer-Involved Shooting
OSS – Operation Safe Streets
PDID – Public Disorder Intelligence Division
PMLRS – People’s Misconduct Lawyer’s Referral Service
SCLC – Southern Christian Leadership Conference
SCOC – South Central Organizing Committee
TALO – Temporary Alliance of Local Organizations
UNO – United Neighborhoods Organization
UPRI – Urban Policy Research Institute
WNA – Westminister Neighborhood Association
xi
Abstract

America’s inner cities, while experiencing fewer episodes of major civil violence after
the 1960s, had become extremely violent places by the 1980s, riven by street crime, drug trade,
gang wars, and a dramatic rise in incarceration rates. While the response to the urban uprisings of
the 1960s included a mix of redistributive and retributive programs meant to address the social
and economic conditions, discrimination, and segregation that contributed to frustration and
despair in the inner city, the overwhelming approach to addressing violence, street crime, and
inequality in urban areas during the 1980s was through aggressive policing, punitive policies,
and the criminal justice system.
This dissertation seeks to unravel this development. “Managing Marginalization from
Watts to Rodney King: The Struggle Over Policing and Social Control in Los Angeles, 1965-
1992” explores how the struggles and debates over policing, criminal justice, and law and order
politics in Los Angeles after the 1965 Watts uprising shaped the transformation of urban
liberalism, shifted understandings of the problems facing late-twentieth century American cities,
and influenced inner-city communities of color. By tracking the ground where institutions, local
officials, and social movements met and interacted, this dissertation shows how the development
of late-twentieth century punitive urban policy was not only a story of government failure or the
predetermined triumph of mass incarceration but the outcome of a contested process and the
struggle over paramilitary policing, punitive policies, and alternative solutions to urban social
problems since the mid-1960s. The contestation surrounding policing and punitive policies
spurred by demands from local organizations, social movements, and residents, while unable to
alter the asymmetry of coercive state power, was thus part of the making and remaking of the
carceral state.
xii
By choosing to address the material consequences of urban decline and racial inequality
through crime control policies and intensified policing this dissertation argues that city and law
enforcement officials ushered in a new vision of aggressive state authority that reframed
problems of poverty as ones of crime and behavior. The lack of responsiveness by local officials
to movements and residents demanding an end to police violence and neglect in the late 1960s
and early 1970s left an opening for the punitive turn in urban policy and the aggressive,
paramilitary police measures associated with the War on Crime, War on Drugs, and War on
Gangs that become a central means of maintaining social control over marginalized groups living
in segregated areas of concentrated poverty during the late 1970s and 1980s. Such punitive
policies reinterpreted who had legitimate claims on the state, produced a disillusionment with
government, a sense of fear and suspicion due to possibility of arrest, a rise in incarceration rates,
and both a feeling of and literal disenfranchisement among poor inner-city black and Latino
residents that led to continued urban decline, rationalized unequal social and economic
conditions, and contributed to the eruption of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising.
1
Introduction

If I done right or I done wrong,
I’d sooner be held by the Vietcong.

The Picked Up By The Los Angeles Police Department
Blues

-Calvin Trillin, The Nation, April 8, 1991
1

Speaking on April 30, 1992, Father David O'Connell of the South Central Organizing
Committee, an interracial community organization located in the historically African American
community of South Central Los Angeles, reflected on the explosion of violence in the city after
the not guilty verdict in the Rodney King police beating case. “But I want to say that the scenes
of death and violence and fear we see this morning in Los Angeles are not new to our city, not
new to our experience,” O’Connell stated, “they are daily occurrences in Los Angeles….We see
the violence that’s destroying our young people as being a symptom of many failures in our
society. It seems like in many ways our society has turned its back on our children. Our
educational system is failing them. Our political leaders are failing them. Our justice system is
failing them.”
2
America’s inner cities, while experiencing fewer episodes of major civil violence
after the 1960s, had become extremely violent places by the 1980s, riven by street crime, drug
trade, gang wars, and a dramatic rise in incarceration rates.
3
While the response to the urban
uprisings of the 1960s included a mix of redistributive and retributive programs meant to address
the social and economic conditions, discrimination, and segregation that contributed to
frustration and despair in the inner city, the overwhelming approach to addressing violence,

1
Calvin Trillin, “The Picked Up By The Los Angeles Police Department Blues,” Nation (April 8, 1991): 437.
2
David O’Connell statement to the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, Hearings on New
Alternatives to Community Distress, 102
nd
Cong., 2
nd
Sess., April 30, 1992, 12.
3
Michael B. Katz, Why Don’t American Cities Burn? (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011); Elliott Currie,
Crime and Punishment in America (Picador, 2013); Marc Mauer, Race to Incarcerate (New York: The New Press,
2001); Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow, (The New Press, 2012).
2
street crime, and inequality in urban areas during the 1980s was through aggressive policing,
punitive policies, and the criminal justice system.
This dissertation seeks to unravel this development. It explores how the struggles and
debates over policing, criminal justice, and law and order politics in Los Angeles after the 1965
Watts uprising shaped understandings of the problems facing late-twentieth century American
cities and what impact such policies had on communities of color. By tracking the ground where
institutions, local officials, and social movements met and interacted, my goal is to capture what
Michael Katz calls the “balance between collective agency and state power” to show how the
development of late-twentieth century punitive urban policy was not only a story of government
failure or the predetermined triumph of mass incarceration but the outcome of a process that
developed out of the struggle over paramilitary policing, punitive policies, and alternative visions
to urban social problems since the mid-1960s.
4
The contestation surrounding policing and
punitive policies spurred by demands from local organizations, social movements, and residents,
while unable to alter the asymmetry of coercive state power, was thus part of the making and
remaking of the carceral state.
5

By choosing to manage the material consequences of urban decline and racial inequality
through crime control policies and intensified policing this dissertation argues that city and law
enforcement officials ushered in a new vision of aggressive state authority and sought to
depoliticize black and Latino grievances rooted in the political economy of race, discrimination,
and segregation. The lack of responsiveness by local officials to movements and residents
demanding an end to police violence and neglect in the late 1960s and early 1970s left an

4
Katz, Why Don’t American Cities Burn?, 161.
5
The carceral state is the term used to explain a wide range of punitive state action from legislation, policing,
surveillance, border patrol, deportation, welfare policy, and imprisonment. See Marie Gottschalk, The Prison and
the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Marie
Gottschalk, “Hiding in Plain Sight: American Politics and the Carceral State,” Annual Review of Political Science 11
(2008): 235–60.
3
opening for the punitive turn in urban policy and the aggressive, paramilitary police measures
associated with the wars on crime, drugs, and gangs that become a central means of maintaining
social control over marginalized populations living in segregated areas of concentrated poverty
during the late 1970s and 1980s.
6
Such policies produced a disillusionment with government, a
sense of fear and suspicion due to possibility of arrest, a rise in incarceration rates, and both a
feeling of and literal disenfranchisement—a result of felony conviction—among poor inner-city
black and Latino residents that led to continued urban decline, perpetuated unequal social and
economic conditions, and contributed to the eruption of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising.
7

Instead of viewing the post-1960s period as one of limited government under rightward
moving social policy, this dissertation explores mobilization around policing and crime control at
the metropolitan level to show a shift in governing authority and focus rather than a retreat from
it.
8
When examined from such a perspective, the struggle over law and order politics, policing,
and the implementation of punitive, tough-on-crime policies in Los Angeles become central to
the transformation of urban liberalism under African American Mayor Tom Bradley over the
1970s and 1980s. This political shift facilitated a reinterpretation of urban social problems from
ones rooted in social and economic conditions to ones of personal behavior and responsibility

6
I use Ira Katznelson’s definition of social control as the means “for the fashioning of order in societies faced with
the disjunction between the formal legal equality of citizenship and the franchise and the structural inequities
produced by the routine operation of the political economy.” Ira Katznelson, City Trenches: Urban Politics and the
Patterning of Class in the United States (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981), 208-209; I use Michael Katz’s
definition of marginalized as “groups largely excluded from the prerogatives and rewards that accompany full
citizenship, including employment, housing, consumption, social benefits, and equal justice.” Katz, Why Don’t
American Cities Burn, 86.
7
Recent work by political scientists suggests that contact with carceral institutions reduces political activity and
faith in government. See: Vesla M. Weaver and Amy E. Lerman, “Political Consequences of the Carceral State,”
American Political Science Review (November 2010): 1–17; Amy E. Lerman, The Modern Prison Paradox:
Politics, Punishment, and Social Community, 2013; For an ethnographic examination of the impact of policing on
the daily life of black men see Alice Goffman, On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City (Chicago: University
Of Chicago Press, 2014).
8
On shifting governing authority on social policy see Margaret Weir, Anna Shola Orloff, and Theda Skocpol, eds.,
The Politics of Social Policy in the United States (Princeton University Press, 1988); More generally see Karen
Orren and Stephen Skowronek, The Search for American Political Development (Cambridge, UK; New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2004), 123;
4
requiring intensified policing, social control, and surveillance of poor inner city communities.
After Californians passed Proposition 13 in 1978 limiting property tax revenues, Ronald Reagan
cut federal resources for social and economic programs, and Bradley’s corporate-sponsored
economic development failed to live up to its promise to benefit all equally, crime control and
punitive policing became de facto urban policy in Los Angeles.
9

The combined war on drugs and war on gangs carried out by Bradley and local law
enforcement, in turn, rationalized shifting economic and social conditions by reframing problems
of poverty as ones of crime and behavior. In doing so, city officials, law enforcement, and anti-
crime community movements reframed who had legitimate claims on the state and the meaning
of inclusion in American society.
10
City officials effectively excluded poor black and Latino
youth from full participation and state protection by targeting new types of behavior as criminal,
portraying them as “urban terrorists,” subjecting them to intensified policing, and passing
punitive legal measures, such as the 1988 Street Terrorism and Prevention Act (STEP), aimed at
removing young offenders from the streets. The result: by 1991 the Los Angeles County Adult
Detention Center found that one-third of black men aged 20 to 29 in the County had been
arrested at least once in that same year. Southern California also became the main contributor to
California’s expanding prison population, which grew from 22,500 in 1973 to 104,300 in 1992
and was disproportionately made up of 31.3 percent African American and 34.1 percent Latino
inmates in 1995.
11

9
Abu-Lughod, Janet L. New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: America’s Global Cities (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1999); Robert Gottlieb, Regina Freer, Mark Vallianatos, and Peter Dreier, The Next Los Angeles:
The Struggle for a Livable City (University of California Press, 2006).
10
For the connection between neoliberal governance and punitive policies aimed at behavior see: Loïc Wacquant,
Prisons of Poverty (University of Minnesota Press, 2009); Loïc J. Wacquant, Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal
Government of Social Insecurity (Duke University Press, 2009).
11
Jerome G Miller, Search and Destroy: African-American Males in the Criminal Justice System (Cambridge; New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 5; Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag (Berkeley: University of
5
The emphasis on intensified policing and crime control policies, which created a new law
enforcement infrastructure aimed at maintaining social control and order by managing
marginalization, emerged out of the debates over how to respond to the urban uprisings of the
1960s.
12
The six days of violence that marked the Watts uprising of 1965 surprised the nation
and quickly became a symbol of African American discontent with the decades of
discrimination, segregation, and exclusion from mainstream society. Although condemned by
many as apolitical, criminal, and fruitless, the uprising elicited a variety of responses from the
state that were dynamic and multifaceted: they included redistributive, business-oriented, and
punitive measures. Poverty programs proliferated during the mid- to late-1960s as federal
funding flowed into Los Angeles, even if only for a brief period, but responses also featured a
reliance on law enforcement, and an advocacy for pro-business, if not pro-market, urban
development. When combined with a shifting political climate under California Governor
Ronald Reagan and President Richard Nixon, these policies foreshadowed the transformation of
urban liberalism under the city’s first African American mayor, Tom Bradley, who pushed
forward the consolidation of market-oriented urban policy, intensified policing, and punitive
crime control measures to manage urban inequality and social problems during the 1970s and
1980s.
13

California Press, 2007), 73-5, 111; For a more contemporary look at Los Angeles gangs and the drug war see Susan
A. Phillips, Operation Fly Trap: L.A. Gangs, Drugs, and the Law (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2012).
12
This is not to deny the longer historical roots of punitive policy, a long war on crime, and incarceration. I suggest
that there was a ratcheting up of policing and punitive policies in cities after the uprisings of the 1960s that built on
longer historical developments. See Gottschalk, “Hiding in Plain Sight”; Naomi Murakawa, “The Origins of the
Carceral Crisis: Racial Order as ‘Law and Order’ in Postwar American Politics,” In Race and American Political
Development, by Joseph Lowndes, Julie Novkov, and Warren Dorian, 234–56, 2008.
13
On various federal and local responses to riots during the post-World War II period see: Paul A Gilje, Rioting in
America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999); Heather Ann Thompson, “Understanding Rioting in
Postwar Urban America,” Journal of Urban History 26, no. 3 (March 1, 2000): 391–402; Alyssa Ribeiro, “‘A Period
of Turmoil’: Pittsburgh’s April 1968 Riots and Their Aftermath,” Journal of Urban History (April 9, 2012); Kevin
J. Mumford, Newark: A History of Race, Rights, and Riots in America (NYU Press, 2007); Kevin Mumford,
“Harvesting the Crisis: The Newark Uprising, the Kerner Commission, and Writings on Riots,” in African American
Urban History since World War II, ed. Kenneth L. Kusmer and Joe W. Trotter (University of Chicago Press, 2009),
6
Responses to urban civil violence emphasizing law and order, surveillance, and
militarized policing developed in response to local conditions and state institutions but were
reinforced by federal crime control policies. Rising crime rates, outbursts of civil violence, and
the transformation of the metropolitan racial geography convinced many white residents and
suburbanites that the city would soon become an uninhabitable place. Los Angeles Police
Department (LAPD) officials, city council members, and Mayor Sam Yorty played on these
fears to demand more funding for the police, to justify anti-riot plans and legislation, to develop
elite riot control units, to increase the technological and hardware capacity of the police, and to
broaden surveillance and intelligence gathering.
14
At the federal level, bipartisan support for
crime and riot control began under President Lyndon Johnson and funneled an unprecedented
amount of resources and funding to local police departments through the Law Enforcement
Assistance Administration (LEAA) in an effort to satisfy demands for law and order.
15
The law
enforcement infrastructure developed at local and federal levels in the aftermath of the uprisings
of the 1960s became a de facto form of urban policy that enabled the government to monitor,
contain, and control low-income inner city residents but did little to address the combination of
economic structures, urban transformation, and rightward moving social policies that produced
racial inequality, poverty, crime, and violence in America’s inner cities.
Heightened fears of crime and violence after the Watts uprising also worried African
American and Mexican American residents in low-income neighborhoods. But they responded in

203–218; Thomas J. Sugrue and Andrew P. Goodman, “Plainfield Burning: Black Rebellion in the Suburban
North,” Journal of Urban History 33, no. 4 (May 1, 2007): 568–601; Chris Rasmussen, “‘A Web of Tension’ The
1967 Protests in New Brunswick, New Jersey,” Journal of Urban History 40, no. 1 (January 1, 2014): 137–157;
Katz, Why Don’t American Cities Burn?.
14
On white fears see: Gerald Horne, Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s (New York: Da Capo Press,
1997); Scott Kurashige, The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic
Los Angeles (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2008).
15
See Elizabeth Kai Hinton, “From Social Welfare to Social Control: Federal War in American Cities, 1968--1988.”
(Ph.D., Columbia University, 2013).
7
different ways than the hard-line mentality of suburban and affluent West Side whites as well as
debating with one another about what law and order should look like in the city. Many middle-
class residents and moderate community leaders capitalized on the demands for law and order to
call for more and better police services in black and Mexican American neighborhoods as part of
a claim for equal access to police protection and state services.
16
For many other inner-city
residents, however, the LAPD was little more than a representative of the white power structure
implicated in a long history of lack of accountability, abusive practices, and aggressive policing
meant to keep them contained. Often associated with Black Nationalist, Black Power, or Chicano
groups, they promoted different meanings of law and order that included civilian review boards,
community control of the police, and armed self-defense, which led to increased police
repression and surveillance. While debating the meaning of law and order and demanding better
police services during the 1960s, few inner-city residents anticipated the wholesale reorientation
of state power and authority away from social services and towards law enforcement, criminal
justice, and crime control policies.
By the 1970s, the relative emphasis of state action shifted away from social welfare
programs and towards “get-tough” policing and crime control approaches to addressing the crime
and violence produced by urban decline, segregation, unemployment, and poor schools. While
Ronald Reagan promoted a conservative law and order politics, many liberals lent their support
to policies of intensified policing and crime control that targeted behavior, youth in particular,
making the punitive turn a bipartisan project.
17
Mayor Bradley, who was elected in 1973 on a

16
A note on terms: I use Mexican American in reference to the Spanish surnamed population prior to 1970 due to
the overwhelming number of Mexican Americans in the city. In the periods after 1970, I use the broader term Latino
due to demographic changes in Los Angeles that brought a wide variety of groups from Central and South America
to the city.
17
Alice O’Connor, Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S.
History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001); Daryl Michael Scott, Contempt and Pity: Social Policy
8
law and order platform by a multiracial coalition, increased Los Angeles’s share of federal grants
for rehabilitation and social service programs but his and other local political officials rising
concern for youth crime and drug use also led to the development of punitive measures to
monitor inner-city youth and a commitment of resources to fight a War on Crime.
18
The
escalation of policing and punitive policies disabused many residents and officials of the idea
that problems of urban decline, inequality, and poverty was a lack of government investment, a
result of discrimination and segregation, or a product of social and economic conditions in favor
of the idea that the root problem was crime and the misbehavior of local communities made up
largely of marginalized black and Latino residents. In the process, state authority shifted to focus
on regulating behavior and promoting security through social control objectives rather than
active regulation of social and economic structures that produced continued racial disparities.
Addressing problems associated with urban inequality through warfare metaphors, local
politicians and law enforcement officials facilitated efforts at “domestic pacification” in ways
that had dramatic consequences for the development of urban policy. As the historian Eric
Schneider suggests, “metaphors of war demand the identification of enemies, encourage the
search for foreign threats, and lead to a self-perpetuating militarization of domestic and foreign
policy.”
19
Although officials also used war metaphors for the War on Poverty, political officials,
law enforcement agencies, and media coverage mobilized the war metaphor for the wars on

and the Image of the Damaged Black Psyche, 1880-1996 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997);
Robin D.G. Kelley, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America (Beacon Press, 1998).
18
The relationship between City and County politics was important because the County was traditionally
responsible for social service, welfare, and public housing programs. Bradley used federal grants to shift some of
this burden to the city but did not replace the programs with city funds when federal aid to cities declined under
Ronald Reagan. As one study found, the reliance on federal funds meant that “the political reality is that the city has
acquired a role in providing human services that it formerly left to the county.” Ruth A. Ross, The Impact of Federal
Grants on the City of Los Angeles (Center for Public Policy and Administration, California State University, Long
Beach, 1980).
19
Eric C Schneider, Smack: Heroin and the American City (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008),
xv; See also Graham, Cities Under Siege.
9
crime, drugs, and gangs for other purposes, contributing to the militarization of urban policy and
intensified policing that treated the inner city and its residents as a threat requiring containment,
monitoring, and control. Indeed, from the response to the Watts uprising of 1965, which officials
compared to Vietnam, to the LAPD’s Battle Plans to combat drugs and gangs in the 1980s, urban
space, policy, and military metaphors became intimately connected. Even as black and Latino
residents used similar metaphors of war, often through references to domestic colonialism, to
challenge the role of the police in the inner city, the dominant image in the public mind remained
focused on the need for more policing to wage war on urban conditions.
The consolidation of punitive policies aimed at monitoring and preempting youth crime
during the 1970s and militarized policing to wage a war on drugs and gangs in the 1980s, also
generated a range of responses from African American and Latino residents. Not only did black
and Latino residents demand government aid for social programs and the passage of civil rights
legislation, they confronted the shifting attention to law enforcement, punitive crime control, and
associated problems of police brutality. Local activists, residents, and organizations variously
demanded both increased police protection in their neighborhoods and an end to police violence
that came with punitive law enforcement during the 1970s and 1980s. In doing so, residents and
activists often divided over support for and resistance to paramilitary policing and punitive crime
control measures as the solution to crime and violence stemming from unemployment, poverty,
and failing schools. While these efforts often did not—or were unable to—address root causes of
economic restructuring and spatial segregation, they revealed factional politics and divisions
within communities of color over the turn toward punitive policies, making them sometimes
supportive of the call for more punitive measures that enabled city officials to take more hard-
line approaches while at others challenging militarized policing that targeted entire communities
10
and behaviors as criminal.
20

Importantly, black and Latino demands for limits on police power pressured city officials
and the police in ways that mitigated the power of the state at the margins but did not change the
asymmetry of coercive power forged after the Watts uprising. The turn toward punitive urban
policy was, in short, a result of contestation that pushed city officials to respond to demands for
more fair and equitable policing through repeated rounds of crisis management that sought to
cool out insurgent demands without altering underlying relations of power, ensuring continued
episodes of conflict. Although the struggle over policing did not produce substantive changes in
LAPD policy until after the beating of Rodney King in 1991, the persistent struggle over policing
during the War on Crime, War on Drugs, and War on Gangs shows how the coercive powers of
the state, in the form of the police, punitive policy, and carceral institutions, had to be produced
and reproduced over time in response to demands from different groups for an end to both police
violence and neglect in inner city neighborhoods. Contact with law enforcement and the criminal
justice system, as a result, became both a daily reality and the primary form of contact with state
institutions for low-income residents, leading to fear and suspicion, wariness of government
institutions and authority, depoliticization, and, for many, incarceration. These conditions of
confinement were so pervasive that they became central to the production of inequality in late
twentieth century American cities.
21

As Michael Katz has suggested, the 1960s civil violence directed at the state in the form
of riots turned “inward” by the 1980s manifested by depoliticized criminal violence in the form
of intraracial gang warfare, street crime, and drug trafficking. While this shift has historically

20
For a discussion of class differences within black communities and punitive policies see James Forman, Jr,
“Racial Critiques Of Mass Incarceration: Beyond The New Jim Crow.” New York University Law Review 87, no. 1
(April 1, 2012): 21.
21
Bruce Western, Punishment and Inequality in America (New York: Russell Sage, 2006).
11
been characterized through the cultural pathology of an “underclass,” Katz offers a different
possibility: “That public authorities bear a share of the responsibility for depoliticization among
young African Americans remains a hypothesis—intriguing, explosive in its implications, and in
need of much research. Indeed, the lack of research on the question—and on the social history of
post-1960s policing—remains stunning and surprising.”
22
By examining the mobilization around
policing and crime control policy this dissertation reveals how city officials, residents, and
activists simultaneously challenged, contributed to, and attempted to manage this “inward turn”
through criminal justice solutions.

Historiography

The historian Heather Thompson has recently called for historians to “think critically
about mass incarceration and begin to consider the reverberations of this never-before-seen
phenomenon” on urban inequality, organized labor, social movements, and political
realignment.
23
Focusing on the role of the police and inner city residents of color after the 1960s
urban uprisings allows for an exploration of the impact of what Thompson calls the
“criminalization of urban space,” defined as the “process by which increasing numbers of urban
dwellers - overwhelmingly men and women of color - became subject to a growing number of
laws that not only regulated bodies and communities in thoroughly new ways but also subjected
violators to unprecedented time behind bars,” on racial equality, state authority, and urban
policy.
24
Although Khalil Muhammad has shown the ways statistical discourses criminalized
African Americans in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, subjecting urban residents

22
Katz, Why Don’t American Cities Burn?, 95; On the underclass see, Michael Katz, ed., The Underclass Debate:
Views from History (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1993).
23
Heather Ann Thompson, “Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in
Postwar American History,” The Journal of American History 97, no. 3 (December 1, 2010): 704–705.
24
Thompson, “Why Mass Incarceration Matters,” 706-707.
12
to a dramatic growth in carceral institutions and policies also had important ramifications for
America’s inner cities, politics, and social movements after the 1960s.
25

Scholarship on post-World War II American cities has provided an important foundation
for thinking about urban decline and political transformation during the last quarter of the
twentieth century through explorations of social, political, and economic processes. Work by
Tom Sugrue, Arnold Hirsch, and Heather Thompson marks the 1950s as a crucial period that left
cities unable to cope with their declining fate in the 1960s and 1970s.

They show how the
development of residential segregation, employment discrimination, public housing placement,
and deindustrialization set the foundations for urban decline and the fracturing of liberal politics.
Sugrue and others reframe poverty and racial inequality as part of the historical and structural
development of cities, race, and politics in the post-World War II period.
26

Others concerned with similar questions of urban decline and political realignment, such
as Matthew Lassiter and Kevin Kruse, suggest that spatial processes of suburbanization and
white flight contributed to the transformation of cities and liberalism. They reframe the story of
political realignment away from a purely “Southern Strategy” devised by Richard Nixon in 1968
to a “Suburban Strategy” by showing how residential integration and school desegregation
produced suburban, supposedly colorblind identities among suburbanites that led to the
conservative turn. As Kruse demonstrates, moreover, desegregation facilitated white flight and
the connection of urban public space and government largesse with African Americans. Along

25
Khalil Gibran Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban
America (Harvard University Press, 2010).
26
Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton, N.J:
Princeton University Press, 1996); Arnold R Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago,
1940-1960 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998); Judith Stein, Running Steel, Running America: Race,
Economic Policy and the Decline of Liberalism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Heather
Ann Thompson, Whose Detroit?: Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell
University Press, 2001); For a general critique of the way scholars such as Charles Murray and others portrayed
urban problems as part of a cultural pathology of an urban underclass see: Michael B. Katz, ed., The Underclass
Debate: Views from History (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1993).
13
similar lines, Becky Nicolaides explores the development of suburban conservatism in the
homeowner and racial politics that emerged in working class neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
27

Addressing similar questions of the transformation of liberalism and African American politics,
Robert Self links the development of inner city political change—and decline—with suburban
development and tax structures to explain the parallel development of black politics and white
homeowner movements that left inner cities powerless by the late 1970s.
28

Work on American cities after the 1960s, such as those by Howard Gillette, Wendell
Pritchett, Alexander Hoffman, and Colin Gordon explore how city officials attempted to reinvent
themselves by focusing primarily on spatial processes, economic development, and urban policy
choices. Gordon, for example, shows how conscious public policy decisions contributed to urban
decline in St. Louis by creating hierarchies across metropolitan space and subsequent uneven
development. Others focus on Community Development Corporations as part of the shift away
from War on Poverty-era social programs to non-profit based economic development, the legacy
of federal devolution under Nixon’s New Federalism, and as one of the avenues of urban policy
promoted by President George Bush and Bill Clinton after the 1992 Los Angeles uprising.
29

27
Becky M. Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-
1965 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); See also: Amanda I. Seligman, Block by Block: Neighborhoods
and Public Policy on Chicago’s West Side (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
28
Matthew D. Lassiter, The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South (Princeton, N.J: Princeton
University Press, 2006); Kevin Michael Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism
(Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2005); Robert O. Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for
Postwar Oakland (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2003); Wendell E. Pritchett, Brownsville, Brooklyn:
Blacks, Jews, and the Changing Face of the Ghetto, (University Of Chicago Press, 2002).
29
Howard Gillette, Camden After the Fall: Decline and Renewal in a Post-Industrial City (University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2006); Bryant Simon, Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Howard Gillette, “Review Essay: Is This the Neoliberal Moment?,”
Journal of Urban History 36, no. 3 (2010): 393; Pritchett, Brownsville, Brooklyn; Pritchett, “Which Urban Crisis?”;
Alexander von Hoffman, House by House, Block by Block: The Rebirth of America’s Urban Neighborhoods (Oxford
University Press, USA, 2003); Paul S Grogan and Tony Proscio, Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban
Neighborhood Revival (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001); June Manning Thomas, Redevelopment and Race:
Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013); On CDC’s see: Julia
Rabig, “Broken Deal: Devolution, Development, and Civil Society in Newark, New Jersey, 1960--1990.”
(University of Pennsylvania, 2007); Wendell E. Pritchett, “Identity Politics, Past and Present.” International Labor
and Working-Class History, no. 67 (April 1, 2005): 33–41.
14
The literature on the post-World War II city has also addressed the decline of the liberal
state and the rise of conservatism in late-twentieth century politics. Sugrue, Self, Lassiter, and Ira
Katznelson demonstrate the ways liberalism did not give way to conservatism due to the
excesses of the 1960s or the failures of Johnson’s War on Poverty programs but as a result of
race-based inequities that were built into New Deal policies and Great Society programs. Kim
Phillips-Fein, Lisa McGirr, Thomas and Mary Edsall, and Darren Dochuk describe the origins of
a modern conservative movements based on ideas of free market ideology, homeowner politics,
religious subcultures, anti-tax movements, and backlash against civil rights victories. Yet, both
sides of this literature—those concerned with the decline of liberalism and those with the rise of
conservatism—tend to view the rightward turn in American politics and culture as part of a long
narrative of state retrenchment in the realm of social welfare spending, referred to as the rise and
fall of the New Deal order, or the shifting locus of state urban policy towards the federal
government during the 1960s and its devolution back to local municipalities by the 1980s.
30

Bringing the story of carceral institutions and crime control policies into the story of late-
twentieth century cities and politics, however, suggests that policing, while serving as the
coercive power of the state after the establishment of municipal departments in the nineteenth
century, occupied a central role in reshaping post-war politics away from social welfare
programs and transformed the activist state towards a pursuit of law and order, punitive policy,

30
Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle, eds., The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980 (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1989); Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial
Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005); Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The
Origins of the New American Right.(Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2001); Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible
Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, 2009); Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (New York:
Scribner, 2008); Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise
of Evangelical Conservatism (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011); Wendell E. Pritchett and Mark H. Rose,
“Introduction: Politics and the American City, 1940 1990,” Journal of Urban History 34, no. 2 (January 1, 2008):
209–220; New work on the rise of neoliberalism challenges some of the antistatist trend, see: Jamie Peck,
Constructions of Neoliberal Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine:
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 2007).
15
and social control.
31
Looking at the politics of law enforcement and criminal justice shows a shift
in state focus, not retrenchment.
With few exceptions, such as Donna Murch’s work on the Black Panther Party in
Oakland, the role of policing and carceral institutions in shaping urban decline, inequality, and
social movements remains understudied. Murch shows how policing and juvenile delinquency
programs became central components in the ways authorities in Oakland confronted demands for
integration by black youth, ultimately giving rise to the Black Panther Party.
32
Indeed, as
Michael Katz argues, one of the ways that political officials attempted to manage marginalization
and maintain social control after the urban uprisings of the 1960s was through a ratcheting up of
policing and repression in inner-cities.
33
My project builds on these understandings of post-1965
cities by showing how the struggle over policing enabled activists to mitigate the coercive power
of the state through marginal reforms to LAPD procedures and the city’s punitive crime control
policies but did not—or could not—alter the broader thrust toward an intensification of punitive
and criminal justice policies as solutions to the material consequences of urban decline,
unemployment, and segregation.
The focus on punitive sentencing policies, prison construction, and racial discrimination
in explaining the turn to mass incarceration is not new. Social science and legal scholarship has
identified the legal, administrative, judicial, and economic mechanisms that led to the increased
use of incarceration. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, for example, explores the growth in prison building
through political economy and the spatial relationship between California’s rural communities

31
Philip J. Ethington, “Vigilantes and the Police: The Creation of a Professional Police Bureaucracy in San
Francisco, 1847-1900.” Journal of Social History 21, no. 2 (December 1, 1987): 197–227.
32
Donna Jean Murch, Living for the City Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland,
California (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010); Recent work by Christopher Agee focuses on
the way the San Francisco Police Department shaped the politics of liberalism: Christopher Lowen Agee, The
Streets of San Francisco: Policing and the Creation of a Cosmopolitan Liberal Politics, 1950-1972 (Chicago:
University Of Chicago Press, 2014).
33
Katz, Why Don’t American Cities Burn?, 86-97.
16
and urban centers. Gilmore details the ways the California political economy produced surplus
labor and capital in its urban centers that was redirected into rural prison construction and the
warehousing of black and Latino youth who were uneducated and unemployed in cities such as
Los Angeles. Focusing on the shift from full-employment to a “post-Keynesian militarism,”
Gilmore provides a structural explanation for the geography of prison construction, its
particularly uneven racial impact, and the response of black and Latino residents.
34

Others have focused more directly on the political origins of mass incarceration. These
studies argue that the punitive policy was not a response to rising crime rates but a result of the
interaction between race, security, and politics. Recent work by Vesla Weaver and Naomi
Murakawa focuses on the ways punitive policies were political choices made by government
officials and policymakers in the wake of riots and civil rights, what Weaver calls “frontlash.”
35

Others, such as David Garland, proposes that crime control developed out of the “social
organization of late modernity” and a new cultural formation Garland calls the “crime complex.”
Alternatively, David Simon discusses the way state institutions came to rely on “governing
through crime” as a means to respond to growing concerns for security and liberty.
36
Along a
similar line, studies by Loïc Wacquant and Michelle Alexander explore the turn to law and order,
punitive sentencing policies, harsh policing, and the growth of mass incarceration as part of a
project to stabilize the racial order after the civil rights revolution and to institute a new racial

34
Gilmore, Golden Gulag; On prisons see: Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (Seven Stories Press, 2011);
Volker Janssen, “When the ‘Jungle’ Met the Forest: Public Work, Civil Defense, and Prison Camps in Postwar
California,” The Journal of American History 96, no. 3 (December 2009): 702–726; Stephen John Hartnett, ed.,
Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex: Activism, Arts, and Educational Alternatives (University of Illinois
Press, 2010).
35
Vesla M. Weaver, “Frontlash: Race and the Development of Punitive Crime Policy,” Studies in American
Political Development 21, no. 02 (2007): 230–265; Naomi Murakawa, “The Origins of the Carceral Crisis: Racial
Order as ‘Law and Order’ in Postwar American Politics,” in Race and American Political Development, by Joseph
Lowndes, Julie Novkov, and Warren Dorian (2008), 253.
36
David Garland, The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2001); Jonathan Simon, Governing through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American
Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
17
caste system that Alexander calls the “New Jim Crow.”
37
While many of these works, such as
that of Marie Gottschalk, are often concerned with locating the origins of mass incarceration,
they also suggest that mass incarceration has had significant implications for racial inequality in
modern America.
38
As Todd Clear, Katherine Beckett, and Bruce Western show, mass
incarceration of black and Latinos contributed to the maintenance of racial hierarchies, economic
inequality, and disenfranchisement in the era after the passage of civil rights legislation.
39
Works
by Jerome Miller and Michael Tonry similarly demonstrate the wide disparity in policing and
sentencing that had disproportionate impact on African Americans.
40
Yet, historical
understandings of the social, political, and ideological processes and struggles that shaped and
determined these policies within a metropolitan framework remains incomplete.
Because they take a largely top down perspective and focus on the nature of policy
changes these studies do not fully explore the way community responses both resisted and
supported punitive policies. As a result, we do not yet know much about how inner-city
communities targeted by punitive trends comprehended the legal, social, political, economic, and
cultural changes that affected their neighborhoods and the ways black and Latino residents both
supported and resisted increased coercion, policing, and surveillance. As Michael Fortner, Lisa
Miller, and James Forman, Jr. have recently argued, the New Jim Crow framework leaves out the
“invisible black victim,” leading them to call for studies of mass incarceration to take into

37
Alexander, The New Jim Crow; Loïc Wacquant, “Deadly Symbiosis: When Ghetto and Prison Meet and Mesh,”
Punishment & Society 3, no. 1 (January 1, 2001): 95–133; David W. Garland, Mass Imprisonment: Social Causes
and Consequences, (SAGE Publications Ltd, 2001).
38
Marie Gottschalk, The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2006).
39
Todd R. Clear, Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse
(Oxford University Press, 2009); Bruce Western, Punishment and Inequality in America (New York: Russell Sage,
2006); Katherine Beckett, Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997); Marie Gottschalk, The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration
in America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
40
Miller, Search and Destroy; Michael Tonry, Punishing Race: A Continuing American Dilemma (Oxford
University Press, 2012); Michael Tonry, Malign Neglect: Race, Crime, and Punishment in America (Oxford
University Press, 1996).
18
account the ways black and Latino communities both supported and resisted more punitive
policies to address rising violence and crime.
41
I build on these works by exploring punitive
trends from the perspective of law enforcement, those largely working- and middle-class
residents who supported “get tough” approaches, and the poorest and most marginalized
communities targeted by punitive policies. Looking at groups that challenged police abuse, such
as the Coalition Against Police Abuse, and pro-police, anti-crime groups, such as the South
Central Organizing Committee, reveals class divisions over the politics of policing, punitive
policy, and its impact on inner-city residents within black and Latino communities. These
divisions reflected larger changes in cities towards pro-market, quality-of-life urban policy
during the 1970s and 1980s while also contributing to the criminalization of the poorest residents
and reinforcing dominant perceptions of the inner-city as a war zone in need of more policing.
Focusing on the mobilization around policing, counters the tendency of carceral studies
to view inner-city populations as powerless, non-actors in the face of policies that increasingly
targeted urban space with punitive and aggressive measures. Recent work has shown the central
place the struggle against police abuse had for black freedom movements and the various
Mexican American and Chicano movements during the 1940s and 1960s.
42
Work on the LAPD,

41
Michael Javen Fortner, “The ‘Silent Majority’ in Black and White: Invisibility and Imprecision in the
Historiography of Mass Incarceration,” Journal of Urban History (November 13, 2013); Lisa L. Miller, “The
Invisible Black Victim: How American Federalism Perpetuates Racial Inequality in Criminal Justice,” Law &
Society Review 44, no. 3/4 (December 2010): 805–842; Lisa Lynn Miller, The Perils of Federalism: Race, Poverty,
and the Politics of Crime Control (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); James Forman, Jr, “Racial Critiques
Of Mass Incarceration: Beyond The New Jim Crow.” New York University Law Review 87, no. 1 (April 1, 2012):
21.
42
Leonard N. Moore, Black Rage in New Orleans: Police Brutality and African American Activism from World War
II to Hurricane Katrina (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010); Marilynn S. Johnson, Street Justice:
A History of Police Violence in New York City (Beacon Press, 2003); Dwight Watson, Race and the Houston Police
Department, 1930-1990 a Change Did Come (College Station, Tex.: Texas A & M University Press, 2005); Karl E.
Johnson, “Police-Black Community Relations in Postwar Philadelphia: Race and Criminalization in Urban Social
Spaces, 1945-1960,” The Journal of African American History 89, no. 2 (Spring 2004): 118–134; Clarence Taylor,
“Introduction: African Americans, Police Brutality, And The U.S. Criminal Justice System,” The Journal of African
American History 98, no. 2 (April 1, 2013): 200–204; Simon Ezra Balto, “‘Occupied Territory’: Police Repression
19
in particular, has focused on the role of police professionalization, the conservative subculture of
the department, the shift from crime prevention to crime control policing models, and the role of
the police in politicizing the city’s Mexican American community.
43
Collectively, these studies
provide an important picture of the historical development of the LAPD, under Chief of Police
William Parker during the 1940s and 1950s in particular, but do less to explain the development
of the police as part of the shifting nature of state authority amidst market-oriented governance
under Tom Bradley, the city’s first African American mayor, or explore the ways anti-police
abuse movements challenged law enforcement policies between the late 1960s and the early
1990s.
44
The struggle between law enforcement officials, politicians, and a variety of local
groups shows the ways the struggle over policing and punitive policies required law enforcement
and city officials to continually reassert their authority in the face of opposition through rounds
of what amounted to crisis management, which contributed to the shift towards addressing social
problems as ones of behavior and individual responsibility.

And Black Resistance In Postwar Milwaukee, 1950–1968,” The Journal of African American History 98, no. 2
(April 1, 2013): 229–252;.
43
Alisa Sarah Kramer, “William H. Parker and the Thin Blue Line: Politics, Public Relations and Policing in
Postwar Los Angeles” (Ph.D., The American University, 2007); Joseph Gerald Woods, “The Progressives and the
Police: Urban Reform and the Professionalization of the Los Angeles Police” (University of California, Los
Angeles, 1973); Kristi Joy Woods, “Be Vigorous but Not Brutal: Race, Politics, and Police in Los Angeles, 1937--
1945” (University of Southern California, 1999); S. McClellan, “Policing the Red Scare: The Los Angeles Police
Department’s Red Squad and the Repression of Labor Activism in Los Angeles, 1900-1940” (University of
California, Irvine, 2011); Janis Appier, Policing Women: The Sexual Politics of Law Enforcement and the LAPD
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998); Ian Haney López, Racism on Trial: The Chicano Fight for Justice
(Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003); Edward J. Escobar, Race, Police, and the
Making of a Political Identity: Mexican Americans and the Los Angeles Police Department, 1900-1945, (University
of California Press, 1999); Edward J. Escobar, “The Dialectics of Repression: The Los Angeles Police Department
and the Chicano Movement, 1968-1971,” The Journal of American History 79, no. 4 (March 1993): 1483–1514;
Edward J. Escobar, “Bloody Christmas and the Irony of Police Professionalism: The Los Angeles Police
Department, Mexican Americans, and Police Reform in the 1950s,” Pacific Historical Review 72, no. 2 (May 1,
2003): 171–199.
44
On police power and excessive force see: Paul Chevigny, Police Power: Police Abuses in New York City
(Random House, 1969); Paul Chevigny, Edge of the Knife: Police Violence in the Americas (New York: Norton,
1995); Robert M. Fogelson, Big-City Police (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1977); Lawrence M.
Friedman, Crime and Punishment in American History (New York: Basic Books, 1993); Jerome H. Skolnick and
James J. Fyfe, Above the Law: Police and the Excessive Use of Force (New York: Maxwell Macmillan
International, 1993) Jerome H. Skolnick and Candace McCoy, Justice Without Trial: Law Enforcement in
Democratic Society (Quid Pro Books, 2013); Jill Nelson, Police Brutality: An Anthology (W.W. Norton &
Company, 2001).
20
Mobilization around policing and state violence also demonstrates how often distinct
African American and Mexican American experiences intersected at various moments during
twentieth century in response to common exposure to what John Márquez calls the “racial state
of expendability.” State violence, Márquez suggests, is crucial to the United States sustaining
itself as a nation through exclusion and expendability of subaltern groups.
45
While Márquez
suggests the experience with expendability promoted racial coalitions in Houston, I build on his
work to show how distinct African American and Mexican American experiences with the police
in Los Angeles both intersected and diverged at different moments as the city’s racial geography
and demographics changed over time. Although the LAPD viewed both Mexican American and
African American communities as criminal, the Watts uprising of 1965 placed blacks at the
center of police attention. Mexican American residents and activists, recognizing the connection
between increased state resources and violence, threatened riots as a means to demand similar
treatment and access to poverty programs. The mobilization of Mexican American movements
during the late 1960s and early 1970s brought increased police repression and attention, though
focus shifted after the demise of Brown Power movements in the early 1970s to concerns
surrounding immigration and undocumented residents. The rise of police shootings, use of force,
and violent crime rates in the black community during the 1970s re-centered attention on black
activists, who claimed that police abuse was a denial of basic citizenship rights and justice. The
Coalition Against Police Abuse, however, mobilized a multiracial coalition during the mid- and
late-1970s in response to shootings and choke hold deaths of both blacks and Latinos, reflecting
the ways common experiences with coercive state authority could lead to cooperation. By the

45
Márquez defines the “racial state of expendability” as “a fundamental and existential life devaluation, a perpetual
susceptibility to obliteration with legal impunity that allows for all other modalities of injustice, including exclusion
and exploitation, to occur and endure.” John D. Márquez, Black-Brown Solidarity: Racial Politics in the New Gulf
South (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014), 44-45.
21
1980s, state attention concentrated on rising black on black crime, gang violence, and the crack
cocaine drug trade centered in South Central Los Angeles. Yet, the aggressive measures of police
anti-gang and drug units targeted and criminalized both black and Latino youth, providing for
moments of collaboration.
46

State coercion and social control for pacification of inner-city communities in the wake
of urban uprisings operated in both soft and hard ways. The police long-served as the coercive
arm of the state and operated to maintain social control and order through overtly aggressive
measures. As Stephen Graham’s recent work on the new military urbanism shows, however,
cities in the late-twentieth and early twenty-first century borrowed tactics and hardware from the
international war on terror, which reorganized law enforcement around a security state-model
that treated urban spaces as part of a battle zone in need of total spatial control.
47
My work builds
on Graham to reveal a longer history of the LAPD’s push for military hardware, development of
elite tactical units for riot control, and the intelligence gathering and surveillance activities of the
Public Disorder Intelligence Division aimed at disrupting social movements in the 1960s.
48
The
development in police hardware and surveillance capacity during the late-1960s and 1970s
allowed for monitoring and preemptive policies that did little to reduce crime but criminalized
inner-city communities of color and laid the foundation for the department to carry out a war on

46
For more on interracial solidarity and conflict see: Laura Pulido, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism
in Los Angeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); Josh Kun and Laura Pulido, Black and Brown in
Los Angeles: Beyond Conflict and Coalition (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2013); Brian D, Behnken,
ed., The Struggle in Black and Brown: African American and Mexican American Relations during the Civil Rights
Era (University of Nebraska Press, 2012).
47
Stephen Graham, Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (Verso Books, 2011); See also Radley Balko,
Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces, (Public Affairs: 2013); Christian Parenti,
Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis (Verso, 1999); For Los Angeles see Mike Davis, City of
Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (New York: Vintage Books, 1992).
48
On surveillance see Frank Donner, Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America
(University of California Press, 1992); Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression: The FBI’s
Secret Wars against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. Cambridge, MA: South End
Press, 2002); Ernesto B. Vigil, The Crusade for Justice: Chicano Militancy and the Government’s War on Dissent
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999).
22
inner city social problems of street crime, violence, and drug trafficking in the 1980s through
raids, gang sweeps, and neighborhood containment programs based on the idea of defensible
space.
Alongside hard measures of coercion, programs such as community-relations and
community-oriented policing intended to bring disorderly elements into cooperation with those
in power. Urban uprisings, as Alyosha Goldstein argues, “were a crisis that partially dissolved
the effective distinction between agencies of the state’s coercive apparatus: policymakers, law
enforcement officials, and the military collaborated in strategies for domestic pacification.”
49
My
discussion of such soft mechanisms of control focuses on programs of mimetic reform, which
Michael Katz defines as “measures that respond to insurgent demands without devolving power
or redistributing significant resources. Mimetic reform cools out insurgencies; it does not resolve
the problems that underlie them.”
50
These efforts, however, were episodic and short-lived,
intensifying in the aftermath of the 1965 uprising but taking a back seat to more coercive
responses. In Los Angeles these programs took the form of employment training based on
“maximum feasible participation,” the joint public-private partnership of the Greater Los
Angeles Urban Coalition, and the police community-relations programs. By neglecting structural
changes to police power demanded by social movements and activists, local officials left an
opening for punitive policies and paramilitary policing to become a central component in
maintaining social control in segregated inner city neighborhoods.
While a number of works on the 1965 and 1992 Los Angeles uprisings track the changing
nature of structural economic and social conditions in Los Angeles, they focus largely on how

49
Alyosha Goldstein, Poverty in Common: The Politics of Community Action During the American Century ( Duke
University Press, 2012), 117
50
Katz, Why Don’t American Cities Burn?, 87; See also Joe Soss, Richard C. Fording, and Sanford F. Schram,
Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race (University of Chicago Press,
2011).
23
increased levels of poverty and unemployment sowed the seeds for discontent.
51
I show how pent
up demands, grievances, and a lack of faith in local institutions—the criminal justice system in
particular—laid the foundation for an outbreak of massive civil violence. Most importantly, I
show how the 1992 uprising occurred within a distinctly punitive context of a war on drugs and
gangs that led to mass arrests, militarized policing, and widespread criminalization of poor black
and Latino youth. By understanding the 1992 uprising within the context of nearly three decades
of struggle over crime control policies, it becomes clear that the outburst of violence should not
have been unexpected; it represented the outcome of treating social problems as ones of criminal
behavior and that privileged a form of policing at the expense of other responses to deal with
structural social and economic conditions of urban decline.

The Setting

As the site of two major riots, a multiracial population fueled by immigration, experience
with economic and labor market transformation, a longstanding African American mayor, and
location in a state that experienced explosive growth in prison construction and incarceration,
Los Angeles was both exceptional and representative of many urban processes and policies of
the late-twentieth century. Los Angeles—and Southern California more broadly—was crucial to
Richard Nixon’s and Ronald Reagan’s “law and order” politics that fueled their appeal at both
the state and national level. The LAPD was also the epitome of the modern professional police
force, often viewed as a model for departments across the nation, focused on proactive policing,
the use of science and technology, and received a large amount of federal funds to enhance law

51
Jervey Tervalon, Geography of Rage: Remembering the Los Angeles Riots of 1992 (Maryland: Really Great
Books, 2002); Robert Gooding-Williams, Reading Rodney King/reading Urban Uprising (Psychology Press, 1993);
Janet L Abu-Lughod, Race, Space, and Riots in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles (Oxford; New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007); Brenda Stevenson, The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender, and the
Origins of the LA Riots (Oxford University Press, 2013); Min Song, Strange Future: Pessimism and the 1992 Los
Angeles Riots (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005)
24
enforcement after the 1965 Watts uprising. At the same time, the LAPD had a national reputation
as a brutal and discriminatory police force made visible by an organized anti-police abuse
movement, an active legal community led by the ACLU, and symbolized by the videotaped
beating of Rodney King in 1991. Los Angeles was also the center of the crack cocaine trade and
had one of the nation’s worst gang problems during the 1980s, issues that plagued cities across
the country. Policymakers and law enforcement agencies looked to Los Angeles as not only the
source of such problems but also as an example of the successes and failures of the war on drugs
and gangs, especially after the nation’s largest urban civil disorder of the twentieth century in
1992. This combination of factors makes Los Angeles a valuable site for examining the response
to riots, policing, and punitive urban policy after the 1960s.

25
Figure 1. The Municipal Spaces of Los Angeles County: 1850-2000. The City of Los Angeles is
represented by the bold line with the other 85 municipalities in the County coinciding with a
number. Data and Cartography by Phil Ethington, 2007

The Los Angeles region was divided by multiple municipalities and law enforcement
jurisdictions that Robert Fogelson referred to as the “Fragmented Metropolis,” as shown in
Figure 1.
52
The LAPD operated within the limits of the City of Los Angeles and was divided into
17 divisions (shown in Figure 2 and later expanded to 18 in 1978 and later to 21) assigned to one
of four geographically-based Bureaus: Central, West, Valley, or South.
53
Outside the city limits,
the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD) policed the unincorporated areas of the County of
Los Angeles. Within the County there were 85 other municipalities with either their own police
department or contracted with the LASD for law enforcement municipal services.
54
Although
often working in cooperation in response to violent unrest, drugs, and gangs, the division
between the City and County—and the LAPD and LASD—led to distinct jurisdictional powers
and police practices that had a different impact on residents based on their location in the region.
Due to Los Angeles’s lack of a residency requirement for public employment, police
officers assigned to inner-city districts were rarely from the area and brought with them a
mentality of hostility and fear of inner city residents and neighborhoods. By 1992, the ACLU
reported that 83.1 percent of LAPD officers lived outside of the City of Los Angeles. Not only
did they live outside of the city boundaries, they lived in areas much less diverse than the
ethnically and racially diverse city, especially the historically African American and Mexican
Americans neighborhoods in South and East Los Angeles and the increasingly Central American

52
Robert M. Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles, 1850-1930 9Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993).
53
See Steven Kelly Herbert, Policing Space: Territoriality and the Los Angeles Police Department (University of
Minnesota Press, 1997).
54
On the Lakewood Plan and municipal spaces see Michan Connor, “Creating Cities and Citizens: Municipal
Boundaries, Place Entrepreneurs, and the Production of Race in Los Angeles County, 1926--1978” (University of
Southern California, 2008).
26
Pico-Union area. “There is a widespread belief,” the ACLU reported, “that the Los Angeles
Police Department, which in 1990 was 62.5 percent Anglo; 13.4 percent African-American; 21
percent Latino(a), and 2.8 percent Asian-Pacific Islander, is a dominantly white force of
suburban outsiders who function as a de facto army of occupation in the urban communities of
Los Angeles.” The geographic disparity between place of residence and work for police officers,
according to the ACLU, revealed a police force that was politically unaccountable and
uncommitted to working with the city’s communities of color limiting the power of demands for
reform and an end to police abuse.
55

Figure 2. Los Angeles Police Department Divisions. Source: LAPD, “Annual Report,” 1977.

55
American Civil Liberties Union, “From the Outside in: Residency Patterns Within the Los Angeles Police
Department,” (1994), 25.
27
As a result of the spatial nature of policing, lack of residency requirements, and multiple
jurisdictional boundaries for law enforcement, post-World War II demographic changes and
residential segregation had important ramifications for the struggles and mobilization
surrounding crime, riots, and policing. Between 1940 and 1970 the African American population
of Los Angeles County grew from 75,296 to 755,719 and the Spanish surname population grew
from 61,248 to 1,288,716.
56
While the Spanish surname population outpaced African Americans
in the County at large, within the City of Los Angeles the black community outnumbered the
Spanish surname population in 1960 by 74,527 as they grew to 334,916 and 260,389
respectively. The rapid growth in the black and Mexican American populations combined with
restricted housing opportunities led to increased concentrations of black and Mexican Americans
within segregated sections of both the City and County.
57

The degree of housing discrimination and segregation differed for blacks and Mexican
Americans, however. Blacks experienced greater levels of residential concentration in the City of
Los Angeles than Mexican Americans. A larger percentage of African Americans in Los Angeles
County lived within the City limits (72 percent) than the Spanish surname population (45
percent). As the California Fair Employment Practices division reported in 1965, by 1960 only
one-fifth of the Spanish surname population was concentrated in three neighborhoods of East
Los Angeles while more than half of all blacks in the County lived in seven neighborhoods in

56
See Phil Ethington, William H. Frey, and Dowell Myers, “Segregated Diversity: Race-Ethnicity, Space, and
Political Fragmentation in Los Angeles County, 1940-1994,” Final Report to the John Randolph Haynes Foundation
(Los Angeles, 2000); On African Americans see Josh Sides, L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from
the Great Depression to the Present (University of California Press, 2006); Daniel Widener, Black Arts West:
Culture and Struggle in Postwar Los Angeles (Duke University Press, 2010); On Mexican Americans see George J.
Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Lorena Oropeza, Raza Sí!, Guerra No!: Chicano Protest and Patriotism
During the Viet Nam War Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005)
57
Historian Philip Ethington calls residential segregation in Los Angeles as one of “segregated diversity,” Phil
Ethington, “Segregated Diversity: Race-Ethnicity, Space, and Political Fragmentation in Los Angeles County, 1940-
1994,” Final Report to the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation (2000).
28
South Los Angeles.
58
The different experiences with housing segregation and discrimination
shaped the ability of African Americans and Mexican Americans to unite over issues of policing
and law and order politics, often organizing separately until the 1970s and 1980s when the city’s
changing racial geography brought the two groups into greater contact.
59

Figure 3. Race-Ethnic Majority Map 1960, Race-Ethnic Majority Map Series, Showing Major
Arterial Roads and Freeways, Los Angeles County 1940-2000. Cartography by Phil Ethington,
2013

58
California Department of Industrial Relations, Negroes and Mexican Americans in South and East Los Angeles;
Changes Between 1960 and 1965 in Population, Employment, Income, and Family Status. An Analysis of a U.S.
Census Survey of November 1965 (San Francisco, State of California, Division of Fair Employment Practices,
1966).
59
Avila, 52; On the relationship between space and politicization in Los Angeles see Pulido, Black, Brown, Yellow,
and Left, 34-59.
29

Figure 4. Race-Ethnic Majority Map 1970, Race-Ethnic Majority Map Series, Showing Major
Arterial Roads and Freeways, Los Angeles County 1940-2000. Cartography by Phil Ethington,
2013

Figure 5. Race-Ethnic Majority Map 1980, Race-Ethnic Majority Map Series, Showing Major
Arterial Roads and Freeways, Los Angeles County 1940-2000. Cartography by Phil Ethington,
2013

30

Figure 6. Race-Ethnic Majority Map 1990, Race-Ethnic Majority Map Series, Showing Major
Arterial Roads and Freeways, Los Angeles County 1940-2000. Cartography by Phil Ethington,
2013
Over the 1970s and 1980s, as the above maps of the region’s racial geography suggest,
Los Angeles experienced a dramatic demographic and spatial transformation. Changes in
immigration policy after 1965 as well as economic and political crises in South and Central
America and Asia brought a large number of immigrants to Los Angeles, making the city the
Ellis Island of the twenty-first century.
60
This shift was influenced by a number of factors,
including the rapid growth in immigrants from Central and South America and Asia. In 1980, for
example, Anglos accounted for 68 percent of the County population, African Americans
represented 12.6 percent, Asian and Pacific Islanders 5.8 percent, American Indians 0.6 percent,
Latinos 27.6, and some other race 13.1 percent.
61
Over the course of the 1980s Los Angeles
County added 1.4 million residents, many of whom were immigrants. Nearly 1.3 million of the

60
George J. Sanchez, “Face the Nation: Race, Immigration, and the Rise of Nativism in Late Twentieth Century
America,” International Migration Review 31, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 1009–1030.
61
Alejandra Lopez, Demographics of California Counties: A Comparison of 1980, 1990, and 2000 Census Data
(Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, June 2002).
31
newcomers—92.9 percent—were Latino while the Korean population increased from roughly
1,000 in 1970 to nearly 300,000. By 1990, Anglos represented 56.8 percent of the population in
the County while blacks were 11.2, American Indian 0.5, Asian and Pacific Islanders 10.8,
Latinos 37.8 and some other race 20.7 percent. Within the City of Los Angeles, however, the
Latino population outnumbered the Anglo population by 1990, as census reports revealed that 40
percent of the city's residents were Latino, 37 percent Anglo, 13 percent African-American, 9
percent Asian-American and 1 percent Native American.
62

The changing demographics transformed South Central Los Angeles, the heart of the
city’s African American community. Between 1970 and 1980 the Latino population of South
Central increased from roughly 50,000 or 10 percent of the population to 100,000 or about 20
percent of the total South Central population. By 1997, the Latinos accounted for half of the
population of the South Central area, as Figure 6 suggests. The ways city officials and police
responded to demographic growth and a changing racial geography during the 1980s through
criminalization and harsh policing exacerbated tensions and a sense of injustice among
communities of color. As the Tomás Rivera Center found, perceptions of law enforcement
differed among African Americans and Latinos in South Central, with black residents expressing
more discontent regarding law enforcement practices.
63

By 1990, socioeconomic conditions in Los Angeles were at dire levels. Between 1982
and 1989, 131 manufacturing plants closed their doors in Los Angeles, leaving 124,000 people
unemployed. Whereas the poverty rate had been 3 percent lower than the national average in
1969, by 1989 the Los Angeles poverty rate reached 15.1 percent compared to the 13.8 percent
nationwide. The largest concentration of poverty was centered in an inner urban poverty area

62
Los Angeles Times, Understanding the Riots.
63
Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, Beyond the Racial Divide: Perceptions of Minority Residents on Coalition
Building in South Los Angeles, June 2007.
32
consisting of 18.4 percent of the County population but housing 38 percent of the County’s poor
made up largely of Latinos and African Americans. In some neighborhoods black joblessness
reached 50 percent and the poverty rate stood at 32.9 percent.
64
Despite Los Angeles’s
emergence as a world city with a Democratic mayor, conditions for many did not improve much
after the major victories of the civil rights movement. American cities experienced rising levels
of poverty, inequality, and segregation with fewer resources, declining tax bases, and economic
recession.
65
Using social indicators such as housing, employment, and income, late-twentieth
century “L.A. would have been seen as among the most troubled major cities in the nation.”
66

Growing wealth gaps and poverty, however, developed out of a process of economic
restructuring rather than deindustrialization. As Robert Gottleib, Peter Dreier, Regina Freer, and
Mark Vallianatos explain, “deindustrialization didn’t accurately characterize Los Angeles. In
fact, the region was still the number-one manufacturing region in the United States, but the
nature of those jobs had shifted.” Low-wage, light industry and sweatshop work replaced high
wage, unionized manufacturing over the 1980s. Between the 1970s and the 1990s, moreover, the
percentage of people employed in services rose from 19.7 percent to 32.5 percent, while all other
sectors remained stable. Most of these new service jobs—those not in finance and insurance—
did not pay a living wage. By the 1990s, “only eight of the fifteen most common occupations in
L.A. County paid (on average) enough to adequately support even a single person.”
67

64
Allen John Scott, South-Central Los Angeles: Anatomy of an Urban Crisis, No. 6 (Los Angeles: Lewis Center for
Regional Policy Studies, Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning, 1993).
65
Katz, Why Don’t American Cities Burn?, 189.
66
Gottlieb, et al., The Next Los Angeles, 69.
67
Gottlieb, et al., The Next Los Angeles, 85-7.
33

Figure 7. The Geography of Landed Wealth: Median House Values, Los Angeles, 1990.
Cartography by Phil Ethington, 2009

Such income disparities played out across space, reflected by wide gaps in landed wealth
that followed the region’s racial geography. Between 1940 and 1990, measured in median house
values, wealth became increasingly associated with municipal spaces occupied by whites while
African American, Latino, and Asian residents lived in the poorest spaces as shown in Figure 7,
a map of median housing values in Los Angeles in 1990. Not surprisingly, the areas of racially
segregated housing, diversity, and poverty were also the ones with the highest levels of gang
violence, public drug-trade, and violent street crime making them targets for intensified policing
and punitive policies.
The incorporation of African American workers into public jobs under the Bradley
administration—of the 175,284 workers in the South Central area, 31,869 worked for the
government—had gone a long way to establishing a black middle class in the city. It also led to
34
the bifurcation of the black community along class lines. As Mike Davis commented, “[I]t may
be equally true that Black political leadership in Los Angeles County has sponsored significant
economic advance and contributed to the community’s benign neglect at the same time.” Indeed,
Bradley’s administration facilitated not only the growth in wealth inequality between groups but
among them as well. Such class divisions in the African American community were mirrored
across the country in what Michael Katz and Mark Stern have called the “New African American
Inequality” whereby internal differentiation accounts for the parallel development of mobility
and poverty among African Americans at the turn of the twenty-first century.
68
Such
differentiation within the African American community led to different demands on the police as
middle-class and religious organizations often supported punitive policies as part of a civic claim
for state protection and full inclusion while leftist activists opposed such policies, contributing to
the contested meaning of policing and law and order.
Democratic Mayor, Tom Bradley, oversaw the city from 1973 to 1993. Elected by a
population that was less than 20 percent African American and in a city made up of immigrants
who could not or did not vote, Bradley was often beholden to white voters—and campaign
contributions—on the city’s Westside.
69
White abandonment of the inner city reinforced the lack
of political power within the black and Latino communities and political contributions by areas

68
Michael B. Katz, Mark J. Stern and Jamie J. Fader, “The New African American Inequality,” The Journal of
American History 92, no. 1 (June 2005); Roger David Waldinger and Mehdi Bozorgmehr, Ethnic Los Angeles (New
York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1996), 378–408.
69
On Bradley see James Gregory Payne and Scott C. Ratzan, Tom Bradley, the Impossible Dream: A Biography
(Santa Monica, Calif.: Roundtable Publishing, 1986); Raphael Sonenshein, Politics in Black and White: Race and
Power in Los Angeles (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993); On Los Angeles during the 1970s and
1980s see: Abu-Lughod, Janet L. New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: America’s Global Cities (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1999); Robert Gottlieb, Regina Freer, Mark Vallianatos, and Peter Dreier, The Next
Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City (University of California Press, 2006); Lawrence D. Bobo, Melvin L.
Oliver, James H. Johnson Jr., and Abel Valenzuela Jr, eds., Prismatic Metropolis: Inequality in Los Angeles (Russell
Sage Foundation Publications, 2000); William Fulton, The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in
Los Angeles (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001); Robert Gottlieb, Reinventing Los Angeles: Nature and
Community in the Global City (The MIT Press, 2007); Roger Keil, Los Angeles: Globalization, Urbanization, and
Social Struggles (New York: J. Wiley, 1998).
35
of the city reflected the city’s racial geography and power. Out of the fifteen city council
districts, for example, African Americans held only three seats through the 1970s and Latinos did
not hold a single seat between 1962 and 1987. The percentage of overall political contributions
in 1989 marked a wide disparity as the predominantly white neighborhoods of the San Fernando
Valley and Westside accounted for 15 and 34 percent of campaign contributions, while the
racially and ethnically diverse Eastside and South Los Angeles made up only 1.8 and 5.8 percent.
The concentration of immigrants, large number of residents with criminal records, and small
percentage of African Americans in the overall population meant that fewer people from Latino
and African American neighborhoods could or did vote, limiting their power to influence urban
and police policies. The voter gap, indeed, reinforced the political clout and control of the
Westside and San Fernando Valley. In 1989, for example, less than 20 percent of the citywide
mayoral vote came from Central and South Los Angeles neighborhoods. The Westside and San
Fernando Valley, areas of similar population size to Central and South Los Angeles, accounted
for twice as many votes. As former City Councilman David Cunningham stated in 1992, “If you
don’t exercise political muscle by voting, you are not part of anything but a nondescript
group.”
70
The neglect of the inner city combined with the lack of political power wielded by
African American and Latino residents made them less able to influence punitive policies.
The white population of Los Angeles had all but abandoned the inner city during the
1970s and 1980s for either the Westside or outlying suburban housing tracts in the San Fernando
Valley, many in areas outside the city and even the county. By 1990, the white population was
largely isolated from the increasingly diverse neighborhoods of Los Angeles. “We are all quite
isolated in our own communities,” one white resident of Westwood commented after the 1992

70
Clifford et al., “Leaders Lose Feel for L.A. Mayor Bradley and the Council Are Accused of Neglecting L.A.’s
Neediest Areas,” Los Angeles Times, August 30, 1992, Part-A.
36
uprising. “We don't know and don't care about the problems in the inner-cities. Driving to work
every day, most of us don't even know where South Central is — except many of us saw the fires
from that direction when we were stuck in traffic on Thursday afternoon, after most offices let
out their staffs early.”
71
Such sentiments not only reinforced the lack of political clout of Los
Angeles’s minority communities but also reproduced notions of the predominantly African
American and Latino areas of South Central and East Los Angeles as disorderly and
characterized by drug trafficking, gang wars, and violent crime that the white population did not
have any responsibility in producing let alone solving.

Chapter Overview

This dissertation begins with the responses to the Watts uprising and argues that the
uprising set in motion a new phase urban liberalism reflected in the relationship between
residents, the police, and local political officials. The first chapter stresses that federal, state, and
local officials pushed forward both social welfare and business-oriented solutions undergirded by
admonitions of law and order. The uprising also led to new movements for African American
community and political organizing that presented a threat to the authority of local police,
political officials, and power structures. The commitment to long-lasting social reform, as a
result, was outflanked by the growing support for the police among white residents and the law
and order politics of Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.
The second chapter examines the law enforcement response to the Watts uprising.
Operating within the context of law and order appeals by Ronald Reagan in his campaign for
governor in 1966, LAPD leadership believed that urban problems, such as, crime, riots, and
violence, could be solved through efficient, well-trained, and better equipped police departments,

71
Don Hazen, Inside the L.A. Riots (Institute for Alternative Journalism, 1992).
37
setting the foundation for a militarized police force. Law enforcement officials, however, also
introduced community relations programs targeted primarily at inner-city minority youth that
operated as a softer version of social control. Combined with the Johnson Administration’s
commitment to fighting crime through the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA),
the response of the LAPD to the Watts uprising brought police into the inner city in new ways as
law enforcement solutions to urban problems gained legitimacy from the larger political order
and bipartisan support for law and order policies at both the state and federal levels
African Americans and Mexican Americans responded to the growing presence of law
enforcement, the militarization of the police, and episodes of abuse and harassment by calling for
a combination of better police protection and an end to police abuse during the late 1960s and
early 1970s. The third chapter shows how episodes of civil violence and African American and
Mexican American mobilization around police brutality in the Black and Chicano Power era had
far more repercussions than simply provoking white backlash. They offered alternative views of
the meaning of law and order based on ideas of policing that incorporated demands for
community empowerment and an end to harassment and discriminatory treatment. When
activists turned to a more confrontational stance, most notably the armed self-defense of the
Black Panthers, the police under Chief Reddin and Davis mobilized the militarized apparatus
developed after the Watts uprising to undermine social movement organizing.
The fourth chapter explores how growing concerns for street crime, youth violence, and
the election of Tom Bradley in 1973 initiated a punitive turn that reshaped the political and social
context of police-community relations. Concerns about rising juvenile crime and drug use led
residents and local officials to demand increased efforts to combat and preempt criminal activity
by calling for more police in the inner city and punitive laws aimed primarily at inner-city youth.
38
While Bradley worked to reform the police department, Chiefs Ed Davis and Daryl Gates efforts
to wage a War on Crime led to instances of harassment and abuse that antagonized many black
and Latino residents. The chapter turns to explore the Coalition Against Police Abuse (CAPA)
and the struggle against officer-involved-shootings, the choke hold, and the campaign for a
civilian review board. The chapter shows that even as communities were concerned with crime
and violence that plagued their neighborhoods, they also desired adequate and fair policing, law
and order with justice, and an end to police harassment and abuse. The chapter argues that
struggle over police abuse contributed to a lack of faith in the police, a sense of institutional
failure, and disillusionment with government to respond to community grievances.
The LAPD’s criminalization of social movements and the punitive nature of state
authority extended into the 1970s through intelligence and surveillance operations. The fifth
chapter examines the ways the LAPD operated through undercover operations undermine social
movements by labeling them as subversive, disorderly, and potentially criminal. The concern for
groups deemed disorderly, the chapter argues, was part of a growing effort to manage dissent and
a preemptive effort of state monitoring for social control that criminalized a variety of groups,
none more so than those opposed to unfettered police power. The Coalition Against Police
Abuse and the Citizens Commission on Police Repression (CCOPR) worked to dismantle the
LAPD’s Public Disorder Intelligence Division (PDID). Even as they succeeded in dismantling
the PDID, the LAPD revamped police intelligence operations under the Anti-Terrorist Division
while also shifting focus from repressing social movements as it did during the 1960s and 1970s
to attack urban social problems of gangs and drugs during the 1980s through drug raids, mass
arrests, elite anti-gang units, and military hardware developed after the Watts uprising.
39
The sixth chapter examines how managing marginalization through policing and law
enforcement reshaped understandings of inner-city problems as ones of crime rooted in improper
behavior that required criminal justice system solutions. The chapter explores how the Bradley
administration supported a war on drugs that, over time, was reframed as a war on gangs,
contributing to the wholesale criminalization of neighborhoods and exclusion of black and
Latino youth from full participation in American society by surveillance, mass arrest, and
incarceration. By managing marginalization and urban problems through intensified policing,
Bradley used the war on drugs and gangs to reassert state power in a post-Proposition 13 era of
reduced state and federal aid to cities. By removing countless black and Latino youth from the
streets, however, the police and criminal justice system exacerbated urban decline, rationalized
social and economic inequality, and gave the police, city officials, and white residents an
ideological coherence to view the inner city as a place to be feared and avoided.
The dissertation concludes by briefly examining the 1992 Los Angeles uprising within
the distinctly punitive milieu developed over the course of the previous two decades. It shows
how the legacy of police abuse, mass arrests, militarized policing, and the treatment of urban
social problems as crime problems contributed to the outbreak of the twentieth century’s largest
episode of civil violence. While arguing that the 1992 uprising was part of a process of contested
outcomes surrounding policing and urban policy, it also shows how the solutions to urban
decline had become so entangled with the War on Crime that the responses to the uprising, while
stressing economic development, came to depend on partnership with law enforcement and
criminal justice programs. Challenges to punitive policies, such as the Bush Administration’s
Operation Weed and Seed, by activists and residents, however, raised doubts over the ability of
law enforcement and criminal justice policies to solve urban decline and social problems.
40
Chapter 1: “Raceriotland”: The Watts Uprising and its Aftermath

No one in authority would listen until after the riots.
-Tom Bradley
1

The War on Poverty is…a war against crime and a war against disorder
-Lyndon Johnson
2

Speaking a month after the Watts uprising of August 1965, civil rights leader H.H.
Brookins placed responsibility for the violent protest on the problems of racism, discrimination,
and segregation. Violent uprisings similar to Watts would continue, Brookins explained, “so long
as discrimination and prejudice and hatred are allowed to build ghettoes, to place barriers to
employment, to stifle education, and to kill the dreams of thousands of citizens.” In the aftermath
of the uprising residents, government officials, and civil rights organizations raised questions
about how to repair the physical destruction to the community and, perhaps most importantly,
how to address the underlying causes and conditions that led to the eruption of violence in South
Central Los Angeles. “But the question is,” Brookins explained, “whether we will rebuild in the
old image, or whether we will be able to fashion something new which can give to the people of
Watts a real place in the mainstream of American life, today.”
3
The Watts uprising presented an
opportunity, Brookins suggested, to fulfill the promise of equal opportunity and address African
American demands for justice. How officials and residents chose to rebuild would have drastic
consequences for the city and the meaning of racial equality in the following decades.

1
Joe Nazel, “Watts 1965 Recollections and Reflections: 30 Years Later Watts, Better Today, Still Is Home to Poor:
Bradley,” 1995, Folder Watts Riot 1965, Watts Riots Clippings and Reports 1960s, Southern California Library
(Hereafter Watts Clippings); Title quote from Thomas Pynchon, “A Journey Into The Mind of Watts,” The New
York Times Magazine, June 12, 1966.
2
Michael W. Flamm, Law and Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s, (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2005),
3
H. H. Brookins, “Watts Close Up - A Lesson For Other Cities,” September 18, 1965, Folder Watts 1960’s, Watts
Riots Clippings and Reports 1960s, Southern California Library (Hereafter Watts Papers).
41
The Watts uprising was an explosion of grievances and frustration with racism,
discrimination, segregation, and perhaps most importantly, a repressive police force in Los
Angeles that had built up over the course of five decades. In the immediate aftermath of the
uprising, and those in other cities throughout the latter half of the 1960s, many liberal observers
believed that social, economic, and political deprivation of inner cities had to be addressed in
order to avoid future violence. At the local, state, and federal level, officials responded with a
mix of social and economic programs intended to manage urban disorder. President Lyndon
Johnson, although admonishing rioters, directed millions of dollars in federal funds to Los
Angeles in hopes of reducing the potential of future outbursts and California’s Democratic
Governor Pat Brown appointed a commission to investigate the uprising headed by former CIA
Chief John McCone, which made recommendations to expand funding for social and economic
programs; antipoverty programs were, in effect, riot insurance.
4
Business leaders also initiated
programs to offer employment to the most disadvantaged and to enhance black business
opportunities. Urban liberalism was dynamic and multifaceted: it included redistributive, pro-
business, and punitive measures. Indeed, riots were generative. Although critics argued that the
riots were apolitical, criminal, and fruitless, they elicited productive responses from the state.
While most recent work on the rise of the carceral state marks the Watts and other 1960s
urban uprisings as a key moment in the turn to law and order and a War on Crime, this chapter
takes a different perspective to show how law and order existed alongside antipoverty efforts—
job training in particular—that were geared toward preventing future outbreaks of violence.
5

4
Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, Violence in the City--an End or a Beginning?( 1965).
5
Robert M. Fogelson, The Los Angeles Riots (New York, Arno Press, 1969); Paul A Gilje, Rioting in America
(Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1999); Daryl Michael Scott, Contempt and Pity: Social Policy and the
Image of the Damaged Black Psyche, 1880-1996 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Margaret
Weir, Anna Shola Orloff, and Theda Skocpol, eds., The Politics of Social Policy in the United States (Princeton
University Press, 1988); Michael B. Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America,
(New York: Basic Books, 1996); The most comprehensive account of the Watts uprising by Gerald Horne avoids
42
Rather than focusing on causes of riots or inherent limitations of the War on Poverty, I explore
the uprising’s multiple outcomes and show how the violence set in motion a new phase in the
struggle between residents and political officials over the best solutions to the city’s and nation’s
growing urban ills that reveals an intertwined relationship between liberal efforts to employ
poverty programs as riot control, African American demands for social justice, and a burgeoning
politics of law and order. Liberals from President Johnson, to Governor Brown, to local City
Council members viewed the riots, at least in part, as rooted in problems of discrimination,
segregation, and lack of opportunity; and they worked to implement reforms to address such
grievances alongside increasing attention to crime control in order to cool out insurgency in the
city while leaving underlying power structures untouched.
Black residents also capitalized on the energy, discontent, and influx of resources to
expand community participation and develop new organizations such as the Temporary Alliance
of Local Organizations, the Black Congress, and Watts Summer Festival. Residents and activists
critiqued antipoverty programs for being inadequately funded, for the lack of community control,
and for punitive and coercive elements within the programs. In contrast to admonitions of law
and order and efforts to disassociate the riots from larger civil rights grievances, they stressed
that riots themselves were not the underlying problem but mere symptoms of the real crisis of
racism, discrimination, and poverty. The responses of local government and law enforcement
officials to African American demands for robust economic and social programs and for a
redistribution of power, however, were suffused by a narrative of crisis that disassociated the
uprising from civil rights grievances, thereby reinforcing notions of black criminality and

many of these traditional approaches and focuses on the way the fallout of the uprising was the demise of a labor-
left politics, see Gerald Horne, Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s, (New York: Da Capo Press,
1997); For a discussion of studies on riots see Heather Ann Thompson, “Understanding Rioting in Postwar Urban
America,” Journal of Urban History 26, no. 3 (March 1, 2000): 391–402.
43
lawlessness, which worked alongside the law and order politics, riot control, and intensified
policing in inner cities.
6

At the same time, the ability of African American residents and organizations to reap
rewards from the uprising led to moments of conflict and cooperation with Mexican American
residents. Some Mexican American organizations, such as the Community Service Organization,
reinforced arguments made by black organizations that the uprising was a form of protest against
discrimination that had a similar impact on both groups, while others, such as the Mexican
American Political Association, saw the responses to the uprising as a reward for rioting, hoping
to share in federal largesse by warning that the Mexican American community was on the verge
of a more violent outburst than Watts. Although the McCone Commission responded to
testimony and demands from Mexican American organizations and political officials by
suggesting that Mexican Americans should not be left behind, the orientation of many social and
economic programs targeted black communities, often exacerbating interracial tensions.
7

By 1970, many of the social and economic programs generated from the uprisings of the
1960s had deteriorated while funding for law and order programs escalated. The public sector,
especially after the election of Ronald Reagan as governor in 1966 and Richard Nixon as
president in 1968, slowly abandoned efforts to address urban problems of poverty and
segregation, shifting the burden to the private sector and local community organizations. The
uprising’s ultimate legacy was contradictory, reflecting the multiple ways local officials and
residents responded to the violence. Tracing the immediate aftermath of the Watts uprising
through the relationship between community organizations, local government responses, and law

6
Kevin Mumford, “Harvesting the Crisis: The Newark Uprising, the Kerner Commission, and Writings on Riots,”
in African American Urban History since World War II, ed. Kenneth L. Kusmer and Joe W. Trotter (University of
Chicago Press, 2009), 203–218.
7
For an in-depth discussion of these issues see: Robert Bauman, Race and the War on Poverty: From Watts to East
L.A (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008) and Josh Kun and Laura Pulido, Black and Brown in Los
Angeles: Beyond Conflict and Coalition (University of California Press, 2013).
44
enforcement reveals a moment of dynamic possibility and limitation. While the uprising
provided the foundation for increased black community organizing and led to incremental
changes, the commitment to long-lasting reform was outflanked by the persistence of local
power structures, the reorientation of understandings of urban problems from historical
inequality to behavior, and the growing support for law and order politics, riot control, and
militarized policing as the solution to the urban crisis.
8
The five years after the Watts uprising
was a pivotal moment, which anticipated the reorientation of politics, government, and social
movements around intensified policing and coercive mechanisms of social control.

“A blot on the history books”

Few observers expected a massive urban uprising to occur in Los Angeles because the
black neighborhood was “supposed to be the arcadia of American ghettos.”
9
The local power
structure and officials, such as Mayor Sam Yorty and Los Angeles Police Chief William Parker,
prided themselves on what they believed to be a history of peaceful race relations. They believed
that Los Angeles’s bucolic neighborhoods made up of single-family homes, green lawns, and
palm tree lined streets, in contrast to the ghettos of New York, Detroit, and Chicago, represented
a promised land free of discrimination and segregation. Statistics on housing and unemployment
revealed a much different picture, however. Residential segregation confined African Americans
and Mexican Americans to South Central and East Los Angeles, respectively. Between 1950 and
1960 the African American population of the County grew from 217,881 to 461,546 while the
Spanish surname population expanded from 287,614 to 576,716.

African Americans experienced

8
For a discussion of different financial responses to protests and riots see Arthur Jaynes, “Insurgency and Policy
Outcomes: The Impact of Protests/riots on Urban Spending,” Journal of Political and Military Sociology 30, no. 1
(January 1, 2002): 90.
9
Stanley Sanders, “New Breed in the Ghetto,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1968, sec. West magazine.
45
the most acute forms of residential exclusion of any non-white group in Los Angeles. Of the
461,546 African Americans in the County in 1960, 68 percent or 313,866 lived in the City’s
Central District, an area consisting of thirty neighborhoods. Nearly 87 percent of those in the
District, however, lived in just nine of those communities. In 63.5 percent of census tracts where
minority residents made up between 75 and 100 percent of the residents, moreover, more than 15
percent of the housing was characterized as dilapidated or deteriorated. When controlled for rents
between 60 and 70 dollars per month, only 6.7 percent of the white population lived in
dilapidated or deteriorated housing compared to 26.1 percent of African Americans and 31.5
percent of the Spanish surname population.
10

Meager job prospects exacerbated poor housing conditions in racially segregated
neighborhoods. While African Americans and Mexican Americans made gains in industrial work
during the 1950s, unemployment and lack of access to well-paying jobs continued to plague both
communities during the 1960s.

Unemployment rates for blacks in South Los Angeles in 1965,
for example, ran at 11 percent, with 26 percent of the population living below the poverty line,
whereas unemployment and poverty rates for Mexican Americans in East Los Angeles were 7.25
percent and nearly 25 percent, respectively. African Americans and Mexican Americans,
however, faced different levels of discrimination and occupied different positions in the regional
labor market, which reflected the Los Angeles regional racial hierarchy. African Americans, for
example, often faced higher long-term unemployment rates than Mexican Americans who

10
County of Los Angeles Commission on Human Relations, The Urban Reality: A Comparative Study of the Socio-
Economic Situation of Mexican-Americans, Negroes, and Anglo-Caucasians in Los Angeles County (1965); The
index of dissimilarity for Spanish surname and Anglos in Los Angeles was 57.4; for Blacks and Anglos it was 87.6.
In Leo Grebler et al., The Mexican-American People, the Nation's Second Largest Minority (New York: Free Press,
1970), 275. This is by no means to argue that Black’s in Los Angeles were a unified group. As with Mexican
Americans, class stratification governed opportunities to move out of segregated neighborhoods. See Josh Sides,
L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present, (University of California
Press, 2006); George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los
Angeles, 1900-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Albert Camarillo, “Black and Brown in
Compton,” in Beyond Black and White, 363.
46
entered the labor market at the lowest possible rung. By 1970, however, Mexican Americans
were disproportionately represented in Los Angeles manufacturing employment at 20.8 per-
cent, compared to 6.1 percent for African Americans. While Mexican Americans were more
attached to the manufacturing economy, many were also pushed toward low-wage and menial
jobs at higher rates than African Americans, and only 5 percent of Mexican American men in
East Los Angeles held professional or technical jobs.

Yet, they were both largely relegated to
menial and low-paid jobs compared with whites.
11
Discrimination in the labor market, poor
education, and a shifting economy that led to a reduction in high-wage jobs left African
American and Mexican American residents at a significant disadvantage compared to their white
counterparts. Underfunded and segregated schools added to the lack of opportunity and poverty.
“Watts is the Deep South transplanted to a highly technical and industrial society,” a social
worker at the Westminister Neighborhood Association (WNA) explained, “and the people don't
have the means to compete in this society.”
12

Such conditions, combined with the passage of Proposition 14 in 1964, which overturned
the Rumford Fair Housing Act, Mayor Sam Yorty’s opposition to War on Poverty programs, and
a historically racist and repressive police force left the black community primed for an explosion.
Within the African American community many predicted violence if established avenues of
change failed to address black grievances. John Buggs of the Los Angeles County Human

11
Josh Sides, L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present, 1st ed.
(University of California Press, 2006), 75; Laura Pulido, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in Los
Angeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 45–48; California. Dept. of Industrial Relations. Division
of Labor Statistics and Research and California. Division of Fair Employment Practices, Negroes and Mexican
Americans in South and East Los Angeles; Changes Between 1960 and 1965 in Population, Employment, Income,
and Family Status. An Analysis of a U.S. Census Survey of November 1965 (San Francisco, State of California,
Division of Fair Employment Practices, 1966, 1966); Los Angeles County (Calif. ). Commission on Human
Relations, The Urban Reality: A Comparative Study of the Socio-Economic Situation of Mexican-Americans,
Negroes, and Anglo-Caucasians in Los Angeles County. (Los Angeles: County of Los Angeles Commission on
Human Relations, 1965); Paul Bullock, “Negro and Mexican American Experiences in the Labor Market in Los
Angeles: A Comparison,” March 17, 1966.
12
Thomas Johnson, “Watts, a District Without Bootstraps,” New York Times, 1966.
47
Relations Commission warned, “If legal approaches fail, if passive resistance fails, there is only
the vengeance of Malcolm X and the fire of James Baldwin left--and it will come here.”
13

Despite such warnings city officials did little to prevent a riot, as Loren Miller stated in 1964,
“violence in Los Angeles is inevitable, and that nothing can or will be done about it until after
the fact.”
14

On August 11, 1965, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) pulled over Marquette and
Ronald Frye for reckless driving and being under the influence of alcohol. When the CHP
officers attempted to arrest Marquette Frye, a crowd of African American onlookers gathered to
observe the situation. While Frye was not initially hostile, the presence of a crowd and Frye’s
mother scolding her son produced a tense situation. The African American community had little
reason to trust or respect law enforcement officers given a long history of abuse, harassment, and
inadequate police service in black neighborhoods. Between 1963 and 1965 sixty African
Americans had been killed by the police, 25 of them were unarmed and 27 shot in the back, all
but one ruled justifiable homicide.
15
The arrest of Marquette Frye created a standoff between
black onlookers and Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers who had been called in for
backup, leading to cries of police brutality. Rumors spread quickly, igniting the spark that set
South Central Los Angeles aflame for the next six days.
16

13
Paul Weeks, “Causes of Riots Assessed by City,” Los Angeles Times, August 1965, Folder Los Angeles, Box 3,
Records of the Commission on Civil Rights, Office of the General Counsel, Police-Community Relations in Urban
Areas, 1954-1966, RG 453, National Archives and Records Administration, Archives II, (Hereafter RG 453).
14
Miller’s statements come from his summary of a report by Attorney General Howard Jewell who quoted Miller in
1964 in Loren Miller, “The Fire This Time (Prepared for Delivery, San Jose American Civil Liberties Union,
November 19, 1965),” November 16, 1965, Folder 9, Box 29, Loren Miller Papers, The Huntington Library, San
Marino, California (Hereafter Miller Papers); See also Loren Miller, “Watts in Perspective,” 1965, Folder 9, Box 29,
in ibid.
15
Tracy Tullis, “A Vietnam at Home: Policing the Ghettos in the Counterinsurgency Era” (Ph.D., New York
University, 1999), 212.
16
California Highway Patrol. “California Highway Patrol Report to the Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles
Riots,” 1965, Folder 3-d, Box 4, Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, BANC MSS 74/115c, The
Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley (Hereafter Governor’s Commission Records); “1,000 Riot and
Battle Police in Watts Area,” Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1965, sec. Part One; For accounts of the uprising see:
48
The enraged crowd began throwing rocks and bottles at the LAPD as they drove away.
Quickly the crowd began throwing objects at passing vehicles and by midnight the area of South
Central was out of control. The unprepared LAPD was mired by communication problems and a
lack of leadership from LAPD Chief William Parker who had never handled a violent uprising of
this nature. As August 11 turned to August 12, crowds gathered throughout South Central,
concentrating on 103
rd
street in Watts, which came to be known as Charcoal Alley due to the
destruction. Cars driven by white drivers were attacked, overturned, and burned, while others
threw objects at firefighters and police, made Molotov cocktails, and some even sniped at the
forces of authority. Widespread looting targeted primarily white business owners as crowds,
combining to totals of tens of thousands, shouted “Burn Baby Burn.” White reporters for the Los
Angeles Times were attacked and forced out of the area. Chief Parker refused to meet with civil
rights leaders to cool tensions, and Mayor Yorty would not consult with black leaders because
they were “part of the problem,” failing to recognize that the violence was the symptom of a
much longer history of discrimination, abuse, and segregation.
After three days, the outmanned and largely incompetent LAPD received reinforcements
from the California National Guard. Lieutenant Governor Anderson called the scene an “extreme
emergency,” allowing him to place a curfew over the 46.5 square mile area. The offensive of the
police and National Guard, armed with machine guns and Vietnam-style road blocks led to
dramatic moments of confrontation, reflecting the way the war in Vietnam had come home to the
streets of urban America as many black residents openly confronted an overwhelmingly white
police force that often acted as an occupying force in South Central. “I distinctly remember
during the Watts riots,” New Leftist Mike Meyerson recalled, “young men firing directly on

Gerald Horne, Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997); Robert Conot,
Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness (Bantam Books, 1967); Jerry Cohen and William Murphy, Burn, Baby, Burn!
(New York, Dutton, 1966).
49
LAPD helicopters in emulation of the Southern Vietnamese Liberation Army.”
17
By August 17,
the uprising had largely ceased, leaving 103
rd
street barely more than rubble.

Figure 8. Darkness Falls in Watts, Photograph by John Malmin, 8/13/1965. Courtesy of
the Los Angeles Times.

The primary response to the uprising was one based on repression, mass arrests, and
coordination between the military and the police, anticipating the rise of militarized policing and
the turn to crime control to deal with urban problems. Quelling the violence required the
implementation of a curfew covering nearly 46.5 square miles of South Central Los Angeles and
the use of 934 LAPD Officers, 719 Sheriff’s Deputies, and 13,900 California National
Guardsmen, as shown in Figure 8, which resulted in 34 deaths and 1,032 wounded, almost all
black and at the hands of law enforcement officers and National Guard. In the following weeks,

17
Meyerson in: Donna Murch, “The Many Meanings of Watts: Black Power, Wattstax, and the Carceral State,”
OAH Magazine of History 26, no. 1 (January 2012): 37–40; My summary of the uprising is drawn from Horne;
Robert E. Conot, Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness (Bantam Books, 1967); Ethan Rarick, California Rising: The
Life and Times of Pat Brown (University of California Press, 2005).
50
the Coroner’s Inquest found 26 of the deaths to be justifiable homicide.
18
Property damage,
initially estimated at nearly $200 million, amounted to roughly $40 million and left many
residents and business owners with little more than rubble, as shown in Figure 9. During the
uprising police arrested 3,952 people, including over 500 youths under the age of eighteen, for
any number of offenses including “loitering, looting, and vandalism.”
19

Figure 9. Burned residence from Watts Riots, Los Angeles (Calif.). Store Gone--Charles Steppes
stands in front of burned-out store near his home in Watts. After the rioting, his fulltime job in a
store in the Crenshaw district was cut to only four hours each week, October 15, 1965. Los
Angeles Times Photographic Archive, UCLA, Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young
Research Library.

Despite repeated warnings of the potential for violence, neither city officials nor
prominent businessmen and civil leaders had done much to address the grievances of Los

18
James N. Adler, “Coroners Inquest and the Los Angeles Riots,” November 12, 1965, Folder 2, Box 189,
Alexander Pope Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California (Hereafter Pope Papers).
19
Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, Violence in the City.
51
Angeles’s burgeoning African American population.
20
Conservative Democrat Sam Yorty failed
to understand or take seriously the demands of the city’s African American residents for redress
from poverty, unemployment, segregation, and police abuse. Rather, Yorty, who had won the
1961 mayoral election with black support, believed that Los Angeles’s image had been tainted
by a small number of radical activists, communists, and other “subversives” who did not
represent the feelings of the black community or reflect what he saw as Los Angeles’s
upstanding race relations.
21
“We cannot permit a criminal element to destroy the exemplary race
relations which must continue to exist in our city,” Yorty explained, revealing his willfully blind
understanding of the extremely tense relationship with the institutions and representatives of
power in the city.
22

While the uprising reaffirmed beliefs in black criminality among many white residents,
especially those living on the West Side and Beverly Hills, the violence had varied meanings and
consequences. As lawyer Hugh Manes explained, “Watts is a community in Los Angeles
enclosed by a one-way mirror through which its inhabitants can see out without being seen. Its
people are thus invisible to whites….Every once in a while, a rock is thrown and the mirror is
broken.” Manes, a longtime defender of victims of police brutality and abuse, described how
quickly city officials and white residents worked to rebuild the mirror after Watts, making the
people and their demands for social justice invisible once again.
23
Those who chose to look
through the broken mirror, however, could not dismiss the uprising as senseless violence
perpetuated by subversives, southern migrants, or a criminal element in the black community but

20
Laurence Stern, “Coast Rioting Foreshadowed By Rights Data on Hostility,” Washington D.C. Post, August 18,
1965, Folder Los Angeles, Box 3, (RG 453).
21
“House of Representatives - Thursday, October 14, 1965,” Congressional Record 111 (1965): 26955; Committee
on Un-American Activities, “Guerilla Warfare Advocates in the United States,” 1968, Folder Civil Disorder 72, Box
RS 13a, Ronald Reagan: Governor’s Papers, 1966-1975, Research Unit, Series I: Subject File, Ronald Reagan
Presidential Library (Hereafter Reagan Governor’s Papers).
22
“House of Representatives - Thursday, October 14, 1965,” Congressional Record 111 (1965): 26955.
23
Hugh R. Manes, “The Meaning of Watts,” Lincoln Law Review 1, no. 1 (December 1965): 17–27.
52
a response to racism, segregation, mass unemployment, poverty, and police abuse requiring
substantive solutions.
24

Many African Americans interpreted the uprising as a result of the despair of black
residents left behind by the growing prosperity of American life and frustration with the white
power structure to respond to demands for jobs, adequate housing, social programs, and an end
to police abuse. One participant suggested that years of abuse and harassment had left few
alternatives, stating “I been kicked and called ‘Nigger’ for the last time. There’re lots worse
things down here than dying.”
25
Augustus Hawkins, Congressional representative from South
Central Los Angeles, reiterated that the “Negro is too far separated from the white power
structure and that has resulted in years of privation.”
26
Reverend Thomas Kilgore supported
Hawkins’ explanation, stating that the “government and other power structures have had a total
lack of understanding of the legitimate desires of the ghetto people. So many had come to the
point that they felt they were no part of the structure at all--so their reaction was to tear up the
structure.”
27
Meetings between state representatives and residents held after the uprising revealed
a “bitterness” within the community toward the establishment. At a meeting with the Industrial
Relations Committee a mix of black and Mexican American residents offered a program for
rebuilding consisting of at least 110 different recommendations in the areas of business
development, employment, education and training, housing, welfare, community services, and

24
In ibid; On Southern migrants see: Glenn M. Anderson, “Statement from Lieutenant Governon Glenn M.
Anderson to the Governor’s Commission of the Los Angeles Riots,” September 22, 1965, Folder 4, Box 103, Glenn
M. Anderson Papers, Courtesy of the Department of Archives and Special Collections, University Library,
California State University, Dominguez Hills (Hereafter Anderson Papers).
25
Willietta Schley Kendrick, “Summer Task Force - Watts: A Confidential Report to the NAACP,” May 13, 1966,
Folder Riots Watts, Cal, 1966-1967, Box 66, Part IV, Records of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Hereafter NAACP-LOC).
26
Gladwin Hill, “Los Angeles Rioting Is Checked; Troops Hunt Snipers; 31 Are Dead; Policeman Is Slain In Long
Beach,” The New York Times, 1965.
27
Paul Weeks, “Causes of Riots Assessed by City,” Los Angeles Times, August 1965, Folder Los Angeles, Box 3,
RG 453.
53
law enforcement. While the community had little faith in the actions of the local government,
they were waiting to “see what the Man will do.”
28

Representatives from the NAACP called on Governor Edmund Brown to institute a “Blue
Ribbon Citizens Committee” to investigate the causes and recommend solutions to the violence
and unrest in the city, stressing the need for political leadership to take responsibility and point
the way forward. “If we are to avoid the spread of violence,” the NAACP’s Leonard Carter
explained, “we must eliminate the cause and not just deal with the effect the poor state of police-
community relations has for years been pointed out by the NAACP and others. We must act
fast.”
29
Norman Houston, Los Angeles’s local NAACP president, likewise demanded quick
action by the government to address the sources of urban violence, laying out six proposals
including the delivery of anti-poverty funds from the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO),
taking special steps to provide jobs and job training to all those individuals who desired
employment, improving police-community relations by removing Chief Parker, providing
adequate school facilities, maintaining the National Guard until signs of an enduring peace were
present, and cooperating with the community in rebuilding efforts. The NAACP’s demands
reflected their view that the Governor had a choice to either act boldly to address the problems
that led to the violence or to be reactionary and seek to suppress the symptoms of the problem
through policing and crime control.
30

28
William Becker letter to Brown, “A Summary of Statements Made About 15 Meetings of People Who Live in the
Riot Area,” August 20, 1965, Folder 8, Box 60, John Holland Papers, Special Collections and Archives, University
Library, California State University, Los Angeles (Hereafter Holland Papers); Virna M. Canson letter to Brown,
“Report from Meeting with Watts Area Citizens Held at Westminister Neighborhood Center, August 20, 1965,”
August 23, 1965, Folder 4, Box 60, in ibid.; Hugh Taylor letter to Becker, “Watts,” September 1, 1965, Folder 4,
Box 60, in ibid.; On number of recommendations see: Mervyn Dymally letter to Colleague, October 1, 1965, Folder
4, Box 189, Pope Papers;
29
Leonard H. Carter letter to Edmund Brown, August 1965, Folder 31, Box 82, National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, Region I, Records, MSS 78/10 c, The Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley (Hereafter NAACP Papers).
30
Norman Houston, “Norman B. Houston, President of the Los Angeles Branch, NAACP Has This Day Issued the
Following Release,” August 18, 1965, Folder 31, Box 82, NAACP Papers; Leonard H. Carter letter to Wilkins and
54
African American City Councilman, Tom Bradley, supported the push for strong
government action and robust programs to address growing urban unrest. “It has become
altogether too clear,” Bradley reported to his constituency, “that no instrumentality of
government, federal, state or local can any longer ignore its responsibility to take affirmative,
creative and enlightened action to insure domestic tranquility” and to enforce laws guaranteeing
equal opportunity.
31
While African American’s were more than aware of the conditions in South
Central, for most city officials and white residents, the uprising placed the problems of the inner
city on their doorstep, leading to a mix of social welfare and law and order approaches, which
combined to cool out insurgency and ensure domestic pacification.
32

Lawlessness or Civil Rights?: LBJ, Anti-poverty, and Law and Order

Lyndon Johnson felt betrayed by the black community, calling for a return to law and
order as well as taking the riots as a personal affront to his efforts to wage a war on poverty and
the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law on August 6, just days before the outbreak
of violence. “There is no greater wrong in our democracy than violent, willful disregard of law,”
Johnson stated, “to resort to terror and violence not only shatters the essential right of every
citizen to be secure in his home, his shop and in the streets of his town, it strikes from the hand
of the Negro the very weapons with which he is achieving his own emancipation.” Johnson
refused to accept that the uprising had widespread support, stating “we cannot let the actions of
three or four thousand rioters stay our compassion for the hundreds of thousands of people in the

Current, “Special Report on the Los Angeles Riots,” September 10, 1965, Folder 3, Box A 333, Part III, NAACP-
LOC.
31
Tom Bradley, “Report to the People - XVIII,” 1965, Folder 2, Box 1687, Mayor Tom Bradley Administration
Papers, (Collection Number 293), UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA
(Hereafter Bradley Papers); Tom Bradley, “Report to the People - XIX,” 1965, in ibid.
32
Howard H. Jewel letter to Stanley Mosk, “Howard H. Jewel to Stanley Mosk,” May 25, 1964, Folder 9, Box 29,
Miller Papers.
55
city of Los Angeles—of every race and color—who neither participated in nor condoned the
riots.”
33
While Johnson admonished those who participated in looting and burning—
disassociating them from what he viewed as legitimate demands for civil rights—he also
suggested that the conditions underlying the uprising had to be addressed if future episodes of
violence were to be avoided.
Johnson dispatched a Federal Task Force made up of Ramsey Clark, Andrew Brimmer,
and Jack Conway to Los Angeles to coordinate the federal response and to address the
fundamental problems that led to civil violence and criminal behavior.
34
The Task Force assisted
state and local officials in coordinating governmental responses, framing the needs of the poor as
immense and urgent, and requiring a widespread attack by government, private agencies, and
residents themselves. “The needs can be filled,” the Task Force stated, “only by the all-out effort
of every component of government--local, State and Federal; of every element of
nongovernmental group action; and of individual citizens, particularly those involved.”
35

Although Task Force members recognized that “utilization of every known technique of riot
prevention and the ready availability of an adequate police force to control any riot situation are
essential,” they also knew that a law and order approach based on police power alone would not
provide a long-term solution, stating “we cannot solve the problems of our slums by police
power….It is no more possible to suppress rioting where its causes are fermenting than it is to
hold the lid on a boiling pot.” Rather, problems associated with employment, education, health,
and housing in the city had to be addressed and improved through community participation,

33
Nick Kotz, Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws That Changed
America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 340; “Text of Johnson Statement,” New York Times, August 16, 1965.
34
“Watts Riot, 1965, Including Report of the President’s Task Force on the Los Angeles Riots, from the Files of
Joseph A. Califano Jr., 1965,” 1965, Johnson WHCF.
35
In Ibid.
56
communication, and human relations programs. Such programs would, the Task Force believed,
help reduce tension and prevent further rioting.
36

The Task Force sent Johnson recommendations for 49 programs requiring $29 million in
federal funding. Although Johnson attempted to keep the program secret in order not to come
across as rewarding rioters, he approved the projects on September 2, 1965, and subsequently
approved over 30 additional self-help programs costing more than $20 million. The other
recommendations blended fact-finding, punitive measures, and oversight, such as the
development of a special project by the Census Bureau to investigate the conditions of African
American and Mexican American, a series of first-rate riot control training programs prepared by
the Justice Department, and the appointment of a federal officer to coordinate the various
government-initiated programs.
37
When critics asked if the federal programs merely rewarded
residents for violent unrest, Task Force Chair Ramsey Clark disagreed, arguing that “we're trying
to save lives, help people eat. There are very deep currents in these things, not all of which we
understand.” Clark called for swift government action to address grievances that led to riots, an
approach that linked government intervention with solutions to urban problems of racism and
segregation though undergirded by enhanced riot control measures to aid local law
enforcement.
38

The Community Relations Service (CRS), an agency established in the Department of
Commerce under the 1964 Civil Rights Act and later transferred to the Department of Justice,
however, attempted to disassociate the unrest from the struggle for civil rights. “What happened

36
In Ibid; Flamm, 61.
37
“Watts Riot, 1965, Including Report of the President’s Task Force on the Los Angeles Riots, from the Files of
Joseph A. Califano Jr., 1965,” 1965. Civil Rights during the Johnson Administration, 1963-1969, Johnson WHCF;
Youth Opportunities Board, “County Wide Anti-Poverty Program Gets $7,401,339 Boost,” September 8, 1965,
Folder 12, Box 3, Eduardo Quevedo Papers, M0349, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries,
(Hereafter Quevedo Papers).
38
Lawrence E. (Larry) Levinson Oral History Interview VII by Joe B. Frantz, November 2, 1973, Online Oral
History Collection, Lyndon Baones Johnson Library.
57
here,” the CRS’s Leroy Collins stated, “is not part of the crusade for civil rights. We don't want
to associate civil rights with this kind of lawlessness.”
39
Yet, CRS officials stressed that the
federal government had an important role to play in responding to urban unrest. “As the 'higher
authority,’ as the traditional unifier of all the people,” the CRS argued, “the federal government
assume a larger-than-usual role in the community's efforts to rehabilitate and reshape itself.”
Most of the substantive programs, CRS officials believed, would be initiated or financed by the
federal government. If the federal government failed to address the crisis in Los Angeles, it
“might seriously impair the future of Los Angeles as a viable community and raise disturbing
questions of public policy with respect to federal involvement in urban affairs generally.” The
CRS framed the role of the federal government as one of conciliation, communication, and
coordination, warning that government failure to successfully address the roots of the uprising
would call into question urban policy and intervention more broadly.
40

Although community control was a key component of War on Poverty programs,
Collins reported on community meetings where residents expressed a lack of faith in
Yorty, Chief Parker, and government officials to adequately respond to their needs.
“Although the rioting has ended, the underlying causes remain. The poverty program will
help get at these causes,” Collins warned LBJ, “But the biggest and most dangerous
ingredient is a feeling on the part of the Negro community in Los Angeles that they are
‘out of it.’” Collins suggested that efforts aimed at community control would refute the
perception that the federal government was not taking a strong stand against rioting and
that local participation would get more “effectively at the root causes of racial strife in
the urban centers before such strife breaks out.” Collins’ statement reflected the dominant

39
“Race Friction-Now a Crime Problem?,” U.S. News & World Report, August 30, 1965.
40
“California Civil Rights Issues Including Watts Riot, 1965, President’s Task Force on the Los Angeles Riots,
Employment Issues, 1965-1967,” 1967-1965, 66, Johnson WHCF.
58
liberal belief that increased antipoverty funding would facilitate local control and
inclusiveness in order to address the deep-seated roots of violence and crime in racial
discrimination and segregation.
41

Although recognizing the need for government intervention in addressing the roots of the
urban inequality that exploded in violence, Johnson also emphasized self-help and personal
responsibility as a central component in solving the problems of unemployment and poverty.
“Well we just have to say to these young Negroes,” Johnson explained to one observer, “that
they got obligations as well as rights and we fought like a devil to get them their rights and we
gonna continue to and we want them to be responsible now.”
42
Indeed, Johnson’s approach to
addressing unrest “aimed at helping those citizens affected by the riots to help themselves.”
43
As
Johnson suggested, government aid was never entirely divorced from notions of personal
responsibility and calls for more law and order, themes that Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon
would capitalize on in 1966 and 1968, respectively.
Johnson believed that the combination of poverty programs, business cooperation and
private investment, and self-help would address the urban conditions at the root of inner city
frustrations. “These groups,” Johnson told McCone, “they've got really absolutely nothing to live
for, 40 percent unemployed, these youngsters, they live with rats....and we've isolated them, they
move in and we move out....We've just got to find some way to wipe out these ghettos.”
44

Johnson’s approach to the Watts uprising reflected his hope that federal programs would
improve social conditions, help prevent future riots, and create equality of opportunity for all.

41
In ibid.
42
Lyndon B. Johnson and I.W. Abel, LBJ Ranch, 1965, Johnson Presidential Recordings, WH6508_03_8534.
Miller Center, Presidential Recordings Program.
43
“California Civil Rights Issues Including Watts Riot, 1965, President’s Task Force on the Los Angeles Riots,
Employment Issues, 1965-1967,” 1967-1965, in Civil Rights during the Johnson Administration, 1963-1969, Part I:
The White House Central Files, ProQuest History Vault (hereafter Johnson WHCF).
44
McCone, John A., and Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJ Ranch, 1965, Johnson Presidential Recordings,
WH6508_05_8550. Miller Center, Presidential Recordings Program.
59
Yet, federal and local responses were suffused with underlying messages that contributed to a
narrative that criminalized the uprising as apolitical by disassociating them from civil rights
issues; something that would lay the groundwork for enhanced riot control measures and limit
the commitment to altering underlying structures of power.
45

California Responds: The McCone Commission

While Johnson’s commitment of resources was important, the local context was often
more crucial in shaping immediate responses. Like Johnson, Governor Edmund Brown targeted
emergency anti-poverty programs for the riot-torn areas, but also referred to those involved in
the unrest as “hoodlums” and stated that the “riot had no connection with whether a Negro has
the right to vote or a legal right to any job for which he can qualify. We have established these
things in California.”
46
Brown organized the Governor’s Commission to Investigate the Los
Angeles Riots on August 19, 1965, appointing former head of the CIA, John McCone, to chair
the committee. McCone was a conservative with an “impeccable” reputation in the business
community who brought a set of ideological blinders to his work that ensured the final report
would deemphasize the fundamental problems of racism, discrimination, and segregation that led
to the uprising.
47
In his directive to the Commission, Brown stated that the violence was a
“senseless, formless riot - not a civil rights demonstration,” which shaped the Commission’s

45
“Race Friction-Now a Crime Problem?”
46
Paul O’Rourke letter to Brown, “An Emergency Anti-Poverty Program in Los Angeles,” August 19, 1965, Folder
4, Box 60, Holland Papers; Art Berman, “City Moves on Many Fronts to Aid Riot Area,” Los Angeles Times,
August 24, 1965, sec. Part One.
47
Edmund G. Brown, “Remarks by Governor Edmund G. Brown,” August 19, 1965, Folder Watts
(Correspondence) 1965, Box 146, Part IV, Community Relations Committee Collection, Urban Archives Center,
Oviatt Library, California State Library, Northridge (Hereafter CRC Collection); Wallace Turner, “McCone Heads
Panel of 8 To Study Riots on Coast: Leaders in Region Named by Brown to Seek Causes and Avert Recurrence
McCone Heads Coast Panel of 8 To Study Causes of the Rioting,” August 20, 1965; Jacobs, Prelude to Riot, 238.
60
approach by suggesting from the outset that the uprising was a criminal event devoid of real
grievances requiring fundamental changes to the local power structure.
The McCone Commission conducted its work within the context of theories on the
culture of poverty, which distorted Oscar Lewis’s initial use of the term, by suggesting that
poverty rested in the cultural deficiencies and marginalization of subgroups rather than structural
inequalities in society. The theory influenced Johnson’s War on Poverty by suggesting that “no
fundamental economic or racial change was essential” to address racial inequality. The liberal
argument, which was most prominently reflected in the 1965 Moynihan Report, was that
opportunities existed and that all that was needed was to better prepare blacks to take advantage
of them, reform the black family, and make discrimination illegal.
48
Although the uprisings of
the 1960s represented a challenge to such assumptions, the McCone Report reaffirmed Johnson’s
and other liberals’ reorienting their diagnosis of the cause of urban disorder from historical
inequality, segregation, and discrimination to behavior by calling the “sickness in the center of
our city…[a] devastating spiral of failure.”
49

Members of the African American community were disappointed with Brown’s
appointments to the committee to investigate the August uprising and viewed the committee with
suspicion. They saw the appointees to the Commission as well-to-do whites and blacks who had
little connection to or knowledge of the experiences of black residents. They believed, rather,
that the commission should be made up of poor people regardless of race, color, or creed. “Poor
people are our people,” one observer wrote to Brown’s aide, “whatever their color might be.”
50

Black residents challenged Brown and the Commission to take community grievances related to

48
Weir and Skocpol, The Politics of Social Policy in the United States, 329; Scott, Contempt and Pity.
49
Violence in the City, 5; U. S. Riot Commission, Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
(Bantam Books, 1968).
50
Hugh Taylor letter to Becker, “Watts,” September 1, 1965, Box 60, Folder 4, Holland Papers.
61
racism and discrimination seriously instead of blaming inner city residents for perceived criminal
actions and behaviors, which revealed the hope that the response to the uprising would result in
substantive changes aimed not only at African Americans but at all underserved residents in Los
Angeles.
The underlying causes of the uprising were mirrored in Mexican American
neighborhoods, where residents also faced high levels of unemployment, poor schools,
deteriorated housing, and suffered abuse and harassment by the police. Mexican American
organizations, such as Community Service Organization and East Los Angeles Community
Relations Council, demanded investigation into the violence and described the uprising as a
legitimate, public protest by the African American community. “There is little question that the
revolt was an expression of the national struggle for equality of the Negro people;” Carta
Editorial, a Los Angeles-based Mexican American publication, suggested, “President Johnson's
analysis notwithstanding.”
51
Just as many African Americans demanded changes in a variety of
discriminatory policies and practices, some in the Mexican American community argued that the
need for change rested not with the African American or Mexican American residents but with
the local power structure. As Ralph Guzman of the UCLA Mexican American Study Project told
the McCone Commission, minority groups did not riot for the sake of rioting or due to deficient
behavior and criminal tendencies but as a direct reaction to discrimination, segregation, and
repression imposed by white society.
52
Internally, moreover, Mexican American Political
Association (MAPA) officials warned that “simplistic attempts to dismiss the social upheaval
which rocked our city as the work of 'criminal elements' and 'subversives' is to engage in
dangerous self-delusion. Those who espouse this view are either dishonest, ignorant, or fools;

51
Carta Editorial, August 30, 1965.
52
Ralph Guzman, “Testimony of Ralph Guzman,” October 27, 1965, Volume VII, Reel 3, McCone Transcripts -
Microfilm.
62
certainly they are insensitive to the needs of the times which demand new and novel solutions for
old and deep rooted problems.”
53

Despite shared concerns surrounding the impact of white racism and segregation, many
Mexican Americans believed that the outburst of violence within black neighborhoods unduly
shifted government attention away from the problems faced by Mexican Americans. MAPA, for
example, refused to make a public statement on the unrest, hoping that the lack of participation
in looting and burning by Mexican American residents would reflect positively on the
community.
54
As Mexican American Congressman Edward Roybal testified to the McCone
Commission, the Mexican American community was not in open competition with African
Americans but many felt that they have been overlooked, especially regarding federal Fair
Employment Laws and War on Poverty funds. “And then we also have,” Roybal stated, “for
every action, a reaction. The Spanish speaking groups get together and see these things and say,
and have asked me, ‘Now, must we riot in order to get attention?’”
55

The attention of the local, state, and federal government to the African American
community after the uprising confused many leaders and residents in the Mexican American
community. The public and private aid funneled into Watts seemed to some Mexican Americans
a reward for violence. Riot-related funding, Mexican Americans felt, was bypassing their
community and problems, which were as dire and in need of resources as African Americans. As
The New York Times reported, “Mexican-Americans believe their problems have been
completely shunted aside as a result of the Watts riots.” Federal officials recognized that many
poor Mexican Americans felt “that the ‘Anglo’ power structure is kicking him out.” The growing

53
MAPA, “Statement of the Mexican American Political Assoc. on the Watts Situation,” 1966, Folder 2, Box 4,
Quevedo Papers.
54
Carta Editorial, August 30, 1965.
55
Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riot letter to Sheridan, “Meeting with Mr. Eduardo Quevedo,”
October 27, 1965, Folder 32, Box 14, Governor’s Commission Records; Edward R. Roybal, “Testimony Edward R.
Roybal,” October 28, 1965, Volume XII, Reel 4, McCone Transcripts - Microfilm.
63
tension officials felt might erupt in new episodes of civil violence or, perhaps, spur the Mexican
American community to organize committees to demand their share of public poverty funding.
56

The threat violence, MAPA representatives hoped, would push the Human Relations Committee
to acknowledge their problems and pay more attention to the economic, social, and political
grievances of Mexican residents. “The Mexican-American community is on the verge of
violence in many quarters unless remedial action is taken immediately,” MAPA stated in 1966,
“East Los Angeles is far more dangerous than Watts.”
57

In its transmittal to Governor Brown, the McCone Commission also highlighted that the
problems that led to the uprising were also present in the Mexican American community. “We
are deeply conscious that the Mexican-American community, which here is almost equal in size
to the Negro community,” the Report stated, “suffers form similar and in some cases more severe
handicaps than the Negro community.” A special census conducted after the uprising found that
Mexican Americans were similarly hampered by unemployment, low wage jobs, and poverty.
The conditions, as the McCone Commission admitted, required “equally urgent treatment.” The
McCone Commission recognized that the attention was overwhelmingly placed on African
Americans, stressing that the Mexican Americans should not be left behind. “That the Mexican-
American community did not riot is to its credit,” the report stated, “it should not be to its
disadvantage.”
58
The focus of social and economic programs, however, centered on the black
community.

56
Peter Bart, “Negro Gains Vex Coast Mexicans: Rising Aid After Los Angeles Riots Stirs Resentment,” The New
York Times, 1965; On competition in War on Poverty Programs see: Robert Bauman, Race and the War on Poverty:
From Watts to East L.A. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008).
57
Manuel H. Guerra, “A Critical Report Concerning the Mexican-American Community of Los Angeles County
Presented Before the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission,” March 20, 1966, Folder 77, Box 57, NAACP
Papers.
58
Violence in the City
64
The McCone Commission released its report, Violence: An End or a Beginning?, after
100 days of testimony and data collection. The report, totaling 96 pages of text, began with an
outline of the chronology of the nearly seven days of unrest. This was, as many commentators
suggested, a reflection of McCone’s emphasis on fact-finding at the expense of in-depth analysis
of inner city conditions. The report went on to explore areas of law enforcement, employment,
education, the consumer and the commuter, welfare and health, and housing. Despite the broad
approach, recommendations focused on three areas, including reducing unemployment and
idleness, improving educational opportunities in inner city neighborhoods, and facilitating
methods for handling civilian complaints and community relations by law enforcement
agencies.
59

While the role of the police was at the center of black discontent, the McCone Report did
little to address problems of police brutality and stopped well short of placing responsibility on
the LAPD for the uprising. The analysis of police brutality and abuse gave little weight to the
grievances of African American residents, and McCone commented that in terms of
understanding the role police abuse played in the uprising, “we are having considerable difficulty
getting to the bottom of it.”
60
While the Commission heard numerous testimony regarding the
deep-rooted dislike and demands for the removal of Chief Parker by African American residents,
the Commission gave Parker the benefit of the doubt, stating that he was a “capable Chief who
directs an efficient police force that serves well this entire community.”
61
The Commission’s
recommendations suggested a stronger Board of Police Commissioners, an Inspector General to
handle complaints, and enhanced cooperation between the community and the police but did not
alter the underlying power relations with the community, only scratching the surface of problems

59
Violence in the City, 8-9
60
Wesley Brazier, “Wesley Brazier,” October 14, 1965, Volume IV, Reel 1, McCone Transcripts - Microfilm.
61
In ibid, 28
65
between black and Mexican American residents and the police. While the LAPD formed the
position of Inspector General (IG) in the spring of 1966, the IG had little power and, as the
NAACP reported in a 1966 report, the relations between the police and the community remained
largely unchanged after the uprising, leading to continued tension with local communities.
62

Following the section on law enforcement, the report outlined basic changes in the areas
of schools, housing, and consumer exploitation. In terms of education, for example, the report
admirably supported building more classrooms, improving physical plants, and reducing class
sizes in predominantly black and Mexican American schools but did not once mention the
problem of segregation in the Los Angeles school system. A similar limitation pervaded the
section on housing, entitled “Neither Slums nor Urban Gems.” The McCone report, as the title of
the housing section suggested, reinforced the perception that Los Angeles was different from
other cities, that poverty and segregated living were comparably better to the slums of Eastern
cities. While they recognized that the conditions in South Central were worse than other areas of
the city, they did not mention the need to break the walls of segregation in housing and schooling
that contributed to many of the other problems outlined in the report. Only in the area of
employment did the McCone Commission address discrimination in the labor market, even
considering Brown’s proposal for a public works program to create jobs, and called upon
government, private enterprise, and labor unions to address the high levels of unemployment.
63

Many commentators viewed the McCone Commission as an opportunity to address
grievances but that the report “prescribes aspirin where surgery is required.” Groups such as the
California Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights and the Los
Angeles Community Human Relations Commission, both composed of a mix of liberal,

62
Willietta Schley Kendrick, “Summer Task Force - Watts: A Confidential Report to the NAACP,” May 13, 1966,
Box 66, Folder Riots Watts, Cal, 1966-1967, Part IV, NAACP-LOC.
63
Violence in the City.
66
conservative, and community members, responded to the McCone Report by pushing for more
rigorous and long-term solutions to deal with underlying social and economic problems. While
disappointed, such groups acknowledged that the report provided a key first step in advancing
programs to address housing, employment, and educational opportunities.
64
Others argued that
the McCone Commission deflected attention away from legitimate grievances by disassociating
the riots from civil rights protests. As Reverend James Edward Jones, who was a member of the
Commission, stated, “I do not believe it is the function of this Commission to put a lid on protest
registered by those sweltering in ghettos of the urban areas of our country….he has a right to
protest when circumstances do not allow him to participate in the mainstream of American
society.” Jones suggested that Americans needed to consider the alienation many blacks felt from
society and rethink beliefs that the problem could be solved through admonitions of personal
responsibility or a ratcheting up of law and order-style suppressive tactics.
65

According to Bayard Rustin, the McCone report represented the failed response of
political and economic institutions to what he called the “Watts Manifesto.” The programs
seemingly led toward constructive projects to address the sources of civil violence but ended up
falling far short of suggesting concrete programs. “It [the McCone Report] is ambivalent,”
Rustin stated, “about the basic reforms that are needed to solve these problems and therefore
shies away from spelling them out too explicitly.” Although the McCone Report signaled the
need for 50,000 jobs, Rustin argued, it did not outline the necessary steps or programs that would
achieve such a goal. As Paul Bullock explained, “by no stretch of the imagination can any of
them be labeled 'bold.' The role assigned to government is a relatively limited one, reflecting the

64
United States Commission on Civil Rights. California Advisory Committee, An Analysis of the McCone
Commission Report (Washington, D.C., 1966).
65
Violence in the City
67
Chairman's own predilections in this regard.”
66
Alternatively, Bullock, along with Rustin and
civil rights leaders, called for the local, state, and federal government to produce new jobs
through a Marshall Plan for America’s inner cities.
67

The McCone Commission recommended that the governor reconvene the Commission
for two years to assess the implementation of the report’s recommendations. The implementation
task force, led by Los Angeles lawyer Alexander Pope, followed the recommendations and
considered programs that would address some of the deep-rooted problems in the African
American and Mexican American communities.
68
In the short-term, then, the McCone
Commission set the stage for a multilateral approach to address the problems of poverty and
unemployment, but the efforts to enhance opportunity through job training, investment, and
education operated as an informal means of social control to cool out insurgency that were never
designed to alter the structure of the economy or serve as job creation mechanisms.

Implementing McCone: Poverty Programs, Community Action, and Riot Control

Although Los Angeles did not receive federal poverty funding prior to 1965 due to
conflicts between the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) and Mayor Yorty, the Watts
uprising brought the War on Poverty to the city. As Paul Bullock described in 1967, “the
mention of Watts in a proposal for a government contract or grant had a magic effect, as funds
began to pour into special programs and facilities in the area.”
69
By the spring and summer of
1966 numerous commentators suggested that Los Angeles, and South Central in particular, had

66
Paul Jacobs, Prelude to Riot, 265-6.
67
Wesley Brazier, “Wesley Brazier,” October 14, 1965, Volume IV, Reel 1, McCone Transcripts – Microfilm;
“‘Marshall Plan’ to Solve Watts Problems Urged,” Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1965, sec. Part III.
68
“Riot Inquiry Reconvening for 2 Years Urged,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, November 2, 1965, Box 33,
Folder 6, Holland Papers.
69
Paul Bullock, Watts: The Aftermath: An Inside View of the Ghetto (Grove Press, 1969), 51.
68
become the nation’s “biggest poverty-war effort.”
70
A year later, a federal observer tracking the
implementation of poverty programs found more “evidence of federal programs in Watts than in
other cities.”
71
Councilman Bradley and other liberal city council members looked to use the
federal funds to push the city intervene in social and economic areas, to help promote poverty
programs, and aid those groups who were working to address poverty and unemployment.
72
The
attention to Los Angeles, in the eyes of local residents, was the ultimate victory of the uprising.
“We won,” one resident boasted, “because we made the whole world pay attention to us. The
police chief never came here before; the mayor always stayed uptown. We made them come.”
73

State officials saw social and economic programs as complementary to more punitive riot
control measures. “The efficiency of riot control must be followed by an equally efficient
program to meet the exacerbated needs of residents victimized by the lawlessness of the
minority,” explained the state’s Special Assistant for Anti-Poverty Planning.
74
Under Governor
Brown, state officials implemented a number of government-based programs to address
unemployment and through employment training programs.
75
Governor Brown praised the
efforts of the job training programs as the most important means for addressing the frustration
and despair in the South Central Los Angeles. “Emphasis in our work with the people of South
Central Los Angeles is in finding jobs for the unemployed,” Brown explained, “in training the

70
“Watts: A Year of Challenge,” Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1966, sec. Part II.
71
“Civil Rights Files of Marvin Watson, Including Presidential Appointments, Ghetto Visit Reports, and
Democratic National Convention, 1967-1968,” 1967, Johnson WHCF.
72
Alan L. Saltzstein, Raphael Sonenshein, and Irving Ostrow. “Federal Grants and the City of Los Angeles.”
Research in Urban Policy 2 (1986): 55–76
73
Rustin; See also Thomas Wolf, “ABC Scope: Face of Watts,” January 22, 1966, Folder 2, Box 190, Pope Papers.
74
Paul O’Rourke letter to Brown, “An Emergency Anti-Poverty Program in Los Angeles,” August 19, 1965, Folder
4, Box 60, Holland Papers.
75
William L. Becker letter to Jim Alexander, “Multi-service-center,” February 7, 1966, Folder 4, Box 192, Pope
Papers; Edmund Brown, “For Immediate Release,” May 18, 1966, Folder 1, Box 191, Pope Papers; Edmund Brown,
G. “Brown Press Release,” May 24, 1966, Folder 4, Box 187, Pope Papers; jb. “Poverty,” March 8, 1966, Folder 6,
Box 187, Pope Papers; Governor Brown, however, was focused on reelection and did not put the full weight behind
the programs to solve problems of poverty and inequality in South Central Los Angeles that was required. See
Edmund Brown letter to John Anson Ford, August 2, 1966, Folder 4, Box 189, Pope Papers.
69
un-skilled worker, in educating a people whose environment and experience have withheld from
them the opportunity to enjoy California's better life to the fullest.” Brown’s commitment to job
training and placement reflected “an attempt to take government directly to the people to better
meet their needs.”
76

The McCone implementation task force followed Brown’s liberal commitment to
government action to address the needs of residents by developing a Checklist for Suggested
State Responses to the McCone Report in early 1966. The task force “aimed at correcting this
deficiency [unequal services] in existing governmental programs, particularly in the fields of
education and vocational training,” and found “the Commission's recommendations amount to a
far-reaching and expensive program for achieving effective equality in the public sector.” Yet,
most of the recommendations, the task force admitted, were of a limited variety and did not
intend to eliminate poverty altogether. The approach based on training and self-help in the
McCone recommendations, the task force reported, “differs very little in theory from existing
programs and, like the present War on Poverty programs, seems unlikely to have any very
immediate impact on the massive amount of existing unemployment in minority areas.” Rather,
the programs and approach taken by the McCone Commission was a political one aimed at
preventing riots through a strategy that would “guild [sic] the ghetto but not to destroy it.”
77

Such efforts at marginal reform rerouted discontent with state institutions—the
“establishment”—by incorporating residents into decision-making processes through community
control of poverty programs that channeled grievances into non-violent avenues of change.
Instead, as Theodore Berry of the OEO suggested, black residents preferred “acceptable channels

76
Edmund Brown, “For Immediate Release,” May 18, 1966, Folder 1, Box 191, Pope Papers.
77
“McCone Commission Implementation: Problems and Recommendations Check List for Suggested State
Response,” 1966, Folder 6, Box 187, Pope Papers; Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riot letter to Chief
Counsel, “State Progress on Commission Recommendations,” 1966, Folder 22, Box 11, Governor’s Commission
Records.
70
to bring about change” rather than the use of violence.
78
A UCLA study of the uprising revealed
that only 3 percent of the general population and 10 percent of the arrestees believed violence
was the means to effect change, while over 50 percent of respondents believed that education and
hard work were more effective means of achieving change than violence. Yet, too often residents
did not hold positions of power in local government agencies and were excluded from decisions
affecting their lives. “If we are to counter these factors contributing support for riots on the part
of the majority,” Berry stated, “we must provide residents of the ghetto alternative means for
effecting their destiny.”
79
Resident involvement and community participation, then, became a
means of cooling out insurgency and preventing future riots.
The organizations at the center of many War on Poverty programs understood the
importance of community participation to reduce the potential for violence. Alongside
community action agencies supported by the Economic and Youth Opportunities Agency
(EYOA), the Westminister Neighborhood Association (WNA), looked to solve problems of
poverty and violence through community outreach and grass roots involvement. Executive
Director Archie Hardwick expanded on the theory that community participation was central to
addressing the conditions that led to episodes of unrest, violence, and crime by suggesting that
control was crucial to the development of power in the community.
80
“The people of Watts,”
Hardwick explained, “don't need professional interpreters to say how they feel.”
81

78
Statement of Theodore M. Berry, October 6, 1967 at meeting of National Advisory Commission on Civil
Disorders, including statements by William L. Taylor and Marian Wright, In Civil Rights during the Johnson
Administration, 1963-1969, Part V: Records of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner
Commission), ProQuest History Vault, (Hereafter Kerner Papers).
79
In ibid.
80
David Butterfield, “Two Interviews with Mr. Archie Hardwick, Director, Westminister Neighborhood
Association,” November 27, 1965, Folder 16, Box 8, Governor’s Commission Records.
81
Westminster Neighborhood Association, Inc., “W.N.A.I. Report,” April 1966, Folder Watts Rebellion 1965,
Watts Clippings.
71
Hardwick was wary of the government’s commitment to solving the problem of poverty
in South Central, explaining that the response to the “real life situation of Watts,” had been
inadequate at best. Solutions to poverty, Hardwick stated, required a rethinking of the structure
of the social programs to address the deep-rooted grievances of the community. “The whole
social structure that we are living in is in very serious danger,” Hardwick explained, “it's
cracking at the seams. This revolt is just one of the cracks. Money is just putting layers of tape
on the sores.”
82
Under Hardwick, the WNA outlined a program of broad scope which included
building up the educational system, a massive public works program, low cost housing program,
development of a rapid transit system, the revision of the tax structure, the involvement of
organized labor, and government regulation of the economy to promote job creation.
83
Hardwick
understood that violent unrest was only a symptom of structural problems related to the
distribution of wealth, tax structures, deindustrialization, international economic competition,
and coercive state functions.
Job training and vocational education became the primary means to address the problem
of unemployment and to displace black grievances without altering the structure of the economy
through government-initiated job creation programs.
84
Within days of the uprising, the WNA
developed a proposal for Youth Employment training in August 1965 and WNA called for pre-
employment training to prepare youth to enter the job market. The organization intended to work
outside the formal school setting that had failed to adequately engage black youth, utilized biased
aptitude tests, and did little to ensure equal education opportunities. The WNA envisioned a

82
David Butterfield, “Two Interviews with Mr. Archie Hardwick, Director, Westminister Neighborhood
Association,” November 27, 1965, Folder 16, Box 8, Governor’s Commission Records
83
Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare,
Hearings on Amendments to the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, 89th Cong., 2
nd
Sess., June 21-24, 1966, 469-
476.
84
Paul Bullock, “Inventory of Major Training Programs in the Los Angeles Area,” November 19, 1965, Folder 21-c,
Box 11, Governor’s Commission Records.
72
domestic peace corps approach with high school graduates and college students as mentors for
youth trainees. They organized a Youth Training and Employment (YTEP) program, which
included three phases of training: generic, depth studies, specialized training that encompassed
300 hours of coursework with a budget of $1,168,117.
85
By 1966, the WNA held classes for 650
Watts youths who learned job skills.
86
The OEO also organized a number of job training and
placement programs through the establishment of Skills Centers in South Central, East Los
Angeles, and Pacoima as well as Work Training Centers for those adults who received Aid to
Families with Dependent Children payments.
87
While training programs provided access to skills
for some residents, the approach did little to alter the structure of employment or the economy or
ensure that participants would have jobs waiting for them when they completed their training.
88

Some in the black community, however, believed that job training and placement
programs worked within a system of discrimination that would only allow them to rise so high in
the job ladder. As one resident explained, job training programs meant to “more or less just give
em any kind of job and put ‘em on there and train ‘em, you know, well see and train ‘em for say
maybe a manual labor job or a middle class job, you know, in other words…they are not training
people for say above middle class…they will give you a skill in which you will be making just so
much.”
89
Job training was only the first step to solving the problem of unemployment and youth
discontent and, according to Augustus Hawkins, “unless at the same time we create more jobs

85
Westminster Neighborhood Association, Inc., “Proposal for Westminster Neighborhood Employment and
Training Program,” August 1965, Folder 4, Box 188, Pope Papers; Gene Roberts, “Negroes Still Angry and Jobless
Three Months After Watts Riot,” The New York Times, November 7, 1965, Folder Los Angeles, Box 3, RG 453.
86
Thomas Johnson, “Watts, a District Without Bootstraps: Watts Described As Without Hope,” The New York
Times, 1966.
87
“Los Angeles Metropolitan Multi-Occupational Skill Development Center Watts, East Los Angeles, Pacoima-San
Fernando,” 1966, Folder 1, Box 189, Pope Papers; “Community Work Training Centers for Single Adults,” 1966, in
ibid.
88
John Cope, “The Negro in Watts and ‘Hardcore’ Unemployment and the Need for Training Programs That
Provide Solutions,” December 9, 1966, Folder 2, Box 23, NAACP Papers.
89
Unknown, “Watts Tape” Interview by Paul Bullock, after 1965, Folder 1, Box 2, Paul Bullock Papers (Collection
1303), Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA (Hereafter Bullock Papers).
73
for those who prepare themselves or allow them to learn while they earn, they will end up
disappointed and embittered. Keeping people constructively employed is a lot better and cheaper
than the costs of crime, juvenile delinquency and civil disorders.”
90
Residents also recognized
the War on Poverty and Community Action Programs as an attempt by state and federal officials
for containment and social control. “The money for the Poverty Program in the Watts area has
mainly been spent for containment,” Reverend Thomas Kilgore stated in 1967, “Money spent for
'containment' to keep conditions from erupting, is not establishing a bright future nor giving
some hope for tomorrow and the next year and the years to come.”
91

Antipoverty programs and containment measures, in short, were two sides of the same
coin. The immediate aftermath of Watts demonstrated the limited commitment of local, state,
and federal governments towards addressing African American grievances or addressing
structural inequalities in favor of concerns over proper standards of behavior and marginal job
training approaches that cooled out insurgency without altering local power structures. The
private sector worked alongside government agencies in promoting business investment, job
training, and themes of black capitalism, which reinforced the shifting consensus that urban ills
were not rooted in historical inequalities or discrimination but required admonitions of personal
responsibility and proper behavior.

Improving the Business Climate: The Management Council for Merit Employment and
Interracial Council for Business Opportunity

While many California officials focused on government action through public works and
job creation programs to resolve the conditions that led to the Watts uprising, they also stressed

90
“More Than Good Jobs Urged For Minorities,” Los Angeles Sentinel, February 10, 1966.
91
Thomas Kilgore, Jr., “What’s Been Done in Watts,” Commonwealth Club Radio Program, August 25, 1967,
Commonwealth Club of California Records, Hoover Institution Archives (Hereafter Commonwealth Records).
74
the role of private corporations in enhancing employment, retail investment, and economic
development in poverty areas. Federal observers, for example, suggested the OEO create a Small
Business Development Center and for the Small Business Administration to provide lease
guarantees backed by the federal government “to attract private institutional investment into the
ghettoes, thus enabling Negro merchants to obtain modern, well located, and attractive stores.”
92

John McCone also pushed for efforts to bring the private sector to the table to provide
employment and training for “those negroes who are willing to work.”
93
While McCone
recognized the need for jobs to be available when training was completed, he did not believe that
job creation was a responsibility of government or the private sector. Rather, if black residents
were properly motivated to take advantage of existing opportunities in the labor market,
unemployment would solve itself, a notion reflected by a number of local officials, including
Councilman Tom Bradley, and groups such as the Management Council for Merit Employment
and the Interracial Council for Business Opportunity.
94

The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce convened a Special Rehabilitation Committee
to study the possibilities of training and providing job opportunities for residents of the curfew
area headed by H.C. McClellan, a successful businessman, former president of the National
Association of Manufacturers, and Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the Eisenhower
Administration.
95
McClellan was not generally interested in “public service” and did not think
private corporations should sacrifice profit for public service.
96
Private enterprise was at the heart

92
California Civil Rights Issues Including Watts Riot, 1965, President’s Task Force on the Los Angeles Riots,
Employment Issues, 1965-1967,” 1967 1965, Johnson WHCF
93
Kendall O. Price, Kent Lloyd, Ellsworth E. Johnson, D. Richard McFerson, and William J. Williams, A Critique
of the Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riot (Public Executive Development and Research, 1967).
94
Tom Bradley, “Report to the People,” 1965, Folder 2, Box 1687, Bradley Papers.
95
H. C. McClellan, “Interim Report, Presidents Committee on Rehabilitation Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce,”
September 28, 1965, Volume IX, Reel 3, McCone Transcripts - Microfilm.
96
Paul E. Steiger, “Private Poverty War: A Retired Businessman Prods Firms to Recruit In Los Angeles Ghetto,”
Wall Street Journal, November 1, 1967.
75
of McClellan’s analysis of how to solve poverty, making government intervention in the
economy unnecessary.
97

The Chamber’s Rehabilitation Committee focused on private solutions to unemployment
and worked to improve job opportunities for those residents of the curfew area who were
“employable.” McClellan’s business experience and contacts allowed the Committee to work
with companies and persuade them to hire qualified residents of the curfew area, primarily by
working with the Employment Service set up in Watts after the unrest. The goal was not to make
companies sacrifice their standards but to link qualified employees with satisfactory employers.
“I don't want you to hire anyone because he's black, or because he's form Watts, or because you
sympathize with him,” McClellan explained, “that's discrimination, and I oppose it. I want you to
do it because it's good business.”
98

The Committee on Rehabilitation was tasked with developing job opportunities and to
“exercise its influence toward coordinating the various activities carried on by governmental
agencies with those conducted by committees and privately supported agencies.”
99
They worked
with a committee of 50 black businessmen to advance efforts at cooperation and communication
between the African American community and the Rehabilitation Committee.
100
Over time, the
group expanded its program of job placement into the State Multiservice Centers and with job
training programs, placing 1,207 residents in permanent jobs by November of 1965. The initial
success of the Committee brought interest from Governor Rockefeller in New York and
Governor Romney of Michigan to develop plans for similar projects in their states and led

97
Harold C. McClellan, “Jobs for Watts: How Was It Done?,” March 8, 1968, Commonwealth Records.
98
Paul E. Steiger, “Private Poverty War: A Retired Businessman Prods Firms to Recruit In Los Angeles Ghetto,”
Wall Street Journal, November 1, 1967.
99
H.C. McClellan, “Press Release,” November 19, 1965, Folder 21 – b, Box 10, Governor’s Commission Records.
100
In ibid.
76
McClellan to propose expanding his program to address Mexican American unemployment
problems.
101

The group established a permanent organization called the Management Council for
Merit Employment, Training and Research, which was expanded statewide at the request of
Governor Reagan.
102
Under McClellan’s guidance, the Council felt that those who were qualified
for jobs could be linked with employers who had job openings. “We do not create jobs, we do
not create employment, but we do encourage employers to recognize how available they are,
how many there are that are available for employment within the high unemployment areas
where they have been previously denied,” explained McClellan to a senate hearing on the War
on Poverty in 1967.
103
By March 1966, the Management Council reported that 89 companies had
hired 4,751 individuals and that by late 1966 and early 1967, 201 companies worked with the
council and had placed 17,903 people in jobs.
104
The Management Council’s approach, however,
relied on skimming the cream of the crop out of the community and left many black and
Mexican American residents behind. One employment specialist argued, “You'll never be able to
rehabilitate the area until you start putting jobs back into it, instead of yanking the best people
out and placing them in jobs across town.”
105

One of the first groups that the Committee on Rehabilitation supported was the Interracial
Council for Business Opportunity (ICBO). Formed in June, the ICBO was “an organization
devoted to counseling and assisting small businessmen and free enterprise among the minority

101
“Romney Boards Copter To Get Look at Watts,” The Hartford Courant, September 24, 1967; “Romney Flies
Over Watts,” New York Times, September 24, 1967.
102
Jack Jones, “Private Industry Praised for Job Gains Since Riot: Negroes Qualified but Not Employed Are Few,
Says Management Council Chief,” Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1966, sec. Part One.
103
Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare,
Examination of the War on Poverty: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty,
Part 12, May 12, 1967, 90
th
Cong., 1
st
Session, 3826.
104
“How To Match Men With Jobs,” Los Angeles Sentinel, August 15, 1968.
105
Paul E. Steiger, “Private Poverty War: A Retired Businessman Prods Firms to Recruit In Los Angeles Ghetto,”
Wall Street Journal, November 1, 1967.
77
group in need of help.”
106
ICBO attempted to provide black small businessmen with practical
advice and to advance the business climate in South Central and East Los Angeles through a
combination of private investment and government aid that would provide business services, aid,
and connect local businessmen to capital.
107
A week after the Watts uprising, the ICBO
announced the opening of a Business Assistance Center, hoping that the center would help those
who lost their businesses during the unrest to rebuild.
108
The Center provided advice to
businessmen in the curfew area, coordinated resources, and consultants to help the
reestablishment of businesses.
109
The ICBO worked to integrate black businessmen into the
private enterprise system and cooperated with the State Insurance Commission to survey the
obstacles that businesses faced in receiving insurance.
110

While the Management Council and the ICBO promoted private investment, business
development, and placement as the key to putting people to work, many in the African American
community in particular believed that the only way to truly solve the problem of unemployment
was through strong government intervention and leadership. Augustus Hawkins, a proponent of
government funded full employment programs, challenged the assumption that private industry
could solve the problems of the inner city. Testifying at Congressional hearings on how to
improve the Economic Opportunities Act, Hawkins vilified the Management Council, which was
often credited with the “progress” in South Los Angeles since August 1965. “The Council has

106
H.C. “McClellan, Press Release,” November 19, 1965, Governor’s Commission Records.
107
Interracial Council for Business Opportunity, “ICBO Memo,” 1966, Folder 1, Box 187, Pope Papers; Interracial
Council for Business Opportunity, “ICBO Activity Report,” March 18, 1966, in ibid.; Interracial Council for
Business Opportunity, “ICBO Plan of Action for 1966,” December 28, 1965, in ibid.; “Help for Negro Small
Businessmen,” Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1965, sec. Part II.
108
“ICBO Opens Assistance Center,” Los Angeles Sentinel, August 26, 1965; Tom Bradley, “Report to the People,”
1965, Folder 2, Box 1687, Bradley Papers.
109
Interracial Council for Business Opportunity, “Interracial Business Group to Undertake Crash Program in Riot
Area: Emergency Business Assistance Center Opens Today,” August 23, 1965, Folder Watts, Box 162, American
Civil Liberties Union of Southern California Records (Collection 900), Department of Special Collections, Charles
E. Young Research Library, UCLA (Hereafter ACLU Records).
110
“ICBO Saves Thirty Failing Businesses,” Los Angeles Sentinel, December 30, 1965; “ICBO Slates Rate Survey
In Watts Area,” Los Angeles Sentinel, March 3, 1966.
78
become 'the Great White Father' of the 1965 disorders' aftermath,” Hawkins argued, “I am not
suggesting there is no niche for the good-will and cooperation of private industry as represented
by the McClellan Council, but we should not be lulled by such grandiloquence into slowing
down the drive for even more effective Federal manpower programs, speeding up the war against
poverty, and strengthening our laws against discrimination.”
111
Despite the efforts of the
Management Council and ICBO to facilitate investment, encourage proper behavior, and
promote personal responsibility as the route to employment, few businesses returned and
unemployment remained high.

Community Organizing in the Wake of Watts: The Watts Summer Festival and Black
Congress

On August 25, 1967, Reverend Thomas Kilgore told a group of prominent California
businessmen and civic leaders at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco that “the
development of the new self-image is taking place [in Watts],” leading to efforts by black youth
and community organizations “seeking new and creative ways of helping themselves.”
112
Indeed,
one year after the Watts uprising, members of the black community organized a Watts Summer
Festival held between August 12 and 14, to commemorate the uprising and promote an
alternative vision for the rebuilding of South Central Los Angeles. The impetus for the Festival
came from the Jordan High School Alumni Association and reflected efforts to create a new
community out of the ashes. “The fire had not yet died out and the smoke was still in the air
when some of the people of Watts talked about the tomorrow they would build,” Festival

111
Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare,
Examination of the War on Poverty: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty,
Part 12, May 12, 1967, 90
th
Cong., 1
st
Session, 3758.
112
Thomas Kilgore, Jr., “What’s Been Done in Watts,” Commonwealth Club Radio Program, August 25, 1967,
Commonwealth Records.
79
organizers explained, “They talked about a community which served its residents.”
113
The Watts
Summer Festival organizing committee was made up of Billy Tidwell, Stanley Saunders, and
Samuel L. Anderson and a number of organizations and government agencies including the Los
Angeles County Human Relations Commission and the South Central Area Welfare Council
provided support for the Festival and its “plans, spirit, and purpose.”
114
The Watts Summer
Festival reflected the changing political atmosphere among blacks that reinforced efforts to
reconstruct the community in a wholly new way. “But no matter what the historians finally
record,” the Festival Committee explained, “none can deny the fact that Watts, 1965 sparked the
beginning of a process of critical self-analysis on the part of the black people in this
nation….The nation and the world has watched eagerly thereafter as Watts has moved to
determine where it has been, where it is and where it is going.”
115
The Festival’s expressions of
Black Power and self-determination signified a transformation in the civil rights movement and
sense of community identity.
116

The Jordan High Alumni Association believed that community action was “the only
viable alternative” to violence, viewing the Summer Festival as the first in a series of step toward
“constructive action” within the black community.
117
The main goal of the Festival, according to
Reverend Thomas Kilgore, was the “attempt to develop identity and self worth.”
118
Changing the
image of Watts for both those who lived in it and outside observers was a key aspect of the
Summer Festival. “We hope now to produce the same type of mass involvement we had last

113
“Watts Summer Festival,” Watts Summer Festival Committee, 1967, Sc Ser.-M .W257 2nd (1967), Schomburg
Center.
114
“Notes,” 1966, Folder 7, Box 42, 20th Century Organizational Files, MSS 077, Southern California Library
(Hereafter 20
th
Century Files).
115
Watts Summer Festival Committee, “Watts Summer Festival,” 1967, Schomburg Center, New York.
116
Watts Summer Festival Committee, “Watts Summer Festival,” 1966, California Collection, Los Angeles Public
Library.
117
In Ibid.
118
Thomas Kilgore, Jr., “What’s Been Done in Watts,” August 25, 1967, Commonwealth Records.
80
summer, only one which is orderly, not disorderly. If the community can take pride in its own
festival, and if the nation can focus on Watts' successful project, Watts' image will become an
example for all other ghettos,” explained Stan Sanders of the Festival Committee.
119

While local officials and the state legislature supported the Festival, the main impetus for
the commemoration came from the community.
120
“This massive endeavor is being promoted for
several reasons, the salient one being to involve the total community,” the Festival Committee
argued, “its organizations, groups and residents...in a multi-faceted, constructive and rewarding
effort.” The specific goals of the Festival were to build on the progress that had been made in
Watts, to unite the community, enhance pride, and provide “wholesome and satisfying
entertainment.”
121
The Committee hoped that the Festival would bridge the divide within the
black community that had developed across class lines, bringing the “participation of our
brothers in the Baldwin Hills along with the brother in the housing project.”
122

Community members lauded the success of the Festival and police officials commented
that it was one of the quietest summer weekends in years. Tens of thousands of residents—white
and black—attended the three-day event, which took place on 103
rd
street in Watts, the notorious
Charcoal Alley.
123
Community members and outside observers felt that the Watts Summer
Festival was a public demonstration of pride that would complement efforts to improve social
and economic conditions. “By means of the festival,” one Los Angeles Times writer commented,

119
Gary Libman, “Festival Will Mark First Anniversary of Watts Area Riot,” Los Angeles Times, July 15, 1966, sec.
Part II.
120
Mervyn Dymally, “Assembly Interim Resolution No. 4 Relative to the Watts Summer Festival,” July 28, 1966,
Box 34, Folder 4, Mervyn Dymally Papers, Special Collections and Archives, University Library, California State
University, Los Angeles (Hereafter Dymally Papers).
121
Gladwin Hill, “Watts to Hold Summer Festival On Anniversary of ’65 Rioting: Change Noted in Los Angeles
Negro Community, but Observers Find the Basic Causes of Unrest Still There,” New York Times, August 7, 1966;
Jordan High Alumni Association. “‘Watts Summer Festival’ Committee,” 1966, Folder 4, Box 34, Dymally Papers.
122
“Watts Festival Money Drive Slated Today,” Los Angeles Times August 3, 1966, sec. Part II.
123
Ray Rogers and Jack McCurdy, “10,000 Turn Out for Watts Festival,” Los Angeles Times, August 14, 1966, sec.
A; James Goorich, “Successful Festival Deserves Accolades,” Los Angeles Sentinel, August 18, 1966.
81
“the people of Watts presented themselves to the world with new pride and dignity, with an
awareness of their own ability to generate constructive power, and with a new poise and self-
respect in Negro identity....In turning to the arts, Watts seemed reaching toward something
valuable beyond racism, beyond politics, beyond fear, tedium and despair.”
124
Expressions of
pride in the community developed among young residents. Alvin Whitmore, a 15-year-old Watts
resident who had never taken an art class because his junior high school did not off any arts
courses participated in the second-annual Watts Chalk-In in 1968. Studio Watts Workshop, a
community-based art, organized the Chalk-In and cultural organization began in 1964 by James
Woods. The young Whitmore wanted to express the “glory of Watts” in his 4 foot by 4 foot
square of black asphalt where he drew a mix of colors, towers, and sun. His creation was “the
symbol of Watts,” Alvin stated, “it's just showing that it's great here. That it's all right man.”
125

The first Watts Summer Festival was so successful that it immediately became an annual
event attended by thousands.
126
By the second year of the festival, depicted in Figure 10, the
Committee developed a more comprehensive program and expanded the festival to six full days,
prompting the Los Angeles Sentinel to exclaim, “Watts ‘Comeback’ Amazes Nation.” During its
initial phases, the Festival gained national attention and brought in artists and performers from
across the nation. The outpouring of pride and a “new image” for Watts marked an important
counterpoint to critics that pointed to the lack of change in economic and social conditions two
years after the uprising.
127
The 1968 Festival Catalog reflected the ways organizers linked the

124
“The State: Watts: First Festival by a New Community,” Los Angeles Times, August 14, 1966, sec. G.
125
Lynne Bennett, “Chalk-In: color Watts ‘all right,’” The Christian Science Monitor, July 9, 1968, sec. Family
Features; On origins see: Studio Watts, “Studio Watts Workshop Provides Direction to That Reality,” n.d. Box
IV.2.43, John Hightower Papers, Museum of Modern Art.
126
Betty Pleasant, “Watts Summer Festival Surpasses Expectations,” Los Angeles Sentinel, August 18, 1966.
127
“Watts Summer Festival Aug. 7-13: 67 Watts Festival To Top Last Gala,” Los Angeles Sentinel, August 3, 1967;
“Peaceful Watts To Hold Festival: Program to Mark Progress 2 Years After Riots Full Program Introductions
Available Jobs Provided,” New York Times, August 6, 1967; “Watts ‘Comeback’ Amazes Nation,” Los Angeles
Sentinel, August 17, 1967.
82
week-long cultural event with demands for greater economic, social, and educational
opportunities. Among the eight ways to “improve Watts,” the organizers listed expanded
opportunities for black businesses, voter registration, low cost housing, and better employment
opportunities.
128
The Festival lasted as an annual event through 1975 when drugs, gangs,
violence, and financial problems caused the Festival to be suspended until 1979.
129
While the
Festival led observers, including Mayor Yorty, to laud the efforts of black residents to
reinvigorate the community, the Festival’s turn to Black Power and political organizing by new
groups brought increased police repression and wariness among local officials.

Figure 10. Watts Summer Festival parade, Los Angeles (Calif.). Float Passes--One of many
floats in the Watts Summer Festival parade Sunday passes spectators on 103rd St. at Compton
Avenue, August 14, 1967. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, UCLA, Library Special
Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.

128
Watts Summer Festival Committee, “Watts Summer Festival,” 1968, California Collection, Los Angeles Public
Library.
129
Bruce Tyler, “The Rise and Decline of the Watts Summer Festival, 1965-1985,” American Studies 31, no. 2 (Fall
1990): 61–81.
83

Black residents also worked to rebuild their community and enhance the effectiveness of
War on Poverty and job training programs through efforts aimed at developing pride,
empowerment, and self-determination.
130
“One concrete result of post-riot activity in Watts,”
Paul Bullock reported, “has been a movement to build organizations and institutions which are
led by, and entirely responsible to, the residents of the community itself.”
131
One of the most
important manifestations of such institution building took the form of an umbrella organization
called the Black Congress, which began as a loose coordination of groups and individuals who
had been involved in an anti-police abuse coalition called the Temporary Alliance of Local
Organizations (TALO).
132
TALO, according to the Black Congress’s editorial in its newspaper,
The Black Voice, “was a national frontrunner of the unity concept.” TALO established the
foundation for cooperation and pushed organizations involved in the African American struggle
to recognize the need for a more permanent coalition, a role served by the Black Congress.
“Then like the phoenix from the ashes the Black Congress rose from the death of TALO,” a
Congress spokesperson stated, “a new and refreshed attempt to bridge the gap.”
133

Walter Bremond was indispensable to the Congress and served as chairman during its
roughly two-year existence. Bremond was born in Texas but spent formative years in San
Francisco. His first connection to the civil rights movement was through San Francisco CORE,
Oakland CORE, and the San Francisco NAACP. Bremond moved to Los Angeles after the Watts
unrest and began working at the Social Action Training Center, a federally funded organization,
where he envisioned the development of cooperation not only among African American

130
Ray Rogers, “Black Power Call Is Forging Unity,” Los Angeles Times, September 24, 1967, sec. G.
131
Bullock, 69.
132
Interview of Celes King by Robin D. G. Kelley and John Tyler, 1985-1987, UCLA Oral History Project.
133
Los Angeles Black Congress, “Black Voice,” August 1968, 2012 Folio S3, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
84
organizations but also between African Americans and Mexican Americans.
134
As Bremond
explained, the possibility for unity in Los Angeles came out of the “the new revolutionary mood
[that] was created out of the Watts revolt.”
135

The Black Congress built on a specific mode of operation that brought groups together
while recognizing their ability to maintain autonomy. The Charter of Black Congress outlined
the Congress’s main goals of self-determination and inter-organizational cooperation within the
black community. By developing solidarity across organization, economic, and geographic
divisions, they hoped to advance “the cause of liberation and human progress.” The Charter
demonstrated the desire of the Congress to combine the goals of solidarity and organizational
autonomy, a seeming contradiction. The common goal of achieving better living conditions for
African Americans, the Congress hoped, would hold the diverse interests together. The
Congress’s goals, however, were broader than the self-interest of African American
organizations. They hoped “to eliminate all forms of oppression and racism in our
community.”
136
The Congress accepted any organization that worked to improve the conditions
for blacks in Los Angeles under the concept of Operational Unity.
The Black Congress developed a broad agenda for change that touched on all elements of
racism and oppression in the African American community. They believed that single-issue
organizations were limited in their staying power.
137
The Congress, for example, was involved in
the anti-Vietnam War movement and participated in a teach-in at UCLA in October 1967. They
also worked with the Peace Action Council to organize events and parades against the war. The
anti-war position of the Black Congress, as Scot Brown has suggested, was a key means for

134
Walt Bremond letter to Mervyn Dymally, July 18, 1967, Folder 5, Box 106, Dymally Papers.
135
Walter Bremond Interview by Robert Wright, November 18, 1968, Ralph J. Bunche Oral History Collection,
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.
136
The Black Congress, “Charter of the Black Congress,” 1968, Folder 26, Box 83, NAACP Papers.
137
Walter Bremond Interview by Robert Wright, November 18, 1968, Ralph J. Bunche Oral History Collection,
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.
85
maintaining unity.
138
Member of the Congress also worked in areas related to welfare rights and
healthcare, political campaigns, and community programs for black youth.
139

Central to the Black Congress’s strategy was its multi-ethnic approach.
140
The Black
Congress worked with Mexican American groups such as the Accion de Bronze Collectiva
(ABC), an umbrella organization, to promote cooperation between the communities. In one of
their efforts, they proposed a joint effort called the Afro-Mex Proposal to the Interreligious
Foundation for Community Organizations (IFCO). They intended to not only strengthen the
Black Congress’ programs but also to help the Mexican American community develop a similar
approach to community unity through a multi-service center geared towards leadership training
and community development.
141
The IFCO saw Los Angeles as a key place to advance ethnic
and racial cooperation. “The nature of American society has traditionally not only kept ethnic
and cultural minorities from enjoying autonomy,” IFCO stated, “but has also created wide areas
of distrust and competition among minority groups themselves. The task of bridging the gap
between minority groups has to begin from the premise of that existing gap.”
142

The greatest demonstration of the Congress’s effectiveness in the community occurred
after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968. The Black Congress, along
with other organizations such as US, the Black Panthers, and the Black Student Union worked to

138
“Teach-in on Vietnam War Slated at UCLA: Four Sessions Planned Wednesday and Thursday in Campus
Student Union,” Los Angeles Times, October 8, 1967, sec. The West Side; Scot Brown,. Fighting for US: Maulana
Karenga, the US Organization, and Black Cultural Nationalism (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 85.
139
“MEDI-CAL Program Battle Continues,” Los Angeles Sentinel, December 7, 1967; Walt Bremond letter to
Friends, July 1968, Folder 5, Box 106, Dymally Papers; Walt Bremond letter to Mervyn Dymally, April 22, 1968,
Box 106, Folder 5, Dymally Papers; “Black Congress Gets Counselors,” Los Angeles Sentinel, August 29, 1968.
140
Los Angeles Black Congress, “Request for Funds,” 1969, Folder 24, Box 30, Interreligious Foundation for
Community Organization Records, Sc MG 227, Manuscripts and Archives, Schomburg Center, New York
(Hereafter IFCO Records).
141
Los Angeles Black Congress, “Afro-Mex Proposal,” 1968, Folder 24, Box 30, IFCO Records.
142
In Ibid.
86
cool down the community after King’s assassination.
143
Chief of Police Tom Reddin, who
replaced Parker following his death in 1966, credited the Congress’s Operational Unity
Committee with keeping violence in the city to a minimum.
144
Despite Reddin’s praise, the
Congress continued to complain about policing, particularly in the aftermath of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, over-enforcement of traffic laws, and the unfair issuance of
citations. There had been, the Congress believed, a general lack of progress in better community
relations on the part of Reddin's department.
145

One month after King’s assassination, the Black Congress held a meeting to discuss their
position, political development, and action program. On May 4, 1968, the Black Congress held a
meeting at the Second Baptist Church in Los Angeles to commemorate and extend the struggle
of Martin Luther King, Jr. in order to “rededicate ourselves to the struggle of eradicating racism
in America.”
146
The meeting also outlined the diverse program of the Black Congress. Margaret
Wright, for example, outlined the major areas of concern moving forward. Foremost was the
uneven nature of policing and criminal justice. Police roustings and arrests, she argued, were
based on unreasonable criteria such as hairstyle, clothing, and mannerisms that were foreign to
the policeman, leading to more arrests in the black community. She also called for desegregated
housing, the enforcement of existing housing codes, educational reforms, and an end to the war
in Vietnam.
147

143
Byron Calame, “Black Enigma: A West Coast Militant Talks Tough but Helps Avert Racial Trouble; Ron
Karenga of Los Angeles Seen Using Fear of Violence To Build Political Power,” Wall Street Journal, July 26, 1968;
See also Protestant Community Services of the Los Angeles Council of Churches, “Crisis Report,” April 26, 1969,
Folder 4, Box 7, James Strong Papers, Southern California Library (Hereafter Strong Papers).
144
Dial Torgerson, “L.A. Negro Leaders Call for Tribute to Dr. King: Service Will Be Held Today at the Coliseum;
One-Day All Black Strike Being Sought,” Los Angeles Times, April 7, 1968, sec. A; “Negro Group Praised for
Keeping City Calm,” Los Angeles Times, April 11, 1968, sec. Part III.
145
“Black Congress Beefs to Chief,” Los Angeles Sentinel, April 18, 1968; IFCO, “IFCO Evaluation: The Los
Angeles Black Congress - Structure, Program and Projection, 1969-70,” November 20, 1968, Folder 25, Box 30,
IFCO Records.
146
KPFK, “Black Congress Aircheck,” May 4, 1968, BB4523a, Pacifica Radio Archives.
147
In ibid.
87
A key element of the Black Congress, and one that was especially threatening to the
LAPD, was the desire to harness community energy and provide training in community
organization to individuals and groups from the grass roots.
148
The Congress applied for funds to
help form and operate a training institute for black community organizers, “who would become a
cadre of professional and highly skilled persons across the country working in coordination.
Stress is put on development of black identity and ideology as the basis of the cultural value
system which will motivate social change.” They proposed to focus on a number of areas
including establishing ethnic identity, self-determination, exercising power for the community,
working on long term goals, and formation of concrete examples of successful organizing. The
Congress actively helped to train organizers through the Black Action Training Program in six
states across the country including Ohio, Kentucky, Rhode Island, Iowa, and California.
149
The
efforts of the Congress and the Black Action Training Program to promote community
organizing based on Black Power led to increased surveillance and repression from law
enforcement agencies.
Internal conflicts, exacerbated by police harassment as shown in Chapter 3, led to the
demise of the Black Congress in 1969. The growth of Black Power organizations in the wake of
Watts had provided new avenues for addressing grievances but also led to increased racial
polarization between a black community intent on achieving self-determination and community
control, and a white population that saw militant calls for Black Power as threatening. The
politicization of the black community, which was facilitated by government resources and
programs, was undermined by the waning support for programs to address black grievances and

148
Los Angeles Black Congress, “IFCO Proposal #203,” 1968, Folder 24, Box 30, IFCO Records.
149
Los Angeles Black Congress, “Progress Report of the Black Congress,” 1968, Folder 25, Box 30, IFCO Records;
Walt Bremond letter to Walker, May 21, 1968, Folder 25, Box 30, in ibid.; Walt Bremond letter to Gothard, May 24,
1968, in ibid.
88
the expansion of funding for the police and riot control, and the criminalization of movements
for racial justice.

Public-Private Cooperation: The Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition

Black empowerment, public action, and private enterprise set the stage for efforts at
cooperation, coordination, and communication in America’s cities during the late 1960s. The
primary example was the National Urban Coalition, which formed in 1967 on the heels of a third
summer in which numerous cities exploded in violence most notably in Detroit and Newark. It
was a coalition of groups determined to address the problems that led to urban violence through a
pluralist liberal vision of equal opportunity paired with reverence for law and order.
150
“The
widespread civil disorders in our cities can only be described as catastrophic,” the Coalition
stated, “We must all of us - individually and collectively - work to turn law and principle into
reality by bringing equality of opportunity to every one of our citizens. Short of this, cities of this
nation face further disasters.”
151
They also called for the creation of local coalitions to address
the problems of crime, unemployment, and poverty devastating America’s inner cities, otherwise
known as the urban crisis. Following the attention to community involvement, local coalitions
were required to have members of the low-income community represented on their steering
committees.
152

Following the national model, councilman Bradley introduced a resolution in October
1967 calling on the mayor to organize a Los Angeles Urban Coalition and invited local
leadership of business, labor, religious and civil rights to work together to prevent urban violence

150
The Urban Coalition, “Statement of Principles, Goals, and Commitments Emergency Convocation: The Urban
Coalition,” 1968, Folder 5, Box 1386, Bradley Papers.
151
Tom Bradley, “Release,” September 19, 1967, Folder 6, Box 1386, Bradley Papers.
152
The Urban Coalition, “Guidelines: Forming Urban Coalitions Nationwide,” nd., Folder 5, Box 1386, Bradley
Papers.
89
and disorder by addressing the conditions that led to an “escalation in the number and
seriousness of civil disorders.”
153
Los Angeles, Bradley stated, “face[d] a domestic crisis and that
the crisis must be handled by a cooperative approach of all groups which constitute the total
community.”
154
Bradley’s motion and understanding of solutions to urban violence and disorder,
however, promoted cooperation and collaboration framed around equal opportunity for all Los
Angeles residents but did little to redistribute power or decision-making in any fundamental way.
Warring on poverty through public-private cooperation was, still, a War on Crime, riots, and
disorder.
The Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition (GLAUC) was the epitome of a broad-based
public-private-community relationship aimed at cooling out insurgency through the combination
of law and order and inclusiveness. Funded by a United Way grant, the GLAUC brought
together government, business, labor, religious, and civil rights organizations to “do something
about the crisis in our urban centers.”
155
The Coalition saw its role as one of coordination,
motivation, and communication in order to identify and address urban problems based on a
philosophy of public-private partnership. Although the Coalition recognized the importance of
the public sector, they believed that “the decisive judgment upon the Urban Coalition may well
be made upon its ability to deliver the active participation of the private sector in the struggle to
renew our cities.”
156
Dr. Lee DuBridge of Cal Tech served as the first director of the Coalition
and outlined the role of the GLAUC to be a “mechanism of leadership” to mobilize community

153
Tom Bradley, “Resolution,” September 19, 1967, Folder 5, Box 1386, Bradley Papers; The Urban Coalition.
“Guidelines: Forming Urban Coalitions Nationwide,” nd., in ibid.
154
Tom Bradley, “Report to the People - 130,” October 19, 1967, Folder 6, Box 1386, Bradley Papers.
155
Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition, “Statement of Principles,” 1967, Folder 5, Box 28, Julian Nava Papers,
Special Collections and Archives, University Library, Californai State University, Los Angeles (Hereafter Nava
Papers); Jack Jones, “Urban Coalition Given Funds by United Way: $75,000 Grant Told as Two Groups Join to
Combat Wide Range of City Problems,” Los Angeles Times, November 22, 1968, sec. Part II; Greater Los Angeles
Urban Coalition, “Meeting Minutes,” November 10, 1968, Folder 6 Box 28, Nava Papers.
156
Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition, “Urban Coalition Information,” May 12, 1970, Folder 4, Box 28, Nava
Papers.
90
resources to address urban problems that led to tension, potential unrest, and inequality, a
reflection of Nixon’s claim that the solution to America’s problems was to “reach beyond
government.”
157
The GLAUC had two main goals in confronting the urban crisis. First, they focused on
problems affecting youth. Second, they called for political organizing and structure in minority
communities based on self-help.
158
The GLAUC oriented its program around moral and
attitudinal changes rather than structural changes through an emphasis on establishing
communication between mainstream officials and leaders and the residents in black and Mexican
American neighborhoods. By bringing African American and Mexican American residents into
the mainstream, the GLAUC provided a means of riot control by attempting to incorporate
minority communities into the power structure rather than altering the nature of that structure in
the first place.
159

Creating a coalition that included new community organizations with established public
and private officials proved difficult. Some viewed the move toward self-determination,
however, as something that the mainstream had to learn to accept. “The initial response to Dr.
King's death in Los Angeles,” Bradley believed, “seems to be a unifying force in the Negro
community...with militants joining moderates and each subordinating personal or group
philosophies to the overriding issue of unity,” Bradley stated, “I believe that in the long run, this
type of unity in the black community will cause similar unity of the black and white
communities. It is going to be a very hard lesson for the traditional liberal elements. But it is

157
“The New Urban Coalition,” Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1968, sec. Part II; Greater Los Angeles Urban
Coalition. “Action,” September 17, 1968, Folder 6, Box 28, Nava Papers.
158
In ibid.
159
“The New Urban Coalition,” Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1968, sec. Part II; Greater Los Angeles Urban
Coalition, “Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition Steering Committee,” 1967, Folder 5, Box 1386, Bradley Papers;
Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition, “Los Angeles Urban Coalition Steering Committee - Incomplete,” February
13, 1968, in ibid.
91
possible for them to understand the new thrust towards self-determination in the black
community.” Bradley hoped that the GLAUC would be able to provide a quick response to
needed changes in areas of jobs, housing, education, law and justice.
160

One of the Coalition’s most important—and elusive—goals was to improve attitudes by
working with different segments of the community. In a proposal to the Ford Foundation, the
Coalition stated that they intended to go “where they can experience first-hand the environment
which has created so much tension in our cities.”
161
The GLAUC faced significant challenges
involving community members in the organization and in decision-making procedures. “It's a
hell of a temptation to do things FOR the minority communities instead of WITH them,” stated
William A. Smith, director of GLAUC. Smith, who worked on the Kerner Commission, changed
his view about working with and involving the community. “This is a tough one. But if you don't
involve the community, you end up with programs for instead of with. We really have to figure
out which community representatives will be the most effective.”
162
Although black and
Mexican American representatives pushed for control of GLAUC programs, the business
interests in the Coalition retained power, “reticent” to share control of decision making with
community organizations.
163

The African American community, while involved with the Urban Coalition, understood
the GLAUC within a framework of Black Power. “Urban Coalition,” Black Congress Chairman
Walter Bremond stated, “we feel too, is a way to programmatically influence the movement and
the movement's direction. We feel, however, if the Urban Coalition is going to be viable, they've
got to be two parallel institutions. The black community has got to develop its own agenda, its

160
“Tom Bradley L.A. Councilman, 10th District,” Los Angeles Sentinel, April 11, 1968, sec. Classified.
161
Jack Jones, “Problem for Urban Coalition: How to Involve Minority Groups,” Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1968,
sec. C.
162
Jack Jones, “Urban Group Makes Gains, Director Says,” Los Angeles Times, December 2, 1968, sec. Part 1-A.
163
In ibid.
92
own set of priorities, whether it's related to housing, transportation, employment or any issue
related to the development of the colony.”
164
Community groups demanded that the GLAUC
place a black man as Assistant Director and that policy making involve the entire community in
order to facilitate a redistribution of power and decision-making.
165

The GLAUC’s Black Caucus criticized the organization in March 1970 for being a “tool
of the establishment to maintain the status quo.” The Black Caucus argued that the Coalition had
made little progress in including blacks in the decision making process, making a true coalition
impossible. They were especially concerned with the United Way’s fund allocation which they
believed reflected a “historic pattern favoring the funding of white, middle-class organizations
and activities…contrasted with a callous insensitivity to proposals and programs emanating from
the black and brown communities.” The Black Caucus hoped for a reorganization of the
Coalition in order to broaden funding to a variety of groups outside of the United Way, a demand
that would alter the relations of power in the coalition.
166
The criticism of the GLAUC
demonstrated the ways that communities of color recognized the efforts of the Coalition to do
little to create any real devolution of power in the city. When black and Mexican American
participation increased, “important business leaders had tended to ‘back away from the
Coalition.’”
167
The GLAUC, while a novel approach to bring a variety of groups together to
address urban problems, reflected the unwillingness of established white leadership to give up

164
Walter Bremond interview by Robert Wright, November 18, 1968, Ralph J. Bunche Oral History Collection,
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.
165
Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition, “Meeting Minutes,” November 10, 1968, Folder 6, Box 28, Nava Papers;
Los Angeles Black Congress, “Release,” 1968, Folder 25, Box 30, IFCO Records.
166
Jack Jones, “Blacks Assail Urban Coalition: Urban Coalition Called Tool of Establishment,” Los Angeles Times,
March 11, 1970, sec. Part One; Jack Jones, “Problem for Urban Coalition: How to Involve Minority Groups,” Los
Angeles Times, July 21, 1968, sec. C; Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition. “Minutes of Meeting,” May 12, 1970,
Folder 4, Box 28, Nava Papers.
167
Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition, “The Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition, Inc. Minutes of Meeting of
Board of Directors,” March 9, 1971, Folder 6, Box 38, Bert N. Corona Papers, M0248, Dept. of Special Collections,
Stanford University Libraries, (Hereafter Corona Papers).
93
decision-making power and control of resources. Such efforts, which Michael Katz calls mimetic
reform, not only failed to create long-lasting solutions but also contributed to the disillusionment
among residents of color with local officials.
While the initial impetus for the GLAUC was to create a public-private partnership that
could serve to expand opportunities in the inner city, changes in leadership reflected a growing
emphasis on individual responsibility and self help. The new Chairman, Martin Stone,
emphasized the orientation of the GLAUC as an instigator for individual responsibility in a 1969
speech. “I’m convinced,” Stone stated, “that the day we have a national sense of individual
responsibility we’ll solve the problems of the cities.” Stone worked to develop model
employment programs in two Los Angeles high schools and to increase a revolving credit line
for minority contractors in the South Central area. Such actions, while important, contributed to
the reorientation of the understanding of urban problems from discrimination and segregation to
behavior and shifted the burden of solving such problems away from government and towards
the private sector and individuals.
168

Through the mid-1970s, the GLAUC continued to address myriad urban problems. They
worked with residents, community organizations, business and city officials on issues relating to
police-community relations, alternative punishments than jail and bail for misdemeanor offenses,
developed a Law and Justice Task Force, programs of releasing individuals on own recognizance
(OR), worked on job training in relation to the affirmative action program in the construction
industry called the Los Angeles Plan, organized studies relating to juvenile delinquency and drug
abuse, supported efforts to increase funding for city schools, and hoped to address the persistent

168
Jack Jones, “Unit Seen As Catalyst To Action: Urban Coalition Goals Outlined,” Los Angeles Times, April 28,
1969, sec. Part II.
94
segregation in the housing market.
169
While the GLAUC remained active through the early
1970s, the declining commitment of local officials to social and economic programs and
infighting contributed to its incorporation into the United Way as an advisory committee by the
mid-1970s.
170

The Declining Sense of Crisis and the Rise of Personal Responsibility

One year after the uprising, the committee tasked with implementing the McCone
Commission reported to Governor Brown on the status of their work. The Commission—as well
as the federal government—was not satisfied with the accomplishments but believed that
significant progress had been made on a number of recommendations. Education programs
received an influx of local and federal funds during 1966 and voters passed a $189 million bond
fund for school construction. Federal funding from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
supplemented local funds but much work needed to be done in order to reduce class sizes,
improve literacy in inner city schools, and to address the particular needs of Mexican American
schools, which had seen little or no improvement. Despite the development of pre-school
programs such as Head Start, not enough kids attended and double sessions remained a fact of
life for many inner city students.
171
Large sums of money had also been appropriated to build a
hospital to serve South Central residents and the city organized a City Human Relations
Commission, which paralleled the work of the County Human Relations Commission.

169
Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition, “Meeting Minutes,” January 14, 1969, Folder 6, Box 28, Nava Papers;
Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition, “Meeting Minutes,” September 14, 1971, Folder 5, Box 28, Nava Papers;
Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition, “Report on Recent Activities,” December 1971, Folder 5, Box 28, Nava
Papers; Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition, “Status Report on Housing Problems and Alternative Solutions,”
February 1972, Folder 5, Box 28, Nava Papers.
170
Jack Jones, “Urban Coalition in L. A. Alive but Feeling Its Way,” Los Angeles Times, April 24, 1972, sec. Part II.
171
Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riot, “Staff Report of Actions Taken to Implement the
Recommendations in the Commission’s Report,” August 17, 1966, Folder 28, Box 23, NAACP Papers; “California
Civil Rights Issues Including Watts Riot, 1965, President’s Task Force on the Los Angeles Riots, Employment
Issues, 1965-1967,” 1967-1965, 399, Johnson WHCF.
95
By 1967 Ronald Reagan had won the governorship of California, shifting the focus of the
Task Force from an emphasis on public-based and government programs towards private
enterprise projects.
172
Reagan also pledged to reduce government aid and the closing of service
centers, many of which were set up in racially tense areas after the Watts uprising.
173
The second
year staff report reinforced an emphasis on personal responsibility and proper behavior as the
ultimate solution to solving inner city problems. “We are impressed by the expression of
initiative and pride in community efforts displayed in the past year by residents of the Watts
community. The ultimate success of any program depends upon the motivation of
participants.”
174
John McCone praised Reagan’s efforts to promote proper behavior and personal
responsibility among black youth as a source of riot prevention, ultimately serving as a form of
social control. “We find that these young men and women must be given some pre-training
indoctrination in deportment, in their conduct, and how to conduct themselves, and in their dress
and all of that, because many of them have not had any advantages given in that direction,”
McCone reported in federal hearings on anti-riot legislation. “Now,” McCone continued, “this
does not answer the whole problem, but it relieves the pressure.” The solution to unemployment
and urban inequality that contributed to riots, then, was not an infusion of money or antipoverty
programs aimed at addressing discrimination or local power structures; it would come through
the efforts of the community to take responsibility for their failures and poor behavior.
175

172
Office of the Governor, “Statement by Governor Reagan on the McCone Commission’s Report of Actions to
Implement the Recommendations in the Commission’s Report,” August 21, 1967, Folder Legal Affairs - Law +
Order - R. Reagan Statements (1 of 3), Box GO 190, Governor’s Office Files, Reagan Governor’s Papers.
173
Paul Houston, “Cries of Despair Greet State Plan to End Service Centers,” Los Angeles Times, January 13, 1967,
sec. Part One; Lawrence Davies, “Reagan Pledges Cuts In Spending: In Inaugural Address, He Scores ‘Permanent
Doles,’” New York Times, January 6, 1967.
174
“Los Angeles Riots Update Report Submission to National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders,” August 7,
1967, Kerner Records.
175
Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Antiriot Bill - 1967: Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, Part 2,
90
th
Cong., 1
st
Sess., 653.
96
Personal responsibility complemented more punitive efforts. While the Second Year
Report recognized that progress had been slow, it was confident that the beefing up of law
enforcement provided the ultimate safety valve to future violence. “Los Angeles has not had a
riot or major disturbance this summer,” the Report stated, “Tensions are still high and rumors of
trouble and violence and impending outbreaks of destruction are daily occurrences, but local law
enforcement leaders appear to be prepared with immediate and powerful forces to suppress and
quell any eruption of violence.”
176
Reagan, following his push for personal responsibility,
disbanded the McCone Commission from further study of the problems after the second year
report, suggesting an end to efforts to address continued problems in inner city communities.
177

Yet, as the McCone Commission implementation team reported, the War on Poverty
brought much-needed funds for social and economic programs into the city. In 1967, for
example, the Los Angeles area received nearly $63 million in federal funding. In addition, both
the city and county looked to provide resources for a variety of programs in areas susceptible to
violent uprising. The city distributed booklets that they hoped would serve as a guide of the
various governmental services and programs provided for residents of Watts and South
Central.
178
The Chief Administrative Officer of Los Angeles County reported that local
governments had committed a total of $65,048,566 between 1965 and 1968 to addressing the
conditions that led to the unrest, including $18,247,433 from the County, $7,859,093 from the
City, and the Board of Education spent $37,899,240 to build five new schools. Looking forward,

176
Los Angeles Riots Update Report Submission to National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders,” August 7,
1967, Kerner Records.
177
Office of the Governor, “Statement by Governor Reagan on the McCone Commission’s Report of Actions to
Implement the Recommendations in the Commission’s Report,” August 21, 1967, Folder Legal Affairs - Law +
Order - R. Reagan Statements (1 of 3), Box GO 190, Governor’s Office Files, Reagan Governor’s Papers.
178
John S. Gibson, Jr., “Public Officials, Agencies and Community Groups Serving the Watts and South Los
Angeles Area,” nd., 6.8.34., Kenneth Hahn Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino (Hereafter Hahn
Collection).
97
the City and County had projects worth $132,799,205 in various stages of planning or
construction, such as the Southeast General Hospital.
179

By 1970, however, there was a substantial reduction in aid and shift in priorities within
social programs. The problem, according to the Nixon administration was the coordination of
federal funds and the structure of an economy that passed over South Central and East Los
Angeles, not the level of federal support. Thirty percent of residents continued to earn less than
$3,000 a year and the unemployment rate in South Central was more than 3 times the national
average.
180
Job training and placement programs could do little in the face of budget limitations
and employment discrimination. When African American and Mexican Americans did find jobs,
they continued to be relegated to low wages jobs in the burgeoning service sector.
181

The combination of budget restraints, a shifting economy, and a failed commitment to
establish long-lasting reform, black leaders believed, led to the failure to improve unemployment
and a sense that conditions had worsened for black and Mexican Americans five years after the
uprising. Government, business, industry, and labor, John Mack of the Los Angeles Urban
League stated, lacked a genuine commitment to address unemployment. “Too [sic] many of
these same people who were temporarily concerned when confronted with the anger and
frustration expressed in 1965,” Mack stated in a 1971 speech to the National Urban Coalition,
“appear to have conveniently developed a case of amnesia and are now back to business as

179
L.S. Hollinger letter to Honorable Board of Supervisors, “Report on Public Works Since August 11, 1965 By
Governmental Agencies in the Watts Riot Curfew Area,” April 11, 1968, 6.6.1.9, Hahn Collection.
180
Robert A. Podesta letter to Daniel P. Moynihan, “A Program Manager for Watts: The Management of Federal
Programs in Problem Areas of High Priority,” January 8, 1970, White House Central Files, Subject Files, HU 3-1,
Box 32, Folder Civil Disturbances - Riots: Local Governments/L-Z, Richard M. Nixon Library.
181
Janet L Abu-Lughod, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: America’s Global Cities (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1999); Lawrence D. Bobo et al., Prismatic Metropolis: Inequality in Los Angeles (Russell Sage
Foundation Publications, 2000).
98
usual.” When economic conditions deteriorated due to decline in aerospace employment and
contracts, reducing budgets, social and employment programs were often the first to go.
182

Spatial changes in the metropolitan Los Angeles economy made access to jobs
increasingly difficult for black and Mexican American residents. As an “Employment by Place
of Work Study” found, between 1958 and 1968 the largest employment gains occurred in the San
Fernando Valley, South-Bay Long Beach, and the San Gabriel Valley, increasing 58.5, 62.9, and
55.3 percent, respectively. Yet, all three areas of large job growth were far removed from areas
of high unemployment and poverty in minority neighborhoods.
183
At the same time, structural
changes in the economy led to increased inflation, reduced city budgets through tax flight as
residents moved to suburbs, high interest rates for loans and mortgages, and poor housing that
contributed to unemployment, concentrated poverty, and reduced services.
184

Figure 11. Charcoal Alley in Watts, Los Angeles (Calif.) On 'Charcoal Alley'--Wearing their hair
"natural" style, SLANT remembers Karl Key-Hekima, left, and Tommy Jacquette view vacant

182
John W. Mack, “Testimony to Be Presented Before the National Urban Coalition Commission on the Cities,”
April 13, 1971, Folder 7, Box 4, Saul Halpert Papers, Southern California Library (hereafter Halpert Papers).
183
Wilbur McCann, Employment by Place of Work Study (Los Angeles: McCann, 1969).
184
House Subcommittee on Domestic Finance, Committee on Banking and Currency, Grassroots Hearings on
Economic Problems, 91
st
Cong., 1
st
Sess., Hearing in Los Angeles, December 1 and 2, 1969, 125–510.
99
area on Watts' "Charcoal Alley" where buildings stood before the 1965 riots. Jacquette, who is
23, says: "What's happening is nothing. No change at all." July 16, 1967. Los Angeles Times
Photographic Archive, UCLA, Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.

The Los Angeles Sentinel reported in 1971 that, all told, more than $225 million filtered
through Los Angeles as a direct result of the “riot.” Local residents recognized that the Watts
uprising was a catalyst for a number of changes in the community.
185
“Course you got a lot of
stuff now Watts didn’t have before the revolt,” one Watts residents explained, “like you got the
SC Medical Center. You got the Employment Offices – and a whole bunch of other stuff.” The
uprising forced a crucial change as a “previously relatively unstructured community developed a
large number of organizations.”
186
At the same time, residents believed that such programs
represented a false start on the road to solving urban inequality as shown in Figure 11. Demands
for more job training programs, skills centers, and employment opportunities fell on deaf ears,
leading many in the black community to lament the lack of change in social and economic
conditions and to lose faith that the programs and organizations developed after Watts would
come through on the promise to prevent further urban decline and racial inequality, shifting the
burden of urban policy to the private sector, community organizations, and policing.
187
The turn
away from social and economic funding paralleled the emphasis on personal responsibility and
attacks on permissiveness by Governor Reagan that reinforced enhanced spending and resources
for law enforcement, riot control, and a War on Crime.

Conclusion

185
Ernie Sprinkles, “Watts Riot in Review: What Good Did It Do,” Los Angeles Sentinel, May 20, 1971.
186
Economic Development Administration. An Analysis of Surveys, Plans and Studies Undertaken in South Central
Los Angeles, California (The Associates, 1970).
187
Sedgie Collins interview by Paul Bullock, March 1969, Folder 8, Box 2, Bullock Papers; “Watts Today,” Life,
July 15, 1966, Folder 3, Box 12, Quevedo Papers; Don Wheeldin, “Watts - Basically No Change,” People’s World,
August 5, 1967, Folder 3, Box 12, Quevedo Papers.
100
In the years after the 1965 uprising, observers from all perspectives recognized the lack
of changes in Watts. Federally funded poverty programs expanded but were too poorly funded to
change the unemployment or poverty situation. The election Ronald Reagan as Governor of
California in 1966 and Nixon in 1968 produced a political situation that placed greater emphasis
on personal responsibility, the concept of New Federalism, and a law and order approach to inner
city problems. The outburst of urban uprisings in cities across the country in 1967 and 1968 fed
fears of lawlessness and support for law and order approaches promoted by Reagan and Nixon.
As funding to War on Poverty programs dwindled, however, the emphasis on resources for
enhanced policing and crime control increased. The turn away from government funding for
social programs, then, was due in part to a loss of a sense of acute crisis, economic changes that
limited the efficacy of poverty programs, and increasingly coercive means of addressing the
urban problems that rested on views of the inner city as foreign territory.
Many Los Angeles politicians supported efforts at reconstruction rather than retribution.
As Democratic congressman Chet Holifield stated after the issuance of the Kerner Commission
report in 1968, law and order had to be maintained but “to solve our domestic crisis of urban
disorder by repression, rather than reconstruction, would be contrary to the American way.”
Holifield warned that urban problems and racial inequality could not be solved through the
criminal justice system alone. Riots and crime represented a significant cost that could be
alleviated through long range approaches to full employment, education, and health services in
American cities. “If we could, on some sort of public balance sheet, add up the costs of present
social disorders, we could see more plainly the economies of crime prevention, full employment,
decent housing, excellent schools, clean and safe streets, and efficient transportation.”
188
By

188
Chet Holifield, “Riots, Crime and Civil Responsibilities,” 1968, Folder Riots, Crime and Civil Responsibilities -
Whittier Kiwanis Club 4/16/68 and Montebello Rotary 4/17/68, Box 82, Chester Earl Holifield Papers, Collection
101
1970, however, Holifield was a national leader in Nixon’s War on Crime and announced
hearings on a drug and narcotics control plan stating “I will continue my efforts to see that we
meet what I consider one of the first responsibilities of a democracy: the preservation of
order.”
189
Such political choices set the urban agenda for the 1970s, with dire effects. As John
Mack explained in 1971, the “silent majority” made the error of thinking that the “absence of
major uprising and disturbances in our cities and college campuses means an end to our
problems; they see strict law enforcement as the answer.”
190
Such law and order trends, however,
did not originate in 1970 but developed alongside the social and economic programs established
in response to the uprisings of the 1960s.

no. 0220, Regional History Collection, Special Collections, Information Services Division, University of Southern
California (Hereafter Holifield Papers).
189
Chet Holifield, “Holifield Active in War on Crime,” 1970, Folder 3/4/68: Press Release: Holifield Active in War
on Crime Box 82, Holifield Papers; Chet Holifield, “Holifield Announces Law Enforcement Grants,” December 30,
1969, Folder Riots, Crime and Civil Responsibilities - Whittier Kiwanis Club 4/16/68 and Montebello Rotary
4/17/68 Box 82, Holifield Papers.
190
John W. Mack, “Testimony to Be Presented Before the National Urban Coalition Commission on the Cities,”
April 13, 1971, Folder 7, Box 4, Halpert Papers.
102
Chapter 2: Reasserting Authority in the Streets: The Politics of Law and Order and the
Militarization of the Police

For whatever this tragedy was -- race riot, social revolution, or protest -- it was
the biggest and wildest crime spree in the history of our country.
-Evelle Younger
1

What is to be our answer? Is it to be an authoritarian law and order society based
on fear and force, or an enriched and expanded democracy with more freedom
and justice than ever before? If we fail to achieve the latter our contribution to a
changing world will be meaningless, and we will have failed not only ourselves,
but all mankind.
-Nathan Cohen, The Los Angeles Riot Study
2

Although a number of Lyndon Johnson’s advisors recommended an increase in social and
economic spending to prevent future urban violence after the Watts uprising, others believed that
aid programs would do little to control discontent and crime in America’s inner cities. Rather,
the use of force and riot control training were necessary to complement, and even counteract the
raised expectations produced by War on Poverty programs. As Fred Panzer, a Johnson aide
explained, the “economic and social remedies will not stop riots in and of themselves. Indeed
they will have the opposite short-range effect. Thus the first priority must go to anti-riot
prevention and control efforts of local police and state guard units.”
3
Johnson, along with local
officials who were increasingly concerned with rising violent crime rates and perceptions of
urban space as Vietnam-like war zones in need of monitoring, followed such advice by greatly
expanding support for law enforcement and coercive social control mechanisms to contain the
urban unrest of the late 1960s.

1
Evelle J. Younger, “Report by Evelle J. Younger to the Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots,”
October 28, 1965. 6.6.1.5 (Box 317, Folder 9), Collection of Kenneth Hahn, The Huntington Library, San Marino,
California, (Hereafter Hahn Collection).
2
Nathan Edward Cohen, The Los Angeles Riots: A Socio-Psychological Study (Praeger, 1970), 724.
3
“California Civil Rights Issues Including Watts Riot, 1965, President’s Task Force on the Los Angeles Riots,
Employment Issues, 1965-1967,” 478, Civil Rights during the Johnson Administration, 1963-1969, Part I: The
White House Central Files, ProQuest History Vault, (Hereafter Johnson WHCF).
103
For local political and law enforcement officials the Watts uprising represented a
breakdown of order and respect for authority, requiring a swift and forceful reassertion of state
control. Indeed, Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) leadership believed that problems such
as, crime, riots, and violence could be solved through efficient, better trained, and equipped
police departments. The growing commitment to space age approaches, technology, and elite
units, however, started urban police forces on the road to what scholars have called the
militarization of the police.
4
Law enforcement officials, however, also introduced community
relations programs that attempted to cool tensions through a “hearts and minds” approach
targeted primarily at inner city minority youth. Within the context of the War on Poverty,
community relations programs reflected efforts at “maximum feasible participation,” but
ultimately operated to co-opt militant youth by bringing them into established institutions rather
than devolving power or decision-making. The combination of militarized policing and
community relations were two sides of the same coin; they were hard and soft attempts to
reassert social control over inner city populations that LAPD officials viewed as violent and
threatening to the social order.
5
Often overlooked by historians, this chapter considers how
policing quickly became a crucial resource for city officials as they attempted to reassert order in
the wake of the Watts uprising.
The turn to punitive measures of riot control and militarized policing built on a larger
political context of law and order politics and policies ushered in by Ronald Reagan, who used
the Watts uprising, student unrest, and panics over growing reported crime rates to pave his way
to the California governor’s mansion in 1966. Reagan’s support for the police as the front line in

4
Stephen Graham, Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (Verso Books, 2011); Radley Balko, Rise of the
Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces, 2013; Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the
Future in Los Angeles, (New York: Vintage Books, 1992); Teresa Pires do Rio Caldeira, City of Walls: Crime,
Segregation, and Citizenship in São Paulo (University of California Press, 2000).
5
Alyosha Goldstein, Poverty in Common: The Politics of Community Action During the American Century (Duke
University Press, 2012), 117.
104
holding back the “jungle” attempting to destroy civilization complemented efforts of law
enforcement officials and prosecutors, who saw liberal court victories granting rights to
criminals as an attack on police authority to maintain order and the reason for rising crime and
lawlessness, to demand greater support, resources, and legal authority to fight a War on Crime.
Local, state, and federal officials, such as Los Angeles County District Attorney Evelle Younger,
claimed that liberal social programs sympathized with criminals and coddled rioters leading to
demands for a renewed focus on safety and security, which created a new set of policies and
institutions that transformed the nature of state authority in the process. Long-held fears of black
lawlessness and criminality were bolstered after the Watts uprising, contributing to the decision
of local officials to manage the urban crisis through punitive measures.
6

At the same time, Johnson responded to the explosion of violent urban uprisings and
statistics, however unreliable, of growing crime among young black men in inner cities by
establishing the Crime Commission, known as the Katzenbach Commission, in 1965 and two
years later the National Advisory Commission on Violence and Civil Disorders, known as the
Kerner Commission. Together, the Katzenbach and Kerner Commission reports put inner city
African American neighborhoods at the center of Johnson’s War on Crime and called on local
police to be the primary vehicles for carrying out new crime control programs.
7
With the passage
of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act in 1968, Johnson established the Law
Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), which brought the federal government into
local crime control in profoundly new ways. The LEAA specified that no more than one third of
the funding could go to personnel programs such as human relations but, as criminologists Alan

6
Office of the Governor, “Excerpts of Speech by Governor Ronald Reagan at the Sheriffs Training Academy,”
September 12, 1969, Folder Legal Affairs - Law + Order - R. Reagan Statements (2 of 3), Box GO 190, Ronald
Reagan: Governor’s Papers, Governor’s Office Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library (Hereafter Reagan
Governor’s Papers).
7
See Elizabeth Kai Hinton, “From Social Welfare to Social Control: Federal War in American Cities, 1968--1988.”
(Ph.D., Columbia University, 2013), 23-30.
105
R. Gordon and Norval Morris point out, local police “could easily meet the requirements through
expenditures on hardware, such as vehicles, helicopters, computers, communications equipment,
and antiriot gear.”
8
As a result, the combination of Johnson’s War on Crime and the LAPD’s
demand for increased capacity in response to the Watts uprising fueled the growth of punitive
and militarized law enforcement programs in Los Angeles. This trend toward coercive forms of
urban policy and social control was thoroughly bipartisan, as Heather Thompson notes, by 1968
twenty-one states had new equipment to address civil disturbances, funding to train police
officers in riot control, and more correctional officers “because the Johnson administration itself
believed that the country needed more law and order.”
9

The urban uprisings of the 1960s were a turning point—pushed forward by bipartisan
support for law and order policies—that accelerated and justified the expansion of police forces
and increasingly hard-line law enforcement policies, which had begun under Chief of Police
William Parker. This chapter argues that local politicians and law enforcement officials, backed
by policies and legislation enacted at the federal level, used the Watts uprising to develop
programs that militarized urban police forces in the name of reasserting order and control during
an era they believed to be marked by increased lawlessness and permissiveness. Over time, law
enforcement solutions aimed at managing urban problems and inequality outflanked alternative
approaches based on addressing social conditions and historical inequality, gaining legitimacy
from bipartisan support for law and order policies at both the state and federal levels and
transforming the nature of state authority in the process.

8
Alan R. Gordon and Norval Morris, “Presidential Commissions and the Law Enforcement Administration.” In
American Violence and Public Policy: An Update of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of
Violence, edited by Lynn A Curtis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 17.
9
Heather Ann Thompson, “Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in
Postwar American History,” The Journal of American History 97, no. 3 (December 1, 2010): 731.
106
The Super Chief: The LAPD, Professionalism, and City Politics

William Parker’s reign as Chief of the LAPD from 1950 to 1966 decisively shaped the
culture and operation of the department—and other urban police forces across the United
States—in ways that laid the foundation for expansion of police militarization after the Watts
uprising.
10
Through a professional police model based on military-style discipline, efficiency,
and organization he created a culture based on a belief in the infallibility of the police carried on
by his successors Tom Reddin, Ed Davis, and Daryl Gates. Parker also extended a long history
of native white Protestant Republican control over the department, rooted out corruption, and
made the department the most professional and emulated department in the country.
11
Parker was
the urban police equivalent of the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover; observers often referred to him as the
“second most respected” law enforcement officer in the nation after Hoover himself.
12

When Parker entered the LAPD as an officer in 1927 he found a department mired in
graft, political corruption, and scandals. To deal with such problems, progressive-era civic
leaders hired police theorist and Berkeley Chief of Police August Vollmer to reorganize the
LAPD in 1923.
13
Vollmer, a consummate progressive, stressed efficient administration and
applied scientific methods to police work, which would be carried out through the combination
of a well trained, highly paid, and disciplined police force and an informed citizenry willing to
submit to police authority. Although Vollmer implemented reforms, such as personnel training,

10
Joe Domanick, To Protect and to Serve: The LAPD’s Century of War in the City of Dreams (Figueroa Press,
2003), 103; Sarah Kramer, “William H. Parker and the Thin Blue Line: Politics, Public Relations and Policing in
Postwar Los Angeles.” (Ph.D., The American University, 2007); On the ways Parker set the foundation for what
Radley Balko sees as an “age of militarization” of the during the late twentieth century see Balko, Rise of the
Warrior Cop.
11
Joseph Gerald Woods, “The Progressives And The Police: Urban Reform And The Professionalization Of The
Los Angeles Police” (University of California, Los Angeles, 1973), 5-9.
12
Spencer Crump, Black Riot in Los Angeles (Trans-Anglo Books, 1966).
13
Police professionalism had a long history dating to the 19
th
century when department’s shifted from a loose
organization of vigilantes-style officers to more bureaucratized and centralized department’s during the Progressive
era. See Philip J. Ethington, “Vigilantes and the Police: The Creation of a Professional Police Bureaucracy in San
Francisco, 1847-1900,” Journal of Social History 21, no. 2 (December 1, 1987): 197–227; Robert M. Fogelson, Big-
City Police (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1977).
107
entrance exams for officers, civil service protection for the chief, and proposed a reorganization
of the department, continued graft and political corruption ultimately stymied his efforts to bring
about change. Despite the failure of the Vollmer reforms to stick, the City of Los Angeles
enacted charter reform in 1938, contributed to a politically fragmented political structure based
on a weak mayor, strong City Council, and commissions overseeing autonomous departments,
such as the LAPD. Civil service protections, more importantly, gave the police chief immunity
from politicians, left all disciplinary power over officers to the chief, and enshrined a Board of
Police Commissioners as the supervisory authority over the department.
14

During Parker’s early years on the force, he distanced himself from corruption through
strict adherence to the law and rigorous discipline. After serving in the Army during World War
II, Parker returned to the LAPD in 1947 where his reputation for discipline, political savvy, and
public relations skills helped him gain control of the department in 1950. Building upon a
masculine, crime control model of policing that rejected crime prevention approaches, Parker
instituted a process of professionalization to root out internal corruption and improve the image
of the department through a program of based on scientific management, research, efficiency,
and a military style of training and discipline. He implemented strict standards for recruitment
and training, negotiated higher salaries for officers, and ensured a well equipped department to
maintain authority on the streets.
15

By 1960 Parker had solidified his hold on the department, further removed it from
political control or oversight, and maintained sole decision-making powers over policy and
procedure. Through professionalization Parker ensured that the LAPD was removed from

14
On Vollmer see: Woods, 162-220; Jerome H. Skolnick and James J. Fyfe, Above the Law: Police and the
Excessive Use of Force (New York: Free Press, 1993), 174-175; On charter reform see Kramer, 28-9.
15
Domanik, 108; Kramer, 45-49; On the shift from crime prevention to crime control see Janis Appier, Policing
Women: The Sexual Politics of Law Enforcement and the LAPD (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998).
108
political influence and operated independently, despite the fact that the City Charter empowered
the Board of Police Commissioners to oversee the Department and appoint the Chief. Indeed, the
Board often acted as a rubber stamp following the chief’s directives. As one Police
Commissioner stated in 1980, “No one knew there was a Police Commission in this city until
Mayor Bradley appointed his members.”
16
As a result, Parker’s power rivaled—and often
exceeded—that of the city’s mayor and City Council and he protected the department’s
autonomy from politicians at all costs. When challenged by liberal members of the City Council
to reform policies regarding the handling of police complaints after the 1965 Watts uprising, for
example, Parker charged that then City Councilman Tom Bradley “would like to have the
council establish a perimeter (from which it could administer) the police department.”
17

Autonomy allowed Parker to pursue his goal of military-style efficiency, discipline, and
aggressive crime control approaches to police work. Parker pioneered the use of science and
technology in daily police operations to increase efficiency by creating an entire division devoted
to research and statistical analysis called the Planning and Research Division. Autonomy also led
to a lack of accountability, however. Parker insisted that the Internal Affairs Division (IAD)
adjudicate all complaints against police officers and Charter Section 202 gave the Chief all
disciplinary power over officers. While Parker’s reforms ensured strict adherence to internal
discipline and punished officers for poor moral conduct and behavior, the IAD often returned
verdicts of justifiable homicide in police shootings and rarely sustained complaints of abuse that
came from citizens.
18

16
David Johnston, “Police Commission: Bradley-Appointed Panel Reshapes LAPD,” Los Angeles Times, September
22, 1980, sec. Part II.
17
“Parker-Bradley Dispute Delays Action on Police Inspector Job,” Los Angeles Times, February 22, 1966, sec. Part
One.
18
Domanick, 116, 108; Hugh R. Manes, A Report on Law Enforcement and the Negro Citizen in Los Angeles,
(1963).
109
Parker based his professional model on a strong commitment to law and order and a
belief that the police were the guardians of a “thin blue line” holding back crime, disorder, and
Communism.
19
Parker’s reforms made officers into a professional corps of crime-fighters whose
role was to maintain authority on the street through a proactive policing model. The concept
meant to address the problem of a police force numbering roughly 5,200 in 1962, attempting to
cover an area of roughly 450 square miles. Proactive policing put officers into patrol cars, which
reduced contact with residents and stressed a quick response to crime through tactics that relied
on knowing a criminal by his appearance, looks, or demeanor. Parker’s philosophy was based on
his view that officers were “neither equipped nor authorized” to deal with the causes of crime,
claiming “our job is to apply emergency treatment to society’s surface wounds. We deal with
effect, not causes.” Combined with Parker’s use of departmental statistics that reported higher
rates of crime in black and Mexican American neighborhoods, the proactive approach led to
aggressive police work in minority neighborhoods, higher arrest rates, episodes of police abuse,
and fears of black and Mexican American criminality.
20
Assumptions of the connection between
race and crime, backed up by the department’s use of statistics, shaped Parker’s views that the
social roots of urban problems were irrelevant and purely a matter of crime control. “We are not
interested in why a certain group tends towards crime,” Parker declared, “we are interested in
maintaining order.”
21

Years before the Watts uprising, Parker linked civil rights protests, Communism, and
liberal court decisions, with the rise in criminal activity that would destroy the authority of the
police. “The current soft attitude on the part of the public to crime and Civil Rights

19
William Parker, “Invasion from Within,” 49-65, in William H. Parker and O. W. Wilson, Parker on Police
(Charles C. Thomas, 1957).
20
Kramer, 49; Domanick, 111.
21
John Bollens and Grant B Geyer, Yorty: Politics of a Constant Candidate. Pacific Palisades, (Calif.: Palisades
Publishers, 1973), 151.
110
demonstrations,” Parker stated in a speech to the Sherman Oaks Rotary Club in 1964, “could
lead to a form of anarchy unless halted.”
22
When the NAACP claimed that the “police use fear,
not respect, to influence conduct” in the ghetto, Parker responded that the claim was “false,
libelous, and defamatory,” and argued that such claims undermined order and police authority.
“The voice of the criminal, the communist, and the self-appointed defender of civil liberties,”
Parker argued,” constantly cries out for more and more restriction upon police authority.”
23

On August 11, 1965, Parker’s belief that his department was above reproach and the only
force holding together a society on the verge of disintegration faced its most significant
challenge. The arrest of Marquette Frye produced a massive explosion of anti-police sentiment
that quickly turned into a police assault on the black community where, according to Ed Cray of
the ACLU, “the very sight of blue uniformed officers was enough to provoke new waves of
violence.”
24
After six days of violence, local law enforcement officials repackaged the link
between what they saw as lawless rioters and efforts by civil rights activists and Communists to
undermine the police as a means to call for increased support for law enforcement, riot control
measures, and military hardware.

“Race Friction-Now a Crime Problem?”: The Watts Uprising and the LAPD

The Watts uprising overwhelmed Parker’s professional force as the city spiraled out of
control. Even though Parker and Governor Brown planned for violent uprising after the Harlem
riot of 1964, even buying helmets for all officers, Parker’s response was uncoordinated and
failed to live up to his professional model. Referring to participants of the uprising as “agitators”

22
Community Relations Conference of Southern California. “Police Chief William H. Parker Speaks,” Folder Watts
(Correspondence) 1965, 1965, Box 146, Part IV, Community Relations Commission Collection, Urban Archives
Center, Oviatt Library, California State University, Northridge, (Hereafter CRC Collection).
23
Kramer, 68.
24
Ed Cray, “Peoples’ Rights,” September 4, 1965, Folder 5, Box 7, Coalition Against Police Abuse Papers,
Southern California Library (Hereafter CAPA Papers).
111
and criminals, Parker did not allow the department to negotiate “with rioters” and refused to
cooperate with civil rights leaders to stop the violence.
25
Yet, Parker praised his Department and
officers in responding to the uprising with high standards and performance, claiming, “they
demonstrated skill, adaptability, courage, sense of responsibility and professional conduct
reflects the quality of our department and our unreserved dedication to the public service.”
26
In
his testimony to the McCone Commission Parker absolved the LAPD of responsibility by
blaming the California Highway Patrol for mishandling the arrest of Frye. His highly-disciplined,
upstanding officers, in contrast, “have been able to continue to apply law enforcement in the area
without retributive violence.” Parker’s professionalism did not allow for any wrongdoing on the
part of the police in contributing to the uprising or acknowledgement of the legitimate grievances
of black residents, and like Johnson downplayed the support for the riot by turning the blame on
the criminal behavior of those involved.
27

Parker framed those involved in the uprising as a lawless, criminal element without
legitimate grievances because, “we don’t have any civil-rights problems here.”
28
Not only did
Parker disassociate the uprising from civil rights, but also labeled any response that pointed to a
justification for the violence—such as the reward of increased spending for social programs—
had the potential to erode the basis of “law and order.” “While there may be and will be many
explanations for the Watts riot,” Parker stated, “it will be a grievous error if those involved are
given the impression that their lawless activities were fully justified. This is a nation that depends
for its very life upon the fragile rule of law, and it is only within an atmosphere of law obedience

25
Robert E. Conot, “The Superchief,” Los Angeles Times West Magazine, June 9, 1968, Box 8, Folder 18, Manuel
Ruiz Papers, M0295, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, (Hereafter Ruiz Papers).
26
Gladwin Hill, “Relief Job Begun: 20 Agencies Give Aid to Riot-Torn Area -- Patrols Continue Calm Returning to
Los Angeles,” The New York Times, August 17, 1965.
27
William H. Parker, “Testimony of William H. Parker Before the California Governor’s Commission on the Los
Angeles Riots,” September 16, 1965, Volume XI, Reel 3, McCone Transcripts - Microfilm, 82
28
“Race Friction-Now a Crime Problem?,” U.S. News & World Report, August 30, 1965.
112
that there can be social and economic progress.”
29
Parker also argued that claims of police
brutality were “designed sort of to deaden the police and drive them into a sense of inactivity.”
30

Civil disobedience and civil rights movements, he argued, intended to further reduce police
authority and foment social disintegration and anarchy.
31
Such interpretations resonated with
residents and media, as one conservative journalist wrote in the National Review, “if you are
looking for those ultimately responsible for the murder, arson, and looting in Los Angeles look
to them: they are the guilty ones, these apostles of ‘non-violence’. They have taught anarchy and
chaos by word and deed—and, no doubt, with the best of intentions—they have found pupils
everywhere with intentions not of the best.”
32
Indeed, claims of police brutality brought by civil
rights activists exposed the truth of black criminality, Parker argued, and were a “terribly vicious
canard which is used to conceal Negro criminality—to try to prevent the Negro public image
from reflecting the criminal activity in which some of the Negroes are engaged, to try to find
someone else to blame for their crimes.”
33

Editorial comments from KMPC Radio and KTLA TV reinforced Parker’s claims. “We
might start off by eliminating a few shop-worn excuses that are invariably offered up when
situations like this break out,” M.B. Jackson stated on KTLA, “The first of these, and probably
the most vicious, is that police brutality – that old bug-a-boo – is responsible for the whole
mess...it just doesn’t play this time.”
34
Mayor Yorty reiterated such beliefs on August 17, 1965,
claiming, “Criminal elements have seized upon the false charges [of police brutality] to try to

29
William H. Parker, “Testimony of William H. Parker Before the California Governor’s Commission on the Los
Angeles Riots,” September 16, 1965, Volume XI, Reel 3, McCone Transcripts - Microfilm.
30
NBC, “Meet the Press,” August 29, 1965. F 869.68.9 n4n3, Bancroft Library.
31
In ibid.
32
Will Herberg, “Who Are the Guilty Ones?” National Review, September 7, 1965, 769-770, quoted in Flamm, 64.
33
NBC, “Meet the Press,” August 29, 1965, F 869.68.9 n4n3, Bancroft Library; “Race Friction-Now a Crime
Problem?,” U.S. News & World Report, August 30, 1965.
34
KMPC, “The Second Civil War,” 1965, Folder 2, Box 61, John Holland Papers, Special Collections and Archives,
University Library, California State University, Los Angeles, (Hereafter Holland Papers).
113
excuse their lawlessness….Anyone who deliberately attempts to undermine faith in our Los
Angeles Police Department is attacking the very structure of our free society and jeopardizing
our safety.”
35
The response of Parker, Yorty, and media outlets linked charges of police brutality
and rioting with lawlessness and criminality in such a way that rationalized the reassertion of
order and authority in the streets in the name of public safety and security through enhanced
policing and new punitive crime control policies.
36

Many in the media used an emerging rhetoric of color-blindness to frame the uprising as
a demonstration of the criminal nature of a minority of Los Angeles’s black residents who did
not conform to the norms of personal responsibility and hard work. A KTLA editorial compared
the violent black rioter to the responsible silent majority of homeowners—both black and
white—under the moniker “Mr. Citizen” who paid his taxes, was law abiding, respectful, worked
for a living and demonstrated the fundamental strength of American society: “ a sense of
responsibility.”
37
The lawless element, according to the editorial, was the source of crime and
violence:
These citizens [Mr. Citizen] stand out in startling contrast to those in the
community which spawned the bath of fire and blood recently witnessed here: one
where crime is rampant, where over 1,000 felonies have been logged in the last
few months including 196 murders and other major crimes…the lawless fringe of
this same community in the nation as a whole is responsible for over 50% of the
crimes of violence committed in the country.
38

Framing the uprising as a criminal event carried out by a “riff-raff” element downplayed
widespread grievances with discrimination and segregation that spurred the uprising and

35
Committee on Un-American Activities, “Guerilla Warfare Advocates in the United States,” 1968, Folder Civil
Disorder 72, Box RS 13a, Research Unit, Series I: Subject File, Reagan Governor’s Papers.
36
Naomi Murakawa, “The Origins of the Carceral Crisis: Racial Order as ‘Law and Order’ in Postwar American
Politics,” in Race and American Political Development, by Joseph Lowndes, Julie Novkov, and Warren Dorian,
2008, 234–256 Murakawa argues that the law and order political rhetoric that many scholars have identified with
Barry Goldwater’s 1964 election originated in the early postwar period. I build on of her observation that concerns
surrounding crime in the 1960s were not then racialized but that racial grievances themselves became criminalized.
37
KMPC, “The Second Civil War,” 1965, Folder 2, Box 61, Holland Papers.
38
In ibid.
114
connected demands for racial justice with lawlessness. Such perceptions, in turn,
promoted solutions focused on the “sufficient force to restore law and order,”
punishment, and an approach that “emphasizes responsibility rather than privilege.”
39

Many residents approved the use of force to put down the uprising and condemned the
violence as criminal acts perpetrated by a lawless element in the community. In the weeks after
the uprising, Parker received at least 17,864 letters of which 99.3 percent were commendatory.
40

Residents also wrote to public officials, such as County Board of Supervisor Kenneth Hahn,
commending the LAPD and vilifying those involved in the uprising as subversives, criminals,
and hoodlums. As one constituent wrote, “we wish Chief Parker could have more police to cope
with his problem-we are for him 100%,” while another commented that Parker “has been
attacked by undisciplined elements,” and resident wrote to Assistant Governor Glenn Anderson
about the riot participants, “it’s these hoodlums standing around waiting, these are criminals out
for disregard for “Authority”.
41
The Chamber of Commerce also praised Parker and the LAPD
for restoring order to the city and pledged “support for a continuance of your fair, firm policy of
law enforcement.”
42

Not all white residents agreed with Parker’s and Yorty’s analysis of the uprising as
apolitical and inherently criminal. The UCLA Riot Study, for example, found a high level of
support among white residents for black grievances such as unemployment, poor housing, and

39
In ibid.
40
“Watts Riot, 1965, Including Report of the President’s Task Force on the Los Angeles Riots, from the Files of
Joseph A. Califano Jr., 1965,” 1965, Johnson WHCF.
41
See Angela Riggs letter to Kenneth Hahn, August 15, 1965 and W.D. Letter to Kenneth Hahn, August 16, 1965,
6.6.1.6, Hahn Collection; and other letters in the same folder; Marie letter to Edmund Brown, Sam Yorty, Glenn
Anderson, and William Parker, August 14, 1965, Folder 5, Box 189, Glenn M. Anderson Papers, Courtesy of the
Department of Archives and Special Collections, University Library, California State University, Dominguez Hills
(Hereafter Anderson Papers); For reactions of white suburban residents see Nicolaides, Becky M. My Blue Heaven:
Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2002).
42
Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, “L.A. Chamber Reaffirms Support for Law Enforcement Agencies,” August
16, 1965, 6.6.1.6., Hahn Collection; Apartment Association of Los Angeles County, Inc. “Apartment Association of
Los Angeles County, Inc. Resolution,” October 15, 1965, 6.6.1.4 (Box 317, Folder 3), Hahn Collection.
115
inadequate schools. The impact of the uprising on perceptions of progress for civil rights,
however, was much more negative. In fact, 74 percent of whites felt that the uprising hurt the
black cause and 71 percent believed that the gap between the races had increased.
43
Despite
sympathy for black grievances, the belief of many whites that the uprising added to racial
polarization suggested the growing appeal of the politics of law and order that would energize
Nixon’s Silent Majority in 1968, especially after repeated violent uprisings in cities across the
country.
The Watts uprising occurred within the context of perceptions by the police, media, and
may residents—black and white—of rising violent crime rates that, combined with a
dramatically changing urban racial geography, marked the inner city as crime-ridden and violent.
The 1965 LAPD annual report, for example, revealed an 11.5 percent increase in violent crime,
with some of the highest rates in the Department’s predominantly African American 77
th
,
University,

and Newton Street divisions.
44
Although police statistics are not always a reliable
source because of their self-reporting nature and connection to departmental funding, at the very
least they reflected the belief within the police department of a connection between race and
crime, fueling perceptions that criminalized urban space. Indeed, in Parker’s testimony to the
McCone Commission he argued that “although the Negro represents 16 percent of the population
of the City of Los Angeles, 60.2 percent of all suspects in five categories of violent crime
reportedly by the victims were Negroes.”
45
Media reports reinforced such perceptions of black
criminality, as one Time magazine article titled “Who’s to Blame?” reported, “Inevitably,
Parker's men arrest a lot of Negroes. They commit a disproportionate number of the city's crimes

43
Cohen, Los Angeles Riot Study, 489.
44
Los Angeles Police Department, Annual Report, 1965; Police statistics are problematic as a source since funding
for the department was at least in part linked to crime statistics, there was a real possibility of over-reporting.
45
William H. Parker, “Testimony of William H. Parker Before the California Governor’s Commission on the Los
Angeles Riots,” September 16, 1965, Volume XI, Reel 3, McCone Transcripts - Microfilm
116
and thus incur the cops' suspicion almost as a reflex reaction. Undoubtedly, Los Angeles
policemen in ghetto districts do not go out of their way to cosset Negro suspects.”
46

Alongside fears of violent crime among African Americans, comparisons of urban space
with the Vietnam war reinforced perceptions that inner cities had become foreign war zones,
contributing to the development and commitment to law and order policies as the logical
response to the uprising. Parker, for example, told reporters that “this situation is very much like
fighting the Viet Cong,” while then Inspector, and Parker’s personal chauffeur, Daryl Gates
reflected,

“the streets of urban America had become foreign territory.”
47
Through such
statements, the LAPD legitimized views that such spaces—and the people who lived there—
were like enemy war zones filled with criminals that required aggressive, military-style
policing.
48
Parker reaffirmed an “us-versus-them” attitude by stressing the need for police
resources to protect the city from armed rebels, telling Newsweek, “We had better give the police
the support they deserve or next time this happens, they will move in and sack the whole city.”
49

Sensational helicopter coverage of the uprising by KTLA and KNXT television stations
brought images of an urban war zone into people’s homes. Jerry Dunphy, a KNXT news anchor,
introduced “The Big News” on August 13, 1965, by linking the war in Vietnam to the war in the
streets of South Central Los Angeles, claiming that “newsmen who have been in Vietnam say
nothing they have seen elsewhere compares with the unbridled rampaging in Watts.”
50
The

46
Vesla Mae Weaver, “Frontlash: Race and the Politics of Punishment,” (Ph.D., Harvard University, 2007), 133-
134.
47
Stephen John Hartnett, Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex: Activism, Arts, and Educational Alternatives
(University of Illinois Press, 2010), 48; Gates, My Life, 110.
48
Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, “Militarizing the Police: Officer Jon Burge, Torture, and War in the ‘Urban Jungle,’” in
Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex: Activism, Arts, and Educational Alternatives, ed. Stephen John Hartnett
(University of Illinois Press, 2010), 64; Tullis, “A Vietnam at Home.”
49
“Los Angeles: Why.” Newsweek, August 30, 1965, Box 49, Folder 12, Urban Policy Research Institute Records,
Mss. 011, Southern California Library (Hereafter UPRI Records).
50
Michan Connor, “Creating Cities and Citizens: Municipal Boundaries, Place Entrepreneurs, and the Production of
Race in Los Angeles County, 1926--1978” (University of Southern California, 2008), 429.
117
KTLA report “Hell in the City of Angels,” produced just days after the uprising, focused on
looting, burning, and destruction, using metaphors of war that pitted the forces of law and order
against undifferentiated black masses. As one reporter stated, “Sunday saw... the balance of
power [shift back to the authorities].... Finally we had that overwhelming use of force.” Dick
Enberg’s KTLA interview of National Guardsmen preparing for invasion of the inner city on the
tarmac at the Van Nuys Airport reinforced such metaphors of war that avoided engaging with the
root causes of the uprising.
51

Coverage of a meeting at Athens Park on the second day of the violence undermined
efforts of activists and residents to push for peace by focusing on a black youth who exclaimed
that they were “not going to fight down here no more. You know where they going? They after
the whites.” A CBS affiliate justified paramilitary action, concluding “This was not a riot. It was
an insurrection against all authority. If it had gone much further, it would have become civil
war.”
52
The CBS documentary, “Watts: Riot or Revolt,” aired on December 7, 1965, reinforced
the power of law enforcement in restoring order, commenting that the “brute force of 14,000
armed men finally broke the back of the riot.” Such reports fed white fears by questioning
whether Watts was the beginning of a national revolt of urban blacks and fueled the commitment
to law and order by politicians and white residents alike, many of whom joined the John Birch
Society and purchased guns.
53
Media attention also linked demands for civil rights with the
lawlessness and criminality, requiring a police response and punitive policies to manage urban
inequality.

As the U.S. News and World Report suggested, non-violent civil rights protests had

51
KTLA, “KTLA Film: ‘Hell in the City of Angels,’” November 29, 1965, Folder 3-a, Box 4, Governor’s
Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, MSS BANC 74/115c, The Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley (Hereafter Governor’s Commission Records); Connor, 430; Anthony Daniel Perez, Kimberly M. Berg, and
Daniel J. Myers, “Police and Riots, 1967-1969,” Journal of Black Studies 34, no. 2 (November 1, 2003): 153–182.
52
Horne, 36.
53
CBS, “Watts: Riot or Revolt?,” December 7, 1965, F 869 L8.9.N4C62.phot. Bancroft Library; Connor, “Creating
Cities and Citizens.”
118
turned “away from demonstrations and toward outlawry. For city after city, it’s becoming a
problem of crime control.”
54

Many black residents countered by blaming the state response itself for creating a war
zone and viewed the uprising as a symptom of problems rooted in the political economy of race
and police abuse. “I was very very upset that there were national guardsmen in the area,” Cynthia
Hamilton remembered, “that the entire community had become an armed camp. And saw the city
as using that incident as a way to quarantine the black community,” while Robert Oliver recalled
that the police and national guard “were very serious about what they felt had to be done in order
to put these black people back in there places.”
55
Norman Houston of the NAACP countered that
civil rights leaders were to blame, charging, “it is white leadership, not Negro leadership, which
has caused millions of Negroes to be born and grow up in poverty and ignorance. It is white
leadership which has allowed hate and bitterness to develop in the first place.”
56
Critics also
countered the conflation of all blacks with criminality. Booker Griffin of the Los Angeles
Sentinel, for example, observed in 1969, “Watts is not the Alpha and the Omega of black needs
in Los Angeles....The Watts bag is white L.A.’s bastard plaything. It’s not our thing.”
57

Testimony from law enforcement officials at the McCone hearings echoed
understandings of those who participated in the uprising as criminals. Los Angeles County
District Attorney Evelle Younger claimed that those involved in the uprising were “confirmed
criminals” in need of strict punishment, stressing that law enforcement and the criminal justice
system had no role in understanding the root causes of the riots. As Younger explained, “for

54
“Race Friction-Now a Crime Problem?” U.S. News & World Report, August 30, 1965.
55
Cynthia Hamilton Interview, n.d., Watts 1965 Oral History Collection, Southern California Library; Robert Oliver
Interview, n.d., in Ibid.
56
Norman Houston letter to The Los Angeles Times, “Telegram-News Release,” March 17, 1966, Folder Riots,
Watts, Cal 1966-67, Box A 66, Part IV, Records of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Hereafter NAACP-LOC).
57
Booker Griffin, “Booker Griffin's Commentary,” Los Angeles Sentinel, March 6, 1969, B7.
119
whatever this tragedy was -- race riot, social revolution, or protest -- it was the biggest and
wildest crime spree in the history of our country.” Rather than addressing the causes of crime
rooted in unemployment and poverty, Younger emphasized the need to strengthen law and order
practices and crime control over programs meant to deal with conditions that pushed people to
criminal activity. Although he acknowledged the need for addressing causes, he believed that
“unless we take immediate steps to devise more effective criminal prevention and control
programs, our society may not survive until that happy day when crime is eliminated because all
underlying causes of been eliminated.” As a result, he outlined five main areas focused on crime
control, including larger and better-trained police forces, new legislation creating harsher and
swifter punishment for criminal offenders, increased communication between the police and
residents, citizen participation in crime control programs, and a commitment to technological
developments for law enforcement.
58

The McCone Commission picked up on such testimony and adhered to the “riff-raff”
theory to explain the rioting, which asserted that the uprising was carried out by a minority of
criminally-minded residents without widespread support in the black community. “It is our
opinion, my opinion,” McCone stated, “that these unfortunate uprisings, riots, are carried on by a
very very small minority of the people in an area, and the people in the immediate surroundings
are the ones that suffer, and suffer frightfully.”
59
The McCone Commission accepted without
question testimony that the disturbances were a result of a criminal element made up of hapless

58
Evelle J. Younger, “Report by Evelle J. Younger to the Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots,”
October 28, 1965. 6.6.1.5 (Box 317, Folder 9), Hahn Collection.
59
“Statement of McCone, August 7, 1967 Meeting of National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders,” August
7, 1967. Civil Rights during the Johnson Administration, 1963-1969, Part V: Records of the National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission), 001346-002-0348, ProQuest History Vault (Hereafter Kerner
Records).
120
Southern migrants unprepared for modern urban life.
60
The use of the riff-raff theory, however,
delegitimized black grievances, reinforced beliefs in black criminality, and allowed the
Commission to absolve city officials and repressive law enforcement of any responsibility for the
violence, which contributed to the politics of law and order that justified demands for intensified
policing and punitive measures alongside anti-poverty programs.
61

The uprising, however, had more widespread support than the McCone Commission
suggested. Subsequent studies found that anywhere from 30,000 to 80,000 African American
residents participated, a substantially higher number than the 10,000 outlined by the McCone
report. Not only did more African American residents participate than Yorty, Parker, McCone or
the average white resident cared to admit, but many of those who were involved could hardly be
labeled “hoodlums,” criminals, or recent Southern migrants unprepared for urban life. One study,
for example, concluded that the “average convicted rioter who was placed on probation was a
Negro male who had lived in Los Angeles for more than five years. He lived with his wife or
relatives in a rented apartment or house…was a high school dropout...was employed as either a
domestic or unskilled laborer, earning from $200 to $400 a month...and had an arrest record.”
62

By blaming the people themselves many whites rationalized harsh treatment, swift
punishment, and punitive policies as the proper way to handle those who participated in the
uprising. The meaning of justice, then, had a different meaning for black and white residents. “In
short,” police abuse attorney Hugh Manes argued, “for most Anglo-Saxon Americans, justice is

60
“Some of the Information Herein Was Given to an Agent of the Los Angeles Intelligence Division of the Police
Department,” 1965, Folder 1-d, Box 4, Governor’s Commission Records; The notion of Watts as an entry point for
Southern migrants was true to an extent but reports found that many of those involved in the uprising were longtime
residents. Claiming that participants were unprepared southern migrants, however, allowed the McCone
Commission to avoid calling for an end to residential segregation.
61
Robert M. Fogelson, The Los Angeles Riots (New York, Arno Press, 1969), 123.
62
“‘Average’ Rioter In Watts Had Job: State Study Upsets Belief Most Were Newcomers,” New York Times,
September 4, 1966; See also Thomas Wolf, “ABC Scope: Face of Watts,” January 22, 1966, Folder 2, Box 190,
Alexander Pope Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California (Hereafter Pope Papers); Aljean Hacker,
“What the McCone Commission Didn’t See,” Frontier, March 1966, Folder 1, Box 191, Pope Papers.
121
simply: crime and punishment.” Yorty’s and Parker’s claims that the Watts violence was
perpetuated by southern migrants, criminals, and subversive elements and outsiders, Manes
believed, would do little to solve the obstacles faced by the African American community and
the demands for justice that addressed social and economic inequality based in a history of
discrimination and segregation. The overwhelming attention to punishment prompted Martin
Luther King to comment after meeting with Parker that the chief showed a “blind intransigence
and ignorance of the social forces involved.”
63

Many African American residents believed that law and order policies that came on the
heels of the uprising were merely a means to maintain a status quo of racial domination. As H.H.
Brookins testified to the Commission, “The recent riot in this city has given rise to much finger-
pointing and blame-casting. Negroes have alternately been called lawless criminals, welfare
chiselers, etcetera. But the real truth of the matter is that ‘law' and ‘order’ are frequently equated
and both are confused with the uncritical perpetuation of the status quo.” Brookins reaffirmed
that the police were a necessary part of maintaining social order but not if they operated in a way
that produced two forms of law enforcement, one for whites and the other for blacks. Numerous
residents, officials, and civil rights organizations backed up Brookins’ assertions, testifying to
the tension and distrust created by the actions of the police in South Central and East Los
Angeles in the name of law and order.
64
The emphasis on law and order led African American
leaders to worry that white residents and conservative politicians would undermine the struggle
for equality and full citizenship. Leonard Carter of the NAACP, for example, wrote to Roy
Wilkins about his worry that “white persons more fearful than before and with bigoted

63
Hugh R. Manes, “The Meaning of Watts,” Lincoln Law Review 1, no. 1 (December 1965): 17–27; Norman M.
Klein and Martin J. Schiesl, 20th Century Los Angeles: Power, Promotion, and Social Conflict (Claremont, Calif.:
Regina Books, 1990), 164.
64
H. H. Brookins, “H. H. Brookins Testimony,” September 29, 1965, Volume IV, Reel 1, McCone Transcripts -
Microfilm.
122
politicians capitalizing upon those fears our struggle may be even more difficult in the days and
years to come.”
65
The responses to the Watts uprising built on white fears of black criminality
and lawlessness, contributing to a renewed politics of law and order and personal responsibility
that justified the reliance on intensified forms of militarized policing and riot control measures.
The McCone Report, indeed, emphasized the necessity a vigorous police force to
maintain order claiming, “while we must examine carefully the claim of police brutality and
must see that justice is done to all groups within our society, we must, at the same time, be sure
that law enforcement agencies, upon which so much depends, are not rendered impotent.” The
report called for a balanced approach that asked for concessions from both the police and the
community including more oversight by the Board of Police Commissioners, a new complaint
procedure, the establishment of a police-community relations program, and the hiring of more
black and Mexican Americans in law enforcement. But the McCone recommendations did little
to rein in the LAPD and barely acknowledged the fundamental problem of dual standards of
policing, the use of excessive force, and discriminatory practices by the LAPD in the black and
Mexican American neighborhoods. “If police authority is destroyed,” the report explained, “if
their effectiveness is impaired, and if their determination to use the authority vested in them to
preserve a law abiding community is frustrated, all of society will suffer because groups would
feel free to disobey the law and inevitably their number would increase. Chaos might easily
result.”
66

In the wake of the Watts and other urban uprisings government officials responded to
demands for public safety and security by promoting anti-riot bills that further disassociated riots

65
Leonard H. Carter letter to Wilkins, “Special Report on the Los Angeles Riots,” September 10, 1965, Folder 3,
Box A 333, Part III, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress (Hereafter NAACP-LOC).
66
Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, Violence in the City--an End or a Beginning? (Los Angeles:
Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, 1965), 29.
123
from a history of urban inequality by singling out violent disorder as the product of “riff-raff”
and “agitators.” In the process, solutions increasingly relied on new law enforcement institutions
and punitive policies. As Nathan Cohen, author of the Los Angeles Riot Study, commented on a
proposed federal anti-riot bill in 1967, “It places great weight on the role of the outside agitator
and the riff-raff. It tends to ignore the social ills, the social conditions, which provide a
conducive climate for violence.” Cohen continued by warning that “if we do go more regressive,
more punitive, we are going to feed” into the pride among many blacks that they were finally
standing up for themselves, which could lead to more violence and riots.
67
Despite such
warnings, crime and punishment mentalities prevailed as the domestic policy response to manage
the fallout of urban decline and inequality.

California Rising: The Politics of Law and Order and Personal Responsibility

Support for aggressive policing did not only come from local law enforcement but was
fostered and legitimated by politicians, such as Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard
Nixon, whose law and order politics helped create the image of a lawless, amoral black rioter.
Reagan blamed the violence in Watts on a small minority of residents, many recent migrants
from the South, who viewed the police as oppressive rather than the protectors of society.
68
At
the announcement for his candidacy for California governor in 1966, Reagan placed
responsibility for the Watts uprising on the “philosophy that in any situation the public should
turn to government for the answer,” and campaigned on ideas of individual responsibility and the
failure of the liberal governor Pat Brown’s social policies to adequately deal with growing crises

67
Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Antiriot Bill - 1967: Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, Part 2,
90
th
Cong., 1
st
Sess., 608.
68
Flamm, Law and Order, 71.
124
in the state.
69
Such views of failed liberal policies that raised expectations but created
dependence that contributed to social disorder resonated with residents and journalists. Those on
left, a KNX broadcast after the uprising stated, “defend the rioters and snipers in South Los
Angeles on the ground they are poverty-stricken and hopeless.... Only a year ago, the governor of
California was saying again and again that white people are prejudiced, biased and
bigoted….This kind of political talk gives respectability to the Negro belief that white people are
his enemy. What else can he think?”
70

Reagan’s hard line approach to riots and his assertion that government services only
exacerbated problems of civil disobedience and crime appealed to many voters. California polls
conducted prior to the election found that “Crime, Drugs, and juvenile delinquency” topped the
issues of public concern, while “racial problems” came in second and “student discipline at the
University of California,” sixth.
71
Campaigning on ideas of “basic freedom,” “basic principles,”
“basic individual rights of all citizens,” “morality,” and a call for law and order, Reagan easily
defeated incumbent governor Edmund “Pat” Brown in the November 1966 election by nearly
one million votes.
72

As governor, Reagan described the problem of crime as one of individual failing, lack of
responsibility, and societal permissiveness rather than an outcome of urban crisis and social
inequalities. The liberal belief in the responsibility of the government to address the problems of
inequality and poverty only contributed to permissiveness and a lack of responsibility that led to
unrest and crime. In asking, “what, indeed, has happened to the soul of America?” Reagan

69
Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, (New York: Scribner, 2008),
71.
70
Jonathan Bell, California Crucible: The Forging of Modern American Liberalism, (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 235.
71
Matthew Dallek, “Up From Liberalism: Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan, and the 1966 Gubernatorial Election.” In
Responsible Liberalism: Edmund G. “Pat” Brown and Reform Government in California 1958-1967, edited by
Martin J Schiesl. Los Angeles, (Calif.: Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs, 2003), 201.
72
Bell, 237.
125
shifted away from Johnson’s Great Society and the War on Poverty that approached the problem
of crime and urban unrest as symptoms of an unequal society. “We must reject the idea,” Reagan
argued, “that every time a law is broken, society is guilty rather than the law-breaker. It is
essential we restore the American precept that each individual is responsible, and accountable,
for his actions. And, it is too simple to trace all crime to poverty. Our time of affluence is also a
time of increasing lawlessness.”
73
Reagan limned a connection between law and order and a free
society, framing any opposition to authority as an assault on the freedom and responsibilities of
citizenship.
74
Moral bankruptcy, poor behavior, and portrayals of urban spaces as “the jungle,”
quickly surpassed social conditions as the dominant understanding of the source of crime and
unrest.
75

Reagan’s law and order politics was a calculated move to address what he saw as
“political lawlessness” and “anarchy” in California’s streets and college campuses, playing on
the fears of residents that the moral underbelly of society was being ripped apart. In a 1968
policy statement, Reagan stated that a “new kind of crime, political lawlessness [committed by]
revolutionary hypocrites (who) sing songs of freedom but dance to the beat of anarchy.” Reagan
singled out unruly college campuses and irresponsible social movements as the source of a
breakdown in law and order, in need of strict solutions and punishment. Mass violation of the
law and mob violence,” a Reagan policy statement suggested, “increasingly threaten our
communities in the guise of ‘civil disobedience.’….As a nation, we cannot tolerate this. We must
draw the line between legitimate protest and those actions which interfere with the rights of all

73
Ronald Reagan, “Law and Order in California,” nd, Folder Legal Affairs - Law + Order, Box GO 190, Governor’s
Office Files, Reagan Governor’s Papers.
74
In ibid.
75
Office of the Governor, “Creative Paper on Law and Order,” May 14, 1968, Folder Legal Affairs - Law + Order -
R. Reagan Statements (1 of 3), Box GO 190, Governor’s Office Files, Reagan Governor’s Papers.
126
our citizens to carry on their normal, daily activities.”
76
Reagan reinforced the connection
between leniency and disorderly inner cities for middle-class television audiences, explaining
that every day when the sun goes done, “the jungle gets a little bit closer.”
77
In this way, Reagan
contributed to a political climate that facilitated the commitment to enhanced law enforcement
and militarized policing in inner cities at the height of civil rights victories and court decisions in
favor of defendant’s rights.
Reagan’s victory lent support to law enforcement officials who felt that they were under
attack from social movements and rising crime on the one hand, and liberal politicians and courts
on the other. Los Angeles District Attorney Evelle Younger wrote to Reagan pledging support
and recognizing that “you [Reagan] have expressed our philosophy in the course of your
campaign. ‘Business as usual’ is not the order of the day. We are going to have to be more
efficient and more imaginative if we are to be successful in our war on crime.”
78
The Reagan
administration used the power of the state government to bolster the tools available to local law
enforcement agencies in administering law and order. “Governor Reagan,” a 1970 study of
criminal deterrence by the California Bureau of Criminal Statistics stated, “believes tougher laws
do deter crime.” By 1969, the Bureau of Criminal Statistics reported, the Reagan administration
signed 20 laws cracking down on crime and supporting law enforcement agencies.
79
While
Reagan occasionally met with black leaders in hopes of developing strategies to reduce tension
that led to unrest, he reaffirmed that California was ready to crush riots with all appropriate force

76
In ibid.
77
Kohler-Hausmann, 51.
78
Evelle J. Younger letter to Ronald Reagan, November 14, 1966, Folder Legal Affairs - Law Enforcement (1 of 3),
Box GO 190, Governor’s Office Files, Reagan Governor’s Papers.
79
California Bureau of Criminal Statistics. “Do Tougher Laws Deter Crime?,” 1970, Box GO 190, Folder Legal
Affairs - Law + Order, Governor’s Office Files, Reagan Governor’s Papers.
127
through the passage of anti-riot bills, riot control plans, and a statewide network of weapons
depots.
80

Efforts to support the police through enhanced resources and to provide law enforcement
officers with the utmost respect as the guardians of the moral society complemented the passage
of anti-crime and anti-riot legislation. Reagan played on growing panics over a crime wave in a
speech to the 1969 graduating class at the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department to reinforce support
for law enforcement as the primary means of crime control. “Crime statistics are so continuously
shocking,” Reagan proclaimed, “that minds are becoming somewhat numbed by the attack.” On
the frontline, combatting the crime wave, Reagan stated, was the police officer. “Between us and
the jungle holding it back,” Reagan emphasized, “is the man with the badge. It is a proud
heritage--civilization is in your debt.”
81
Yet, as a Reagan administration policy statement
emphasized in 1968, “too often the only thanks (the policeman) gets is a charge of ‘police
brutality.’”
82

Political support for law enforcement developed within the context of national Supreme
Court decisions handed under Chief Justice Earl Warren that substantially expanded the rights of
individuals accused of crimes. In the Mapp v. Ohio (1961), Gideon v. Wainwright (1963),
Ecobedo v. Illinois (1964), and Miranda v. Arizona (1966) decisions, the Court denied that
evidence seized in illegal searches could be used in court; enhanced the rights of the accused to
counsel during trial, guaranteed that accused could have counsel present during interrogations;
and for the reading of fundamental rights upon arrest. The reaction by law enforcement officials

80
Norman Kempster, “Urgent,” July 19, 1966, Folder Riots 67 (1 of 3), Box RS 25, Research Unit, Series I: Subject
File, Reagan Governor’s Papers.
81
Office of the Governor, “Excerpts of Speech by Governor Ronald Reagan at the Sheriffs Training Academy,”
September 12, 1969, Folder Legal Affairs - Law + Order - R. Reagan Statements (2 of 3), Box GO 190, Governor’s
Office Files, Reagan Governor’s Papers.
82
Office of the Governor, “Creative Paper on Law and Order,” May 14, 1968, Folder Legal Affairs - Law + Order -
R. Reagan Statements (1 of 3), Box GO 190, Governor’s Office Files, Reagan Governor’s Papers.
128
was overwhelmingly negative and interpreted the decisions as “coddling” criminals. Los Angeles
politicians and law enforcement officials capitalized on the decisions and Watts uprising to claim
that the criminal justice system was under attack, leading to increased crime and disorder, and to
push forward an agenda to build support for the police and punitive measures.
83

Law enforcement officials often felt that they bore the brunt of the burden for the failures
of the criminal justice system as a whole while the courts and corrections facilities got off the
hook.
84
The courts came under scrutiny by many police officials for hindering traditional
methods of police work, such as interrogations and searches and seizures. Parker complained that
the police had been “tragically weakened” through a liberal “judicial takeover” and “the police
are limited like the Yalu River boundary, and the result of it is that they are losing the war just
like we lost the war in Korea.”
85
The courts, Evelle Younger believed, had gone too far in
granting rights to individuals accused of crimes leaving the law-abiding community without
adequate protection. “It's harder today,” Younger claimed, “to convict a person who has
admittedly committed a major crime than at any time in our history.”
86

Deputy Chief Ed Davis also criticized what he saw as the evisceration of police powers
by the Supreme Court. “We feel that to reestablish public order in the streets of our
communities,” Davis stated in 1967, “the arrest and evidence capabilities of the policeman,
which have been denied him by the State and Federal Supreme Court rulings, must, to some
degree, be restored.” Davis blamed plea-bargaining, work-release programs, and weak-kneed

83
William J. Stuntz, The Collapse of American Criminal Justice (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011);
Neptune discusses how the negative reaction to these cases was not inevitable. See Jessica Helen Neptune, “The
Making of the Carceral State: Street Crime, the War on Drugs, and Punitive Politics in New York, 1951--1973”
(Ph.D., The University of Chicago, 2012).
84
LEAA, “LEAA Newsletter,” June 1972, Folder F8369: 73, California Council on Criminal Justice Records,
California State Archives (Hereafter CCCJ Records).
85
Yale Kamisar, “When the Cops Were Not ‘Handcuffed’: Crime Is a Baffling, Complex, Defiant Problem,’” New
York Times, November 7, 1965, sec. Magazine.
86
“Escalation in Crime War,” Los Angeles Times . December 16, 1965, sec. Part II.
129
judges for crime problems due to the focus on rehabilitation rather than strict law and order
policies. The sympathetic decisions in favor of suspects and protection of procedural rights were
an affront to the police and amounted to the coddling of criminals and overly fair treatment that
promoted riots and crime.
87
The combination of liberal courts and militant social movements led
Davis to believe that “there is no doubt in my mind that there is a conspiracy to eliminate the
police.”
88
By the mid-1960s, amid numerous complaints, hearings, protests, and judicial
decisions favoring defendants’ rights, the police saw themselves as an embattled minority whose
rights were trampled in favor of concessions to the civil rights of minorities and criminals.
Politicians at the local level built on Reagan’s 1966 and Nixon’s 1968 presidential
victories. Mayor Sam Yorty ran a strong law and order campaign against African American
Councilman Tom Bradley in the 1969 mayoral election. Using the growing divide between
liberal whites and blacks, on the one hand, and the police on the other, Yorty portrayed Bradley
as a leftist with Communist connections who was antipolice that would leave the city defenseless
against crime, despite Bradley’s 21-year tenure as an LAPD officer. Yorty ran ads in white San
Fernando Valley neighborhoods with Bradley’s picture and the caption “Will Your City Be Safe
with This Man?,” stoking the fears of many already concerned with growing crime, violence, and
the breakdown of law and order.
89

87
Edward M. Davis, “America at the Crossroads,” October 3, 1967, Notebook #1-A Speeches/Articles, Box 2275,
PDX/82, Los Angeles City Archives (Hereafter PDX/82); Edward M. Davis, “An Address by Deputy Chief E.M.
Davis at the Mayors and City Councilmen Session of the League of California Cities Conference in San Francisco,”
October 16, 1967, in ibid.; In face of the bleak prospect of judicial rulings being changed, Davis also outlined other
areas that the police could use to enhance their capabilities such as, police administrative functions and community
relations, Edward M. Davis, “Chief Davis Sees Closer Police-Community Relationship.” Town Hall Journal,
December 16, 1969, in ibid.
88
Senate Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security
Laws, Committee on the Judiciary, Assaults on Law Enforcement Officers: Hearings before the Subcommittee to
Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Part 4, 91
st
Cong., 2
nd

Sess., October 9, 1970, 331.
89
See Sonenshein, 85-100; Kurashige, 277; Baker, Erwin. “Crime Spawning Wave of Fear, Officials Say,” Los
Angeles Times, April 4, 1967, sec. Part One; Richard Bergholz, “White Voter Made The Difference: Precinct Tallies
Show How Bradley Lost Bradley,” Los Angeles Times, June 3, 1969, sec. Part One.
130
Responding to Yorty’s challenge, Bradley pushed a law and order platform that
connected with pluralist ideas of greater inclusion and expanded boundaries of citizenship. “I
will do all in my power,” Bradley stated, “to see that the more than one third of the city’s budget
which is annually devoted to law enforcement is spent for more sophisticated detection and
greater officer protection.” Bradley’s conception of law and order, however, made a distinction
between civil and criminal violence, “the incidence of violence and unrest of the poor, the youth,
and the minorities is not the product of what is commonly regarded as criminal. It cannot be dealt
with as we all know, by the traditional emphasis on techniques of ‘catching crooks.’” Policing
would not provide a solution to violent uprisings rooted in social and economic conditions, and
Bradley believed that if the officers were to have a constructive impact upon the tension between
minority communities and the police, a “multi-front program” should be adopted that included
efficient policing, tough on crime stances, robust community relations, and adequate oversight
and accountability.
90
Despite such efforts to combine law and order with a more inclusive liberal
political vision, Yorty beat Bradley in 1969 amidst growing racial and ideological polarization
after the Watts uprising, especially fears among white suburbanites in the San Fernando Valley
where support for Bradley was lowest.
91
Within such a political climate, both the LAPD and
LASD used the Watts uprising, concerns about crime, support from local politicians, and the
breakdown of law and order to expand their crime-fighting capacities.

“Kill a butterfly with a sledge hammer”: The LAPD’s Reassertion of Control

90
Tom Bradley, “The Position of Councilman Tom Bradley: Law Enforcement and Community Relations,”
February 4, 1969, Folder 14, Box 1687, Tom Bradley Administration Papers, (293), UCLA Special Collection,
(hereafter Bradley Papers).
91
James Gregory Payne and Scott C Ratzan, Tom Bradley, the Impossible Dream: A Biography (Santa Monica,
Calif.: Roundtable Publishing, 1986), 96; Sonenshein, 85-100; Richard Bergholz, “Stress on Law and Order
Credited for Yorty Victory,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1969, sec. Part One; In 1973, Bradley beat Yorty by
running on a law and order, tough-on-crime platform backed by a biracial liberal coalition.
131
Although the McCone Commission recommended changes in complaint procedures, a
strengthened Board of Police Commissioners, community-relations programs, and hiring of more
black and Mexican American officers, law enforcement officials and local politicians used the
perception of segregated inner cities as “armed camps” made up of criminals and potential rioters
to call for greater legal and operational capacity of urban police forces. Yorty and Parker also
pushed for riot control legislation in California in order to provide police with the legal means to
deal with “agitators” through preemptive measures rather than waiting for a riot to occur.
Testifying before the state legislature, they portrayed conditions in South Central Los Angeles on
the verge of explosion to justify policies that would enhance the power and resources of the
LAPD to control crime and reduce potential violence in inner cities. Parker stated that “we are
sitting on a powder keg….we’re talking about putting moats around all our new buildings” and
Yorty claimed that the city would look like an “armed state” to ward off trouble during the
summer of 1966.
92
Despite opposition from African American residents, such as Leon Ralph and
Bill Greene who were running for Assembly in Los Angeles County, the legislature passed three
key pieces of legislation: an anti-riot act, an act increasing the punishment for the possession of a
Molotov cocktail to a felony, and an act making battery of a police officer a felony.
93

92
Ray Zeman, “Yorty and Parker Urge Riot Laws: Tell Legislators L.A. May Face ‘Sacking’ in Guerrilla Warfare,”
Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1966, sec. Part One.
93
Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riot. “Staff Report of Actions Taken to Implement the
Recommendations in the Commission’s Report,” August 17, 1966, Folder 28, Box 23, National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, Region I, Records, MSS 78/10 c, The Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley (Hereafter NAACP Papers).
132

Figure 12. Governor Brown and Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty exit riot conference. Shown
following riot conference, March 15, 1966. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, UCLA,
Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.

Parker died in 1966 but his professional approach to policing lived on. On the surface,
Tom Reddin, who followed Parker as Chief between 1967 and 1969, represented a shift from his
predecessor to a more balanced approach that stressed both community relations and aggressive
responses to crime and riot control. Reddin attempted to downplay the image of the police force
as an aggressive, paramilitary organization prepared for urban warfare by stressing the need for
better community relations, communication, and rumor control. Although Reddin’s willingness
to meet with black representatives after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. angered
officers who were members of the John Birch Society, Reddin argued, “We cannot assume that
traditional methods are adequate.”
94
Yet, in private conversation, federal grant applications, and
government hearings, Reddin was not shy about promoting his department’s leadership in the use

94
Conot, “The Superchief,” Los Angeles Times West Magazine, June 9, 1968, Folder 18, Box 8, Ruiz Papers.
133
of advanced weaponry, tactics, management, and technology.
95

Reddin placed the police at the center of problems of crime, community relations, and
potential violence in inner city communities. “The police have emerged as the representatives of
the establishment,” Reddin claimed, “When it gets dark in Watts, there is no one left except the
Negro and the police officer. No matter where the conflict comes from, the police officer is the
man on the scene, and it is he who becomes the object of community hostilities.” In order to
reassert order, Reddin outlined four major goals for the department upon his appointment in
1967. First, apply new scientific and technological tools and knowledge to police work. Second,
to involve the police force as a functioning part of the community. Third, develop greater support
of the LAPD from the community. Finally, he hoped to convince his officers that a new
philosophy of community involvement was a necessity for law enforcement. Reddin defined his
approach as the “instant cop” theory wherein an officer would respond within minutes to any
situation, an approach deemed necessary due to the vast geographic nature of Los Angeles.
Under Reddin some officers were put back on the “beat,” patrolling areas by foot, and the
Community Relations division became one of the most extensive in the country.
96

Although Reddin reached out to the black community, he complemented community
relations with an emphasis on law and order. For Reddin, the “extreme tides of civil unrest and
crime” were evidence of a society on the brink of disintegration and argued that American
society—largely liberals—coddled criminals and condoned crime under the excuse that a “poor
childhood” and “society's failure” caused crime and legitimated riots. “I do not believe that
society causes crime,” Reddin explained, “People cause crime.” Reddin’s approach mirrored the

95
Saul Halpert, “Los Angeles Police Are De-emphasizing a Reported Buildup...,” February 22, 1968, Folder 1, Box
3, Saul Halpert Papers, Southern California Library (hereafter Halpert Papers).
96
Conot, “The Superchief,” Los Angeles Times West Magazine, June 9, 1968, Folder 18, Box 8, Ruiz Papers;
Edward M. Davis, “The Instant Cop Theory,” September 16, 1966, Notebook #1-A Speeches/Articles, Box 2275,
PDX/82.
134
dominant view of Governor Reagan, Mayor Yorty, and Evelle Younger who blamed crime and
disorder on lawless elements in need of control. “Law and order,” argued Reddin, “is the main
thing that has to be done.”
97
Deputy Chief Edward Davis supported such views in a speech to the
League of California Cities on October 16, 1967, predicting that crime would quadruple within
ten years and that the solution was to “sell the concept of reverence for the law.”
98

While selling the concept of law and order, local law enforcement officials and FBI field
officers paid particular attention to inner city neighborhoods as areas where they believed crime
was not only disproportionately high, but also where potential episodes of racial violence could
erupt, requiring effective control mechanisms. During the summer of 1966, for example, the FBI
reported that LAPD officers were monitoring the “situation in the Watts area…and continue to
remain alert for any signs of heightened racial tension and appropriate steps are thereupon taken
to nullify or extinguish the situation.”
99
Reddin paid particular attention to the potential for
uprising in specific locations. Speaking at a International Security Conference in 1967 on “future
disorders,” he reported that “there are incidents more serious than those which triggered the
Watts riots,” such as “prevalent rumors of violence…increase of crime on the streets..[and]
increase attacks on our policemen,” centered in inner city communities. Portraying inner city
neighborhoods as unruly spaces led to criticism from black residents, as the Los Angeles Sentinel
exclaimed, “we believe that it is unfortunate that the incoming chief chose to create the
impression of a great impending danger centered in our community.”
100

97
Thomas Reddin, “Law Enforcement Faces Grave Challenges.” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. (January 1968):
12–16.
98
Edward M. Davis, “An Address by Deputy Chief E.M. Davis at the Mayors and City Councilmen Session of the
League of California Cities Conference in San Francisco,” October 16, 1967, Notebook #1-A Speeches/Articles,
Box 2275, PDX/82.
99
U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, “LA 157-943,” 1966, Folder 27, Box 3, CAPA
Papers; U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Possible Racial Violence Major Urban Area,
July 4, 1966,” June 21, 1966, Folder 27, Box 3, CAPA Papers.
100
“Chief Reddin’s Talk Hurts Area’s Image,” Los Angeles Sentinel, March 2, 1967, A6.
135
To combat potential disorder and crime, Reddin stressed the need for control mechanisms
and warned that too much attention to social welfare programs would undermine the police. The
Kerner Commission’s investigation into the wave of uprisings in 1967, to its detriment according
to Reddin, focused far too much on social aspects than those of control. While claiming, “I am
the first to agree that we do have to attack these social causes of urban disturbances,” Reddin
also mocked the Commission; “this is great, and it makes for very nice cocktail party
conversation.” Reddin continued:
the reality of coping with the riot, is a hell of a lot more important than the social
programs, because social programs take a lot of time, and they cost an awful lot of
money. And if the Commission directs its attention too much in that direction,
then they are going to walk away from the stuff that we as police administrators
really need. It might even be valuable to try to get somebody on that Commission
and say ‘Let's have a dichotomy in responsibility, and let's be sure that the thing
that we think should get the attention does get it, and let somebody else work on
the other.’
101

John McCone, testifying before the Kerner Commission, reemphasized the need for attention to
law and order policies to complement social responses to urban uprisings. “But action by our law
enforcement authorities,” McCone explained, “which has been positive, but at the same time
discriminating, has brought the matter under control before anything serious has taken place.”
102

McCone’s sentiments reflected his Commission’s response to the Watts uprising as one that was
long on respect for law and order and short on devising fundamental solutions to the deep roots
of racism, discrimination, and segregation that produced the conditions for violent urban
uprising. Although city, state, and federal officials attempted to develop social programs, the
forces of law and order viewed such programs as the carrot to the more punitive stick of riot

101
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. “Proceedings of the National Advisory Commission on Civil
Disorders,” November 2, 1967, p. 307-8, Folder 15, Box 38, UPRI Records.
102
“Statement of McCone, August 7, 1967 Meeting of National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders,” August
7, 1967, 001346-002-0348, Kerner Records.
136
control measures. Reddin continued by arguing that 1968 was “the year of the Cop. Everything
you want you get. And I say I want more, and I should be getting it.”
103

Figure 13. Police officer threatens suspect with shotgun in Watts, Los Angeles (Calif.), March
15, 1966. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, UCLA, Library Special Collections,
Charles E. Young Research Library.

While stressing the need for new training programs related to human relations and police
professionalization, Reddin also engaged in an urban arms race that built upon Parker’s
commitment to military tactics and weaponry.
104
Reddin’s testimony at the Kerner Commission
demonstrated his reliance on weaponry and the use of force as a psychological tool against city
residents and to deter civil insurrection, a reality reinforced by the LAPD’s response to a
potential “riot” in March 1966, shown in Figures 13 and 14. “We endorse shotguns highly,”
Reddin stated, “The shotgun is probably the most threatening, forbidding looking hand weapon

103
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. “Proceedings of the National Advisory Commission on Civil
Disorders,” November 2, 1967, Folder 15, Box 38, UPRI Records, 95.
104
In ibid.
137
that exists.” The LAPD’s riot arsenal also included armored personnel carriers, machine guns,
and a variety of lethal weapons. By 1967 the LAPD used .41 Magnums for daily police use,
received an armored “personnel carrier” with .30 caliber machine guns, tear gas launchers, and a
smoke screen device, and increased its shotgun supply from 100 to 1,000.
105
In addition to lethal
weapons, mace and tear gas also became part of the police arsenal but Reddin was skeptical of
the use and effectiveness of nonlethal means for controlling riots and other disorderly
situations.
106

Figure 14. Armed police officers stand watch on a roof in Watts, Los Angeles (Calif.) Standing
Guard--Two policemen armed with shotguns watch atop the roof of the 77th St. police station in
the city's Watts area, March 16, 1966. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, UCLA, Library
Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.

105
Paul Houston, “Reddin Stresses Firm, Fast Control of Riots,” Los Angeles Times, August 20, 1967, sec. A; Lane,
Bill. “Police Test Anti-Riot Arsenal,” Los Angeles Sentinel, November 30, 1967.
106
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, “Proceedings of the National Advisory Commission on Civil
Disorders,” November 2, 1967, Folder 15, Box 38, UPRI Records, p. 269.
138
The lessons learned during the August disturbance led to a scaling up of the use of
military tactics and weapons, through the implementation of riot control plans and overwhelming
use of force. “As a matter of fact,” Reddin reported, “we preach what the military calls the
overkill -- kill a butterfly with a sledge hammer -- feeling that we would rather over-police, and
control, and run the risk of people saying we are doing that. We just do not want to let something
get out of control.”
107
During a disturbance, according to Reddin, the LAPD had learned to
“operate strictly militarily, adhere to the squad concept, with the squad leader, and the men
function as squads, and they have their own transportation and their own fire power.” The goal of
the police during a riot, Reddin explained, was to gain control of the street and keep it.
108

Following the local-level initiative, the State of California, under governor Ronald Reagan used
Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) funding to establish fourteen riot control
depots across the state, making California one of the most advanced states in riot control
preparedness in the nation.
109
The amassing of weapons, planning, and capacity to deal with
urban uprisings reflected the views of law enforcement officials that the police were the
protectors of what Edward Davis called “organized society” and needed all tools available to
carry out their role effectively and efficiently.
110

After the Watts uprising, Reddin also established elite tactical units and technical systems
in order to respond to potential urban warfare. Reddin placed the new Tactical Operations
Planning unit, within the Metropolitan Division, which was an elite group of officers with broad
authority to “suppress criminal activity,” quickly gaining the nickname “the Shake, Rattle, &
Roll Boys.” Reddin put Tactical Operations under the command of Daryl Gates and expanded

107
In ibid., 54.
108
In ibid., 259
109
Lee Fremstad, “State Has Top Quality Riot Control Gear In Readiness,” Sacramento Bee, November 12, 1973,
Folder Legal Affairs - Law Enforcement (3 of 3), Box GO 190, Governor's Office Files, Reagan Governor’s Papers.
110
Edward M. Davis, “Preparation for Civil Disturbance,” September 13, 1967, Notebook #1-A Speeches/Articles,
Box 2275, PDX/82.
139
the Metro Division from 55 to 220 officers while reaffirming the directive to “roust anything
strange that moves on the streets.”
111
Gates’ experience during Watts shaped his efforts to
develop the new tactical units on a quasi-military model. “We had no idea how to deal with this,”
Gates writes in his autobiography about the uprising, “We were constantly ducking bottles,
rocks, knives, and Molotov cocktails. . . . Guns were pointed out of second-story windows,
random shots fired. . . . It was random chaos, in small disparate patches. We did not know how to
handle guerrilla warfare. Rather than a single mob, we had people attacking from all
directions.”
112
Gates, who had been working on developing military-type anti-sniper units after
Watts, combined them with the Tactical Operations Planning units into formally organized
squads on a military model of training, operation, and hardware since, according to an LAPD
report, a “need existed for the Los Angeles Police Department to develop the capability to
successfully combat urban violence. The Department formulated a special unit committed to the
control of tactical situations which were beyond the scope of the conventionally trained and
equipped police officer.”
113
These units were the foundation for a new type of elite police force
called SWAT. Gates initially proposed the name “Special Weapons Attack Teams” but his
deputy and future chief, Ed Davis, did not allow the use of the word “attack.” Gates then
suggested Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams, making Gates the “Father of SWAT.”
114

Initially Gates developed 15 four-man SWAT teams and was on his way to training 30
additional teams. Working to develop an elite anti-sniper team trained by military personnel,
Gates worked with marines at Camp Pendleton for training in guerilla warfare. The
establishment of LAPD’s SWAT teams was a foray into paramilitary police operations and

111
Balko, 60.
112
Gates, My Life, 114.
113
LAPD, The Symbionese Liberation Army in Los Angeles, 1974, Berg Coll + Counterculture L67 1974, New York
Public Library (hereafter Berg Collection).
114
Gates, My Life, 114.
140
allowed “the merger of police and military strategies” to provide highly specialized aid during
riots, against snipers, and barricaded suspects. Such practices came to dominate LAPD
operations over the following decades, earning in the eyes of LAPD officials an “impressive
reputation for its performance in a variety of tactical situations.”
115
Although some members of
the department opposed the tendency to operate as a quasi-military operation, the combination of
urban unrest and federal funding lent itself to a military-type response to urban problems.
116

SWAT members came from within the LAPD and most of them were Vietnam or Korean
War veterans—nearly 70 percent of SWAT team members had some sort of military service—
and all were white. As Lieutenant Bob Smithson, a SWAT platoon leader stated, “We’re
primarily cadre. Each team member receives more than 1,000 hours of instruction in subjects
such as guerilla warfare, scouting and patrolling, night operations, camouflage and concealment,
combat in cities, first aid, chemical warfare and ambushes.”
117
The five man teams resembled
combat units and their basic equipment consisted of AR-15 assault rifles. The SWAT program,
training, and teams were so well regarded that police departments from around the country and
internationally came to observe their practices.
118
By the end of the century, moreover,
departments across the country adopted the SWAT model and teams conducted hundreds of raids
per day largely in service of drug warrants.
119

The SWAT teams were, according to one local newscaster, “the police department’s
response to the fear of massive civil disturbance—a fear that has gripped all big cities in the

115
LAPD, The Symbionese Liberation Army in Los Angeles, 1974 (Berg Collection).
116
Rothmiller, 3256; Edward M. Davis, “Progress Report from the Chief of Police,” August 4, 1970, Folder Chief’s
Office, Box 2272, PDX/82.
117
Burt Miller, “The Los Angeles Police Dept. Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) Team,” Guns & Ammo, July
1975, Folder 1, Box 40, UPRI Records; Larry Remer, “SWAT: The Police Berets,” Nation 220, no. 20 (May 24,
1975): 627–628.
118
In ibid.
119
Balko, Rise of the Warrior Cop, Loc. 118.
141
United States in the past few years.”
120
The LAPD was at the center of the increased use of
repressive policing, which blended elements of military tactics learned in Vietnam with domestic
policing practice. LAPD’s SWAT teams were, for all intents and purposes, the epitome of a
militarized police force meant to maintain order in times of unrest that, in practice, exacerbated
conflicts with local residents, African Americans and Mexican Americans in particular.
121

The first major test for the SWAT team—what one observer called “SWAT’s of fire”—
came on December 9, 1969, when the elite units attacked the headquarters of the Black Panther
Party of Southern California on 41
st
and Central. The siege lasted over four hours, required the
use of over 500 police officers and SWAT teams, the use of a tank borrowed from the National
Guard, gained approval from the Department of Justice for a grenade launcher, and attempted to
use dynamite to enter the building from the roof.
122
The assault on Panther headquarters, on the
one hand, was viewed as a success and efficiency of the SWAT team in the eyes of Gates and as
an “attempted overt act of massacre against the Black Panther Party,” by the Panthers on the
other.
123
The episode, by any perspective, however, was the culmination of police policies that
viewed the relationship with inner city communities and social movements as a burgeoning state
of war in need of monitoring and repression.
To coordinate the use of new technology, hardware, and elite SWAT units, the LAPD
also prepared riot control plans and procedures meant to provide a comprehensive set of
guidelines designed “to bring order out of disorder” during unusual occurrences, such as
earthquakes, and, more centrally, civil disturbances. Under the direction of Gates, the Tactical
Operations Planning Group, wrote two riot-control manuals based on guidance from military

120
Saul Halpert, “SWAT Squad,” December 10, 1969, Folder 1, Box 3, Halpert Papers.
121
G. N. Beck, “SWAT - The Los Angeles Police Special Weapons and Tactics Teams,” FBI Law Enforcement
Bulletin, April 1972, Folder 2, Box 46, UPRI Records.
122
Saul Halpert, “SWAT Squad,” December 10, 1969, Folder 1, Box 3, Halpert Papers.
123
The Black Panther Party Southern California Chapter, “The Black Panther Community News Service,” 1969,
Folder 11, Box 10, Debbie Louis Collection (1111), UCLA Special Collections (Hereafter Louis Collection).
142
officials, one for the department and one for the Kerner Commission, making Gates “LAPD’s
resident expert on riots and a national expert on riot control.”
124
Gates’ “Model Civil Disturbance
Control Plan,” stressed continuous training and readiness so that the police could respond with
quick and overwhelming force whenever a disturbance occurred. The Control Plan was based on
a military-style structure, coordination, communication, and command that emphasized the need
for swift, aggressive action and harsh penalties for anyone involved in a riot.
125
The LAPD also
developed a Civil Disturbance Control School to train officers in three-day sessions to maintain a
sufficient level of readiness in case of emergency.
126

The Model Civil Disturbance Control Plan focused directly on the need for control,
stating “Socio-economic causes of riots are not of concern to police.” Riot Control tactics
focused on military-style operations and organization that included: dispersing rioters' attack,
gaining high ground control security, sweeping the area through mop up operations, establishing
a network of mobile and foot squad beats, sealing off the area, and perimeter control. The Plan
focused on the need for the police to maintain adequate levels of force to overwhelm rioters,
achieve control of the situation, make mass arrests, and to vigorously prosecute all those arrested
in connection to the disturbance. “One of the most important lessons learned in Watts,” the plan
concluded, “was that the police must remain in the area in force after establishing control.”
127

The Control Plan also developed a new strategy to guide officers, who usually worked as
individuals, to operate effectively as groups during a massive deployment of personnel in

124
Gates, Chief, 107.
125
“Police Mobilization During Riots, October 27, 1967-October 30, 1967,” October 27, 1967, 001346 -010-0736,
Kerner Records; Daryl F. Gates, “Control of Civil Disorders,” Police Chief (May 1968): 32–34.
126
Paul Houston, “Reddin Stresses Firm, Fast Control of Riots,” Los Angeles Times, August 20, 1967, sec. A; A
similar plan was developed by Los Angeles County in 1967 and while stressing the need to respect free speech, it
also laid out the limits of protestors, stating that public protest was not guaranteed the protection of free speech in all
cases. Leonard Greenwood, “Police Get New Weapon to Handle Disturbances,” Los Angeles Times, March 21,
1967, sec. Part II.
127
Los Angeles Police Department, Model Civil Disturbance Control Plan, 1968.
143
response to “urban guerilla warfare.”
128
Worries over Vietnam-style urban combat stemmed from
situations where, according to Deputy Chief Davis, “the fluidity and mobility of the torchbearer
and looter, when matched against the fluidity and mobility of the police, give the rioter a decided
arithmetic advantage for success in evasion of apprehension.
129
In order to combat such
disadvantage, the LAPD developed the Linear Riot Strategy (LRS) to coordinate police officers,
SWAT teams, and helicopter support during a disturbance. Under the LRS, police would be
placed at every intersection moving away from the disturbance meant to establish a “long line of
static force” that “has as its objective the isolation of the rioters from as yet untouched prime
looting objectives.” The goal, Davis explained, was to box in all participants, limiting their
mobility, and create total control of the area by the police.
130

The militarization of law enforcement proceeded during the 1970s as the LAPD
continued to request funding for updated weapons and ammunition, surveillance equipment, and
communication systems. In 1980, for example, Chief Gates appealed directly to Mayor Bradley
for $51,611 for 66 new weapons for SWAT that would be more reliable and effective than the
older rifles they were using.
131
Once the LAPD and other urban police departments came to
operate on a military footing the demand for more weapons and the latest technology became a
self-fulfilling necessity for law enforcement officials that led to the increased use of force. The
escalating use of force, as Chief Edward Davis commented in 1969 to his captain school,
however, had the potential to increase violence. “In areas where there has been a pattern of using
strong physical force to achieve police objectives, a concurrent pattern of resistance develops
within the individual or group,” Davis suggested, “The result is resistance and lack of

128
Edward M. Davis, “Preparation for Civil Disturbance,” September 13, 1967, Notebook #1-A Speeches/Articles,
Box 2275, PDX/82.
129
Edward M. Davis, “Linear Riot Strategy,” August 1, 1967, Notebook #1, Box 2276, PDX/82.
130
Los Angeles Police Department, Model Civil Disturbance Control Plan.
131
Keith Comrie letter to Tom Bradley, June 6, 1980, Folder 4, Box 2802, Bradley Papers.
144
cooperation on the part of the law violator and the subsequent necessity for resorting to force on
the part of the police. The use of force is thus self perpetuating.”
132
To combat such self-
perpetuating cycles of violence, law enforcement also implemented community-relations
programs meant to enhance communication with residents and enhance the image of the police
officer in the minds of black and Mexican American youth in particular.

Hearts and Minds: The Community Relations Approach
Alongside law and order and militarized policing, the LAPD also heeded the
recommendation of the McCone Commission to implement community relations programs as a
means of crime and riot prevention. The design of the Community Relations Programs, however,
had more to do with pacifying the community, black and Mexican American youth in particular,
by trying to change their perceptions of the police rather than any substantive change in police
procedures, attitudes, or operations in inner city neighborhoods.
133
Indeed, Deputy Chief Ed
Davis, who would promote a community-based policing model upon his appointment as Chief in
1969, argued that the “most explosive” problem faced by police departments was the image of
the police in the black community, with youth in particular.
134
Occurring within the context of
“maximum feasible participation” of the War on Poverty programs, community relations
programs offered another means of incorporating demands for community control without
devolving power away from the police as the coercive arm of social control.
135

The LAPD demonstrated a halting commitment to improving police-community relations
ever since the attacks by white sailors and police on zoot-suit clad Mexican and African

132
Hinton, 171-172.
133
See Yorty statement in Senate Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization, Committee on Government
Operations, Federal Role in Urban Affairs: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization, Part 3,
89
th
Cong., 2
nd
Sess., 671-721.
134
Edward M. Davis, “Chief of Police,” nd., Notebook #1, Box 2276, PDX/82.
135
See Goldstein, Poverty in Common.
145
Americans in 1943. Throughout the 1950s, the LAPD operated a Deputy Auxiliary Police
program that was designed to bring youth into contact with the police department to promote
mutual understanding but Parker discontinued the program in 1957. Yet, the need for greater
attention to community relations did not go unnoticed. As a 1963 order regarding the importance
of community relations suggested, “the mutual advantages of a friendly relationship between the
people of a community and their police force should be widely understood and more fully
appreciated.”
136
Councilman Tom Bradley, two months before the Watts uprising, wrote to the
Board of Police Commissioners describing needed changes in Departmental policy to improve
police-community relations in Los Angeles.
137
The Los Angeles County Human Relations
Commission also organized a Special Citizen’s Law Enforcement Committee in 1964 which
outlined a broad program for improving human relations and police-community relations within
both the LAPD and LASD as a means to reduce growing tensions, distrust, and antagonism that
could lead to violence. The Special Committee explored the presence of “Human Relations
Training Programs,” finding that both departments had only a limited commitment to such
programs in the form of seven hours of formal training at their academies, the issuance of
Department bulletins, and reasonable support of the Chief of Police and the County Sheriff.
138

Responding to such criticism, Parker assigned Inspector James Fisk as the Department’s liaison
with the black community in June 1965. Yet, Parker hoped that Fisk would gather intelligence

136
Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots. Violence in the City; Kevin O’Conell, “Interview with
Inspector James Fisk,” October 11, 1965, Folder 4-a, Box 4, Governor’s Commission Records.
137
Tom Bradley letter to Honorable Board of Police Commissioners, June 10, 1965, Folder 11, Box 11, Mervyn
Dymally Papers, Cal State Los Angeles (Hereafter Dymally Papers).
138
County of Los Angeles Commission on Human Relations, “Special Citizen’s Law Enforcement Committee:
Report and Recommendations,” January 6, 1964, Folder 31 g, Box 13, Governor’s Commission Records; Pat
Murphy, Daniel Skoler, and John Jemilo letter to Paul E. Kataver, “Los Angeles Police Community-Relations
Development,” January 14, 1966; Thomas Reddin letter to Gene S. Muehleisen, “Los Angeles Police Community-
Relations Development,” July 25, 1966, both in Folder Police Community Relations, Box 69, RG 423, Records of
the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, General Correspondence, 1965-1968, National Archives and
Records Administration, Archives II (hereafter RG 423).
146
about blacks in Watts and many officers often referred to Fisk as the “nigger inspector.”
139

Despite such strong statements regarding the need for community relations, the efforts to
improve police-community relations prior to the Watts uprising remained minimal.
In the wake of the Watts uprising, however, Parker continued to pit social work functions
against the crime-fighting role of the police. “Parker feels this [community relations] is just
another effort to saddle the police department with responsibility for the riot and for correcting
the underlying social maladjustments that may have caused it,” as one report indicated, “the
Chief feels that youth work and rehabilitation should be handled by the established social
agencies. LAPD should concentrate on fighting crime.”
140
In January 1966, despite Parker’s
skepticism of such programs, the LAPD implemented a crash community relations program
headed by four lieutenants who volunteered for the job. Parker appointed James G. Fisk as the
chief coordinator for the program, who summarized the goal of the Community Relations
Program as one of enhancing the efficiency of the police to control crime.
141
Although the LAPD
expanded its role in the community, set up meetings, workshops, and community councils, the
Community Relations Program was initially comprised of white officers, many of whom did not
live in the neighborhoods in which they patrolled and were not especially predisposed to
improving relations with minority residents who they often viewed as inherently criminal.
142

The appointment of Reddin as Chief of Police reoriented the department’s emphasis on
community-relations. Reddin fulfilled Mayor Yorty’s mandate for the new Chief to have “an
awareness of the human relations implications of law enforcement.”
143
Reddin stressed that
police, while unable and not responsible for addressing social and economic conditions that

139
Kramer, 267-268.
140
Los Angeles Newsletter, “Los Angeles Newsletter,” September 18, 1965, Folder 4, Box 40, Holland Papers.
141
“Better Police-Minority Relations,” Los Angeles Times, January 20, 1966, sec. Part II.
142
Bill Lane, “Citizens, Police Review Problems,” Los Angeles Sentinel, February 17, 1966.
143
“Prerequisite for a Police Chief,” Los Angeles Times, October 12, 1966, sec. Part II.
147
produced crime, must promote “effective two-way communication, a mutual development of
insights, and a nurture of trust, confidence, and respect,” between the police and the communities
they served.
144
Upon his appointment, Reddin stated that “Any police department that does not
place community relations high (in the scale of importance) is making a bad mistake.”
145
Reddin
reassigned 52 officers to community relations and authorized Fisk to enhance and develop new
programs, such as expanding the “Policeman Bill” program, which brought officers into schools
to facilitate communication between youth and the police and encourage young men to consider
careers in law enforcement.
146

Despite Reddin’s commitment to enhancing communication and understanding with
residents, the LAPD’s Community Relations Program was, in reality, a form of riot control that
built on the department’s spring 1968 “Plans of the Los Angeles Police Department for an
Enlarged Program to Further Lessen [the] Possibility of Civil unrest Within the City of Los
Angeles.” Alongside proposed studies of the uniformed radio car officer “to identify those
activities and situations which present a potential for conflict,” the plan aimed to “win the
commitment of youth to various causes” and for community organizations to “participate in
countering disruptive forces who would create an atmosphere conducive to violence.” The
program also suggested creating youth councils to enhance communication with the police that
would create more “positive non-punitive relationships,” increase community relations training
and support for uniformed officers, establish neighborhood mentor programs, and cooperate with
the academic community to understand urban problems and pacify urban youth who were often

144
“The Police and the Ghetto,” Los Angeles Times, March 8, 1968, Folder Civil Disorder 72, Box RS 13a, Research
Unit, Series I: Subject File, Reagan Governor’s Papers.
145
“LAPD and Community Relations,” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1967, sec. Part II.
146
“LAPD and Community Relations,” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1967, sec. Part II; National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders, “Proceedings of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders,”
November 2, 1967, Folder 15, Box 38, UPRI Records. On the police as primary contact with residents in South
Central Los Angeles see Paul Jacobs, Prelude to a Riot.
148
viewed as hostile and alienated. Misunderstanding and “mistrust,” the report suggested, could be
alleviated through increased “person-to-person communication in a non-punitive setting.”
147

Building on the recommendations, the LAPD developed a comprehensive Community
Relations Program in November 1968 consisting of programs to address areas including youth,
schools, colleges and universities, minority communities, militant and revolutionist groups,
disadvantaged communities, affluent communities, business community, religious groups,
media, and the police department. The Program centered on a philosophy of partnership, that
“the achievement of ‘social order’ by both legal process and by well ordered personal conduct
can only exist if there is a partnership between citizens of the community and the police.” By
improving communication between the police and the community, the program hoped to bring
residents into the process of crime control, a marked departure from Parker’s professionalized
“thin blue line.”
148

A number of black officials and community representatives praised Reddin’s efforts to
enhance police community-relations. Councilman Tom Bradley stated that if the recommended
community relations program passed, “We will have the most advanced police department in the
country.” Characterizing the proposed plans as a drastic change in the relationship and attitude of
the LAPD toward inner city problems, African American city councilman Bill G. Mills believed
that the program was “a great breath of refreshing air over Los Angeles.”
149

Operating under a Total Community Involvement concept, Reddin often met with
officers to stress the importance that every officer was a community relations specialist and he

147
Los Angeles Police Department, “Plans of the Los Angeles Police Department for an Enlarged Program to
Further Lessen Possibility of Civil Unrest Within the City of Los Angeles,” April 1968, Folder 1, Box 3, Halpert
Papers; Saul Halpert, “The Los Angeles Police Department Today Outline a Far-Reaching Program...,” April 24,
1968, Folder 1, Box 3, Halpert Papers.
148
LAPD, “Community Relations Program,” November 1968, Folder [L.A.P.D. (Los Angeles Police Dept.)], Box
26, Egil Krogh SMOF, Richard M. Nixon Library, (hereafter Krogh Papers).
149
“Unrest,” April 24, 1968, Folder 1, Box 3, Halpert Papers.
149
instituted enhanced human and community relations programs as part of the training of all new
officers at the police academy.
150
By the end of 1968, the LAPD’s Community Relations
Program had become a central component of police operations and was reinforced by the federal
Law Enforcement Assistance Administration’s (LEAA) special grants project to develop
community relations programs. The Los Angeles Times lauded the LAPD’s comprehensive
community relations program as a potential model for all other urban police department’s.
151

Recognizing that intensified, military-style policing could not solve the problems that produced
violent uprisings, the community relations program set forth the goal of creating mutual
cooperation between the police and the community to maintain ‘social order.’
152

The LASD also worked to enhance police-community relations as a direct form of riot
prevention. The LASD proposed a program—with the support of the LEAA in the form of
$95,280—aimed to improve police and community relations with a focus on the minority
communities in Los Angeles. The LASD, the proposal stated, had programs in place since 1935
but the drive for Community Relations in the post-1965 period was a direct response to the Watts
uprising. “This project,” Pitchess stated, “must be initiated if we are to prevent the type of human
calamity that so recently erupted in Los Angeles County….The recent rioting in the Los Angeles
area…has made it amply clear to those who studied it—and to we who lived it—that our efforts,
though well-intentioned, were just not enough.” In order to avert such tragedies, the proposal
suggested, “more emphasis must be focused on solutions to this grievous problem.” The LASD

150
Robert E. Conot, “The Superchief,” Los Angeles Times West Magazine, June 9, 1968, Folder 18, Box 8, Ruiz
Papers.
151
“Wanted: A Police-to-People Program,” Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1968, sec. Part II. The federal funders were
less impressed with the grant project: Institute of Criminal Law and Procedures, “Study and Evaluation of Projects
and Programs Funded Under the Law Enforcement Assistance Act of 1965,” March 1971; Tullis, 172. For the mix
of police and community programs see California Council on Criminal Justice, “Grant Programs for Police Services
Task Force,” 1970, Folder 33, Box 19, UPRI Records.
152
LAPD, “Community Relations Program,” November 1968, Folder [L.A.P.D. (Los Angeles Police Dept.)], Box
26, Krogh Papers.
150
outlined a project took officers out of patrol cars and onto the streets as well as in plainclothes in
order to facilitate a better relationship with residents due to the hostility many inner city
communities had for uniformed officers. The Sheriff's Department expected the officers to “be
architects of policy -- molders of a departmental posture and image.”
153

While a comprehensive program, the LAPD’s Community Relations Program paid
particular attention to the relationships between the police and minority groups through a Special
Minority Community Liaison that worked with African American and Mexican American
residents. They set up an Economic Youth Opportunities Agency (EYOA) program to develop
Mexican American affairs and increase understanding through language training and cultural
understanding. In the African American community, the program focused on the 77
th
Street
Interdenominational Clergy-Police Council, a Ministerial Alliance, and Residents’ Councils in
public housing projects to develop cooperative crime prevention programs.
154

The Community Relations department also focused on programs to win over what they
perceived as violent-prone and oppositional youth. Community Relations officers attempted to
address the tension with black and Mexican American youth by eliminating the punitive nature
of the relationship that governed interactions with the police prior to and during the Watts
uprising. The program outlined a means for expanding contact between youth and the police to
both promote behaviors as a means of riot prevention and to change the perception of the
department among minority youth. By placing officers in inner-city schools, the LAPD’s
program aimed emphasized the “friendliness” and “humanism” of police officers who came in
contact with nearly eight-thousand students per week. Police and school officials believed that

153
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, “Community Relations Task Force,” January 14, 1966, Folder Police
Community Relations, Box 69, RG 423; See also: Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Courtney A.
“Community Relations Sergeant,” January 14, 1966, in ibid.
154
In ibid.
151
the program “presented in an atmosphere of learning, is invaluable in creating a sense of concern
for orderly behavior and a sense of responsibility for the maintenance of law and order.”
155
In the
African American community officers worked with local community members to organize a
Community-Police Service Corps meant to get youth in black community to work with—and
trust—the police. Other proposals included the creation of youth councils in every high school to
facilitate communication, cooperation with the academic community, psychological
understanding and support for uniformed officers who faced intense situations on a daily basis,
and placing policemen in public schools to teach courses on police-community contact. Some of
the more extravagant events included organized trips to sporting, professional, and entertainment
venues for nearly 25,000 “youngsters predominantly from the city’s lower socio-economic
areas” and in 1968 LAPD officers took eight hundred youth from South Central camping at
Camp Radford in the San Bernardino Mountains as part of an “effort to combat the anti-police
attitudes learned in the inner city.”
156

By 1971, the LAPD’s and LASD’s Community Relations Program were involved in a
wide variety of activities and programs. The LAPD’s Program operated more than 80 community
relations projects throughout the city. “The major objective of these programs,” the Department
stated in its 1971 Program, “is to establish a climate in the City of Los Angeles in which
necessary police tasks may be performed with the acceptance, understanding and approval of the
community.”
157

155
Los Angeles Police Department, “Plans of the Los Angeles Police Department for an Enlarged Program to
Further Lessen Possibility of Civil Unrest Within the City of Los Angeles,” April 1968, Folder 1, Box 3, Halpert
Papers; LAPD, “Community Relations Program,” November 1968, Folder [L.A.P.D. (Los Angeles Police Dept.)],
Box 26, Krogh Papers.
156
LAPD, “Organized Youth Activities in the Los Angeles Area,” April 1969, Folder [L.A.P.D. (Los Angeles Police
Dept.)], Box 26, Krogh Papers; See also Hinton, 90.
157
Los Angeles Police Department, “Community Relations Programs of the Los Angeles Police Department,” 1971,
Los Angeles Public Library.
152
Assessments of the community relations approach by some black residents, however,
contrasted with the positive views of law enforcement officials. Despite the growth in
community relations programs by both the LAPD and the LASD, there was evidence that the
behavior of the officers on the street had not changed since the 1965 uprising.
158
As South
Central resident Paul Williams claimed:
Things haven’t changed really, in law enforcement. What they’ve done is eased
off and sporadically they harass…Their so-called community relations aren’t
really relating, not to the community itself. People in the community still feel the
police are harassing…In fact, the people are more severe toward the poli dept now
because they know the dept hasn’t changed.
159

Walter Raine argued in the Los Angeles Riot Study, the community relations approach was
another flawed “‘con’ job” of the police because the community did not respect the police and
officers did “not understand the mores of the Negro community.”
160
Ron Wilkins of the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) recalled how community liaison officers infiltrated
groups and participated in raids on the Brown Berets in East Los Angeles, while one of the
LASD’s former directors of community relations admitted that a central part of community
relations was intelligence gathering, intended to discover which groups were “anti-police” or a
threat to the status quo in order to establish liaisons and oversight.
161
The efforts of social reform
and “hearts and minds” approach worked hand in hand with the more repressive, law and order
strategies, which grew exponentially with the infusion of federal funding to address crime,
violence, and riots.

158
Paul Bullock, Watts: The Aftermath: An Inside View of the Ghetto (Grove Press, 1969), 54.
159
Paul Williams interview by Paul Bullock, 1969, Folder 7, Box 2, Paul Bullock Papers, Collection 1303, Special
Collections Young Research Library, UCLA (Hereafter Bullock Papers).
160
Los Angeles Riot Study, 406.
161
Tullis, “A Vietnam at Home,” 199; Theodore Rankin, “Fact or Farce?,” Police Chief XXXVIII, no. 3 (March
1971): 62–64.
153
LEAA, LBJ’s War on Crime, and the Militarization of the LAPD

Alongside Reagan’s efforts in California that linked civil unrest and fears of violent street
came to bolster punitive policies, support for law and order also came from national political
figures as Lyndon Johnson’s statements admonishing rioters after Watts suggested.
162
Indeed,
Johnson was instrumental in encouraging law and order policies through the establishment of
commissions to investigate crime and riots and the passage of national legislation to assist law
enforcement agencies. After the urban uprisings of the 1960s and the fear of rising crime rates in
America’s cities, two major presidential commissions investigated the causes and public policy
solutions to the urban crisis: the Kerner Commission and the Katzenbach Commission. The
developments in funding and institutional infrastructure for crime control that came out of
Johnson’s War on Crime, one carried on and expanded by Richard Nixon after his 1968 law and
order presidential campaign, complemented and facilitated the LAPD’s commitment to
militarized policing. In doing so, the Johnson administration legitimated and facilitated—by
providing federal resources to local crime fighters for the first time—tougher police tactics.
While the Kerner Commission made recommendations for the development of
employment programs, public assistance to cities, and reform in police practices, the Katzenbach
Commission – The President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice
– stressed the need to develop programs to address rising urban crime rates through crime control
measures. The report, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society stated, “There is much crime in
America, more than is ever reported, far more than ever is solved, far too much for the health of
the Nation. Every American knows that. Every American is, in a sense, a victim of crime.”
Concerned with criminal violence, the Katzenbach Committee made more than 200
recommendations for basic changes “in the operations of police, schools, prosecutors,

162
Lou Cannon, Governor Reagan His Rise To Power (Public Affairs, 2009), Loc. 2786.
154
employment agencies, defenders, social workers, prisons, housing authorities, and probation and
parole officers.”
163

Johnson’s approach was not the punitive one that would develop in the 1970s under
Nixon and Governor Reagan. Indeed, as Johnson’s response to the Watts uprising suggested, he
initially viewed the War on Crime as part of the War on Poverty.
164
Framing the growth in street
crime, at least in part, to the problems of racial discrimination and segregation placed crime
under the purview of the Great Society. The Katzenbach Report recognized the need for a total
approach to crime control and prevention. “We will not have dealt effectively with crime until
we have alleviated the conditions that stimulate it,” the Report stated, “To speak of controlling
crime only in terms of the work of the police, the courts and the correctional apparatus, is to
refuse to face the fact that widespread crime implies a widespread failure by society as a
whole.”
165

Despite the emphasis on social and economic programs as complementary to overt crime
control measures, the Commission on Law Enforcement focused heavily on changes to law
enforcement and criminal justice programs. Building on the foundation of the Office of Law
Enforcement Assistance (OLEA), the apparatus set up by Johnson’s 1965 Law Enforcement
Assistance Act to aid state and local law enforcement, corrections, and criminal justice systems,
the Katzenbach Committee’s recommendations anticipated an expansion of Federal aid to law
enforcement in 1968.
166
“The proposed Safe Streets and Crime Control Act of 1967,” Ramsey
Clark stated, “is a logical extension of the Law Enforcement Assistance Act, offering more

163
President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, The Challenge of Crime in a Free
Society (U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1967).
164
For in-depth discussions of Johnson’s war on poverty as a war on crime see Hinton and Neptune.
165
President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, The Challenge of Crime in a Free
Society (U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1967).
166
Department of Justice, Annual Report to the President and the Congress on Activities Under the Law
Enforcement Assistance Act of 1965 (Washington, DC: Office of the Attorney General, 1967).
155
direct, operational aid to law enforcement agencies while preserving the research and
demonstration emphasis which provided the cornerstone for the Law Enforcement Assistance
Act.”
167

The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 extended the 1965 Act and
expanded the work of the Office of Law Enforcement Assistance to provide federal assistance to
state and local law enforcement. Initially intended to be part of Johnson’s Great Society,
Congress transformed it into what would become a building block of Nixon’s New Federalism
and the War on Crime. The Safe Streets Act called for law enforcement efforts to be “better
coordinated, intensified, and made more effective at all levels of government....It is therefore the
declared policy of Congress to assist State and local governments in strengthening and
improving law enforcement at every level by national assistance.” Title I of the Safe Streets Act
created the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) to distribute funds for research,
planning, coordination, and demonstration projects at the state and local level.
168

The LEAA worked on a block grant formula in which federal assistance and resources
were allocated to state agencies that then worked with local grantees, such as cities and local law
enforcement agencies, to disburse funds for various criminal justice programs, facilitating the
integration of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. State appointed crime councils
coordinated with municipalities and their law enforcement agencies to apply for federal funds in
areas of planning, action grant, juvenile justice funds, and corrections. In California, for
example, the LEAA provided funds to local law enforcement through the California Council on
Criminal Justice (CCCJ). Although the Block Grant system of distribution reflected a growing

167
United States Department of Justice, Second Annual Report to the President and the Congress on Activities
Under the Law Enforcement Assistance Act of 1965, 1967.
168
Malcolm Feeley and Austin Sarat, The Policy Dilemma: Federal Crime Policy and the Law Enforcement
Assistance Administration (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980).
156
consensus that the responsibility for criminal justice rested at the local level, the LEAA also used
discretionary grants to provide money directly to cities for specialized crime control projects
that, as Elizabeth Hinton argues, brought federal law enforcement powers into inner cities in the
form of highly aggressive and militarized programs.
169

Over the course of its twelve-year history, the LEAA disbursed nearly $8 billion to state
and local law enforcement agencies, of which California and Los Angeles received a
disproportionate amount that focused on law enforcement agencies such as the LAPD and
LASD.
170
The LEAA also operated a Discretionary Grant Program that provided additional
financial support meant to “advance national priorities, draw special attention to programs not
emphasized in State plans, and provide special impetus for reform and experimentation within
the total law enforcement improvement structure created by the Act.”
171
These programs
included police training programs, the use of science in law enforcement, improved correctional
facilities, riot control plans, and narcotics control task forces. Although the mix of programs
encompassed both punitive and rehabilitative elements—many of which focused on community
relations—the bulk of funding went to local police departments, and in the case of Los Angeles
County, to LAPD and LASD projects to expand the use of military hardware, computerized
tracking systems, and communications equipment.
172

169
Jerry Gillam, “Crime Foundation Bill Heads for Crucial Test: Senate Finance Unit to Act on Reagan Plan;
Private Police Force Feared by Opponents,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1967, sec. Part One; James Kilpatrick, J.
“A New Federalism Project That’s Working,” Los Angeles Times, September 18, 1969, sec. Part II; Paul Houston,
“Safe Streets: Is U.S. Money Helping Win War on Crime?,” Los Angeles Times, April 4, 1971, sec. B; The efforts at
new federalism often resulted in infighting between local jurisdictions, see California Council on Criminal Justice.
“Evaluation of Crime Control Programs in California,” April 1973, Folder 23, Box 20, UPRI Records; On programs
in other cities see Hinton, 173-244.
170
Lynn A. Curtis, ed., American Violence and Public Policy: An Update of the National Commission on the Causes
and Prevention of Violence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 124; Charlotte Moore, Crime: LEAA, The
Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (Education and Public Welfare Division, November 29, 1979).
171
Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, “Guide for Discretionary Grant Programs Fiscal Year 1970,” 1970,
Folder Law Enforcement Assistance Administration--1969/70, Box 25, Krogh Papers.
172
“Crime Memo,” 1972, Folder Law Enforcement/Crime Control, Box 25, Krogh Papers; California Council on
Criminal Justice, “Current Project Listings,” 1972, Folder 4, Box 21, UPRI Records; California Council on Criminal
157
Despite the LAPD’s long history of opposition to outside interference with their internal
affairs the department was more than willing to take funding from the federal government,
especially when it came to scientific and technological police methods. Both Reddin and Davis
understood that budgetary constraints within the city limited the department and looked to the
state and federal governments to supplement local funds for experimental programs.
173
In 1969,
for example, the LEAA awarded Los Angeles $564,840 as part of their Action Grant program.
By 1971 Los Angeles was set to receive over $9 million in federal funds in addition to over $3
million in local matching funds.
174
A 1975 Summary of Federal Funding for Intelligence
Activities reported that the city received approximately $122.4 million in revenue sharing funds
related to a variety of criminal justice programs of which approximately $30.9 million was used
by the LAPD. The LAPD’s LEAA funding between 1968 and 1975 totaled $15,600,000 for 23
different projects.
175
Between 1969 and 1978, Los Angeles received over $100 million in LEAA
funds, the majority of which went to the LAPD and LASD.
176
“As a result of the support
provided by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration,” the LAPD reported in 1972, “we
can take pride in the fact that Federal funds are turning the Safe Streets Act into a reality.”
177

Justice, “Completion of the Automated Communications Network (LAPD),” April 24, 1974, Folder 9, Box 21,
UPRI Records.
173
Thomas Reddin, “Proposed Federal and State Financial Assistance to Local Law Enforcement,” December 8,
1969, Box 2276, Notebook #1, PDX/82; Edward M. Davis, “Financing Local Police Departments,” nd., Notebook
#1, Box 2276, PDX/82.
174
Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, “Funding Summary - 1969,” 1970, Folder Law Enforcement
Assistance Administration--1969/70, Box 25, Krogh Papers; Robert Lawson, “Distribution of LEAA Funds in
California,” 1971, Folder 25, Box 19, UPRI Records; Los Angeles, like other major American cities was eligible for
special grants from the LEAA, United States Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration,
“Program Announcement: Special Grant for Crime Control Projects in Largest Cities,” May 10, 1969, Folder Cities,
Box 1, RG 423.
175
Comptroller General of the United States, “Federal Funding Provided To 10 Police Departments For Intelligence
Activities,” November 6, 1975, Folder 9, Box 42, UPRI Records.
176
California Council on Criminal Justice, “Evaluation of Crime Control Programs in California,” April 1973,
Folder 23, Box 20, UPRI Records; LEAA, Crime Control in Los Angeles County, 1973-1978, 1978.
177
LEAA, “LEAA Newsletter,” June 1972, Folder F8369: 73, CCCJ Records.
158
Los Angeles’s proximity to defense industry contractors also brought new technology
and crime fighting tools to local law enforcement agencies. As Jennifer Light has argued, the
sharing of Cold War expertise for urban problems was a crucial shift in city politics and policies
during the 1960s. The Johnson administration called for the domestic deployment of “defense
intellectuals” from universities, think tanks, and aerospace companies to aid cities in coming up
with new plans to deal with rising crime, disorder, and poverty following the urban riots of the
1960s. Working with NASA and the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, space age technology and systems slowly made inroads into Los Angeles city
management, and set the stage for more scientific approaches to urban planning, renewal, and
housing. The hope was that such methods would “promise a cure for chaos.”
178
The funds
provided by the federal government to advance police systems and management were meant to
increase efficiency and provide better law enforcement to residents but often bordered on a form
of constant monitoring and social control.
Law enforcement officials—the LAPD in particular—saw their role as one that could
bring policing and law enforcement into the ‘space age’ through cooperation with the state’s
large number of aerospace corporations. As Reddin explained in 1969, federal funding was
necessary for the implementation of “techniques developed military and space operations would
be of great importance in enhancing the operational ability of the police.”
179
State officials
believed that scientific experts could help solve the crime problem through data analysis and
high-tech approaches, hoping to employ the large number of scientists in Southern California to

178
Jennifer S. Light, From Warfare to Welfare: Defense Intellectuals and Urban Problems in Cold War America
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 154.
179
Thomas Reddin, “Proposed Federal and State Financial Assistance to Local Law Enforcement,” December 8,
1969, Notebook #1, Box 2276, PDX/82.
159
“turn their efforts earthward” in order to produce better anti-crime procedures.
180
This approach
facilitated the partnership between the LAPD and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the
development of a technologically advanced communication system in Los Angeles during the
1970s called the Emergency Command Control Communications System and with other
aerospace corporations to design other computerized systems such as the LAPD’s Pattern
Recognition and Information Correlation (PATRIC) system and the LASD’s Optimum Records
Automation For Courts and Law Enforcement (ORACLE) program.
181

While such scientific management and systems enhanced the efficiency of law
enforcement, the LAPD put more faith in the ability of scientific expertise and hardware to
control crime than it did in efforts to work with communities for preventative measures. Chief
Edward Davis, often at odds with LEAA officials, pushed for the LEAA to develop a more
comprehensive approach to make planning and regional coordination easier to accomplish. He
also stressed the preference for hardware grants over street programs, reinforcing the drive
toward science, technology, and militarized policing in urban areas. Davis demanded that LEAA
funds not be used for a social welfare approach to solving crime “a la the Johnsonian War on
Poverty.” Rather than approach crime from a preventive point of view, Davis stressed the need
for a beefed up law enforcement program that empowered the police to operate with autonomy.
“It is imperative,” Davis continued, “that the LEAA funds not be used for social approach
programs as a means of reducing crime.” Criminal justice planning boards, he argued, should be
under control of law enforcement experts, not the community or social welfare agencies.
182

180
“Aerospace -- Down to Earth,” March 15, 1966, Folder ----, Box 70, RG 423.
181
“Crime Control A Space-Age Approach,” nd., Folder ----, Box 70, RG 423; LAPD, “Emergency Command
Control Communications System Information Sheet,” 1980, Folder 9, Box 36, UPRI Records; On PATRIC see The
Aerospace Corporation, “Evaluation of the Proposed Tactical Information Correlation and Retrieval System
(PATRIC),” May 12, 1970, Folder 11 Box 35, UPRI Records; On ORACLE see Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Department, “Oracle”, 1970, Folder [L.A.P.D. (Los Angeles Police Dept.)], Box 26, Krogh Papers.
182
Edward M. Davis, “The Gordian Knot,” The Police Chief, April 1976, Notebook #1, Box 2276, PDX/82.
160
The LEAA facilitated programs that upgraded and implemented hardware projects and
computer management systems in ways that brought military hardware and technology home to
the streets of urban America.
183
The CCCJ’s Science and Technology Task Force, for example,
facilitated this transfer of technology by stressing a commitment to the “objectives of substantial
prevention, reduction and control of crime and criminal behavior, detection, apprehension and
treatment of criminals and increasing the effectiveness of law enforcement personnel through the
development and use of the equipment and other means resulting form modern scientific and
technological advances and developments.”
184
Such hardware and systems, in the form of
electronic data processing, communication systems, and research and development projects,
provided a foundation for enhanced crime-fighting tactics that contributed to the monitoring of
inner city spaces and residents in particular.
The confusion and inability of the police to communicate orders and tactics efficiently
during the Watts uprising pushed the LAPD to request LEAA funding for new communications
technology developed to specifications on par with the defense industry.
185
While the LAPD had
relied on two-way radio communication technology since 1935, after Watts the LAPD
implemented new four-frequency radios that allowed for greater communication abilities as well
as a mobile communications trailer. As crime control came to define the role of the urban police
force Deputy Chief Davis asserted that “we need a command and control system,” with
computerized dispatching systems in order to deal with the demands of responding to crime and
riots in a rapidly changing environment. Although Davis framed the need for enhanced
communication systems as an imperative of crime control in modern society, he played on fears

183
Robert Barkan, “Big Brother Bringing His Toys Home From Vietnam Battlefield,” Los Angeles Times, July 2,
1972, sec. E.
184
California Council on Criminal Justice, “Science and Technology Program Document,” July 21, 1971, Folder
F8369: 68, CCCJ Records.
185
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, “Proceedings of the National Advisory Commission on Civil
Disorders,” November 2, 1967, Folder 15, Box 38, UPRI Records.
161
of urban violence and the inability of police to maintain proper order during the Watts uprising to
support the department’s requests.
186

The LASD and LAPD also used LEAA funds to develop plans to control violent
uprisings and crime through innovative uses of military hardware by using helicopters as part of
the daily patrol operations in Los Angeles. Based on tactics developed out of riot control
manuals, the CCCJ recommended the use of helicopter patrols “linked by radio with ground
units” as a new form of crime control.
187
Los Angeles’s expansive spatial character and a police
force assigned to cover nearly 450 square miles made it an ideal place for the implementation
and experimentation of new technologies such as computers and helicopters.
While the LASD had employed aircraft to patrol its large geographic jurisdiction since
1925, the department expanded its use of helicopters in daily patrol work with the help of federal
funds beginning in the mid-1960s. The LASD received a $159,400 grant in 1966 from the
Department of Justice to develop the use of helicopters for police patrol under the name Project
Sky Knight. Prior to 1965, the LASD’s grant application stated, the department used helicopters
on an as-needed basis but after the Watts uprising the department was “anxious to implement a
comprehensive aerial surveillance demonstration.” Air patrol, according to the proposal, would
allow the LASD to “abate the crime problem by enhancing the patrol unit’s opportunities for
apprehension and repression…without a significantly increasing officer manpower demands.”
The helicopter enabled the LASD to “see more, travel further, and respond with speed and
directness heretofore not considered possible,” which as the grant proposal boasted, made it
“potentially the most important crime deterrent vehicle available to law enforcement today!”

186
Edward M. Davis, “Police Communications and Riot Control,” November 16, 1966, Notebook #1-A
Speeches/Articles, Box 2275, PDX/82.
187
Ronald Reagan, “Law and Order in California,” nd, Folder Legal Affairs - Law + Order, Box GO 190,
Governor’s Office Files, Reagan Governor’s Papers.
162
Working with Hughes Tool Company Aircraft Division, the LASD carried out a demonstration
project between 1966 and 1967 in Lakewood that explored the use of helicopters in both daytime
and nighttime patrols. Hughes provided three Model 300 helicopters, which included “dual
controls, night flying kits, 90 channel VHF radios, and running time meters.” The program
allowed the LASD to respond quickly, increase the ability of the police to apprehend criminals,
and aid in riot control.
188

Investigations of Project Sky Knight revealed an eleven percent decrease in crime during
the study period reflecting, in the LASD’s eyes, the wholehearted success of Project Sky Knight.
The Department also found that Project Sky Knight resulted in improved police response time,
successful daytime surveillance methods, innovative nighttime surveillance, increased patrol
observation, and better officer security. In addition to greater efficiency in police activities, the
LASD found that public opinion overwhelmingly supported the continued use of helicopters. A
survey of residents in Lakewood, for example, found that 79 percent of respondents were in
favor of spending tax revenues to support the program. With the success of Project Sky Knight to
apprehend suspects and patrol “high crime” areas, departments across the country quickly
adopted helicopter operations, which spread to over 90 police departments in more than 40
counties and continued to increase both in size and scope.
189

The LAPD followed close behind, acquiring seven helicopters in 1968 equipped with
high-intensity searchlights and advanced communications systems organized under the Air
Support To Regular Operations (ASTRO) Program. The ASTRO squadron provided “air support
for ground units in selected areas of the city” during “special surveillance” and “crowd control”

188
C. Robert Guthrie, Project Sky Knight(Office of Law Enforcement Assistance, U.S. Dept. of Justice, 1968).
189
Institute of Criminal Law and Procedures, “Study and Evaluation of Projects and Programs Funded Under the
Law Enforcement Assistance Act of 1965,” March 1971; Ann Frank, “5 Cities Considering Sheriff’s Copter
Patrol: 5 Cities Consider Using Sheriff’s Copter Patrol,” Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1968, sec. San Gabriel Valley;
Ann Frank, “7 Cities Ponder Using Copters to Cut Crime,” Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1968, sec. San Gabriel
Valley.
163
operations.
190
Yet, as Chief Reddin explained to the Kerner Commission, the department’s use of
helicopters in police operations would be quickly expanded beyond specialized uses and
incorporated into daily police work, intelligence gathering, and coordinating police chases and
apprehension of suspects.
191

The ASTRO Program began full time operations in the Southwest area and the West
Valley area by 1970. LAPD officials viewed the program as so successful that they expanded it
to the Wilshire Division in April 1970 and operated on a budget of $746,646.
192
Deputy Chief
Daryl Gates praised the use of helicopters in discussion’s with Nixon aide Egil Krogh, boasting
that the LAPD had seven Bell helicopters in use with six more on the way. Helicopters, Gates
stated, were used for patrol purposes, communication with radio cars, riot control, and in tactical
situations such as pursuits. The helicopter, according to Gates, had a significant psychological
effect, especially when equipped with loudspeakers and spotlights that made the police a nearly
omnipresent force in the city.
193
As the 1970 ASTRO annual report stated, “The chopper acts as
their [patrolmen] backup in the sky which provides the needed psychological edge over the
suspect….the suspect cannot escape the view from above.”
194
As a sign of the emphasis on
helicopter use for monitoring and control, the LAPD painted addresses on the tops of buildings
to enhance coordination with ground units and anti-riot protocols.
195
By 1971, the department
boasted, LAPD helicopters logged over 1,500 hours of flight time each month, a rate that
“exceeded similar operations of any other law enforcement agency in the United States.”
196

190
Tullis, 146.
191
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, “Proceedings of the National Advisory Commission on Civil
Disorders,” November 2, 1967, Folder 15, Box 38, UPRI Records.
192
Los Angeles Police Department, Helicopter Section, “Helicopter Section Annual Report,” 1970, Folder 24, Box
35, UPRI Records.
193
Egil Krogh, “LAPD Notes,” 1970, Folder [L.A.P.D. (Los Angeles Police Dept.)], Box 26, Krogh Papers.
194
In ibid.
195
“Rooftop Number Painting Program Offered by Police,” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1975, sec. The West Side.
196
Los Angeles Police Department, “LAPD Annual Report,” 1972, Folder 23, Box 35, UPRI Records.
164
The ASTRO program followed a particular racialized geography that contributed to
perceptions that inner-city spaces were in need of surveillance and control. Although the ASTRO
Program began operations in the predominantly African American Southwest Area and the
predominantly white West Valley Division, the expansion of the program resulted in the
operation of helicopters in six of the LAPD’s seventeen districts, all but one of which covered
neighborhoods that were predominantly African American or Mexican American.
197
In 1972,
moreover, the ASTRO Division experimented with combined day and night patrols located in
five divisions—Southwest, Newton, West Valley, Northeast, and Hollenbeck—all of which, with
the exception of West Valley, centered on African American and Mexican American
neighborhoods.
198
While residents in South Central Los Angeles welcomed helicopters when
used as part of criminal pursuits, they also believed that the LAPD overstepped its authority in
helicopter operations in ways that contributed to resentment and the escalating use of force.
“Many law abiding citizens of minority areas feel they are being subjected to surveillance
unnecessary and without probable cause,” Ralph M. Nutter of the Greater Los Angeles Urban
Coalition explained to the LAPD, “We are of the opinion that exaggerated and unnecessary use
of law enforcement helicopters is causing unnecessary tension in minority areas and stimulating
resentment to such an extent that there will be provocation for acts or attitudes which could cause
lasting harm to the community.”
199

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory conducted a study of the ASTRO Program to gauge the
effectiveness of helicopters in police work, concluding that the ASTRO Program was “effective
in repressing the crimes of robbery, theft and auto theft to a significant degree in the two test

197
Los Angeles Police Department, Helicopter Section, “Helicopter Section Annual Report,” 1970, Folder 24, Box
35, UPRI Records; Los Angeles Police Department, Helicopter Section, “Helicopter Section Annual Report,” 1971,
in ibid.; Tullis, 147.
198
Los Angeles Police Department, Helicopter Section, “Helicopter Section Annual Report,” 1972, Folder 24, Box
35, UPRI Records.
199
Ralph H. Nutter letter to Murdock, June 13, 1969, Folder 15, Box 36, UPRI Records.
165
divisions.” The LAPD, however, also promoted the qualitative advantage of the ASTRO
Program in the areas of response time, coordination, superior aerial surveillance, and increased
officer security.
200
The success of the program merited its expansion and by 1972 at least 150
departments across the country utilized helicopters in patrol work. The expansion of the LAPD’s
ASTRO program, led the way, reaching 15 helicopters and covering 75 percent of the city by
1975 and 88 percent by 1977.
201
Purchases for additional helicopters—many from the United
States military—continued throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s.
202

Beyond the use of science and technology to enhance urban police forces, the LAPD also
initiated management development programs based on similar notions of scientific research and
models. With the help of LEAA funding, the LAPD established a Management Development
Unit to create management training, organizational structures, and programs for greater
efficiency. These programs, according to the LAPD’s Allen T. Osborne, would serve as the
means of operating the new sophisticated tools that came out of the LEAA and riot control
measures. In order to deal with the shifting state of cities and the fallout of urban unrest in the
late 1960s, “the modern law enforcement agency must not only adapt to those changes but
acquire organizational expertise in managing change…The application of science and technology
to the law enforcement function will increasingly depend on the development of more advanced
management technology within the police organization.” The key to enhancing management of

200
LAPD, “Effectiveness of LAPD Helicopter Program,” 1973, Folder Police Helicopters, 1970-1974 (Part 1 of 2),
Box 664052, Arthur K. Snyder Records, CCL/14.01, Los Angeles City Archives (Hereafter Snyder Records).
201
Los Angeles Police Department, Helicopter Section, “Helicopter Section Annual Report,” 1975, Folder 24, Box
35, UPRI Records; Los Angeles Police Department, Helicopter Section. “Helicopter Section Annual Report,” 1976,
in ibid.; Bill Hazlett, “Squads Growing: Police Copters: Crime Fighters of Upperworld Lawmen Add Helicopter to
Their Arsenal Helicopters---New Tool in Fight Against Crime,” Los Angeles Times, November 16, 1972, sec. Part
One.
202
City Administrative Officer letter to Tom Bradley, “Purchase of Three Surplus Military Helicopters,” June 13,
1977, Folder 2, Box 1295, Bradley Papers; City Administrative Officer letter to Tom Bradley, “CAO File 0220-
00191,” August 24, 1981, Folder 7, Box 2802, Bradley Papers.
166
police technology was the cultivation of high quality employees and human resources.
203

Management itself was a technology that had to be designed, planned, implemented, and refined
in order to pair with the scientific and technological tools at the hands of the police.
Although many African American and Mexican American residents desired an end to
police neglect in order to combat increased crime and counter images of their neighborhoods as
“armed camps,” others challenged the militarized approach facilitated by the LEAA. Augustus
Hawkins, South Central’s African American representative, for example, confronted the
priorities of law enforcement and political officials that increasingly focused on treating the
symptoms of urban decline rather than its underlying social and economic causes. Arguing that
by 1975 California would spend $900 million per year on police and other law enforcement
functions, Hawkins called out Reagan’s funding preferences to warehouse criminals and youth,
stating “it makes no sense that the present California administration prefers to spend $10,000 for
each combined juvenile and criminal career rather than on matching money in conjunction with
our Federal and local governments to provide more preventive, educational, and training
programs.”
204
While the LEAA did include funding for training programs, juvenile justice, and
drug and narcotics intervention, the police focused on enhancing the department’s crime fighting
power and commitment to control and surveillance measures.
205

Conclusion

203
National Symposium on Law Enforcement Science and Technology, Law Enforcement Science and Technology
(Washington: Thompson Book Co, n.d.)
204
Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare,
Examination of the War on Poverty: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty,
Part 12, May 12, 1967, 90
th
Cong., 1
st
Session, 3757-3758.
205
“Crime Control,” Los Angeles Sentinel, December 18, 1969; Daniel Skoler letter to Clark, “California Grants,”
September 21, 1966, Folder California, Box 8, RG 423; Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, “Application
for Action Grant by State of California,” 1969, Folder California, Box 8, RG 423.
167
By 1970, the potential for widespread government-based programs and social welfare
approaches to solving urban problems, racial inequality, and civil violence had been drastically
reduced. Nathan Cohen, writing in the UCLA Los Angeles Riot Study, described changing local
and national commitments between 1965 and 1970 as part of a “conservative trend” that
reflected “a growing belief that an authoritarian approach is necessary to deal with growing
urban problems, rather than continue the social problem ideology of the Kennedy and Johnson
eras.” While Johnson had been instrumental in setting the foundation for the War on Crime
through the LEAA, the combination of a costly war in Vietnam and early roots of an anti-tax
movement made any further commitment to the social approach unlikely. “The simple answer--
the authoritarian approach,” Cohen explained, “becomes easier to face than the controversy
around Vietnam and the reform of the tax system, especially where a large number of the people
in trouble are black.”
206
The shift in government authority under Nixon and Reagan was a
political strategy and choice made by officials to reduce commitments to social welfare while
expanding the coercive forces of the police and law enforcement.
The LAPD’s response to the Watts uprising, which treated urban decline and racial
inequality as a problem of lawlessness and criminality, rerouted urban policy toward punitive
measures and laid the foundation for an ever growing commitment to a military model of
policing. As The Nation’s Larry Remer wrote in reference to the LAPD’s SWAT teams, “the
militarization of the police, which seems to be the trend of the 1970s, will increase as long as law
enforcement persists in 'them-or-us' attitudes toward crime and social unrest.”
207
Scientific
projects may have aided the LAPD and LASD in becoming more efficient and develop new
management, deployment, and crime control systems, but the emphasis on aggressive policing

206
Nathan Edward Cohen, The Los Angeles Riots, 718.
207
Larry Remer, “SWAT: The Police Berets.” Nation 220, no. 20 (May 24, 1975): 627–628.
168
predicated on a paramilitary model also, as Ed Davis warned in 1969, could lead to escalating
cycles of the use of force and violence with no end in sight.
The move toward military technology and terminology in local police forces reflected a
“get-tough” response to uprisings and fears of violent crime. For all the attention to police-
community relations, however, the growth of militarized equipment and tactics for both riot and
crime control had the potential to escalate violence and enrage black and Mexican American
communities. Between the 1965 and the early 1970s, the LAPD and LASD engaged in a
widespread effort to advance their technological and military-style capacities that, as the next
chapter shows, produced increased conflict with African American and Mexican American
organizations who offered alternative modes of maintaining authority and order in the city after
the Watts uprising. Conflicts between the police and Los Angeles’s black and Mexican American
communities surrounding policing shaped the politics of law and order and the inability of social
movements to change the relations of power ensured that discontent, frustration, and
disillusionment with law enforcement and the government continued to grow.
169
Chapter 3: The Score on the Killing Ground: Challenging Police Violence and Alternative
Visions of Law and Order

The arch-professionals of L.A. police is particularly jarring in Watts. The
omnipresence of black-and-white prowl cars on the street gives the impression of
some kind of continuing red alert in the south end of the city.
- Stan Sanders, 1968
1

Don’t think the LAPD haven’t forgotten the 1965 revolt because this is the only
thing I hear when I go back to the pen every time—all about the revolt. There
always talking that talk up in 77. That’s all you hear.
-Watts resident Sedgie Collins, 1969
2

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) had long paid particular attention to the
city’s African American and Mexican American communities, but in the aftermath of the Watts
uprising the police were hyper vigilant, leading to increasingly tense police-community relations.
“There is indeed a continuous, unbelievably real war game between the police and the young
ghettoite,” Stan Sanders wrote in 1968, summarizing how growing appeals for “law and order”
and the presence of an increasingly militarized LAPD in South Central Los Angeles led to
conflict with African American residents, youth in particular. At the same time, Mexican
American activists railed against police harassment in East Los Angeles neighborhoods after the
1968 school blowouts, claiming that “the crooked arm of the law, the Sheriffs, continues to
mount attacks against young Chicanos.”
3
During the late 1960s, both African Americans and
Mexican Americans mobilized around the twin problems of police brutality and neglect in ways
that contested the dominant meaning of law and order and offered a different vision than the “get
tough” strategies of the LAPD and Los Angeles Sheriffs Department (LASD). Law enforcement

1
Stanley Sanders, “New Breed in the Ghetto,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1968, sec. West magazine
2
Sedgie Collins, “Sedgie Collins.” Interview by Paul Bullock, March 1969, Folder 8, Box 2, Paul Bullock Papers,
Collection 1303, Special Collections Young Research Library, UCLA (Hereafter Bullock Papers).
3
Stanley Sanders, “New Breed in the Ghetto,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1968, sec. West magazine; La Raza,
March 1, 1968.
170
and political officials, however, responded to such efforts to provide a counterforce to the
racialized, paramilitary approaches to the Watts uprising and crime as disorderly, subversive, and
illegitimate, which unintentionally produced increased repression, monitoring, and
criminalization of anti-police abuse movements and residents living in areas of segregated
poverty.
The LAPD’s and LASD’s riot control response to the Watts uprising, support for
militarized policing by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), discrimination
in hiring and promotion of minority officers, and persistent police abuse contributed to long-
standing tensions, which dated back at least to World War II, between law enforcement and
communities of color. In an effort to address this situation, the McCone Commission
recommended new hiring and promotion practices, community-relations programs, and an
Inspector General to address civilian complaints. Yet, the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) and civil rights organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) demanded more far reaching changes, most notably a civilian review
board. The review board proposal presented a different definition of law and order based in
civilian oversight of the actions and attitudes of the police, than the calls made by Chief Parker,
Mayor Yorty, and Ronald Reagan, which portrayed the police as an embattled minority unfairly
attacked by civil rights activists. The failure to implement a review board not only revealed the
dominant law and order mentality of local officials but also the unwillingness of the LAPD and
city officials to make substantive reforms, which contributed to the persistence of a dual standard
of law enforcement that criminalized urban spaces inhabited largely by African American and
Mexican American residents.
171
African Americans were concerned with the twin problem of police violence and police
neglect of increasing crime rates and victimization during the 1960s. As a result, demands for
adequate policing and for accountability in the operation of law enforcement were not mutually
exclusive. The lack of responsiveness of the LAPD to demands for the civilian review board and
exoneration of the officer involved in the killing of Leonard Deadwyler in 1966, however,
pushed activists to develop alternative measures to ensure adequate and fair policing, such as
organizing civilian police patrols through the establishment of the Community Alert Patrol
(CAP). The CAP reflected the emphasis on “maximum feasible participation” of liberal
policymakers but when the group applied for a grant from the Office of Economic Opportunity
to support its activities, it faced staunch opposition from Mayor Yorty and police officials. When
such methods at community control failed to contain episodes of abuse, many black youth who
had been politicized after the Watts uprising engaged in overt armed self-defense by joining the
Black Panther Party. The turn to Black Power and armed self-defense, however, also produced
heightened responses from LAPD officials who viewed such organizing as part of a larger effort
to undermine the police by Communists and alleged subversives. The LAPD engaged in an all-
out war on Black Power groups, which led to the demise of these organizations while also
unintentionally producing greater support for anti-police abuse campaigns.
While this chapter focuses on black activists in the wake of the Watts uprising, I also
briefly explore the ways Mexican American activists, increasingly defining themselves as part of
a Chicano movement, also challenged the operation of the police. While scholars have shown the
ways the Chicano movement reframed police repression in order to politicize residents around a
common ethnic identity, I explore how Mexican American organizations such as the Barrio
Defense Committee and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF)
172
challenged the use of militarized policing to solve urban social problems. Mexican American and
Chicano movements raised demands that reflected their different experience with the police,
including language and cultural training for officers working in Mexican American
neighborhoods and concerns surrounding how policing of Mexican immigrants operated to
criminalize Mexican American citizens.
Mobilization around police brutality in the Black and Chicano Power era, this chapter
argues, had far more repercussions than simply provoking white backlash.
4
Police abuse and
harassment led to increased organizing among blacks and Mexican Americans around the ways
LAPD’s and LASD’s aggressive, militarized style of policing operated as if South Central and
East Los Angeles were “armed” camps in need of monitoring, containment, and control.
Activists and residents challenged they ways militarized, riot-control policing undermined
demands of equal justice and criminalized entire neighborhoods and residents. Although many of
the demands made by African American and Mexican American activists concerned with
policing in the years after the Watts uprising may have been unattainable, paying attention to
outcomes of their struggles—both successes and failures—reveals how mobilization around
policing shaped the politics of law and order as not only an issue of white suburbanites,
criminalized African American and Mexican American movements and urban spaces, and led to
greater repression that politicized many residents against police violence while simultaneously
undermined community organizations that contributed to the depoliticization of black and
Chicano youth.

4
Michael W. Flamm, Law and Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s,
Columbia Studies in Contemporary American History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); Tom Byrne
Edsall and Mary D. Edsall, Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics (New
York: Norton, 1991).
173
“Prosecutor, Judge, and Jury”: Police Violence, Civilian Review, and the Dual Standard of
Law Enforcement

Black residents often viewed the police as an oppressive force that acted with impunity in
black neighborhoods, leading to harassment, arrest, and, ultimately, distrust of state authority. As
one twenty-two year-old Watts man explained, “Police brutality is like when they arrest you
where it can’t be seen and whip on you. They grab you when you walk down the street. They
pull you over and beat on you. That ain’t right. It don’t happen to white people. Man, I’m a
Negro, so I been arrested.”
5
Class status made little difference when it came to the experience of
police harassment or suspicions of criminality. Chester Washington, an editor of the Los Angeles
Sentinel, related a story of walking to lunch with his publisher when they were both “asked to put
our hands against the wall and were searched after we had already identified ourselves. It’s hard
to imagine the same thing happening to the publisher of The Los Angeles Times.”
6
Indeed, LAPD
officers operated as if the entire black community was suspect, prompting one black resident to
explain, “The police is brainwashed that every colored person is a criminal.”
7

Chief Parker’s statements regarding the city’s black and Mexican American residents
reinforced an “us-versus-them” attitude that contributed to hostility towards the police. Parker
referred to Mexican Americans as not far removed from “the wild tribes of Mexico” and to
African Americans involved in the Watts uprising as similar to “monkeys in a zoo.” Parker also
suggested that criminal behavior was hereditary in blacks and Mexican Americans, testifying to
the Civil Rights Commission that “You cannot ignore the genes in the behavior pattern of

5
Jack Jones, “Police Brutality: State of Mind?: Police Brutality Charge Seen as Ancient Image Police Brutality
Viewed as an Ancient Image,” Los Angeles Times, October 11, 1965, sec. Part II.
6
Thomas R. Brooks, “Necessary Force -- Or Police Brutality?,” New York Times, December 5, 1965.
7
Paul Jacobs, Prelude to Riot: a View of Urban America from the Bottom (Random House, 1968,) 62.
174
people.”
8
Such outright racism was widespread among officers and influenced their actions while
on patrol. Officers in the 77
th
Street Station, for example, employed the acronym LSMFT for
“Let’s shoot a motherfucker tonight. Got your nigger knocker all shined up?”
9
In the 1960s, the
LAPD referred to the 77
th
Street Division as “the L.A. Congo” and the Newton Street Division as
“Occupied Newton,” while residents referred to the 77
th
Street Division as “little Mississippi.”
10

Parker used fear of violence, rising crime rates, and changing racial and ethnic demographics to
gain support for his department, telling a reporter in 1965 “that by 1970, 45 percent of the
metropolitan area of Los Angeles will be Negro. If you want any protection for your home and
family, you’re going to have to get in and support a strong police department. If you don’t do
that, come 1970, God help you!”
11

Hearings held in 1962 by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights revealed widespread
distrust with the police among blacks and Mexican Americans. The Commission found that
police used:
excessive violence at the time of arrest, greater ... surveillance and arrest in areas
of minority group concentration, the arrest of Negroes and Mexican-Americans
for conduct for which Caucasians are not arrested, discourteous and uncivil
language, ... unjustified harassment of Negroes and Mexican-Americans, and an
unwillingness and inability to distinguish between law-abiding and potentially
lawbreaking minority group members.
12

8
Community Relations Conference of Southern California, “Police Chief William H. Parker Speaks,” 1965, Folder
Watts (Correspondence) 1965, Box 146, Part IV, Community Relations Commission Papers, Urban Archives
Center, Cal State Northridge (Hereafter CRC).
9
Conot, Rivers of Blood, 40-41.
10
Conot, 38; Tracy Tullis, “A Vietnam at Home: Policing the Ghettos in the Counterinsurgency Era,” (Ph.D., New
York University, 1999), 208.
11
Ian Haney López, Racism on Trial: The Chicano Fight for Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press, 2003), 137–8; Lopez also shows how the LAPD criminalized Mexican Americans differently than
blacks through arrests relating to drunkenness and drunk driving. In 1968, LAPD and LASD officers made 6,676
arrests for drunkenness or drunk driving in East Los Angeles (roughly 26 arrests per 1,000 residents) while the arrest
rate for drunkenness or drunk driving in the West Valley area was 6 per 1,000 residents. East Los Angeles residents
were over six times as likely to be arrested on drunk or drunk driving charges, making up over 50 percent of all
arrests in East Los Angeles. Yet, the California Department of Public Health found identical alcoholism levels in
both areas.
12
California Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Report on California: Police-
Minority Group Relations (Washington, 1963).
175

Despite such findings, Parker repeatedly defended his department’s relationship with the African
American and Mexican American communities stating, “basically I do not believe that there is
any difficult problem existing in the relationship between the Los Angeles Police Department
and the Negro community.” The fundamental divide between Parker and black and Mexican
American residents, however, created what one Commissioner called a “bad psychological
pattern” between minority communities and the police. As anti-police abuse lawyer Hugh Manes
concluded, the proactive and aggressive approach of the police often led to hostility from black
residents, which “signifies that he [officer] is feared but not respected. For the Negro citizen, the
police officer has become synonymous with tyranny and ruthlessness; for the policeman, the
Negro has become a symbol of truculence and savagery.”
13

Many African American and Mexican American residents felt there were no adequate
means of filing complaints against the department. During the 1950s, for example, the NAACP
filed numerous grievances of police abuse that either got wrapped up in the Internal Affairs
Department (IAD) or the courts, which were expensive and time consuming. In 1964, for
example, out of 121 complaints of excessive force, only 21 were sustained and no officer found
guilty was dismissed.
14
All too often the IAD and coroner’s inquests revealed that police killings
were “justifiable homicide,” as 32 out of 34 police homicides between January 1, 1964, and July
31, 1965, were ruled justifiable despite the fact that in 27 of the cases the victim was shot in the
back.
15
While IAD officials cited statistics that roughly 40 percent of complaints were sustained
each year, the statistics did not differentiate between internal complaints made by officers and

13
Manes, A Report; On Mexican Americans see: Edward J. Escobar, Race, Police, and the Making of a Political
Identity: Mexican Americans and the Los Angeles Police Department, 1900-1945, 1st ed. (University of California
Press, 1999); Kristi Joy Woods, “Be Vigorous but Not Brutal: Race, Politics, and Police in Los Angeles, 1937--
1945” (University of Southern California, 1999).
14
Jacobs, Prelude to a Riot, 40
15
Hugh R. Manes, “Policemen With Guns,” 1966, Folder 2, Box 39, Hugh Manes Papers, Collection 1854, UCLA
Special Collection (Hereafter Manes Papers).
176
those made by residents. In 1965, for example, the department received 231 complaints of the
use of excessive force, sustaining only 12 or 5.2 percent. That same year, there were 326
complaints of neglect of duty, an internal charge often made by superiors, of which the
department sustained 81.2 percent. Indeed, the disciplinary system was often more harsh on
officers found guilty of misconduct in the form of marital infidelity or lewd behavior than for
harsh treatment of residents.
16
Bringing a “false claim” against the department, moreover, could
lead to prosecution and the law enforcement agencies were also legally protected from
complaints of illegal arrest by California Penal Code Section 834(a).
17
Officers were also trained
to bring charges of “assaulting a police officer,” against suspects who had been subject to the
inappropriate use of force.
18

The lack of accountability to external oversight combined with Parker’s intransigent
attitude, discriminatory practices by officers, and a professional model which upheld the police
as unassailable produced what Manes described as “anti-police riot[s].” Too often, Manes
suggested, the police used excessive force when confronted by large groups of black residents
because “the peace officer who sees the crowd gather “menacingly” does not pause to consider --
then or later -- whether his arrogant treatment of prisoners is the progenitor of a potentially
hostile mob.”
19
Between 1961 and 1964, there were eleven episodes of black crowds confronting

16
American Civil Liberties Union, Southern California Branch, Law Enforcement: The Matter of Redress; a Report
by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (Los Angeles Institute of Modern Legal Thought,
1969).
17
Hugh R. Manes, A Report on Law Enforcement and the Negro Citizen in Los Angeles, (1963); Willietta Schley
Kendrick, “Summer Task Force - Watts: A Confidential Report to the NAACP,” May 13, 1966, Folder Riots Watts,
Cal, 1966-1967, Box 66, Part IV, NAACP-LOC; American Civil Liberties Union Southern California Branch,
Police Malpractice and the Watts Riot: A Report, 1966.
18
California Select Committee on the Administration of Justice, Relations Between the Police and Mexican-
Americans (Sacramento, 1972).
19
Manes, A Report; See also: Hugh R. Manes, “In the Name of Liberty,” April 8, 1963, Folder 2, Box 39, Hugh R.
Manes Papers (Collection Number 1854), Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library,
UCLA (Hereafter Manes Papers).
177
police officers, but LAPD officials brushed them off as isolated incidents rather than a problem
with the state of relations between the department and African American residents.
20

One such incident occurred on Memorial Day, 1961 when LAPD officers arrested a
black teenager at Griffith Park, leading to assaults on the officers by a crowd of 200 and the
subsequent arrest of three other black youth, one charged with assault on an officer and the other
two charged under a 1933 law that made it illegal to remove a prisoner from police custody by
“means of a riot.” The use of what was essentially an anti-lynching law to arrest black youth
enraged many observers. A year later, on April 27, 1962, a confrontation between members of
the Nation of Islam (NOI) and the LAPD in front of a NOI mosque led to the police shooting of
seven unarmed NOI members, killing Ronald Stokes. Following the Stokes killing, a meeting of
local activists, civil rights leaders, and civil liberties activists found that the black community
“seems to be convinced that the initiator of these problems regarding relations between Negroes
and the police is the police chief himself.” While every episode of police abuse did not result in
confrontations with the police, Manes reported in 1963 that “scarcely a week passes without
reports in the Negro press of claims of violence by citizen and police against each other.”
21

There were many in the black community that hoped to work with the police to solve the
problems that led to urban unrest, crime, and violence.

Reverend H.H. Brookins, speaking after
the Watts uprising suggested that the goal of the civil rights movement was not to undermine the
police as an important institution for controlling crime and violence in the black community but

20
Ed Cray, “Peoples’ Rights,” September 4, 1965, Folder 5, Box 7, Coalition Against Police Abuse Papers,
Southern California Library (Hereafter CAPA Papers).
21
Tullis, 203; Tom Goff, “Police-Negro Stress Noted 3 Years Ago,” Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1965; “These
Are Notes Taken from an Informal Conference at the Office...,” July 27, 1962, Folder Los Angeles, Box 3, RG 453
Records of the Commission on Civil Rights, Office of the General Counsel, Police-Community Relations in Urban
Areas, 1954-1966, National Archives and Records Administration, Archives II (Hereafter RG 453); Frederick
Knight, “Justifiable Homicide, Police Brutality, or Governmental Repression? The 1962 Los Angeles Police
Shooting of Seven Members of the Nation of Islam,” The Journal of Negro History 79, no. 2 (April 1, 1994): 182–
196.
178
make them more accountable and effective while recognizing the ways law enforcement had
historically been a tool of white authority:
Our efforts in the Civil Rights movement have not been to impare or destroy this
institution [police], but to strengthen it and to make it more effective in our
community. But let us all realize that there is a difference between law
enforcement as a necessary institution in our society and any given police
agency….The majesty of the law has for generations of Negroes, really meant the
majesty of white authority…..a tool of the white authority to enforce its will on
him in almost every aspect of his daily life.
22

Others in the black community revealed the support for law and order by making distinctions
between law-abiding residents and criminals. One group of nearly 30 residents representing the
Parents Improvement Council, Watts Coordinating Council, 82
nd
Street Improvement
Association, and Parent Teacher Associations, for example, met with the 77
th
Street Police
Station Captain Thomas King in 1966 to disassociate themselves from “the small hoodlum
element” and to work with the police to create a positive image of the Watts neighborhood.
23

Indeed, the LAPD Community Relations division conducted a survey in 1970 showing that
South Central residents viewed narcotics, juvenile delinquency, and crime to be a high priority
issues requiring more officers on the beat and efficient policing practices.
24
The desires for
adequate policing and cooperation on the part of black residents, however, would be constantly
tested by episodes of police abuse, harassment, and shootings by an unrestrained and
unaccountable police force, which leading to efforts to offer alternative forms of policing and
measures to bring accountability to the department.

22
H. H. Brookins, “Watts Close Up - A Lesson For Other Cities,” September 18, 1965, Folder Watts 1960’s, Watts
Riots Clippings and Reports 1960s, Southern California Library (Hereafter Watts Papers).
23
Jack Jones, “Groups in Watts Act to Change Negative Image: Citizens Meet With Police, Disturbed About
Articles Describing ‘Armed Camp,’” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1966, sec. Part II; “Survey Bares Ghetto
Tragedies: Probe Shatters Myths About Negroes’ Wants,” Chicago Daily Defender, September 6, 1966.
24
“A Special Report: Citizens in South Los Angeles Don’t Want A Riot,” 1970, Folder Chief’s Office 1970, Los
Box B-2272, Angeles Police Department Bureau of Special Investigations Records, Los Angeles City Archives.
179
The presence of police officers in black and Mexican American neighborhoods did not
mean that they provided adequate services. “When you're dealing with an articulate, educated
class in some of the better stations, the patrol areas that do not engage in police harassment --
planting of evidence, beating of suspects, this isn't done,” former LASD officer Preston Guillery
stated, “It isn't done in Malibu, it isn't done in the other better off stations. When you go into a
poor area, in the LA County area, you will see evidence planted, you will see illegal search and
seizure, you will see suspects beaten.” When emergency calls were made to the sheriffs in
affluent areas for drug overdoses, attempted suicides, serious injury, or a drowning child,
Guillery noted, the station would dispatch police car on a “Code 3,” meaning with light and
siren. The East Los Angeles station, in contrast, never responded to such calls with “light and
siren.”
25
The LAPD and LASD were, however, more than willing to dispatch officers to monitor
black and Mexican American neighborhoods.
The treatment of Marquette Frye that led to the Watts uprising was merely one incident
among many that had become increasing frequent throughout the early 1960s resulting in low
confidence in the police. The UCLA Riot Study found that 71.3 percent of black men felt that the
police were not respectful and 65.5 percent believed that the LAPD used unnecessary force when
making arrests. Nearly 72 percent believed the police used roust and frisk tactics on a regular
basis, such as in Figure 15, and 65 percent felt that police beat suspects while in custody. While
individual experiences with police abuse were lower, with 23 percent of respondents reporting
they directly experienced lack of respect and 20 percent experienced roust and frisk, twice as
many said they witnessed such practices committed against other black residents, fueling

25
Assembly Select Committee on the Administration of Justice. Relations Between the Police and Mexican-
Americans. Sacramento, April 28, 1972.
180
perceptions of an oppressive police power.
26
Mexican Americans held similar views, as a study
by Armando Morales conducted in 1972 found that 65 percent of Mexican Americans in East
Los Angeles believed that police lacked respect, 73 percent believed the police used roust and
frisk tactics, and 68 percent believed that the police used unnecessary force in making arrests.
27

Figure 15. Police officers search suspects in Watts, Los Angeles (Calif.). Policemen frisk
suspects and search for weapons. One has his boots off. Was taken on 103rd St. east of
Wilmington, March 16, 1966. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, UCLA, Library Special
Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.

The number of reported incidents, however, was likely only a small fraction of the total
actual episodes of abuse, as African American and Mexican American residents saw little value
in filing complaints to a department that rarely responded to their complaints. As the ACLU

26
U. S. Riot Commission, Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Bantam Books, 1968),
302; Nathan Edward Cohen, The Los Angeles Riots: A Socio-Psychological Study (Praeger, 1970,) 386.
27
Armando Morales, “A Study of Mexican American Perceptions of Law Enforcement Practices in East Los
Angeles,” undated, Folder 10, Box 22, Frank Del Olmo Papers, Urban Archives Center, Oviatt Library, California
State University, Northridge (Hereafter Olmo Papers).
181
reported, such disillusionment with the police stemmed from the fact that “the police are, for
most of the people in the ghetto, their only contact with the white community; and repeated
rumors of police brutality, true or not, circulate in the ghetto.” The ACLU argued that public
confidence in the police could be restored if residents felt their complaints of police malpractice
would receive a fair hearing. “The Negro who thinks he has been brutalized or mistreated – often
as the result of an arrest,” the ACLU stated, “sees the police as prosecutor, judge, and jury.”
28

Police officials argued that the aggressive policing practices in the South Central and East
Los Angeles neighborhoods merely reflected the areas with the greatest crime problems rather
than discriminatory intent on the part of law enforcement. As Ian Haney Lopez has shown,
however, the LAPD used statistical policing models during the 1950s that ensured race came to
be a defining element in explaining criminal activity. The connection between race and criminal
behavior, in fact, developed out of the LAPD’s conduct and professional police tactics as they
played out across space and Los Angeles’s racial geography.
29
The LAPD’s statistics revealed
that even as more crimes were reported in the Operations South and Central Divisions—the areas
with large African American and Mexican American populations—arrest rates were much higher
in those areas when compared to white neighborhoods. In 1965, for example, the number of
reported Part I incidents—homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and
auto theft—in the predominantly African American 77
th
Division was 92.7 per thousand
residents with an arrest rate of 29.9. In the predominantly white West Los Angeles Division, in
contrast, the Part I offense rate was 39.0 but the arrest rate was 3.8 per thousand residents. Even
as the 77
th
Division had a higher rate of reported offenses, the proportion of offenses to arrests

28
ACLU of Southern California. “Re Watts: ACLU Again Proposes a Police Review Board,” 1965, Folder 2, Box 2,
Debbie Louis Collection on Civil Rights (Collection 1111), Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young
Research Library, UCLA (Hereafter Louis Collection).
29
Haney López, Racism on Trial, 135–136.
182
was much higher—roughly 1 arrest for every 3 reported—compared to the West Los Angeles
Division where there was approximately 1 arrest for every 10 reported incidents.
30

The police came to symbolize an arm of the state that did little for local communities of
color except keep them under tight control and surveillance. The LAPD’s efforts to enhance their
technological, organizational, and weapons capabilities dovetailed with an overwhelmingly
white police force that heightened perceptions in the black community that their neighborhoods
were occupied territories. As late as 1964 blacks made up a mere 325 out of roughly 5,200
officers in the LAPD, of whom only 25 were sergeants and only three were supervisors.
Although the Watts uprising led to changes in hiring practices and the promotion of more black
officers, progress was incremental. In 1975 only five percent of the LAPD’s roughly 7,400
sworn personnel were black despite the efforts of groups such as the Oscar Joel Bryant
Association, an organization of black police officers formed in 1968, to increase African
American employment in law enforcement and to improve the conditions for black officers in the
LAPD.
31

The Watts uprising created an opportunity for police reform efforts and led to renewed
demands for a civilian review board from the ACLU and civil rights groups. The NAACP,
ACLU, G.I. Forum, and other community organizations had pushed for a civilian review board
during the early 1960s but failed in the face of strong opposition from the Fire and Police
Protective League, Chief Parker, Mayor Yorty, and local businessmen who saw a civilian review

30
Los Angeles Police Department, Statistical Digest, 1965.
31
Kramer, 226; Homer F. Broome, Jr., “LAPD’s Black History, 1886-1976,” 1977, Folder loose, Box 10, Samuel L.
Williams Papers, CEMA, Department of Special Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library, University of California,
Santa Barbara; Oscar Joel Bryant Association letter to Member, “A History,” 1983, Folder 5, Box 107, Tom Bradley
Administration Papers (Collection 293), Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library,
UCLA (Hereafter Bradley Papers).
183
board as not only unnecessary but a tool of Communists to undermine the police.
32
After the
uprising, the ACLU once again stressed that a review board would be an important first step in
repairing the broken trust between the police and the community and would serve as a “safety
valve for the hostility to law enforcement officers in a large and growing part of the
community.”
33
The ACLU outlined a program for a Board that would be independent of the
Police Department, located in a separate building from the Department, and complainants would
be eligible for $500 in damages if the Board found in their favor. The proposed Civilian Review
Board, the ACLU argued, would mitigate arguments that it took authority away from the
Department by requiring citizens who used the board to waive the right to sue either the police
officer involved or the city. More importantly, the board would have no disciplinary powers,
something that would remain with the Department itself. Despite the limitations of the proposal,
likely an attempt to circumvent common complaints by police officials that external oversight
undermined their authority, the ACLU believed “such a board cannot in and of itself prevent
riots such as those which shocked the city in August. But it can relieve one of the most common
and frustrating of the complaints of the Negro community.”
34

A wide variety of local officials opposed the ACLU’s review board proposal, including
the McCone Commission, Councilman Tom Bradley, District Attorney Evelle Younger, Chief
Parker, and Mayor Yorty. In its findings, the McCone Commission rejected a review board as a
solution to the problems of police community relations and police abuse, arguing that a review

32
ACLU of Southern California. “Untitled,” 1964 1960, Folder 3 Box 24; Leanne Golden letter to Affiliates. “Police
Advisory Boards,” April 18, 1963, Folder 3, Box 24, both in American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California
Records, Collection 900, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA (Hereafter
ACLU Records); Davis, Edward M. “Move Over, Chief,” October 23, 1962, Notebook #1-A Speeches/Articles, Box
2275, PDX/82, Los Angeles City Archives (Hereafter PDX/82).
33
American Civil Liberties Union. Southern California Branch, Police Malpractice and the Watts Riot (Los
Angeles, 1966).
34
ACLU of Southern California, “Re Watts: ACLU Again Proposes a Police Review Board,” 1965, Folder 2, Box 2,
Louis Collection.
184
board “would endanger the effectiveness of law enforcement, which would be intolerable at a
time when crime is at an increase throughout the country.”
35
Yorty’s support for the LAPD was
unequivocal, announcing in December 1966, that Los Angeles “will not have a police review
board as long as I am mayor.”
36
The strong opposition from political officials, the police union,
and LAPD leadership meant that the ACLU had few allies in positions of power and the renewed
effort to implement a civilian review board made little headway in Los Angeles as it did in other
cities such as New York and Philadelphia.
37

Although city officials rejected the review board, the LAPD complied with the McCone
Commission’s recommendations, and pressure from the City Council and Board of Police
Commissioners, to create the position of Inspector General to review civilian complaints in
March of 1966. Parker begrudgingly accepted the establishment of the Inspector but the position,
filled by James B. Gordon, remained directly responsible to the Chief of Police and the Board of
Police Commissioners. As Inspector, Gordon could receive complaints and order further
investigation but ultimate disciplinary power remained with the Chief, which ensured the
continued practice of self-policing and lack of accountability.
38
The problem of self-regulation
within the LAPD continued to be a source of constant tension between the department and
members of the black and Mexican American communities and their allies, leading the ACLU to

35
“Reforms Urged to Ease Race Tension,” Los Angeles Times, December 7, 1965, sec. Part IV.
36
“‘No Review Board For L. A., Yorty,’” Los Angeles Sentinel, December 22, 1966.
37
See Michael W. Flamm, “‘Law and Order’ at Large: The New York Civilian Review Board Referendum of 1966
and the Crisis of Liberalism,” Historian 64, no. 34 (January 1, 2002): 643–65; James R. Hudson, “The Civilian
Review Board Issue As Illuminated By The Philadelphia Experience,” Criminology 6, no. 3 (November 1, 1968):
16–29.
38
Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riot letter to John McCone, “Proposed Inspector General for Los
Angeles Police Department,” February 24, 1966, Folder 31, Box 13, Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles
Riots, MSS BANC 74/115c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (hereafter Governor’s
Commission Records); “Parker-Bradley Dispute Delays Action on Police Inspector Job,” Los Angeles Times,
February 22, 1966, sec. Part One; “Create Inspector Gen. Post in LAPD,” Los Angeles Sentinel, March 31, 1966.
185
claim that after years of pressure to improve the complaint process and implement substantive
change, “No significant reform of the system has resulted.”
39

After the failure to implement a civilian review board, the ACLU established police
malpractice complaint centers in South Central, East Los Angeles, and Pacoima as an
independent means to provide residents with a place to file complaints and seek legal advice. The
ACLU saw the centers as a necessary step since the LAPD resisted “any move in that direction
[complaint process], would brook no public criticism, and were not about to open up any channel
of effective redress.”
40
Legal organizations, such as the Western Center on Law and Poverty,
supported the complaint centers and sought to enhance legal services to the poor by volunteering
their time and expertise.
41
The centers had four functions, including an accessible place for
citizens to make complaints, to aid in investigation of complaints, to provide attorneys, and to
help bring court action through civil suits in select cases. Through these functions, the ACLU
hoped to achieve two main goals: to decrease tension between the police and citizens and to
create a permanent and effective complaint procedure.
42

The Malpractice Centers offered a way for residents in South Central and East Los
Angeles to vent their frustrations and provided extensive data on complaints, demonstrating the
widespread lack of accountability by the LAPD and LASD. The ACLU released a report in 1969
analyzing two years of data gathered at its Police Malpractice Complaint Centers. During the
first two years, the Centers handled 734 cases of which only 134 were deemed to have no

39
ACLU of Southern California, “A Project to Reduce Police-Citizen Tension,” 1966, Folder Police Malpractice
Complaint Centers, Box 159, ACLU Records.
40
Interview of Eason Monroe by Gardner, 1974, UCLA Oral History Project, Special Collections Young Research
Library, UCLA.
41
Western Center on Law and Poverty, “Western Center on Law and Poverty Report,” March 1970, Folder 13, Box
253, Alexander Pope Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California (Hereafter Pope Papers).
42
ACLU of Southern California, “A Project to Reduce Police-Citizen Tension,” 1966, Folder Police Malpractice
Complaint Centers, Box 159; ACLU, “Release,” July 12, 1966, Folder Police-Community Relations, Box 200, both
in ACLU Records.
186
evidence of malpractice. Of the 639 complainants that did show malpractice, 314 were black,
174 Mexican American, 118 Anglo, and 34 other. The majority of the complaints—453—were
lodged against the LAPD with 110 against the LASD. Of the 12,646 sworn officers in Los
Angeles County’s 48 law enforcement agencies, the ACLU found that 1,356 were named in
complaints. The ACLU charged that approximately one of every ten law enforcement officers in
Los Angeles County was engaged in “some form of police malpractice,” the majority of which
took place in the county’s ghettos and barrios. Many episodes of malpractice often occurred in
the presence of witnesses—only 123 complainants had no support for their claim of abuse—
prompting the ACLU to conclude that officers did not have “any great fear of punishment
despite the large number of police and civilian witnesses.” Based on their evidence of police
malpractice as well as analysis of the LAPD’s own statistical data, the ACLU concluded three
years after the Watts uprising that “there is a dual standard of law enforcement in Los Angeles –
one for Negroes and Mexican Americans, one for whites.”
43

Policing the Police: TALO and the Community Alert Patrol
The dual standard of law enforcement had important repercussions that in the wake of the
Watts uprising, none more so than the killing of 25-year old Leonard Deadwyler on May 7,
1966, by Jerold M. Bova, a white police officer, after a high-speed chase in which Deadwyler
was taking his pregnant wife to the hospital.
44
Bova claimed that when he approached the car and
stuck his revolver into the window, the car jolted causing him to fire. District Attorney Evelle
Younger did not press charges against Bova, enraging a number of civil rights and Black Power

43
American Civil Liberties Union, Southern California Branch, Law Enforcement: The Matter of Redress; a Report
by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California; ACLU, “ACLU New Release,” 1968, Folder Urban
Unrest - Crisis Coalition: 1968, Box 664092, Arthur K. Snyder Records, CCL/14.01, Los Angeles City Archives
(Hereafter Snyder Records).
44
Arthur S. Black and Norman Houston, “The Legal Redress Committee Special Report,” May 1966, Folder 5, Box
2560, Group V, NAACP-LOC.
187
organizations.
45
As the United Civil Rights Committee reported, “Shoot first and ask questions
later! Is this the policy of the Los Angeles Police Department? It appears that is what occurred in
the Deadwyler incident.”
46

The Deadwyler killing had the potential to reignite violent protest and rebellion in the
African American community, leading City Councilman Tom Bradley to urge the Board of
Police Commissioners to take a strong stance and investigation into the shooting.
47
Yet, the
LAPD’s conclusion that the killing was a “justifiable homicide,” suggested to many African
American residents that little had changed since the Watts uprising the previous summer.
Speaking for many African American ministers, Reverend W. H. Johnson stated “No man's life
in Watts...is worth more than the price of a bullet. Any innocent man may be killed in Watts. It is
a jungle where inhumanity is the order of the day.”
48
It seemed to many that all one had to do in
Los Angeles to be shot was to be black and moving.
49
A Los Angeles Sentinel editorial asked
rhetorically whether “this tragic incident [would] have happened if Deadwyler had been a white
man with a pregnant wife and child in his car…and in another section of our city other than
South Los Angeles?”
50
Hundreds of community members, ministers, and activists turned
Deadwyler’s funeral into a mass protest criticizing police practices in the black community.
51

Over 300 people took part in a silent “sympathy march” behind Deadwyler’s hearse and filled
Zion Missionary Baptist Church to capacity with an additional 350 standing outside, while

45
The W.E.B. Du Bois Clubs, “The Deadwyler Case,” 1966, Folder 10, Box 1, Louis Collection.
46
United Civil Rights Council, “Deadwyler Incident,” May 31, 1966, Folder 10, Box 1, Louis Collection.
47
Tom Bradley, “Report to the People - LVI,” May 20, 1966, Folder 11, Box 11, Mervyn Dymally Papers, Special
Collections and Archives, University Library, California State University, Los Angeles (hereafter Dymally Papers).
48
Don Wheeldin, “The Situation In Watts Today,” Freedomways (Winter 1967).
49
Philip Fradkin, “Bitter Negroes Mourn Man Killed by Policeman’s Bullet: Bitter Negroes Mourn Man Shot by
Officer,” Los Angeles Times, May 17, 1966, sec. Part One.
50
“Public Deserves Facts In Deadwyler Slaying,” Los Angeles Sentinel, May 12, 1966.
51
Bob Lucas, “Hundreds In Killing Protest: Funeral--Memorial To Slain Deadwyler,” Los Angeles Sentinel, May
19, 1966.
188
ministers demanded a thorough inquiry into the shooting.
52
Other activists formed the Committee
to End Legalized Murder by Cops and over 200 residents attended a protest at Will Rogers Park
on May 17 that ended with a mass march to the 77th division police station to raise awareness of
police brutality and demand justice for Deadwyler. While the mass march proceeded peacefully,
a group of roughly 30 African Americans looted a liquor store and smashed windows in a two
block radius, requiring fifty police officers to restore order and contributed to beliefs among city
officials that protests against police brutality were linked to crime and riots and threatened state
authority and police power.
53

Many white officials and institutions, such as Mayor Yorty, Chief Parker, and the then
conservative Los Angeles Times, pushed back against criticism of the police and the justice
system that came out of the Deadwyler shooting by calling for law and order. The Times, for
example, published an editorial comment relating to the Deadwyler controversy on May 24,
1966, demanding that the black community and its leaders should come out in support of “our
system of justice,” and stand up “in support of law and order.”
54
As city and law enforcement
officials had done throughout the twentieth century, Yorty and Parker blamed Communists and
subversives for whipping the black community into a frenzy and used the protests around the
Deadwyler case to push for legislation against individuals who attempted to “incite a riot.”
55

Even liberal County Board of Supervisor Kenneth Hahn defended the police and pushed for

52
Philip Fradkin, “Bitter Negroes Mourn Man Killed by Policeman’s Bullet,” Los Angeles Times, May 17, 1966,
sec. Part One; Bob Lucas, “Hundreds In Killing Protest,” Los Angeles Sentinel, May 19, 1966.
53
Bob Lucas and Betty Pleasant, “Quiet Meet Erupts into Disturbance,” Los Angeles Sentinel, May 19, 1966; Art
Berman, “New Watts Violence Provides Backdrop for Inquest Today,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1966, sec. Part
One; On surveillance in Los Angeles see House Committee on Un-American Activities, Subversive Influence in
Riots, Looting, and Burning: Part 3-A (Los Angeles-Watts): Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American
Activities, 90
th
Cong., 2
nd
Sess., 1968, Folder HUAC, Watts ’65 Project, Written Materials, Southern California
Library (Hereafter Watts 65)
54
“Stand Up for Law and Order!” Los Angeles Times, May 24, 1966, sec. Part II.
55
Yorty Statement in House Committee on Un-American Activities, Subversive Influence in Riots, Looting, and
Burning: Part 3-A (Los Angeles-Watts): Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, 90
th
Cong., 2
nd

Sess., 1968, Folder HUAC, Watts 65; “Yorty Asks for Law Against Inciting Riot,” Los Angeles Times, May 28,
1966, sec. Part One.
189
public support of law and order in the wake of the Deadwyler controversy. District Attorney
Evelle Younger also pushed ministers in the black community to “take the next logical step --
address your congregations on the fairness and good of the system and impress upon them the
need for law and order.”
56
Critiques of the police by African American residents, less than a year
removed from the August violence, brought swift calls for law and order and defense of the role
of the police as a crime fighting force.
57

A highly publicized and televised coroner’s inquest exonerated officer Bova, in which the
district attorney claimed Deadwyler had been driving at over 80 miles per hour and pressed
Barbara Deadwyler with unrelated personal questions. When questioned about the killing Chief
Parker stated “I am going to do nothing.”
58
Indeed, the LAPD and city officials were hostile to
any questioning of the state of police-community relations. “Anyone who deliberately attempts
to undermine faith in our Los Angeles Police Department,” Yorty stated, “is attacking the very
structure of our free society and jeopardizing our safety.”
59
Although Communists and other left-
wing groups did not “dupe” African Americans into the Watts uprising or the movement against
police brutality, as Yorty in his claims that critiques of police brutality were part of a “Big Lie”
technique fomented by Communists, as shown in Figure 16, “to cause a maximum corrosive
effect on both public opinion and the law enforcement agencies,” there were revolutionary
movements emerging out of the local, national, and international conjuncture of the mid to late
1960s. The defense of the police at all costs, however, contributed to feelings in the African

56
“Political Issue Injected In Deadwyler Proceedings,” Los Angeles Sentinel, May 26, 1966.
57
“Parker Says ‘Outsiders’ Stir Racial Unrest,” Los Angeles Sentinel, June 16, 1966.
58
Tullis, 221; Art Berman, “Jury Clears Bova,” Los Angeles Times June 1, 1966, sec. Part One.
59
Yorty statement in Senate Committee on Government Operations, Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization,
Federal Role in Urban Affairs: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization, Part 3, 89
th
Cong.,
2
nd
Sess., 1966.
190
American community that efforts to reform the LAPD required external oversight and alternative
forms of community-based policing.
60

Figure 16. Mayor Yorty, “The Big Lie.” Source: House Committee on Un-American Activities,
Subversive Influence in Riots, Looting, and Burning: Hearings Before the Committee on Un-
American Activities, Part 1, 90
th
Cong., 1
st
Sess., 1967, p. 837.

The August 1965 uprising, failure to pass a civilian review board, and the controversy
surrounding the Deadwyler killing led to new strategies among residents, activists, and
organizations to address the problem of inadequate policing in their community. Responding to

60
On Yorty see: House Committee on Un-American Activities, Subversive Influence in Riots, Looting, and Burning:
Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, Part 1, 90
th
Cong., 1
st
Sess., 1967, 837; On Communists
and connection to Watts uprising see: Peter Bart, “A New Red Group Hails Watts Riot,’” New York Times,
November 21, 1965; Communist Party of Southern California, “‘Watts’ Upsurge: A Communist Appraisal,” 1965,
6.6.1.4 (Box 317, Folder 3), Kenneth Hahn Collection, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California (Hereafter
Hahn Collection); W.E.B. Dubois Clubs of Los Angeles, “The Fire This Time,” November 1965, Folder Ben Dobbs,
Watts Riots Clippings and Reports 1960s, Southern California Library; Della Rossa, “Why Watts Exploded: How
The Ghetto Fought Back,” May 1966, in ibid.
191
the lack of accountability of the department, members of the black community and black
nationalist groups put aside their differences to form a new coalition, the Temporary Alliance of
Local Organizations (TALO), to “provide a united voice for the South Los Angeles community
in its attempt to prevent a further disintegration of the police-community relations which are
threatening the entire city.” The lack of “law and order” when it came to the actions of the police
required the formation of an alternative meaning of the term based on community-policing, self-
determination, and justice.
61

Working to bring stability to the community after the Deadwyler killing, TALO
challenged the assumption of white officials and residents that the black community was lawless,
criminal, and violent—characteristics that law enforcement officials believed required more law
and order and intensified, riot control-style policing.
62
In a sarcastic jab at the white community
public relations director for TALO, Chester Wright, described the fallacy behind beliefs that
black residents were predisposed to anarchy, lawlessness, and on the verge of violent unrest.
“WE disappointed everybody when there was no riot after the Deadwyler inquest,” Wright
mocked, “WE disappointed them on July 4th...every white person knew there was going to be a
riot. We've yet to find a Negro who knew about it.”
63

Organizers sought to include a wide range of groups in TALO, ranging from the
moderate NAACP to nationalists such as the Afro American Association.
64
They organized

61
TALO, “The (Temporary) Alliance of Local Organizations Press Release,” May 31, 1966, Folder 8, Box 32,
Dymally Papers; Carl Westmann, “Temporary Alliance of Local Organizations,” 1966, Folder 7, Box 42, 20th
Century Organizational Files, MSS 077, Southern California Library (Hereafter 20
th
Century); The executive board
consisted of: Ben Wyatt of the Police Malpractices Complaint Committee, Lou Smith of Western Region director of
CORE, Reverend Thomas Kilgore, Jr. of the Western Christian Leadership Conference, Reverend H.H. Brookins the
chairman of the UCRC, playwright Frank Greenwood of the Afro-American Cultural Association, Attorney Stanley
Malone of the Langston Law Club, Robert Hall of Operation Bootstrap, and Eddie Atkinson of the Peter Salem
Civic Club.
62
Clifford McClain interview by Stevenson, n.d. Special Collections Young Research Library, UCLA
63
Carl Westmann, “Temporary Alliance of Local Organizations,” 1966, Folder 7, Box 42, 20
th
Century Files.
64
Robert L. Brock, “Speech of Robert L. Brock, Chairman of the Temporary Alliance of Local Organizations,
Before the Southern California Council of Churches,” June 20, 1966, Folder 7, Box 42, 20
th
Century Files.
192
around the issue of expanded police power employed to manage urban inequality and “to keep
the indifferent elements of the white population from exerting inherent prejudice on the minority
community races through the instrumentality of the Los Angeles Police Department.” Even
conservative blacks, such as a member of Afro-Americans for Goldwater, joined the group
because “to the cops, I’m a ‘nigger’…to the police, I’m a communist agitator.”
65
The problem of
police abuse was, according to TALO, part of a larger structure of social relations that operated
to keep African Americans in a subordinate position. The “oppressive and brutal police power,”
TALO Chairman Robert Brock argued, “under the direction of those who make the policy, with
its roustings, harassments, beatings and killings of black people is the heart and core of the
present crisis; and it is because of this that we have come together and are determined to stay
together until the pain and suffering in our community is fully redressed.”
66
TALO, offering an
alternative model of community-policing, hoped to change the structure of the police department
through external pressure and community oversight, substantive changes that went well beyond
those envisioned by the McCone Commission.
67

Spokesmen from TALO outlined demands for changes in the top structure and operation
of the LAPD, including the placement of African American police lieutenants as acting Division
Commanders in South Central, the transfer of notoriously racist police officers black and
Mexican American neighborhoods, an end to unjustified arrests and harassment, and the creation
of a citizens advisory panel to advise the Police Commission on future changes within the
Department.
68
TALO’s efforts fell on deaf ears, however, as interim Chief of Police Thad Brown
refused to meet with TALO until October 6, 1966, and only after the intervention of a federal

65
Carl Westmann, “Temporary Alliance of Local Organizations,” 1966, Folder 7, Box 42, 20
th
Century.
66
Brock, Robert L. “Speech of the Presentation of TALO,” July 31, 1966. Box 42, Folder 7, 20
th
Century Files.
67
TALO, “The (Temporary) Alliance of Local Organizations,” May 31, 1966, Folder 8, Box 32, Dymally Papers.
68
Temporary Alliance of Local Organizations, “Temporary Alliance of Local Organizations,” June 6, 1966.
NAACP Microfilm.
193
mediator from the Department of Justice.
69
In response, TALO developed alternative,
community-based strategies to oversee aggressive, militarized police operations.
Although attempting to work with the police, TALO’s Police Alternatives Committee
also developed more radical approaches to provide a form of community-policing by establishing
civilian patrols of the police in black neighborhoods through a Citizens Alert Patrol (CAP) to
monitor the police and document “unequal enforcement and application of the law.”
70
The CAP,
which quickly changed its name to Community Alert Patrol, built on the work of Ron “Brother
Cook” Wilkins and Brother Lennie to observe police practices after the Watts uprising to ensure
“peace, order, and fair and equitable law in our community.”
71
The CAP offered an alternative
view of the meaning of law and order, one which saw the police, rather than crime and riots, as
the source of disorder and police harassment as a direct result of the ratcheting up of punitive
policies in response to uprisings and militant demands for civil rights. “The serious beatings, and
killings of black people by police brought on by a get-tough policy in the black and Mexican
Communities forces us to protect ourselves as best we can,” TALO Chairman Robert Brock
reported, “To this end we have brought into being the Community Alert Patrol.”
72
CAP’s
operation created an alternative model of policing; one that placed community policing at the
center of the meaning of law and order. CAP put the police on notice that they could not act with
impunity and challenged the War on Crime as part of government policies that led to a self-

69
TALO, “The (Temporary) Alliance of Local Organizations Press Release,” May 31, 1966, Folder 8, Box 32,
Dymally Papers; “Group Meets Chief Brown,” Los Angeles Sentinel, October 6, 1966.
70
S. W. Collins, “Temporary Alliance of Local Organizations Police Alternatives Committee Report,” June 6, 1966,
Folder 8, Box 32, Dymally Papers; See Tullis, 222.
71
The initial impetus for the patrol started as an “Observer Corps” by a coalition of civil rights groups, black
nationalists, and private citizens, See “Observer Corps,” July 31, 1966, Folder 7, Box 42, 20
th
Century Files.
72
Robert L. Brock, “Speech of the Presentation of TALO,” July 31, 1966, Folder 7, Box 42, 20
th
Century Files.
194
fulfilling prophecy of black criminality.
73

The Patrol’s effort to monitor police practices remained exclusive to blacks, reflecting the
emphasis on self-determination, community empowerment, and black nationalism after the Watts
uprising. “You can help us, but don't join us,” a spokesperson said, “When people come into the
office, they want to see black people. We have to do this ourselves.”
74
CAP did not see such a
policy as part of an anti-white or anti-police position but as a recognition that many black
residents had a profound distrust of the police and other symbols of white authority. “We are not
prejudiced or racist,” Field Supervisor Brother Lennie stated, “If people in the community saw a
white on the patrol they would say we had sold out, that's all.”
75

Meeting nightly at the office of a local black nationalist organization, which they called
The Base, CAP members organized patrols in areas frequented by black youth, such as the El
Rey taco stand on Normandie and Santa Barbara (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard),
because the police often selectively enforced the city’s anti-loitering statute, descending on black
youth with as many as ten to twenty squad cars. The volunteer patrols carried cameras and tape
recorders to aid in observing and recording information about police arrests, even accompanying
arrested youth to police stations to monitor their treatment.
76
CAP instructed members to observe
and take pictures but to not talk to officers during routes so that police knew they were being
watched while avoiding conflict. “CAP is more of a function than an organization,” CAP
member Tommy Jacquette stated, “The Patrol is to reduce police brutality, and protect our

73
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of California, “The Movement,” August 1966, Folder The
Movement, Watts 65; Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin Jr., Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the
Black Panther Party (University of California Press, 2012), 38-9.
74
Carl Westmann, “Temporary Alliance of Local Organizations,” 1966, Folder 7, Box 42, 20
th
Century; S. W.
Collins, “Temporary Alliance of Local Organizations Police Alternatives Committee Report,” June 6, 1966, Folder
8, Box 32, Dymally Papers.
75
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of California, “The Movement,” August 1966, Folder The
Movement, Watts 65.
76
Tullis, 223.
195
people. We don't do this with arms; we don't even carry a pair of fingernail clippers when we go
out. But when the Man comes on, the reaction of many people is to panic. We're there to stop the
panic, to fight fear.”
77
The information gathered by CAP would be used as evidence in police
abuse cases, often filed with the ACLU Police Malpractice Complaint Centers. “If they [the
police] would violate the procedure,” Lafayette, a former patrol member, explains, "we would
file a complaint. Sometimes we knew the law better than they did."
78
Such practices reflected
CAP’s commitment to an alternative vision of law and order that was based on non-violent, legal
avenues of change that countered images of young black men as threatening, hoodlums, and
criminals.
Central to CAP’s approach was that it responded to community desires for both an
adequate and efficient police presence to combat crime and an end to harassment, abuse, and
police violence. By acting as an intermediary between the police and the community, CAP
believed, they created a situation where dialogue and understanding would take the place of
tension and hostility, even countering claims by the police and city officials that they were
vigilantes or “anti-police.” “We don't think that the Negro community is so angel-like that it
doesn't need policing. We're not naive. We are interested in having the Negro community policed
in a way that will not cause our children to be conditioned in such a way that they get butterflies
in their stomach when they see a policeman.”
79
Acknowledging that the LAPD was “not
protecting us and they were not serving us,” CAP played off of the LAPD’s own slogan, “To
Protect and Serve,” by riding in cars marked, “Community Alert Patrol: To Protect and

77
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of California, “The Movement,” August 1966, Folder The
Movement, Watts 65.
78
Tullis, 224.
79
SNCC, “We Have to Get the Police Off Our Backs,” The Movement, September 1966.
196
Observe.”
80
CAP recognized that a community-based policing model could prevent the cycle of
distrust—the “bad psychological pattern” referred to in 1962—that led to police harassment,
killings, and violence.
CAP patrollers quickly became an important community institution that helped end many
neighborhood rivalries that led to violence and conflict. “The patrol played a big part in ending a
lot of neighborhood rivalries,” reported one member, “because we had a lot of guys…from
different neighborhoods in Watts… and from other neighborhoods which previously had not
gotten along, and I think this helped advance some camaraderie.” The group became so
engrained in the neighborhood that residents began to see the CAP as an alternative form of law
enforcement from the police, even calling on patrollers to intervene in street fights and domestic
disputes.
81

Members of CAP provided crowd control at the first annual Watts Summer Festival in
1966 and, in what many called an unprecedented move, coordinated their operation with the
LAPD to ensure a safe and orderly festival free of violence. Many wondered whether the young
men with no training could maintain peace at the festival because “the young fellows who
operated the patrol cars and provided general security were the same so-called hard-core boys
who many think would rather run wild in the streets than do anything useful.” Young CAP
members put doubts to rest after a peaceful Festival and public relations director Chester Wright
boasted “the people of Watts were policing themselves.”
82
The CAP’s operation at the Festival
was successful and provided the foundation for future discussions with the police about how to

80
Betty Pleasant, “Cop Watching Serious Business With Community Alert Patrol,” Los Angeles Sentinel, June 16,
1966; Tullis, 224.
81
Tullis, 225-7
82
Ray Rogers, “Watts Patrol Proved It Could ‘Cool Things’ at Festival,” Los Angeles Times, August 23, 1966, sec.
Part II.
197
best maintain order in the community, and led to similar Community Alert Patrols established by
Mexican American residents in East Los Angles and Lincoln Heights in late 1966.
83

Despite CAP’s successful efforts at maintaining peace during the Festival, widespread
support and respect of the community, and efforts to reduce tensions with the police through
dialogue and communication, the LAPD viewed the organization of young black men with
suspicion. Patrol drivers were often pulled over for no reason and given tickets for either
nonexistent or minor traffic infractions. They faced harassment, surveillance, and intimidation by
police officers who kept watch on the observers, even planting guns and drugs on members to
“give the organization a name—of being hoodlums.” The hostile response from officers on the
beat and department leadership such as Chief Reddin reflected the unwillingness of the police to
cede power to black residents even in the name of community-relations.
84

The CAP program also revealed an intersection between community and state efforts to
address urban problems through community action programs organized by the Office of
Economic Opportunity (OEO). The OEO, for example, provided $238,439 to CAP, which
described itself as “a grass roots experiment in self-rehabilitation,” made up of “ghetto youth,
delinquent, out of school, untrained,” in its grant application. Framed as a program to address
juvenile delinquency, the intent of the program was to bring about a better relationship between
residents and the police department through efforts that would help the community police itself
and provide productive outlets for young black men.
85
The grant application demonstrated that
CAP was guided by ideas of community action, maintenance of law and order, and participation
in community rehabilitation, involvement, and oversight that fit well with the HEW’s and OEO’s

83
L.A.P.D. Mexican-American Community Conference Proceedings and Recommendations (Los Angeles, 1967);
“‘Alert Patrol’ Organized in Second Area,” Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1966, sec. Part II.
84
Tullis, 227-8.
85
U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, “Release,” May 18, 1967, F3751: 181, State Office of
Economic Opportunity Records, California State Archives (Hereafter OEO Records).
198
orientation toward “maximum feasible participation.”
86
The OEO money, coming at a time when
Reddin stressed police-community relations, reflected the connection between antipoverty
efforts, juvenile delinquency, and antiriot measures.
87

The grant proposal to the OEO Office of Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Development
produced a mix response from both city officials and CAP members.
88
Some CAP members
thought the program was part of a “surrender to the Establishment” that would lead to a co-
optation of the organization. Whites, including Governor Reagan, Chief of Police Reddin, and
Mayor Sam Yorty, on the other hand, thought it gave the Patrol a quasi-official status, had little
connection to antipoverty efforts, and undermined the federal government’s faith in the LAPD.
89

Indeed, acting HEW Commissioner Joseph H. Meyers believed that had CAP’s grant application
only dealt with issues of police brutality they would not have received the funds in the first place.
Nevertheless, HEW officials, however, saw the program as a way to connect individuals to their
community, establish a sense of responsibility, and to improve communications between the
police and the black community, thereby reducing the potential of another riot.
90

Faced with strong opposition from city officials, Meyers wavered, stating that the grant
could be revoked if the LAPD demonstrated or felt that the grant to CAP would hurt the
operations of the LAPD.
91
Mayor Yorty was skeptical of the grant, believing that the LAPD had
done a successful job at repairing police-community relations and that the CAP would get in the
way of progress at reform. He called the grant a “political” move that did not take into account
the opinions of local officials, complaining directly to Lyndon Johnson that OEO administrators

86
Vincent J. Burke, “U.S. Might Cancel Alert Patrol Fund at Police Request,” Los Angeles Times, May 30, 1967,
sec. Part One.
87
“Role of the ‘Community Patrol’,” Los Angeles Times, May 26, 1967, sec. Part II.
88
Jackie Beam letter to Jim Barber, June 20, 1967, F3751: 181, OEO Records.
89
Ronald Reagan letter to Sargent Shriver, June 12, 1967, F3751: 181, OEO Records.
90
“Whites Grab Cash Marked For CAP Use,” Los Angeles Sentinel, May 25, 1967.
91
Vincent J. Burke, “U.S. Might Cancel Alert Patrol Fund at Police Request,” Los Angeles Times, May 30, 1967,
sec. Part One.
199
bypassed notification of the city of the group’s application. More important for HEW’s decision
of whether to grant the funds, Chief Reddin called the CAP a potential 'vigilante' committee that
would interfere with law enforcing efforts. In the end, HEW caved to the pressure of Mayor
Yorty and the Police Commission, and revoked the grant to the Community Alert Patrol.
92

Black representatives, such as Augustus Hawkins, in contrast, supported the CAP and
criticized Yorty for not backing efforts to increase federal funds coming to the city. Yorty’s
opposition to the HEW funding was only the most recent episode in his obstruction of federal
War on Poverty funds, prompting Hawkins to argue that Yorty showed “disinterest in the needs
of the disadvantaged Negro ghetto.”
93
Other civic leaders, such as the Urban League’s Wesley R.
Brazier also supported CAP and believed that the benefits of enhancing the understanding
between the police and the community outweighed any disadvantages that the program might
have.
94

Nevertheless, the opposition of the LAPD and city officials convinced federal officials to
cancel the grant. As Johnson’s aide, Joseph Califano wrote about the grant, “This was clearly a
goof,” and that CAP should know the federal government “cannot support activities that 'monitor
or buffer' local police forces.” Although “HEW officials had reason to believe at the time the
grant was made that the police would cooperate,” the lack of support from the LAPD meant that
HEW would have to withdraw the grant and any other social program involving CAP ”must be
approved by police.”
95
In effect, the police, with the support of Mayor Yorty, countered any
attempt by residents to offer alternative modes of policing that threatened to reduce the power

92
Erwin Baker, “Alert Patrol Grant ‘Political’---Yorty,” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1967, sec. Part II; “Yorty
Complains to President on Fund for Patrol,” Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1967, sec. Part II. “Federal Officials
Assigned To Clarify CAP Operation,” Los Angeles Sentinel, June 22, 1967.
93
“Politics, Civil Rights,” Los Angeles Sentinel, June 8, 1967.
94
Wesley R. Brazier, “Your Urban League: Advantages Of The CAP Program,” Los Angeles Sentinel, June 22,
1967.
95
Tullis, 233.
200
and authority of the LAPD. Such a stance, however, did not deter continued organizing and
contributed to the belief that the police had little intention of working with residents to alleviate
tensions that could lead to unrest.
Although the effort to win the grant undermined some community respect for CAP by
suggesting that members had sold out, the loss of the grant reduced the ability of the group to
operate causing many patrollers to leave to pursue other activities. Yet, the organization
continued in a new form, and became known as the California Community Alert Patrol (CCAP)
with chapters in cities around the state. Known as “Our Brother's Keeper” they were concerned
with police abuse, accountability, and crime in the black community, providing security at the
Watts Summer Festival, maintaining security at Black Panther rallies, patrolling at Fremont,
Manual Arts, Carver, and Crenshaw High schools, finding kidnapped children in the community,
stopping muggings, and acting as mediators when police-community tensions were close to
violence. And they often reminded their supporters that they had accomplished all of these things
without the aid of government funding. By the early 1970s, the CCAP began to promote safer
streets and crime control in black neighborhoods by confronting the problems of black on black
crime, juvenile delinquency, and youth crime. Offering free services to the community, the
CCAP explained in 1973, “this we have been doing for the last seven years just for the benefit of
all mankind.”
96

Other organizations also addressed the growing problem of law enforcement and the
criminal justice system on black life, youth in particular. The Sons of Watts, an organization
established by black youth after the Watts unrest, for example, developed a number of functions
aimed at serving the community. These included a security patrol to safeguard business property

96
California Community Alert Patrol, “California Community Alert Patrol,” n.d., Folder Watts - Source Material.
Watts 65.
201
at the request of local merchants, the erection of traffic signs in housing projects where children
played, a continuing “Festival of Lights” to bring adequate street lighting into the area, assistance
as cross-guards in area elementary schools, a counseling program for delinquent youth and youth
who might be at risk of dropping out of school, and the development of a program of cooperation
with the LAPD “as a means to promote better understanding and more equitable law
enforcement procedures.” They worked as mediators between the police and the community in
an attempt to reduce tension in hopes of bringing people and businesses back into the area.
The Sons of Watts worked primarily as security for the Watts Summer Festival but over
time developed connections to Model Cities programs to aid black youth wrapped up in the
criminal justice system. The Sons of Watts became a neighborhood agency in the Greater Watts
Model Neighborhood program, which provided a grant worth $260,000 for the group to develop
programs to help youth navigate the criminal justice system.
97
They began a project called “Own
Recognizance” in which they helped process individuals arrested for misdemeanors to be
released under their own supervision, working predominantly with Compton courts. The Sons of
Watts also provided services to those released such as job placement, counseling service,
temporary housing, and follow up meetings. The OR project and Sons of Watts demonstrated the
way poverty programs and Model Cities projects provided necessary institutional support for
communities to begin to address many of the problems from increased policing and arrest that
came with the escalating war on crime.
98

Confronting the “bastion of bigotry”: Policing and the War on Black Power

97
Los Angeles Model Cities Program, “Own Recognizance Assistance and Rehabilitation,” 1971, Folder 6, Box
2065, Tom Bradley Papers, (293), UCLA Special Collections (Hereafter Bradley Papers).
98
“Sons of Watts Program Sets County Examples,” Los Angeles Sentinel, March 30, 1972.
202
Despite efforts to develop community-based policing, the “urban cold war” between the
police and black and Mexican American residents flared up in 1968 with an increase in
shootings, police harassment, frisk rouses, and in-custody deaths. The combination of fears about
legal and legislative attacks on law enforcement that fueled the law and order politics of Ronald
Reagan and LAPD officials’ growing concern with burgeoning Black Power or Chicano
movements ratcheted up antagonism on both sides. Although Chief Reddin attempted to enhance
community relations, changing the longstanding discriminatory and disrespectful attitude toward
the city’s communities of color was an uphill battle. While Reddin expressed a public
willingness to meet with militant groups such as the Black Congress and Black Panthers, the
LAPD believed that such groups were the enemy of the police in need of suppression and
targeted them for harassment and infiltration.
99
Indeed, black activists viewed increased policing
as a tactic employed by local officials to mobilize the LAPD’s riot control arsenal for social
control and containment of civil rights activities.
Prior to all-out war on Black Power movements, however, a coalition of 14 African
American organizations formed in 1967 in an attempt to work with the police to “assure Los
Angeles a tension free summer.” Meeting with LAPD and LASD officials on June 22, 1967, the
coalition recommended an end to practices that led to tension in black neighborhoods by
demanding that “frisk rouses must be discontinued…there must be a human relations officer on
24 hour duty at all precincts…the concept of police mobile detention centers should be
eliminated from the ghetto areas.” In calling for an end to illegal search and seizures, improved
human relations, and revision to anti-riot control tactics, the coalition stressed the compatibility

99
Martin J. Schiesl, “Behind the Badge: The Police and Social Discontent in Los Angeles since 1950,” 20th Century
Los Angeles: Power, Promotion, and Social Conflict (1990), 169.
203
of the need for adequate police services and protection from police violence.
100
Although
keeping the city free from violent unrest in 1967, episodes of police shootings undermined the
faith that the LAPD was willing to change its practices by working hand in hand with activists.
The shooting of 18 year-old Gregory Clark by LAPD officer Warren Carlson in February
1968, however, reignited police-community tensions, and raised the specter of another
“Deadwyler case.” The coroner’s indecision on whether to rule the shooting a justifiable
homicide led to protests from the black community and the City Council, at the request of Tom
Bradley, decided to take up an investigation. Over 400 enraged residents conducted a public
tribunal on March 17, 1968, finding Carlson guilty of homicide. When councilman Arthur K.
Snyder pushed the City Council to cancel its investigation into the shooting, 150 protestors
descended on City Hall where activist Tut Hayes commented that Snyder “only wants to
represent whites, not Negroes.” The intransigence of the Council to investigate the Clark
shooting emboldened activists who reframed the debate over the police and the meaning of law
and order and inspired many young blacks to stand up to the police. “We’re not here to support
law and order,” Hayes stated, “we’re here for justice.”
101

Efforts at cooperation with the police had, by the summer of 1968, shifted to overt
antagonism between the LAPD and the Black Congress, an umbrella organization consisting of
over 70 organizations from the black community. The increasingly militant demands for
community control over the police by the Congress and affiliated groups, most notably the Black

100
Crisis Coalition, “Press Release,” June 27, 1967, Folder 15, Box 36, Urban Policy Research Institute Records,
Mss. 011, Southern California Library (Hereafter UPRI Records); Groups included SLANT, Watts Happening
Coffee House, Operation Bootstrap, CORE, United Parents Council, Welfare Recipients Union, Citizens for
Creative Welfare, US, Afro-American Citizens Council, Black Panther Party, The Community Alert Patrol, and
County Welfare Rights groups.
101
“City Rejects $1 Million ‘Wrongful Death’ Claim,” Los Angeles Sentinel, June 27, 1968; “L.A. Council Orders
Prob In Police Killing of Youth,” Los Angeles Sentinel, March 14, 1968; Lucas, Bob. “Mock Trial Finds Cop
‘Guilty,’” Los Angeles Sentinel, March 21, 1968; Richard West, “150 Enter City Hall for Hearing Canceled Earlier,”
Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1968, sec. Part II; “Youth, 18, Slain By Arresting Police,” Los Angeles Sentinel,
February 22, 1968.
204
Panthers, led Chief Reddin to warn that L.A.’s Black Congress was made up of “the most
dangerous people in our city today” because they were “just as subversive as the past Communist
movement or just as dangerous as the organized crime movement.”
102
Labeling social movement
organizations as dangerous or related to organized crime reinforced ideas of their criminality and
legitimated the LAPD’s efforts engage in further intelligence gathering, surveillance, and
harassment.
The Black Congress believed that the LAPD targeted members of black organizations in
Los Angeles and planned to carry out a preemptive strike on organizations struggling against
police abuse and for social justice. “The Los Angeles Police Dept. has made it crystal clear that
they do not want to take the defensive when the revolution comes, they are trying to name the
Time, Place and Battlefield,” the Congress stated, “The concrete evidence is their attack on
SNCC, The Black Congress, The Black Panthers, The Brown Berets and their attack on the
California Community Alert Patrol.”
103
Harold C. Hart-Nibbrig, Vice-Chairman of the Black
Congress, went on to describe instances of abuse and harassment of a number of different
individuals and Congress organizations, including members of Los Angeles SNCC, the Freedom
Draft, Opportunities Industrialization Center, Black Voice Newspaper staff, and members of the
US Organization. The week leading up to the 1968 Watts Summer Festival, moreover, the police
engaged in a shootout with members of the Black Panther Party who acted “aggressively” after a
traffic stop by LAPD officers, leaving three Panthers dead and two officers wounded.
104
Such
repeated instances of harassment and abuse signaled to the Black Congress that:

102
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, “Proceedings of the National Advisory Commission on Civil
Disorders,” November 2, 1967, Folder 15, Box 38, UPRI Records.
103
Los Angeles Black Congress, “Black Voice,” August 1968, 2012 Folio S3, Beinecke Library.
104
Unknown, “Three Black Men, Ages 19-22, Were Killed, and Two Policemen Wounded at Crenshaw...,” August
19, 1968, Folder 8, Box 19, South Los Angeles 20th Century Documentation Collection, MSS 078, Southern
California Library (Hereafter SLA Collection).
205
the Los Angeles Police Department with added energy and force, continues to
practice abuse upon the Black Community. Members of Black organizations in
Los Angeles have become targets of the L.A.P.D….The City administration and
the police have made no effort to quell these aggressive and provocative tactics by
frontline officers. Their latitude leaves us with the opinion that they are operating
under instructions….Their aggressive approach to organized community workers
speaks to the conscious premeditation of their activities.
105

Whether LAPD officials gave deliberate instructions of harassment were true or not, the nature
of policing in black neighborhoods led some residents and activists in the Congress them to
believe that the LAPD was pressing in order to provoke a response to justify a crackdown against
organizations demanding police reforms.
On August 11, 1968, thousands of black residents attended the final night of the Watts
Summer Festival at Will Rogers Park in the heart of South Central Los Angeles to hear a jazz
concert by Gerald Wilson & Big Band, Sam Fletcher, Johnny Rivera, and Lionel Hampton.
106

After the concert, thousands of attendees remained in the park, drinking and enjoying the end of
the festivities. The LAPD had been on high alert, however, blanketing the area during the
Festival out of concern for possible violence. When concession officials attempting to close
down the festival called in LAPD and LASD units to help disperse the crowd, resulting in the
arrest of a black woman for drunk driving, members of the crowd threw bottles and rocks at the
officers. Following riot control tactics, officers formed squads and moved into the park, enraging
the crowd, and, according to police reports, led to a gun battle initiated by unidentified members
of the crowd that left three dead and over 40 wounded.
107

The LAPD, with the help of the LASD, responded by setting up an Emergency Command
Center, the “saturation” of a 30 block area of South Central Los Angeles with hundreds of

105
L.A. Black Congress Legal Council, “Statement,” 1968, Folder Watts ’68, Box 240, ACLU Records.
106
Watts Summer Festival Committee, “Watts Summer Festival,” 1968, California Collection, Los Angeles Public
Library.
107
FOIA Request, “FBI Case File 157-LA-2712 (Possible Riot in Watts Area),” 1968, National Archives and
Records Administration, Archives II.
206
officers, and the use of SWAT teams and helicopters to monitor the area. Sporadic episodes of
gunfire and looting ensued but did not erupt into a full-scale uprising, though the police-occupied
streets looked eerily similar to the Watts uprising three years before. Over the following two
days, the LAPD collected information on 179 separate incidents in South Central including
family disputes, standard arrests, broken windows, fires, burglaries, traffic tickets, and false
alarms, whether related to the disturbance at the Festival or not. “There will be those who said
we overreacted,” Reddin commented, “but it’s better to overreact and control it. In this case we
did react massively.”
108

One former LASD officer involved in the incident reflected years later that before going
into Will Rogers Park to disperse the Festival crowds, officers were instructed to remove their
badges, were armed with automatic weapons, wore “black crepe” outfits similar to those used by
the Viet Cong to maintain an element of surprise, and that the reported sniper fire was actually
friendly fire by officers shooting from across the Park. The LASD officer also recalled a lack of
communication between LAPD officers resulting in:
conflicting orders to civilians in the area. There werelong lines of officers,
LAPD officers, blocking off various streets, directing people to go in one
direction. They got started goingin that direction, they'd be attacked by other
groups of LAPD officers, who would beat them to the ground, not making an
arrest, simply beating them to the ground because they weren't moving inthe
proper direction.
109

The perimeter tactics of the LAPD worked all too well, holding defenseless individuals
contained in the cross fire of various law enforcement agencies. As Hubert Wesson, a
visiting Marine attending the Festival claimed, “the police shot first. I hit the deck the
way I was taught in the Marines, falling face down, catching myself with my hands.

108
In ibid.
109
California Legislature, Assembly Select Committee on the Administration of Justice, Relations Between the
Police and Mexican-Americans (Sacramento, April 28, 1972).
207
Shots were coming from the police. In less than a minute, three policemen were on top of
me, clubbing me.”
110
Riot control, it seemed, had turned into tactics of total suppression.
While the LAPD leadership defended the department’s actions, the use of overwhelming
force enraged Festival organizers Billy Tidwell and Tommy Jacquette, who argued that the
massive police presence showed “poor judgment” and only escalated the potential for violence.
“Brute force is no substitute for sound policy,” Tidwell commented.
111
Repressive state actions
surrounding the Festival, as with so many other episodes of police abuse, fueled the growth of
protest and organizing that, in this case, linked black and Mexican American activists.
Following the outbreak of violence a cross section of militants and ministers called the
Crisis Coalition mobilized 500 people to descend on the City Council meeting on August 12,
1968, where they demanded an end to “oppressive tactics being employed by the police in the
ghetto and barrio communities which push tension to the breaking point.”
112
As Walter Bremond
of the Black Congress and Carl Vazquez, a Mexican American activist, stated, “We, Brown and
Black, stand here together…hermanos unidos!” They linked their struggles through a shared
history of oppression. “Our oppressions are one…Our dreams are one…Our demands are
one…We suffer as one, we react as one, we struggle as one!”
113
They warned that eruptions of
violence were likely as long as the “war between the communities and police” continued
unabated.
114

110
Hubert E. Wesson, “On Sunday, August 11, 1968, I Was in Los Angeles on a Pass From...,” 1968, Folder Watts
’68, Box 240, ACLU Records.
111
FOIA Request, “FBI Case File 157-LA-2712 (Possible Riot in Watts Area),” 1968, National Archives and
Records Administration, Archives II.
112
Arthur K. Snyder, “City Council Hearings with Crisis Coalition Notes,” August 1968, Folder Urban Unrest -
Crisis Coalition: 1968, Box 664092, Snyder Records; Crisis Communications Task Force, Crisis Mobilization Task
Force. “Crisis Report: LAPD,” August 23, 1968, Folder 26, Box 39, UPRI Records.
113
Crisis Coalition, “Crisis Coalition Release,” August 12, 1968, Folder Urban Unrest - Crisis Coalition: 1968, Box
664092, Snyder Records.
114
“FBI Case File 157-LA-2712 (Possible Riot in Watts Area),” 1968, National Archives and Records
Administration, Archives II.
208
The Crisis Coalition used LAPD statistics to claim that the black and Mexican American
communities were overpoliced and subject to uneven and unjust law enforcement policies,
practices, and deployment in Los Angeles. “Newton, a Black area which has an area of 8 square
miles, has one policeman for every 610 residents,” the Coalition reported, “Hollenbeck, a
Chicano area which has an area of 9.1 square miles, has one policeman for every 1,148 residents.
The West Valley, which is an area of 85.7 square miles and is predominantly an Anglo
community, has a ratio of one policeman for every 2,078 residents. Is this what you call equal
representation under the law? The Black and Brown people do not have that much monetary
capital invested in our communities for the police to protect. Therefore we can only conclude
that the police are there to protect white interests.”
115
While the department may have justified
such assignments based on high crime rates, many African American and Mexican American
activists and organizations perceived the saturation of police officers as a clear sign of over-
policing.
116
If the LAPD did not provide adequate protection for crime or, when present,
harassed community members, residents of African American and Mexican American
neighborhoods desired to be in control of policing their own communities.
117

115
The Community Reporter: Urban Coalition of the Community Relations Conference of Southern California.
“Coalition Statement Presented to the Los Angeles City Council Police, Fire & Civil Defense Committee,” August
1968, Folder 2, Box 36, UPRI Records.
116
LAPD statistics may support claims of over-policing in black and Mexican American neighborhoods. In 1970,
for example, the department assigned 331 officers to the predominantly African American 77th Street Division (17.8
sq. miles; 18.5 officers per sq. mile; 1 officer for every 632 residents) and 114 in the largely Mexican American
Hollenbeck Division (9.1 sq. miles; 12.5 officers per sq. mile; 1 officer for every 958 residents) compared to 146 in
the predominantly white West Los Angeles (62.5 sq. mi.; 2.3 officers per sq. mile; 1 officer for every 1,4747
residents) and 171 in the West Valley (87.5 sq. mi; 1.95 officers per sq. mile; 1 officer for every 1,552 residents).
Los Angeles Police Department. Statistical Digest, 1970; For the square mileage of the police divisions see: Los
Angeles Police Department, Annual Report, 1970; Similar high rates of officers assigned to the 77
th
and Newton
Divisions were prevalent throughout the 1960s; See Los Angeles Police Department, Statistical Digest, 1966; Los
Angeles Police Department, Statistical Digest, 1967.
117
The Community Reporter: Urban Coalition of the Community Relations Conference of Southern California,
“Coalition Statement Presented to the Los Angeles City Council Police, Fire & Civil Defense Committee,” August
1968, Folder 2, Box 36, UPRI Records; Linda Mathews, “Minorities, Councilmen Stage Stormy Session,” Los
Angeles Times, August 15, 1968.
209
More importantly, the Crisis Coalition argued that the tension and violence in the
community was not a product of community or civil rights actions but of the practices and
policies of the police. As one Mexican American activist stated, “our barrios and ghettos are
already concentration camps, heavily guarded by your so-called good police force. We charge
that it is not the community that is responsible for the violence or the social disorder, but rather it
is the policy of the City Council and the practices and policy of the police department which are
responsible.” Indeed, as another Mexican American youth told the City Council, “Make no
mistake about it; there is, a war between our communities and the police, and it can be fought at
the negotiating table, or in, public hearings, or, if you choose, in the streets.” After one black
witness recounted the violent police response to the Watts Summer Festival, commenting “we’re
tired of police harassment, we’re tired of police brutality, we’re tired of the murders of our black
and brown brothers, we’re tired of being arrested on every trumped-up charge,” Chief Reddin
responded with the quip, “we’re not the ones who opened fire.”
118

The solution to preventing violence, the Coalition argued, was through substantive police
reforms in the form of six demands that addressed multiple aspects of police-community
relations:
1. Stop “legal” killings in our communities.
2. Stop wholesale arrest of our citizens.
3. Stop intimidation, illegal detention, and illegal search of our citizens.
4. Reduce the concentration of police in our communities.
5. Change the policy of the Police Department.
6. Begin an immediate investigation of the criminal conspiracy now in operation by the
Los Angeles Police Department to disrupt and destroy the Black and Brown
communities.
119

118
Phil Kirby, “Riding Shotgun in Watts.” Nation 207, no. 7 (September 2, 1968): 166–167.
119
Crisis Coalition, “Crisis Coalition Release,” August 12, 1968, Folder Urban Unrest - Crisis Coalition: 1968, Box
664092, Snyder Records.
210
White Councilman Louis Nowell, representing many suburbanites, walked out of the hearings,
which he called a “shame, travesty, and disservice.” The charges of police repression, according
to Nowell were “untrue and unfounded.”
120
For most black witnesses, however, they saw
themselves as “targets of uniformed racism.” As Tut Hayes of the Black Congress reported,
policemen ignored pleas of the black community for an ambulance to help a dying black man on
August 11, 1968, when violence exploded at the end of the Watts Summer Festival. The only
response from the police, according to Hayes, was that “there’ll be no ambulance for niggers
tonight.” Along similar lines, a black businessman testified that the “police just assume that if
you’re black you must have done something bad.”
121

Despite the antagonistic tone of the first meeting, the Crisis Coalition met with the
Council for a second time on August 14 accompanied by nearly 1,000 residents. The Coalition
represented themselves as a “cross-section of community groups who no longer live with the
illusion that this is a hall of equal justice for all,” and blamed the violence and social disorder on
city officials.
122
In this meeting, the Coalition reiterated its belief that the Black and Brown
communities were overpoliced, “not protected but persecuted,” and “capable of protecting our
own communities.” They pleaded for action and explained their lack of confidence in positive
change coming from city officials who often listened with open ears but failed to act. As Walter
Bremond stated, “when we leave your building of law, you will go back to business as usual.”
123

120
“Brutality Charges Hurled; Hearings Termed ‘Shameful,’” Los Angeles Herald, 1968, Folder Urban Unrest -
Crisis Coalition: 1968, Box 664092, Snyder Records.
121
Jones, Jack. “Police Action Hearings Harden Opposite Views,” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 1968, sec. A.
122
The Community Reporter: Urban Coalition of the Community Relations Conference of Southern California.
“Coalition Statement Presented to the Los Angeles City Council Police, Fire & Civil Defense Committee,” August
1968, Folder 2, Box 36, UPRI Records.
123
Crisis Coalition, “Crisis Coalition Statement,” August 14, 1968, Box 664092, Folder Urban Unrest - Crisis
Coalition: 1968; Arthur K. Snyder, “City Council Hearings with Crisis Coalition Notes: Day 2,” August 1968,
Folder Urban Unrest - Crisis Coalition: 1968, Box 664092, all in Snyder Records; Linda Mathews, “Minorities,
Councilmen Stage Stormy Session,” Los Angeles Times , August 15, 1968.
211
Councilman Arthur K. Snyder, who represented areas of East Los Angeles and Lincoln
Heights, as well as the more affluent Eagle Rock, Griffith Park, and Los Feliz neighborhoods,
argued that the problems in the police department were a result of a few bad apples within “our
excellent Police Department.” The criticism of the Department, Snyder argued, was fomented by
“the wild charges of extremist groups.”
124
Snyder called the Crisis Coalition “phony as a three-
dollar bill,” and was made up of militant organizations that did not represent the community.
125

Snyder’s contempt for the Crisis Coalition and its representatives was summed up by his notation
from the first day of hearings that Walter Bremond of the Black Congress was “Nasty.”
126
Yet,
the Coalition consisted of groups such as the Welfare Rights Organization and was supported by
the NAACP, NAPP, and the Westminister Neighborhood Association, precisely the type of
organizations that Snyder argued were excluded from the Coalition.
127

Although the City Council held hearings throughout the fall to address charges of police
brutality that came out of the Festival violence and Reddin attempted to gauge community
sentiment regarding the actions of the police, the harassment of Black Congress organizations,
episodes of police violence and shootings, and general police harassment continued.
128
The lack
of movement toward accountability signaled to leadership in the Congress that the LAPD had
little interest in fundamental reform. Despite the renewed effort to enhance community-relations
within both the LAPD and the LASD, the overwhelming sense among activists was that

124
Arthur K. Snyder letter to Rae R. Wilkin, September 18, 1968, Folder Urban Unrest - Crisis Coalition: 1968, Box
664092, Snyder Records.
125
Arthur K. Snyder, “Statement of Councilman Arthur K. Snyder,” August 25, 1968, Folder 2, Box 36, UPRI
Records.
126
Arthur K. Snyder, “City Council Hearings with Crisis Coalition Notes,” August 1968, Folder Urban Unrest -
Crisis Coalition: 1968, Box 664092, Snyder Records.
127
Arthur K. Snyder, “List of Speakers and Misc. for Council Hearings Re. Crisis Coalition,” 1968, Folder Urban
Unrest - Crisis Coalition: 1968, Box 664092, Snyder Records.
128
Jack Jones, “Police Plan Oct. 21 Response on Accusations of Harassment,” Los Angeles Times, September 29,
1968, sec. B; Thomas Reddin letter to Friend of Law Enforcement, August 16, 1968, Folder Urban Unrest - Crisis
Coalition: 1968, Box 664092, Snyder Records.
212
statements of support for more humane policies from top officials had not filtered down to the
street where officer-resident contact occurred on a daily basis. “The man is jamming us,” Roy G.
Robinson of the Black Congress and OIC stated, “and giving us not much choice.”
129

In response, the Black Congress to bring a class action lawsuit against the LAPD for
singling out African Americans for harassment, intimidation, and abuse, which claimed over
$500,000 in damages. “This action is one of a series designed to educate people as to their rights
under the law, and to produce institutional changes within the structure of the Los Angeles Police
Department.”
130
The plaintiffs in Robinson v. Los Angeles Police Department alleged that the
acts were part of a preconceived pattern and scheme to subject black men to a reign of terror.
131

The case, with the help of the ACLU and Western Center on Law and Poverty, made its way to
federal court as a class action.
132
While the suit was eventually dismissed, the arguments made
on behalf of African Americans revealed the efforts of residents and community organizations to
address a police operation that operated to criminalize all black residents.
Tension between the police and the black community after the Crisis Coalition’s hearings
at the City Council prompted Griffin Booker of the Los Angeles Sentinel to report that “the
confrontation between the black community and the Los Angeles Police Dept. has reached high
noon. The real question now is whether the situation will peak itself with a 'fuel in the sun' or

129
Crisis Communications Task Force, Crisis Mobilization Task Force, “Crisis Report: LAPD,” August 23, 1968,
Folder 26, Box 39, UPRI Records.
130
IFCO, “IFCO Evaluation: The Los Angeles Black Congress - Structure, Program and Projection, 1969-70,”
November 20, 1968, Folder 25, Box 30, Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization Records, Sc MG
227, Manuscripts and Archives, Schomburg Center, New York (Hereafter IFCO Records).
131
United States District Court for the Central District of California, “Memorandum in Support of ‘Class Action’:
Robinson V. LAPD,” 1968, Folder 12, Box 32, RG #9; United States District Court for the Central District of
California, “Plaintiffs’ Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Opposition to Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss:
Robinson V. LAPD,” 1968, Box 1118, Folder 6, RG #5, all in Mexican American Legal Defense and Education
Records, M0673, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries (Hereafter MALDEF Records).
132
“Attention: All Negro (Black) Residents of Los Angeles County-Please Take Notice of Civil Rights Suit in
Federal Court,” Herald-Dispatch, January 22, 1970, Folder Urban Unrest General: 1968-1971 Box 664092, Snyder
Records; Western Center on Law and Poverty, “Western Center on Law and Poverty Report,” March 1970, Folder
13, Box 253, Pope Papers.
213
'gunfight at the OK corral,' or whether some more sane and civilized adjustments may occur
which will be in the best interest of both the dignity of the black community and of maintaining
order in the total community.” Booker advocated for an honest appraisal of the problem of the
police in the black community. “We must challenge the strategy and policy of the police now or
forever live at the mercy of a police-state control,” Booker stated, the “LAPD appears to wish to
impose an unannounced South African type curfew on the black community through fear.”
While elements of the black community demanded more police protection, such as the Watts
Citizens Committee for Better Police Protection, the tension between police violence and
protection shaped the politics of law and order by reinforcing a polarization around the issue of
policing.
133

The problem of policing was a central concern during the 1969 mayoral campaign,
revealing tensions both between and among black and white residents over the meaning of law
and order within metropolitan politics as either an enhancement of police power or a limitation
on it.
134
Incumbent Mayor Sam Yorty, who had been an ardent defender of the LAPD and denied
any legitimacy of claims of police brutality, ran a strict law and order campaign. The police
played an important role in Yorty’s campaign against African American city councilman Tom
Bradley. Many officers threatened to quit if Bradley was elected, stoking fears among many
white residents about a further deterioration of law and order. Yorty played on such fears, despite
Bradley’s 21-year tenure as a police officer, stating that “He [Bradley] is no friend of the Police
Department. If you don’t believe that, ask any policeman. Stop one on the street. Tell the citizens
to stop any policeman they know and ask him how they feel about Tom Bradley.” Adding to his
critique, Yorty called Bradley “the biggest enemy of the Police Department in city government

133
Booker Griffin,, “It’s High Noon in The Ghetto,” Los Angeles Sentinel, August 22, 1968.
134
Ethel Bryant interview by James Mosby, July 1969, Ralph J. Bunche Oral History Collection, Moorland-
Spingarn Research Center.
214
today.” Such attacks on Bradley rested on his demands to push forward reforms in police
complaint procedures and to demand City Council investigations into highly publicized police
shootings of black residents. Police officers rallied to Yorty’s cause, even threatening to quit if
Bradley was elected, and former Chief Thad Brown organized an anti-Bradley group that mailed
11,000 letters to active and retired police and fireman to promote Yorty’s candidacy.
135

Bradley, however, discussed the importance of having both an efficient police department
to combat growing crime rates and the potential dangers of unjust and inequitable policing.
Similar to mayors in cities such as San Francisco and New York, Bradley pushed for strong
police force while promoting greater inclusiveness and pluralism. “The community cannot
survive lawlessness and violence nor can it long endure unjust and inequitable law enforcement,”
Bradley stated. “Efficient and just law enforcement is essential to any community,” Bradley
continued, “Crime or violence in support of any claim cannot be tolerated…But law enforcement
will not be the tool of discrimination or the weapon of oppression against any group or person
because of his race, economic status, his style of living or his views, whether or not I may agree
or disagree with him.”
136
While the protests against police brutality often took center stage,
demands for “MORE AND BETTER POLICE PROTECTION” by the black middle class and
groups such as the Citizens Committee for Better Police Protection set the stage for Bradley’s
future appeals to a combined law and order platform and greater inclusiveness under a

135
Kenneth Reich, “People Should Ask Police for Opinions on Bradley---Yorty,” Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1969,
sec. PART II; “Anti-Bradley Group Seeks Donations,” Los Angeles Times, April 30, 1969, sec. Part I.
136
Tom Bradley, “The Position of Councilman Tom Bradley: Law Enforcement and Community Relations,”
February 4, 1969, Folder 14, Box 1687, Bradley Papers; On other cities and the politics of cosmopolitan liberalism
see Christopher Lowen Agee, The Streets of San Francisco: Policing and the Creation of a Cosmopolitan Liberal
Politics, 1950-1972 (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2014).
215
cosmopolitan liberal program that appealed to white suburbanites and racial and ethnic
communities alike during his 1973 mayoral campaign.
137

Although Bradley attempted to demonstrate his support for law and order and fighting
rising crime rates, Yorty soundly defeated Bradley with strong backing from white residents and
many police officers.
138
Police support for Yorty was instrumental and caused one African
American critic for the Los Angeles Sentinel to suggest that calls for law and order masked
underlying concerns of black political power since “police officers who plaster their cars with
red, white, and blue flags and scream law and order don’t seem to believe in law and order if the
executive directing that order is black.”
139
Despite Yorty’s commitment to law and order and
defense of the police, as Ethel Bryant, a Yorty aide recalled, “we lost a great deal of the Negro
support behind the current police situation.” Yorty’s camp attempted to frame the criticism of the
police by the black and Mexican American “radicals” as out of touch with a law and order
politics and the desires of middle class residents. “It is one of those kind of things where you
move into a situation and you have the responsibility for administrating the law rather than being
on the other side so we had a great deal of trouble because many of the Negro people and other
Mexican people felt that the chief of police should be fired. And this, of course, could not be
done.”
140
Although Yorty could not have removed the Chief of Police due to civil service
protections, his victory and rise of Edward Davis as Chief after the retirement of Tom Reddin in
1969 ensured that calls for increased police and law and order would exacerbate antagonisms
between law enforcement and movements concerned with police abuse.

137
A.S. Doc Young, “Our ‘Civil Disorder’: Dual Standard Of Law,” Los Angeles Sentinel, August 17, 1967; A. S.
Doc Young, “‘Police Brutality!’” Los Angeles Sentinel, July 13, 1967, sec. Features; A. S. Doc Young, “Good and
Bad Cops,” Los Angeles Sentinel, December 18, 1969.
138
Richard Bergholz, “White Voter Made The Difference,” Los Angeles Times, June 3, 1969, sec. PART ONE;
“Yorty Backed by Officers, Poll Claims,” Los Angeles Times, May 23, 1969, sec. PART ONE.
139
Booker Griffin, “Police Politics Escalating,” Los Angeles Sentinel, November 13, 1969.
140
Ethel Bryant interview by James Mosby, July 1969, Ralph J. Bunche Oral History Collection Moorland-Spingarn
Research Center; Booker griffin, “Police Politics Escalating,” Los Angeles Sentinel, November 13, 1969.
216
Armed Self-Defense: The Black Panther Party and Police Repression

Aggressive measures by the police and perceptions of mass criminalization of black
youth prompted an alternative approach to police-community cooperation based on a theory of
armed self-defense, most notable in the organization of the Black Panther Party.
141
In January
1968, Bunchy Carter, a former member of the Slauson gang who met Eldridge Cleaver during a
stint at Soledad State Prison, attended a Black Congress meeting and announced the formation of
the Los Angeles Chapter of the Black Panther Party, organized to confront the police power
head-on:
[Huey] set the example and showed us that we, too, must deal with the pig if we
are to call ourselves men. We can no longer allow the pig’s armed forces to come
into our communities and kill our young men and disrespect our Sisters and rob us
of our lives. The pig can no longer attack and suppress our people, or send his
occupying army to maraud and maim our communities, without suffering grave
consequences. . . . From this point forward, Brothers and Sisters, if the pig moves
on this community, the Black Panther Party will deal with him.
142

The rise of the Los Angeles Black Panther Party reoriented the battle against police brutality
around an idea of law and order based on justice and armed self-defense. “The Black Panther
Party offered people more than an alternative,” according to Waldo Martin and Joshua Bloom,
“it promised dignity.”
143

In the wake of the Watts uprising many black residents referred to South Central Los
Angeles as an occupied territory, facilitated by the increased level of police harassment and
militarization.
144
“Typical of our technological age,” Cohen reported in the Riot Study, “the
police are expanding their anti-riot equipment and patrolling the Negro community in military
fashion. This serves only to heighten the feeling of domestic “colonialism” growing in the mind

141
Black Panthers, “Police Repression Hits All People!,” 1969, Folder Black Panthers, Box 38, Collection of
Underground, Alternative and Extremist Literature (Collection 50), Department of Special Collections, Charles E.
Young Research Library, UCLA.
142
Quoted in Bloom and Martin, 144; Originally from Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power, 125.
143
Martin and Bloom, 146.
144
James O’Toole, Watts and Woodstock, (Holt McDougal, 1973), 91.
217
of the Negro. If they are to see the policeman as a friend and as a helper in the community, less
militant patterns of patrolling the area should be developed.”
145
The Black Panther Party, in
particular, pushed forward such connections between the LAPD and American imperialism
abroad, calling for the simultaneous removal of the United States military from Africa, Asia, and
Latin America and the police from Watts, Compton, and Los Angeles. Black Panther artist
Emory Douglas graphic, for example, created a graphic showing the link between occupation of
Watts, the ghetto, and Vietnam.
146
Whereas the police and politicians such as Ronald Reagan
used the concept of the jungle to explain urban conditions as a product of poor behavior and
criminality, the Panthers and other black activists used metaphors of colonialism to implicate a
system of economic exploitation and police repression in the perpetuation of urban decline and
racial inequality.

145
Cohen, Riot Study, 32.
146
Black Panther Party, “Black Panther Party Bulletin No. 2 Southern California Edition,” January 22, 1969, Folder
3, Box 1, Black Panther Party Collection, MSS 089, Southern California Library, (hereafter Panther Collection).
218

Figure 17. Black Panther Party Newspaper. Source: Black Panther Party, “Black Panther Party
Bulletin No. 2 Southern California Edition,” January 22, 1969, Folder 3, Box 1, Black Panther
Party Collection, MSS 089, Southern California Library.

The establishment of the Black Panther Party brought immediate attention from local
LAPD officials as well as the FBI. Under director J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI’s COINTELPRO
intelligence program infiltrated the Los Angeles Black Panthers and the US Organization in
order to create tension between the two organizations. Hoover sent a memo to field officers on
November 25, 1968, with the following instructions: “For the information of recipient offices a
serious struggle is taking place between the Black Panther Party and the US organization. The
struggle has reached such proportion that it is taking on the aura of gang warfare with attendant
threats of murder and reprisals. In order to fully capitalize upon [Black Panther Party] and US
219
differences as well as to exploit all avenues of creating further dissension in the ranks of the
[Party], recipient offices are instructed to submit imaginative and hard-hitting counterintelligence
measures aimed at crippling the [Black Panther Party].”
147

Pitting the two organizations against one another produced lethal outcomes. On January
17, 1969, members of US shot and killed Panther leaders Apprentice “Bunchy” Carter and John
Huggins at a UCLA Black Students Union meeting. After the shootout with US, however, the
Party gained increased publicity and support in the community, fueling the party’s free breakfast
program, political education classes, and community events. The growth of the Party through
1969 led to increased repression, as police often followed members in cars, arrested and charged
them under criminal conspiracy statutes that elevated the charges from misdemeanors to felonies,
and on May 1, LAPD officers raided the Adams Boulevard Panther office resulting in eleven
arrests and seizure of three guns. The Panthers and others challenged the unlawful activities of
the police and FBI with some success. Between May 2, 1967, and December 25, 1969, according
to Panther attorney Charles Garry, “charges were dropped against 87 Panthers arrested for so-
called violations of the law.”
148

Tensions continued to mount over the course of 1969 as the LAPD and FBI targeted the
Black Panthers for repression. The Panthers, as Waldo Martin and Joshua Bloom argue “were at
war,” leading to the fortifying of their offices and homes. The LAPD responded by invading
three Panther locations on December 8, 1969, with over 300 officers and aid of SWAT teams in
an operation that terrorized and occupied the community. During the shootout at 41
st
and Central
police armed with M16 rifles, gas masks, a grenade launcher, and armored vehicles fired over
five-thousand of rounds into the building, depicted in Figure 18. The Panthers, who had fortified

147
Ward and Churchill, Agents of Repression, 79-80.
148
Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas, eds. Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party: A New
Look at the Panthers and Their Legacy (Routledge / Taylor & Francis Group, 2001), 98.
220
their headquarters in fear of police assault, returned fire with rifles and Molotov cocktails. After
a 5 hour mini-war on Central Avenue in which three Panthers and three officers were injured, the
Panthers surrendered, resulting in eleven arrests.
149

Figure 18. Black Panther headquarters, Los Angeles (Calif.). After the battle--Scene at Black
Panther headquarters, 4145 S. Central Ave. Over entrance with posters are barricaded, smashed
windows, December 9, 1969. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, UCLA, Library Special
Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.

The Panthers called the event an “overt act of massacre” and “genocide against Black
People.” Indeed, the assault on the Panthers reflected the growing realization that police
harassment and abuse did not distinguish among black residents and could impact any and all
residents. As a result, in the wake of the assault the Panthers received support from a number of
mainstream civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and Urban League. John W. Mack, of
the Urban League, stated that such police attacks had “the potential for spreading to other
blacks,” while Earl E. Raines, of the NAACP commented, “The black community is affected. . . .

149
“The Central Avenue Blitz,” Los Angeles Sentinel, December 11, 1969; Bloom and Martin, 238-240; Black
Panther Party, Southern California Chapter, “The Black Panther Community News Service,” 1969, Folder 4, Box 1,
Panther Collection.
221
Next time it may be you.” Moderate groups also supported a mass rally of over 4,000
predominantly black youth at Los Angeles City Hall on December 11, demanded a full
investigation into the assault, and full public disclosure of the nature and operations of the elite
SWAT units.
150
The shootout with the Panthers, while part of the longstanding assault on
organizations believed to be subversive, contributed to a siege mentality among residents who
were subjected to a police department bent not on protecting the community but controlling it.
While the 1969 shootout fueled Black Panther Party growth and widespread concern among a
variety of black officials and activists, the Panthers dissolved by the early 1970s largely due to
internal divisions brought on by extraordinary level of police harassment and infiltration.
151

Chief Davis suggested that the Black Panthers and other militant groups represented a
categorically different form of protest than civil rights activities, requiring police repression to
prevent the breakdown of the established order. Reflecting on the 1968 Watts Summer Festival
violence:
In the Watts riot aftermath 2 years ago, in 1968 or 1967, we had a very disastrous
celebration of the rebirth of Watts after the riots. Through Black Panther
instigation, there were virtual volley lines of shooting at policemen and policemen
returning fire of people shooting at them. This was stimulated by Black Panther
activity….That was that festival celebrating the rebirth of Watts, a good form, this
was turned into a virtual battlefield where three people were killed…So this is not
just demonstrations now. You have been in the vital stages of revolution on the
installment plan all over the country for a good many years.
152

150
Bloom and Martin, 240; San Fernando Valley Community - Police Relations Council, “The Community and the
L.A.P.D. -- December, 1969,” December 1969, Folder 1, Box 2, Panther Collection. The LAPD were not the only
law enforcement agency that attempted to disrupt organizing in the black community, especially by militant wing of
the movement such as the Black Panthers: FBI, “The FBI’s Covert Action Program to Destroy the Black Panther
Party,” nd. Folder 30, Box 2, Ellie Schnitzer Papers, Southern California Library; Police Chief Daryl Gates, then a
Deputy Chief, referred to the assault on Panther headquarters as SWAT’s coming out party. See Gates, My Life.
151
Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, (New York: Vintage Books, 1992).
152
Senate Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security
Laws, Committee on the Judiciary, Assaults on Law Enforcement Officers: Hearings before the Subcommittee to
Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Part 4, 91
st
Cong., 2
nd

Sess., October 9, 1970, 335.
222
Davis prided himself on his department’s ability to undermine militant social movements he
identified as subversive and Marxist. Calling himself “something like a military general,” he
recounted the destruction of groups such as the Brown Beret’s, the Black Panthers, and the Black
Congress. “See, I ran them out of the city when I became chief,” Davis told an interviewer, “I ran
the Black Panthers out to Compton. I disintegrated Karenga's organization.” Indeed, the LAPD
targeted these groups through outright arrests and internal efforts to divide them through
infiltration and surveillance. “The power struggle is all over,” Davis stated, “we knocked them
off right and left, and they never did figure, you know, how it was happening.” Davis’s pride in
intelligence gathering and ability to destroy black and Chicano social movements reflected the
growing use of science and technology in police work, the continued elimination of all those
viewed as Communist or subversive, and the perception that the LAPD’s role was one of social
control.
153

The relationship between the police and the black and Mexican American communities
continued along a largely antagonistic path and the harassment of groups such as the Black
Panthers led to the demise of such organizations. The LAPD’s campaign to destroy the Panthers,
as Alex Alonso and Mike Davis have suggested, created a vacuum in South Los Angeles that
was filled by a resurgence of street gangs, which would have long-term repercussions through
the 1970s and 1980s as law enforcement targeted all black and Latino youth as potentially
delinquent or violent.
154
Attempts by black organizations to assert a different form of law and
order in their community—through control over the police, armed self defense, and calls for
better police protection—offered a nuanced view of police power that was ultimately cut short

153
Robert Kaiser, “Partial Transcript of Tape Recording of Interview with Chief Edward Davis,” January 20, 1971,
Folder 21, Box 38, UPRI Records.
154
Los Angeles Committee for Defense of the Bill of Rights, “The Tribunal,” May 19, 1966, Folder 10, Box 1,
Louis Collection; Alex Alonso, “Out of the Void: Street Gangs in Los Angeles.” In Black Los Angeles: American
Dreams and Racial Realities, edited by Darnell M Hunt and Ana-Christina Ramón (New York: New York
University Press, 2010), 147-150.
223
leaving many black and Chicano youth with few formal options for political participation. Such
alternative views of policing also extended into Mexican American communities where solutions
to police violence took on similar forms of activism and demands for community control of the
police but with different specific demands based on their unique geographic location, racial
position, and experience with the police and, more directly, with the LASD.

East Los Angeles and the Criminalization of Anti-Police Protest

Police brutality and repression was not only an African American concern, as the issue
galvanized a new generation of Mexican-American activists to mobilize around policing and the
meaning of law and order. Indeed, as Lorena Oropeza and Edward Escobar have shown,
Mexican Americans had been in conflict with the police since the 1940s.
155
By the late-1960s,
however, members of the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) and Mexican
American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) believed that the LAPD had been
more responsive to black demands, even meeting with groups such as the Black Congress and
the US Organization. Despite an LAPD Community Conference held with Mexican American
residents in April 1967, MAPA’s Manuel Ruiz challenged Chief Reddin to work more closely
with Mexican American leaders because “police understanding of negro community problems
will not assist in the understanding of the bi-cultural mores and concerns of the Mexican-
American Community, which are not the same.” MAPA leaders warned that if the LAPD
ignored their demands for relevant training or dismissal of officers who acted as law breakers,

155
Lorena Oropeza, Raza Sí!, Guerra No!: Chicano Protest and Patriotism During the Viet Nam War Era
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Edward J. Escobar, Race, Police, and the Making of a Political
Identity: Mexican Americans and the Los Angeles Police Department, 1900-1945 (University of California Press,
1999).
224
“suspicion and distrust will continue to grow between certain segments of the Mexican American
Community and the Los Angeles Police Department.”
156

Lawyers for MALDEF reported that abuse was much more than the occasional shooting
or killing by the police, but part of a larger system of social control brought on by a lack of
understanding and a militarized police force. “We have Anglo police officers,” MALDEF lawyer
Percy Duran stated, “who come into East Los Angeles and view it as an armed camp where the
people look different, speak a different language, and eat different foods.” The escalation of
police militarization and repressive measures did not go unnoticed, as Duran continued, “What
we are dealing with is a police force which is mainly Anglo, insensitive, fearful, and heavily
armed with blackjacks, night sticks, mace, guns, shotguns, and helicopters, who are set free to
deal with a minority community.”
157
Perceptions of police repression were widespread, as
Reverend Roger Wood of the Episcopal Parish of East Los Angeles reported feeling “I was now
living in a colony which had an occupation force to administer law and order. So I, too, reacted
when I saw a black and white car or a uniform. And learned to sense, as the young people so ably
do, the presence of law enforcement – whether you see them or not.”
158
Conditions in East Los
Angeles had reached a crisis point, as many community groups felt that “Justice, so called, is
administered on the streets.”
159

156
Manuel Ruiz letter to Leopoldo G. Sanchez, “L.A. Police Department,” May 6, 1968, Folder 12, Box 7; Bert N.
Corona letter to Thomas Reddin, September 9, 1967, Folder 12, Box 7, all in Manuel Ruiz Papers, M0295, Dept. of
Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries (Hereafter Ruiz Papers); L.A.P.D. Mexican-American Community
Conference Proceedings and Recommendations (Los Angeles, 1967).
157
Select Committee on the Administration of Justice, Hearings Relations Between the Police and Mexican-
Americans, April 28, 1972, 67; See also: Joe C. Ortega letter to Peter R. Chacon, “Police Hearings,” September 29,
1971, Folder 8, Box 18, RG #9, MALDEF Records.
158
Select Committee on the Administration of Justice Hearing on Relations Between the Police and Mexican-
Americans, April 21, 1972, 6.
159
Select Committee on the Administration of Justice. Hearing on Relations Between the Police and Mexican-
Americans, April 28, 1972.
225
The escalation of police abuse and misconduct MALDEF reported in 1969 was related
specifically to the get-tough statements and policies of Chief Edward Davis. “We do not believe
that this police conduct is unrelated to the statements made by the new Chief of Police at his
press conference on Monday, August 18
th
, proclaiming a policy of tough Law and Order,” Oscar
Z. Acosta stated.
160
Sheriff’s deputies legitimated such claims, stating “it’s quite normal for
suspects to be arbitrarily stopped and searched without justification, merely because they’re in
East Los Angeles—which, at the time I was there, was felt by officers to be more or less of an
occupied area.”
161

The treatment of Mexican Americans who were arrested and held in jail further escalated
tensions between the Mexican American community and law enforcement. After a series of
beatings and in-custody death’s of Mexican American youth at the LAPD’s Hollenbeck Division
and the LASD’s East Los Angeles Station in 1966, the Council of Mexican American Affairs
(CMAA) president Daniel Fernandez stated that “police respect for the basic rights of Mexican-
Americans here has deteriorated to the point where we must seek outside help.” CMAA officials
called for a federal investigation into the deaths, prompting Sheriff Peter Pitchess to call the
claims a “distortion of facts.”
162
While activists had to wait until 1970 for a hearing, persistent
rumors circulated of Mexican and Mexican Americans who had been arrested, beaten, and killed
by Sheriff’s during the late 1960s and 1970s, a key development in the reformation of the Young
Chicanos for Community Action into the Brown Berets on a model of armed self defense. The
case of 6 “suicides” in the East Los Angeles Sheriff’s station in 1970, for example, led to

160
Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, Inc., “Escalation of Police Misconduct,” August 20, 1969, Folder 8,
Box 1, Saul Halpert Papers, Southern California Library (Hereafter Halpert Papers); Acosta ran for sheriff in Los
Angeles in 1970 on a platform to reconstitute the Sheriff’s Department as the “People’s Protection Department,”
though he lost the election, see: Ernesto B. Vigil, The Crusade for Justice: Chicano Militancy and the Government’s
War on Dissent (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999), 137.
161
Select Committee on the Administration of Justice. Relations Between the Police and Mexican-Americans.
Sacramento, April 28, 1972.
162
David Larsen, “Mexican-Americans Call for Brutality Probe,” Los Angeles Times, May 26, 1966, sec. Part II.
226
growing demonstrations and demands for police reform and justice as well as greater police
repression aimed at Mexican American youth, Brown Berets in particular, who experienced
repeated arrests, frisk rousts, and beatings on Whittier Boulevard.
163

Challenges to law enforcement, especially by more militant Chicano groups, brought
intense reprisals. In 1969 the LAPD issued an “intelligence summary” which claimed that
Chicano publications such as La Raza and La Causa “do nothing but preach and foment hate of
minorities toward whites and in particular, law enforcement. It would be beneficial if some of
these publications could be forced to stop publication or at least, control the biased and
unfounded reports they print.” LAPD officers also targeted the Brown Berets for surveillance
and infiltration, leading to a celebrated case of undercover Officer Fernando Sumaya pushing
Berets to set fire to the Biltmore Hotel during a May 1969 speech by Governor Ronald
Reagan.
164

Relations with the LAPD and LASD exploded after the 1968 school blowouts, in which
Mexican American students walked out of Lincoln High School in protest of substandard
education. The police responded with repression, arrested over 100 students, and claimed that the
blowouts were fomented by “self-avowed Marxist” members of the Brown Berets.
165
One
member of the Mexican American Education Committee remarked on the connection between
the LAPD’s riot training and repression of students, stating that the LAPD “acted with efficient

163
“La Raza,” La Raza, 1970, Folder Urban Unrest La Raza Chicano Moratorium, Box 664092, Snyder Records;
“Rally on Whittier Blvd.,” July 1970, Folder Urban Unrest General: 1968-1971, Box 664092, Snyder Records;
Barrio Defense Committee, “Joe Montano -- Fifth Death in E.L.A. Sheriff’s Station,” April 28, 1970, Folder 10 Box
38,; “Police Genocide,” 1970, Folder 24 Box 14, both in Bert N. Corona Papers (M0248), Dept. of Special
Collections, Stanford University Libraries (Hereafter Corona Papers).
164
Edward J. Escobar, “The Dialectics of Repression: The Los Angeles Police Department and the Chicano
Movement, 1968-1971,” The Journal of American History 79, no. 4 (March 1993): 1483–1514.
165
Mario T. Garcia, and Sal Castro, Blowout!: Sal Castro and the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice (The
University of North Carolina Press, 2011); On self-avowed Marxists see: Robert Kaiser, “Partial Transcript of Tape
Recording of Interview with Chief Edward Davis,” January 20, 1971, Folder 21, Box 38, UPRI Records.
227
brutality…with the efficient brutality of modern, well-trained riot squads.”
166
These
confrontations produced complaints of police practices by Mexican American parents, youth,
and radical activists. As one resident commented, “they [the police] certainly must know that
when they strip people of their rights and deal the injustices, these people are asked to sever
allegiance to their oppressors.”
167
Indeed, policing not only led to disillusionment—and even
hostility—with state authority but also the breakdown of law and order itself, as one
commentator suggested, “it's ironic that the peace is kept better in East Los Angeles when the
police aren't around.”
168

Many residents, mothers especially, responded to the increased harassment and beating of
Chicano youth by forming defense committees to challenge abusive police practices and reassert
a sense of law and order based on police accountability. The Barrio Defense Committee (BDC),
formed by Celia Rodriguez after the 1968 school walkouts, organized for the protection of
Mexican Americans, defended victims of police harassment and abuse, and brought legal action
against police killings.
169
On July 13, 1970, in a letter to its members, the BDC reported that,
“repression against our Barrio has increased tremendously in an obvious effort to discourage
increasing community involvement and protest.”
170
The BDC defended Mexican Americans

166
Mexican American Education Committee. “Reflections on the Police Riot at Roosevelt in East Los Angeles,”
1968, Folder 6, Box 38, RG #9, MALDEF Records.
167
“Reflections on Law and Order in East Los Angeles,” nd., Folder 11, Box 38, Corona Papers.
168
California Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Police-Community Relations in
East Los Angeles, California: A Report of the California State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission
on Civil Rights, 1970.
169
Barrio Defense Committee, “La Voz Del Barrio,” November 1971, Folder 19, Box 5; Barrio Defense Committee,
“Arturo Varela, 17, of Lincoln Heights, Shot By Police, Dies in Chains,” January 22, 1971, Folder 19, Box 5, all in
UPRI Records; A similar organization called Parents Who Care formed in the Harbor Area to address the problems
with police targeting Mexican American youth. They offered an alternative view of justice from the police based on
parental oversight of children rather than policing; See Select Committee on the Administration of Justice. Relations
Between the Police and Mexican-Americans, 1972; and Mothers Who Care, “Program of the Mothers Concerned
With Police Brutality,” 1971, Los Angeles Police Department Bureau of Special Investigations, Folder City Council
January thru June, 1971, Box B-2272, Los Angeles City Archives.
170
Celia L. de Rodriguez, Julia Luna Mount, and Susan V. Torres letter to Friends, “Barrio Defense Committee,”
July 13, 1970, Folder 1, Box 22, Olmo Papers.
228
from across Los Angeles but also recognized the spatial containment and harassment of Mexican
American neighborhoods as the LAPD targeted them for increased repression and
surveillance.
171

While the East Los Angeles school blowouts were a pivotal moment in the relationship
between the police and the Mexican American community, the point of highest tension was the
police riot which occurred at the National Chicano Moratorium demonstration on August 29,
1970, in East Los Angeles to protest the large number of Mexican-American casualties in the
Vietnam War. Between 20,000 and 30,000 protestors marched along a three-mile route ending at
MacArthur Park. The March, according to Lorena Oropeza, marked the pinnacle of the Chicano
Movement in Los Angeles as well as significant setback due to police repression. Viewing the
demonstration as riotous and violent, the LASD with the aid of LAPD officers charged the
protestors with tear gas and nightsticks, shown in Figure 19. At the end of the melee, Ruben
Salazar, a prominent Los Angeles journalist, lay dead from a tear gas canister that a sheriff’s
deputy shot at his head while he was sitting in the Silver Dollar Café.
172
The Chicano
Moratorium Committee held five subsequent demonstrations during 1970 and 1971, all ending in
violence and police or sheriff repression. Sheriff Peter Pitchess blamed the violence on the
Moratorium Committee and for “a grave disservice to the Mexican American people” while
Chief Davis stated that the Committee was brainwashed by “swimming pool communists and
sophisticated Bolsheviks” bent on creating “revolution on the installment plan.”
173

171
Escobar, 1506; Celia L. de Rodriguez letter to Joe C. Ortega, July 20, 1971, Folder 16, Box 19, RG #9,
MALDEF Records.
172
Oropeza, 145-182
173
Peter J. Pitchess, “Statement by Sheriff Peter J. Pitchess Regarding East Los Angeles Disturbances,” 1971,
Folder 10, Box 15, Olmo Papers; National Chicano Moratorium Committee, “Ya Basta!,” 1970, Folder 10, Box 38,
Corona Papers; Donner, 255.
229

Figure 19. Rioting following Chicano Moratorium Committee antiwar protest. Barrage--Sheriffs'
deputies duck and crouch behind cars on Whittier Blvd. near Indian St., to avoid a barrage of
rocks and bottles, September 17, 1970. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, UCLA,
Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.

While the Mexican American community responded to police violence with increased
politicization and protest, which in turn brought on more police hostility and repression,
conditions remained largely the same a year after the Salazar assassination. Frank Del Olmo, a
journalist for the Los Angeles Times, recounted a meeting with Richard Martinez of the Congress
of Mexican American Unity in which Martinez stated, “there are no new leaders and no new
programs. No changes in the attitudes of the outside world…There have been no new economic
efforts, no new rehabilitation programs, no new law enforcement relations except the sheriffs
version of the Basic Car Plan.”
174
The actions and attitudes of the LAPD and LASD in Mexican
American communities not only facilitated the rise of a more militant and united Chicano

174
Frank Del Olmo, “Notes - East Los--1 Yrs Later,” August 29, 1971, Folder 4, Box 18, Olmo Papers.
230
movement, but also placed the problem of the police at the center of the struggle for justice
among Mexican Americans.
In 1970, the California State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on
Civil Rights responded to the recent wave of police violence in the Mexican American
community and Salazar assassination by exploring the state of police-community relations in
East Los Angeles.
175
Although these hearings served to publicize the nature of the problem, they
did very little to alter the relationship between the LAPD and communities of color, and at times
even heightened tensions. As Reverend John P. Luce commented on the state of police-
community relations in East Los Angeles in the report Stranger in One’s Land, “we are on a
collision course in Los Angeles” that might very well lead to a “police-barrio confrontation”
because the police and sheriffs “refuse to talk with militant and political leaders with whom they
might disagree, with young people, with a whole variety of activist groups who want change.”
176

Chicano activists and concerned residents viewed the escalation of violence as a problem
of police tactics, not a result of more militant protests and armed self-defense. Speaking out
against the LAPD’s “calculated campaign of terror – of force and violence against Mexican
youth in the community,” the Congress of Mexican American Unity (CMAU) brought together a
number of civil rights and defense organizations in East Los Angeles to confront police
repression. Expressly calling out the police for “fomenting rebellion” under the guise of law and
order, the CMAU asked the community for “your voice, your word, your support against a
program of genocide by officials sworn to ‘law and order’ is perhaps the only way we can stop

175
United States Commission on Civil Rights. California Advisory Committee. Police-Community Relations in East
Los Angeles, California: A Report of the California State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on
Civil Rights. [Los Angeles]: The Committee, 1970.
176
United States Commission on Civil Rights. Stranger in One’s Land, Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1970.
231
these growing assaults. We call upon all men and women of conscience to speak their mind now!
Stop this organized terror campaign!”
177

On July 16, 1970, officers from the San Leandro and LAPD in pursuit of suspects killed
two Mexican nationals, Guillermo and Guillardo Sanchez, in their Los Angeles apartment,
leading to national publicity surrounding the problem of police abuse and the proper police
authority in dealing with the growing presence of undocumented immigrants.
178
Despite
evidence that the two men were unarmed and police entered their apartment without a warrant,
the LAPD acted as if this was a mere mistake in routine police work and that the officers should
not be indicted by a grand jury.
179
The Los Angeles Sentinel commented that “however
frightened the officers involved may have been, the issue here is that two unarmed men were
shot down by police officers, who were then whitewashed as though they had done no wrong…if
this city is allowed to commit this gross error in judgment, then this gives license to any and
every police officer to forego whatever prudence has held forth thus far and do whatever he feels
like doing because he is safe in knowledge that the city will go to bat for him.”
180
The attention
to the case rested on the unwillingness of the LAPD to allow any transparency in their review of
shootings and lack of cooperation with the community to reduce tensions.
181
What came to be
known as the “Seventh Street Incident” became an international “cause celebre” and implicated
officials from Los Angeles all the way to President Nixon himself and raised concerns about
“who is to police the police?”
182

177
Congress of Mexican American Unity, “An Open Letter to the Public: What Does This Mean to You?,” 1970,
Folder 24, Box 14, Corona Papers
178
National Council of La Raza, “Los Angeles: Introduction,” 1980, Folder 2, Box 478, National Council of La
Raza, M0744, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries (Hereafter La Raza Records).
179
Julia Kessler, “Julia Kessler Transcript of Grand Jury Hearings on 17th Street Killings,” 1971, Folder 23, Box 5,
UPRI Records.
180
“Police Defense Condemned,” Los Angeles Sentinel, March 11, 1971.
181
Julia Kessler, “Peace Keeping in the City of Angels,” April 1972, Folder 24, Box 5, UPRI Records.
182
In Ibid.
232
Pressure from the Mexican government and the media attention pushed the federal
government to take action on the Sanchez killings, raising longstanding tensions between local
and federal officials. Yorty supported the police department and was upset that the federal
government had not, in his mind, done enough to undermine groups that were challenging the
status quo. “I am very disappointed in the Federal government's lack of vigorous enforcement of
revolutionaries and failure to disclose to our Police Department what these revolutionaries are
doing. They should be helping us prosecute those people.” The federal government, Yorty
argued, was unfairly criticizing the LAPD.
183
Davis accused the federal government of engaging
in political machinations surrounding the case and deplored the vigor with which the federal
prosecutors showed in investigation of the LAPD officers involved.
184
Indeed, Bud Krogh of the
Nixon Administration wrote to John D. Ehrlichman that from the “beginning there has been a
complete lack of cooperation on the part of the Los Angeles Police Department and Mayor’s
office with U.S. Attorney Robert L. Meyer.”
185

Chief Davis thanked Yorty for his support and stated that one of the reasons for the
LAPD’s reputation as the best department in the country was a result of strong mayoral backing
and lack of external intervention in police operations.
186
Media outlets in Los Angeles also
decried initial efforts by the City Council to intervene in the case and meddling in the affairs of
the LAPD and its officers, what a KNBC editorial called City Council Justice.
187
The City

183
Sam Yorty, “Yorty Press Release Regarding Prosecution of LAPD by Federal Government,” March 4, 1971,
Folder 6, Box 49, UPRI Records.
184
Tod Hullin letter to Jon Huntsman, “LA Police Chief Davis - Justice Department,” March 11, 1971; Bud Krogh
letter to John D. Ehrlichman, “Los Angeles Police Department,” March 15, 1971, both in Folder LG/A-Z, Box 39,
Local Governments [1971-1974], White House Special Files, Confidential Files, Richard M. Nixon Library
(Hereafter Nixon WHSF); Halpert, Saul. “U.S. V. Davis,” nd., Folder 1, Box 3, Halpert Papers.
185
Bud Krogh letter to John D. Ehrlichman, “Los Angeles Police Department,” March 15, 1971, Folder LG/A-Z,
Box 39, Nixon WHSF.
186
Sam Yorty, “Yorty Press Release Regarding Prosecution of LAPD by Federal Government,” March 12, 1971,
Folder 6, Box 49, UPRI Records.
187
KNBC, “City Council Justice,” March 16, 1971, Folder Editorials, Box 2272, PDX/82.
233
Council, however, voted to finance the defense of the police indicted by the federal government,
signaling to the department and the Mexican American community that the city power structure
was squarely on the side of the police.
188

The Federal case against the officers was dismissed in 1971 but the killing of the Sanchez
cousins had a significant impact on the Mexican American community, which had come to
identify with the Mexican nationals cause.
189
As Congressman Edward Roybal stated in a press
conference, “The Mexican-American community’s faith in and respect for their law enforcement
agencies was totally shattered that night. It is becoming growingly apparent to them that both the
Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department are practicing
a systematic disregard for the civil rights of minority group citizens.”
190
On the one year
anniversary of the Sanchez killings, the Barrio Defense Committee conducted a mock funeral to
Parker center to highlight the injustice and began running columns in its newsletter, La Voz Del
Barrio, warning all Mexican-Americans, Latinos, Hispanos, of Chicanos that “you must prove
daily, you’re a U.S. citizen,” due to increased police repression and immigration raids.
191

The Sanchez killings were in violation of the LAPD’s policies regarding immigrants.
Memorandum Number 9 of April 8, 1970, made it clear that the policy of the LAPD regarding
“arrests for illegal entry [to the United States] shall be considered subordinate to police activities
directly related to the interests of the people of Los Angeles.”
192
Chief Davis responded to the
treatment of the Sanchez killings, continued community protest, and the federal grand jury by
updating the department’s policy concerning treatment of immigrants in Special Order Number
68 on November 24, 1972, which stated “officers shall not initiate police action where the

188
Police, Fire and Civil Defense Committee, “Council File 70-3626,” 1970, Folder 1, Box 3, Halpert Papers.
189
“Sanchez Police Killings,” 1971, Folder 5, Box 1022, RG #5, MALDEF Records.
190
Julia Kessler, “Peace Keeping in the City of Angels,” April 1972, Folder 24, Box 5, UPRI Records.
191
Barrio Defense Committee, “La Voz Del Barrio,” November 1971, Folder 13, Box 18, Ruiz Papers.
192
Edward Davis, “Special Order No. 68: Illegal Entry Arrests,” November 24, 1972, Folder 18, Box 29, Olmo
Papers.
234
primary objective is directed toward discovering the alien status of a person. Police action that
leads to illegal entry arrest shall not be initiated where no crime-related issues are involved or
when no other issues of legitimate interest to the City of Los Angeles are present.”
193

The responses of the LAPD and city officials to accusations of police abuse in the early
1970s, as the Sanchez killings demonstrated, bolstered the LAPD’s efforts to oppose external
oversight of the department and to link social movements with criminality and subversion.
Increased repression of radical movements such as the Brown Berets and the Moratorium led to a
decline in those organizations but the rise of MALDEF and its establishment of a Special Project
on the Administration of Justice that increased the use of the legal process to address police
abuse, killings, and illegal cooperation between law enforcement and the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) during the 1970s.
194
In 1973, for example, MALDEF and the
ACLU brought a class action suit against the INS for arresting and detaining undocumented
immigrants based on “their Latin-American appearance….in a mass dragnet fashion.” The
cooperation between the LAPD and the INS, while technically illegal under LAPD policy,
produced increased concerns of racial discrimination and “striking fear into the Mexican-
American community,” that linked questions of race, ethnicity, and the role of the police that
reemerged throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
195

Following the assassination of Salazar and the Sanchez cousins, the death of six Mexican
Americans in the East Los Angeles Sheriff’s station, and the repression of the Chicano

193
In ibid.
194
Joe C. Ortega letter to Mario Obledo, “Police Abuse Cases - December 14, 1971 Memo,” December 27, 1971,
Folder 1, Box 38, RG #9, MALDEF Records.
195
ACLU of Southern California, MALDEF, and John F. Sheffield, “Plaintiffs-Appellants’ Opening Brief in Loya
v. INS,” nd., Folder 15, Box 1023, RG #5, MALDEF Records; As MALDEF wrote to the U.S. Justice Department
in 1977: “Their [local law enforcement] lack of training poses an especially great threat to members of racial
minorities – like Mexican Americans – who resemble in appearance or might be thought to resemble undocumented
aliens; See Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund letter to Griffin B. Bell, “State and Local Police
Officer Enforcement of Federal Immigration Laws,” January 11, 1978, Folder 14, Box 129, RG #4, MALDEF
Records.
235
Moratorium protests, the spotlight was directly on the failure of the LAPD and LASD to provide
adequate police services in the Mexican American and African American communities. The City
Council held a series of hearings on police-community relations in East Los Angeles during the
spring of 1972 in response to the requests of Mexican American organizations and individuals
concerned with the legitimacy of police behavior in the community, the lack of training and
knowledge about Mexican culture, and the lack of language skills. The general feeling of
residents was that law enforcement agencies rarely acted to protect and serve their communities
and criminalized those involved in anti-police demonstrations. As Abe Tapia of MAPA claimed:
Here in this county, merely because you become an activist and merely because of
the fact that you choose not to be on the side of law enforcement when they have
inequities, injustice, and so on that prevail; all of a sudden Chief Davis, with is
big mouth that he has, labels everybody Communist, red-baiting. Everything
starts from McCarthy on down. You have -- he's got everything packaged
neatly.
196

A criminal justice solution to demands for better police practices and concerns for crime based in
social and economic conditions risked a “police state takeover,” according to Tapia, risking
alienating not only black and Mexican American residents but also undermining faith in law
enforcement for all citizens. Many believed that confrontations were “inevitable unless the
government can regain the confidence of the community, unless the Government and law
enforcement agencies develop a new set of attitudes and a new approach to the continuing
problems of poverty, unemployment, and lack of equal education in Los Angeles.”
197
The
authoritarian, law and order approach to urban social problems, as Nathan Cohen warned in
1970, had dire consequences for inner city Mexican American and African American residents.

196
Select Committee on the Administration of Justice. Relations Between the Police and Mexican-Americans.
Sacramento: The Committee, 1972, 124.
197
United States Commission on Civil Rights. California Advisory Committee. Police-Community Relations in East
Los Angeles, California: A Report of the California State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on
Civil Rights. [Los Angeles]: The Committee, 1970.
236

Conclusion

By the early 1970s, African American and Mexican-American communities were
besieged by law enforcement agencies that responded to protests against police abuse and
organized movements to offer alternative, community-based methods of policing with brute
force. Although Mexican American and African American activists challenged the dominant
meaning of law and order as the need for increased policing and punitive policies by offering a
definition of the term that encompassed oversight and accountability of the police, they were
largely unsuccessful. As journalist John Fleishman reported in 1971, rising violent crime rates
made police work a dangerous job where officers essentially “live on the killing ground.” Yet,
Fleishman observed, when “the police kill, it is considered part of the job, of little import to
anyone but the officer involved and the family of the deceased. Police homicides are something
to be ‘expected,’ a matter of routine.”
198

Demands by African Americans and Mexican Americans for police protection and an end
to police violence reflected how policing became central to the struggle for social justice for both
groups. The response of the LAPD and LASD to militant Black Power and Chicano
organizations, moreover, often treated them as Communist-inspired and criminal, leading to
greater repression through arrest, infiltration, and imprisonment. The response of mainstream
organizations and politicians to the repression of radical groups, however, reflected an awareness
that discriminatory policing had few bounds, and could easily impact any black or Mexican
American resident. The mobilization around policing reflected the ways law and order policies

198
John Fleischman, “Police Blast Citizens 33-1 The Score on the Killing Ground,” 1971, Folder 20, Box 30, CAPA
Papers. Many groups organizing around the killing of black and brown citizens saw the growth of a police state and
potential for fascism in the United States, “Police Murder: Roland Peterson,” 1972, Folder 10, Box 82, NAACP
Papers.
237
and punitive crime control worked, at least in the perception of African American and Mexican
American activists, to criminalize entire communities.
As the LAPD contributed to the demobilization of militant social movements during the
1960s, it remobilized around social problems of crime, youth violence, and drugs in the 1970s.
Heightened concerns over crime in segregated inner city neighborhoods, perpetrated by black
and brown youth, led to an effort of local officials to establish preemptive policies that brought
the justice system into daily contact with many residents. During the mayoral administration of
Tom Bradley, which began in 1973, the movement against police abuse became reenergized and
used new tactics, coalitions, and strategies that built on the Black Power era to reframe the
problem of police abuse and harassment as part of a larger project to confront the criminal justice
system and state apparatus of social control.
As Los Angeles entered the 1970s the problem of police violence became a visible
manifestation of the establishment of a larger War on Crime and War on Drugs by President
Richard Nixon and local officials such as Chief Ed Davis and newly elected Mayor Tom
Bradley. The combination of police spying and increasing use of excessive force in African
American and Latino communities that came with the War on Crime, however, produced
vigorous community movements for reform. The unwillingness of the LAPD or local officials to
institute fundamental changes during the 1970s, however, widened the gap between the police
and many, but by no means all, minority residents. Rising concerns for crime and drugs in the
early 1970s, as the next chapter shows, produced a struggle over increased policing in inner city
neighborhoods and activist demands for law and order with justice.
238
Chapter 4: “Police Discipline, Is it JUSTICE”: Excessive Force, Community Mobilization,
and the Battleground of the Crime War

South Central Los Angeles has never been easy to police, it has always required
an aggressive effort by the department in order to cope with a crime level that is a
plague upon those who live in the area.
-Daryl Gates
1

All Power to the People. Community Control of the Police.
-Coalition Against Police Abuse
2

On August 3, 1976, the Coalition Against Police Abuse (CAPA), a four-month old grass-
roots organization made up of a small group of African American and Latino activists, wrote to
Liberty Hill, a Los Angeles philanthropic organization, requesting funds to support the
development of a program to combat “police crimes and power abuses.” Over the course of the
early 1970s, CAPA explained, a rise in police shootings and killings had “followed a well-
established pattern in the poorer minority communities, especially.” CAPA organizers hoped to
build on the activism and civil rights victories of the 1960s to mobilize communities of color into
a new mass-movement to combat a growing “police state mentality” that accompanied changing
political, economic, and social conditions during the 1970s. While primarily concerned with
problems of police abuse, CAPA’s agenda went a step further, claiming that intensified policing
in minority neighborhoods was a manifestation of the ways that to “a large extent the War on
Poverty has been replaced by this War on Crime.” By placing the decline of poverty programs
aimed at addressing social and economic conditions within the context of a War on Crime that
meant to monitor and manage the material consequences of urban decline, CAPA reframed
police abuse as an issue connected to the expansion of the criminal justice system as a whole and

1
Norman M. Klein and Martin J. Schiesl, 20th Century Los Angeles: Power, Promotion, and Social Conflict
(Claremont, Calif.: Regina Books, 1990), 179.
2
C.A.P.A. “Coalition Against Police Abuse Pamphlet,” 1992, Folder Community In Support of the Gang Truce,
Box 8, Coalition Against Police Abuse Papers, Southern California Library (hereafter CAPA Papers).
239
challenged what they saw as an attempt by local officials to solve social and economic inequality
through crime control, policing, and containment.
3

During the early 1970s, law enforcement, city officials, and residents in Los Angeles
became concerned with the rising levels of youth violence, drug use, and street crime. Building
on the legacy of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and Model City programs, local officials
organized drug rehabilitation, youth intervention, and legal services in response to juvenile crime
and drug use through Model Neighborhood programs in South Central and East Los Angeles.
Local officials established the Greater Watts Justice Center and the Model Neighborhood Legal
Center in an effort to work with legal experts and use community-action programs to offer
services and legal redress for the most underserved populations. The Mayor’s Office of Criminal
Justice Planning supported similar crime prevention and aid programs in the 1970s but declining
tax revenues after the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, reduced federal funding to cities after
the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and shifting political attitudes influenced a turn away
from rehabilitation and towards the use of punitive policing to manage urban social problems.
By the mid-1970s, law enforcement and city officials began to reframe juvenile
delinquency as a problem of crime and poor behavior, and stressed swift and harsh punishment
for offenders. Police officials such LAPD Chief Ed Davis, and his successor Daryl Gates, often
described police policies and understandings of crime in race-neutral terms—shrouded in the
language of the Moynihan report’s culture of poverty and breakdown of the nuclear family
unit—that rationalized aggressive practices and the use of force to police behavior deemed

3
C.A.P.A., “C.A.P.A. Proposal to Liberty Hill, Exhibits,” 1976, Folder 6, Box 3, Liberty Hill Foundation
Collection, MSS 022, Southern California Library (hereafter Liberty Hill Collection); I use the term Latino here and
in subsequent chapters due to demographic changes in Los Angeles that brought a wide variety of groups from
Central and South America to the city.
240
improper.
4
Although law enforcement officials employed evidence of growing crime rates,
violence, and rising drug use to justify intensified policing that disproportionately targeted low-
income urban neighborhoods, these practices resulted in higher arrest rates, incarceration, and
police violence and abuse which generated demands from a variety of activists and residents for
a more accountable police force as part of a broader struggle for racial justice, full citizenship,
and equal access to state protection and services.
Even as newly elected Mayor Tom Bradley increased the city’s share of federal grants for
social services and employment programs and worked to strengthen the Board of Police
Commissioners oversight of the LAPD, activists in CAPA offered a different interpretation of
the trajectory of state authority and action that undermined racial justice during the 1970s.
African American and Latino activists in CAPA perceived police and city policies related to the
War on Crime as a renewed form of coercion, containment, and social control in the wake of a
national economic recession brought on by the Oil Crisis and the demise of 1960s-era social
movements. While an uphill battle, CAPA pushed the problem of police brutality to the center of
local politics by working to mobilize residents and politicize policing in inner city
neighborhoods through education and protest, which forced government and law enforcement
officials to respond, however, marginally, to demands for reform. In the process, CAPA activists
challenged the ways politicians and law enforcement used the criminal justice system to manage
the symptoms of urban crisis through expanding militarization, repression, surveillance, and
imprisonment. CAPA’s effort to publicize and combat the patterns of police abuse, shootings,
and killings sheds light on the ways the War on Crime had done less to reduce crime than to

4
For an example of policing and politics surrounding sexuality in Los Angeles see Robert O. Self, “Sex in the City:
The Politics of Sexual Liberalism in Los Angeles, 1963-79,” Gender & History 20, no. 2 (August 1, 2008): 288–
311.
241
contribute to the criminalization of inner city communities and how the lack of substantive
changes to police power undermined faith in local government.
African American and Latino residents also demanded a response to the growth of crime,
delinquency, and violence in their communities, although they were often divided by class over
how to address such problems.
5
Many residents, especially from the working- and middle-class,
stressed the need for increased policing, punitive measures, and social and economic programs as
part of a comprehensive approach to reduce crime and violence. Indeed, many residents and
organizations demanded police protection as part of their right to full citizenship and a civic
claim for access to municipal services under the phrase “law and order with justice.” Although
more radical activists such as CAPA took a different stance, by 1980 realizations that police
violence and power abuses did not discriminate by class provided a means for moderate civil
rights organizations, anti-crime and pro-police residents, and radical activists to come together in
opposition to coercive law enforcement practices that violated their rights to full equal access
and full citizenship, arguing that safety and crime control should not come at the expense of fair
treatment and protection against police abuse.
After LAPD officers killed Eula Mae Love, a widowed African American woman raising
three children, in 1979 and a series of deaths of young black and Latino men at the hands of
officers using the supposedly “non-lethal” choke hold, local organizations ranging from the
moderate NAACP and Urban League to CAPA demanded changes to coercive law enforcement
practices that accompanied the LAPD’s War on Crime. Unlike the 1960s, however, these groups
built on reforms brought by Mayor Bradley to strengthen the Police Commission and forced the
LAPD to change its policies relating to the use of force and disciplinary proceedings. While

5
I use Latino here and in subsequent chapters due to demographic changes in Los Angeles that brought a wide
variety of groups to the city, often making it unclear ethnic origin.
242
divisions over the proper response to crime and policing never disappeared, especially between
middle-class demands for more police, moderate civil rights organization’s calls for legal
reforms, and CAPA’s more radical demands for community control, residents and activists
agreed that freedom from police violence was central to defining full access to state protection
and equal citizenship.
The struggle against police abuse during the 1970s extended the activism of the 1960s onto
new political terrain and developed new strategies and coalitions that re-envisioned the role of
state power and authority. Rather than the unruly elements decried by those who called for law
and order, the strategies and work of the anti-brutality activists in the 1970s demonstrated the
ways organizations attempted to use both legal and official political avenues of redress alongside
public protest to challenge police and state practices that denied them complete equality in an era
after the passage of civil rights legislation. While marginal changes to police policies did little to
alter underlying structures of power or reduce support for increasingly punitive policies to deal
with urban social problems, activists made it difficult for the police to operate with impunity and
required the reassertion of state authority in response to demands for reform, reinforcing beliefs
among activists that change would come through continued struggle, protest, and action.
Through an exploration of changing crime control measures, the organization of CAPA, the
movement against the use of excessive force, and campaign for a civilian review board this
chapter shows how the development of a punitive War on Crime disproportionately targeting
low-income urban neighborhoods was produced and reproduced in response to the struggle over
policing and coercive powers of the state.

243
Changing Course: Tom Bradley, Ed Davis, and Community-Oriented Policing

Tom Bradley’s victory over incumbent Mayor Sam Yorty in 1973 built on the support of
a multiracial coalition of liberal West Side whites, upwardly mobile African Americans, and
some Mexican Americans in East Los Angeles. Bradley ran on a combined progressive
antipoverty agenda promising increased federal aid for social and economic programs and law
and order platform guaranteeing support for the police to deal with rising concerns for crime.
6

Over the course of his administration, which lasted until 1993, Bradley transformed the face of
City government through rigorous affirmative action hiring and organized a Board of Grants to
bring federal resources to the city to provide services for the poor. The growth of public
employment for some residents, however, was accompanied by economic recession and a
restructuring manufacturing sector that replaced high-wage union jobs with low-wage retail and
service positions, leaving an even larger number of black and brown residents in low paying
jobs, underemployed, or jobless. The resulting class divide exacerbated tensions between
upwardly mobile and working-class African Americans who felt abandoned by the new regime, a
divide reflected in responses to crime and problems of police abuse.
7

Bradley’s 21-year tenure as a police officer prior to entering politics made him aware of
the engrained problems of discrimination and lack of accountability in the LAPD. As a result, he
worked to reform the LAPD by appointing more liberal members to the Board of Police
Commissioners, which had historically been a rubber-stamp committee in the pocket of the chief
of police who had civil service protection, allowing Chief Ed Davis and his successor Daryl

6
Raphael Sonenshein, Politics in Black and White: Race and Power in Los Angeles (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1993), 164; “City Summaries: Minority Jobs Increasing in City Govt.,” Los Angeles Sentinel,
November 8, 1973.
7
Sonenshein, 152–153, On class divisions: 123-127; The number of white city workers decreased from 36,681 or
64.1 percent in 1973 to 21,088 or 46 percent in 1991, while black employees increased slightly from 9,135 to
10,286—from 21.9 to 22.4. Latinos, Asian-Americans and women enjoyed the largest gains, rising from 9.3 to 19.9
percent, 4 to 7.5 percent, and 16 to 25.5 percent, respectively.
244
Gates to respond to demands for reform or civilian oversight with marginal changes without
giving up their authority or power over the police department. By appointing liberals Sam
Williams, Stephen Reinhardt, and James Fisk, however, Bradley separated the Commission and
the chief of police in an effort to push for greater accountability.
8
The issue of police abuse and
civilian oversight, however, was something that Bradley—and the Board—reluctantly
confronted in fear of losing support from law and order voters, both black and white, which left
police reform to a variety of activists, ministers, and residents.
9

Yet, Bradley’s commitment to law and order and crime control combined with his
inclusive policies to ensure that the LAPD continued to receive significant resources and
political support. In 1962, for example, the LAPD’s budget—including pensions—was $70.8
million, accounting for 27.7 percent of the city’s budget. Ten years later, the LAPD budget
increased to $198.5 million and 35.5 percent of the city’s budget. In 1982, after a decade under
Bradley’s administration, the LAPD budget was $577.4 million accounting for 34.4 percent of
the city budget.
10
While the city and federal government reduced funding to social services in the
late 1970s, Bradley and the City Council, concerned for safety and rising crime rates, supported
tax measures and budget appropriations that would increase the number of officers on the beat.
Although Bradley attempted to limit extravagant spending by the LAPD for equipment such as
jets and submarines and pushed forward pension reform, he also supported efforts to provide
better police services to the city. Bolstered by federal funding to the city and county from the
LEAA totaling over $100 million between 1969 and 1979, the LAPD and other local law
enforcement agencies received increased resources and support for patrol services, new

8
Sonenshein, 155–158.
9
Earl Ofari, “Is Bradley’s Coalition Politics the Answer?” Los Angeles Sentinel, October 7, 1982.
10
As shown in Chapter 6, Bradley did work to reform the pension system in the early 1980s, which led to a
significant reduction in the proportion of the budget allocated to the LAPD.
245
technology, and experimental crime control programs that had a disproportionate impact on inner
city neighborhoods.
11

Bradley’s administration confronted growing fears of crime, drugs, and youth violence—a
panic pushed forward by the LAPD’s statistical reporting of crime and sensational media
accounts of crime—attacking crime in a way that mirrored Richard Nixon’s 1972 national
proclamation of a War on Crime. In its 1972 “State of the City” report, the Los Angeles
Community Analysis Bureau (CAB) found that crime topped the list of concerns among a survey
of residents and statistics revealed a 50 percent increase in Part I crime rates, such as rape,
homicide, and assault, between 1960 and 1970.
12
Constituent correspondence reflected these
growing concerns and desires for “security and protection,” through more police and aggressive
measures. As one resident suggested to Bradley in 1976, “stronger measures must be taken.”
13

Approaches to the crime problem split largely between rehabilitation and community
relations on the one hand and arrest and incarceration on the other. The CAB’s “State of the
City” report, for example, outlined “an effective police presence deters crime by the threat of
apprehension and by eliciting positive citizen attitudes concerning the importance of
community/police cooperation to reduce crime.” To achieve this dual goal, the CAB suggested

11
“Los Angeles Police Department Budget 1963-1972 in Millions of Dollars,” 1972, Folder 4, Box 2803, Tom
Bradley Administration Papers, (Collection 293), Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research
Library, UCLA (Hereafter Bradley Papers); “Los Angeles Police Department Budget 1973-1983 in Millions of
Dollars,” 1983 in ibid. Los Angeles City Budget, 1976; While Bradley did work to decrease the share of the LAPD’s
budget, he targeted pension reform rather than general reduction of support to police and other safety services. See
also Anton Calleia, “Los Angeles City Budget During the Bradley Administration,” 1994, Anton Calleia Personal
Papers, Courtesy of Caitlin Parker. On the impact of Reagan cuts see: Robert Farrell letter to Harold Haytin, March
19, 1981, Folder Cuts - Impact on L.A., Box 58, Community Relations Committee Collection, Part V, Urban
Archives Center, Oviatt Library, California State University, Northridge (Hereafter CRC Collection); “California’s
Cities: Struggling to Cope With Cuts,” 1981, in ibid.
12
Part One offenses included homicide, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, theft-larceny, burglary, and auto theft.
City of Los Angeles, Community Analysis Bureau, The State of the City: Volume 1, vol. 1 (Los Angeles: The
Bureau, 1972); City of Los Angeles, Community Analysis Bureau, The State of the City: Volume 2, vol. 2 (Los
Angeles: The Bureau, 1972); On Nixon and the war on crime see Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President
and the Fracturing of America, (New York: Scribner, 2008).
13
Mark J. Sachey letter to Tom Bradley, October 10, 1976, Folder 2, Box 1211, Bradley Papers; Other examples on
need for police: Susie Littlejohn letter to Tom Bradley, January 5, 1976, Folder 3, Box 1211; Irene Denoyer letter to
Tom Bradley, March 14, 1980, Folder 2, Box 1211, Bradley Papers.
246
crime control programs ranging from Police Community Councils and probation to high-tech
crime tracking systems, crime resistant dwellings, and increased foot and helicopter patrols,
many of which were funded by federal grants from the LEAA.
14
By the late 1970s, however, law
enforcement officials emphasized more punitive programs, arrest, and incarceration as the
solution to crime control reflecting the passage of a determinate sentencing act by the California
legislature in 1977.
15

Chief Ed Davis attempted to work with Bradley and the new Board of Police
Commissioners to make the department more responsive to residents through the implementation
of community-based policing techniques.
16
Davis understood that solving the crime problem
required a mix of strict law enforcement measures and community oriented policing to enlist
residents to help the police fight crime. Davis outlined 8 “Frontiers” of policing to ensure a safe
and orderly city, the first five of which focused on the relationships between the police and the
residents, including enhancing police relationships with people, people with police, internal
police relations, and the interaction between the police and other criminal justice agencies. The
final three Frontiers laid out a more substantive approach to policing by emphasizing the removal
of organized crime, pubic disorder, and police corruption from the city through the use of
science, technology, and efficient management in law enforcement. Davis hoped that his
Frontiers of policing would reduce crime in Los Angeles by 50 percent within five years and

14
City of Los Angeles, Community Analysis Bureau, The State of the City: Volume 3, vol. 3 (Los Angeles: The
Bureau, 1972).
15
Criminal Justice Planning Office, “Criminal Justice Planning Office Survey Results,” 1977, Folder 4, Box 1357,
Bradley Papers; Albert J. Lipson and Mark A. Peterson, California Justice Under Determinate Sentencing: A
Review and Agenda for Research (RAND, June 1980).
16
Joseph G. Woods, letter to Mae Churchill, January 10, 1974., Folder 18, Box 45, Urban Policy Research Institute
Records, Mss. 011, Southern California Library (Hereafter UPRI Records).
247
create a department “truly representative and responsive to the needs of the community it
serves.”
17

Alongside the work of joint public-private efforts to enhance community-relations, such as
the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area Council on Police-Community Relations, Davis developed
the Basic Car Plan (BCP) in 1970, which intended to bring the police back into contact with the
citizens through an early form of community-based policing. The BCP meant to improve
communication between residents and police officers through monthly meetings and officers
were required to remain deployed in the same district for two to three years in order to work with
and get to know the community.
18
The BCP represented a return to a relationship where the
police knew the people in the community, developing, in theory, a greater level of trust between
officers and residents.
19
The effectiveness of the BCP meetings differed based on neighborhood,
however, as middle class white residents were often more willing to attend BCP meetings, than
African American and Latino residents who continued to be wary of the police. The lack of
officers from minority neighborhoods also hampered the BCP as African American and Mexican
American residents often viewed the program as another instance of an outside force attempting
to tell them how to deal with growing crime and violence.
20
Even some LAPD officers
recognized the problem. “We told them what we wanted,” stated a former LAPD assistant chief,

17
E.M. Davis letter to Tom Bradley, “LAPD Goals,” November 1, 1973, Folder Police General July-December
1973, Box 664052, Arthur K. Snyder Records, CCL/14.01, Los Angeles City Archives (Hereafter Snyder Records);
E.M. Davis, “Management Principles of the Los Angeles Police Department,” February 12, 1975, Box 17, Folder
L.A.P.D. – Examinations, Part VI, CRC Collection.
18
Edward M. Davis, “Community Policing,” August 6, 1976, Notebook #1, Box 2276, PDX/82, Los Angeles City
Archives (Hereafter PDX/82), The Los Angeles Area Metropolitan Council on Police-Community Relations,
“Police Community Report,” October 1974, Folder Police-Community Relations, Box 268, Record Group 14, Part
IV, CRC Collection.
19
Kenneth Hansen, “Police Plan for Public Contacts Implemented: Two Divisions Already Operating System of
Continuous Assignments for Officers,” Los Angeles Times, January 13, 1970, sec. San Fernando Valley; “‘The
Public Is the Police,’” Los Angeles Times, February 17, 1970, sec. Part II.
20
Booker Griffin, “‘L.A.’s Finest’ Must Make Up Its Mind About Race,” Los Angeles Sentinel, December 3, 1970;
Robert Rawitch, “Police Basic Car Plan--Review a Year Later,” Los Angeles Times, February 21, 1971, sec. C. The
use of BCP meetings in some areas, such as West Los Angeles, for example, were discontinued by 1975, “Lost
appeal: Basic Car Plan Failed to Help,” Los Angeles Times, May 22, 1975, sec. The West Side.
248
“rather than finding out what they wanted.”
21
Efforts at community-oriented policing, while well
intentioned, did little to change the insular, aggressive, and abrasive character of the department
that had prevailed since the 1950s.
Attempts to enhance police-community relations were hampered by the lack of minority
officers in the LAPD, operating as a white department in areas inhabited by black and Latino
residents even after the Watts uprising led to recommendations for a change in hiring and
promotion practices. The Los Angeles Sentinel ran an article in 1971 entitled “Where Are the
Black Officers?,” which argued that an integrated police force could change the perception of the
department in the black community. “Once it becomes apparent that the Los Angeles Police
Department is not the racist organization it is believed to be,” the Sentinel explained, “it would
be easier to sell a young man on a career of service to the community in which he lives.”
22
Black
officers, using appeals to brotherhood and a form of Black Power, attempted to reform the LAPD
from within. The Oscar Joel Bryant Association (OJB), a black patrolman’s association formed
in 1968, and the Association of Black Law Enforcement (ABLE) formed in 1975, worked to
organize black officers to expand African American’s role in law enforcement.
23
The OJB and
ABLE believed that increasing the number of blacks in the police force would lead to
communication between the community and the police, reduce tensions, and combat crime.
The LAPD was slow to alter its hiring and recruitment policies, only changing its hiring
policies after federal court cases finding the department was in violation of civil rights law,
which resulted in a 1980 consent decree requiring the LAPD to institute an affirmative action
program in order to receive federal law enforcement funds through the Law Enforcement

21
Joe Domanick, To Protect and to Serve: The LAPD’s Century of War in the City of Dreams (Figueroa Press,
2003).
22
“Where Are Black Officers,” Los Angeles Sentinel, June 10, 1971, Folder Clippings, Box 2272, PDX/82.
23
[Association of Black Law Enforcement Executives], “The Role of Blacks in Law Enforcement,” Undated, Folder
9, Box 55, CAPA Papers; Oscar Joel Bryant Association letter to Member, “A History,” 1983, Folder 5, Box 107,
Bradley Papers.
249
Assistance Administration (LEAA).
24
Even with the agreement to alter hiring and promotion
practices, the LAPD continued to operate as a majority white force in a racially diverse city. The
LAPD was over 80 percent white, 6.2 percent black, and 9.7 percent Latino in 1978 and
remained 68.2 percent white, 12.4 percent black, and 16.5 percent Latino in 1986 despite the fact
that by 1990 40 percent of the city's residents were Latino, 37 percent white, 13 percent African-
American, 9 percent Asian-American, and 1 percent Native American.
25
The composition of the
LAPD remained an underlying factor influencing the relationship between the police and African
American and Latino residents who often viewed the police as predominantly white forces that
did not represent their communities or interests.
26

Despite the community-oriented policing model ushered in by the BCP, Davis’ underlying
philosophy of crime control reinforced the commitment to an aggressive police force intent on
keeping criminals in check. Davis highlighted three main components for reducing crime,
including optimizing the criminal justice system, convincing residents to watch out for one
another, and doing whatever it took to rebuild the nuclear family. Echoing the Moynihan report,
Davis implicitly critiqued black female-headed households as dysfunctional by emphasizing the
“need to bring male component back into the nuclear family through gainful employment.”
Davis called the link between crime, poverty, and unemployment a “liberal myth.” “Moral

24
LEAA, “The City of Los Angeles California and the Los Angeles Police Department and Law Enforcement
Assistance Administration Voluntary Compliance Agreement,” February 3, 1976, Folder LAPD/LEAA 2, Box 36,
Record Group 60, P110, National Archives and Records Administration, Archives II; Robert F. Diegelman letter to
Tom Bradley, December 23, 1980, Folder 4, Box 2802, Bradley Papers; “Chronology of Major Events in Fanchon
Blake V. City of Los Angeles and United States V. City of Los Angeles,” May 9, 1980, Folder 5, Box 2802, Bradley
Papers.
25
Sonenshein, Politics in Black and White, 154–5. Randall Sullivan, “Disparities in Officers’ Pay and Duties
Persist,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, August 14, 1979, Folder 97, Box 110, CAPA Papers; Independent
Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department, Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles
Police Department (1991).
26
American Civil Liberties Union, From the Outside in: Residency Patterns within the Los Angeles Police
Department (A.C.L.U. of Southern California, 1994).
250
poverty,” dysfunctional family structure, and lapses in personal behavior caused crime.
27
Nor
was Davis alone in his thinking. Many liberals and conservatives linked crime with a culture of
poverty rooted in the black family and behavior. Such an outlook led to a mix of demands for
more support for law enforcement, harsh punishments for criminals, Neighborhood Watch
programs, and a reaffirmation of a suburban, middle class family model that de-emphasized any
connection between crime and social or economic conditions; social problems connected to
urban divestment and segregation increasingly became reinterpreted as problems of crime and
behavior.
28

A philosophy of crime that focused on personal behavior and individual responsibility
shaped law enforcement policies over the following decades. In 1979, a survey of crime attitudes
among a variety of criminal justice professionals conducted by the Mayor’s Criminal Justice
Planning Office revealed that 32 percent of respondents believed that stiffer and more severe
sentencing was the solution to reducing crime compared to 18 percent who promoted more
rehabilitative or preventative measures. Among police officers, the percentage supporting
punitive measures and stiff penalties rose to 41 percent.
29
The focus on community oriented
policing notwithstanding, Davis’s underlying theories of crime and social problems as behavioral
and cultural problems contributed to, and reflected, the growing adherence of many officials in
the criminal justice system—and politicians such as Ronald Reagan—to strict punishment and
intensive policing that overwhelmingly targeted inner city neighborhoods.

27
NBC, “Meet the Press,” August 10, 1975, Notebook #1, Box 2276, PDX/82.
28
Edward M. Davis, “Testimony of Chief E.M. Davis Before the House Subcommittee on Crime,” December 7,
1977, Notebook #1, Box 2276, PDX/82.
29
Criminal Justice Planning Office, “Criminal Justice Planning Office Survey Results,” 1977, Folder 4, Box 1357;
Criminal Justice Planning Office, “Criminal Justice Planning Office Survey Results - Handwritten,” 1977, Folder 4,
Box 1357, both in Bradley Papers.
251
Juvenile Crime and Preemptive Responses

In the wake of the 1960s social movements, urban uprisings, and a crisis in California’s
economy, as Ruth Wilson Gilmore has shown, state officials redefined criminal statutes to create
new categories of crime and punishment that funneled surplus labor into the state’s rapidly
expanding prison system. Indeed, the growing crime fears in the 1970s, were produced less as a
result of increased crime per se as they were by the combined changes in the criminal justice
system—the 1977 Uniform Sentencing Act, most importantly, which ended an era of prison as a
space of rehabilitation, emphasized punishment, and extended sentences—punitive approaches to
juvenile delinquency and drug use, and an economy that left many, especially in inner cities,
unemployed. Combined with media portrayals of crime and the inner city, political and
economic changes produced more criminals in ways that had a dramatically uneven racial
impact.
30
The perceived link between race and crime had a profound impact on public opinion.
As a judge for the Juvenile Justice Court System reflected on his appointment to a court in South
Central, “The news media frightens people to death about south central Los Angeles and other
similar places. When I came to this area it was after considerable thought because I was told by
judges, black and white, friends, policemen, everyone, that a judge is not safe in south central
Los Angeles....It turned out to be totally untrue.”
31
White suburbanites mobilized around such
fears, as one Los Angeles Times editorial explained in 1971, believed that “more black people in
the community will mean more assaults, purse snatchings and burglaries.” Rather than dismiss
these fears out of hand, the editorial proposed crime-reductions strategies stressing drug

30
Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 88-89.
31
Subcommittee on Crime, Committee on the Judiciary, Unemployment and Crime: Hearings before the
Subcommittee on Crime, 95
th
Cong., 1
st
and 2
nd
Sess., 1977 and 1978, 520.
252
rehabilitation programs and improved police-community relations over arrest and incarceration.
32

Punitive measures and intensified policing to deal with youth violence and drug crimes in black
and Latino neighborhoods, however, outweighed the emphasis on police-community relations as
a crime control measures, contributing to—rather than merely reflecting—the production of a
crisis of inner city criminality.
City and county officials were especially concerned with juvenile crime, drug use, and
gang violence in the early 1970s, responding in ways that built on the passage of the Juvenile
Delinquency and Prevention Act of 1974, which reframed juvenile delinquency as a problem of
criminality by placing programs under control of the Justice Department.
33
Although the LAPD’s
Community Relations Program and federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention pursued intervention, rehabilitation, and understanding, political and law enforcement
officials also saw a need for more punitive responses through the reorganization of a Juvenile
Justice System that linked school officials, the police, youth authorities, and probation services
into comprehensive system of oversight. This reorientation, in practice, made the criminal justice
system a daily point of contact for many black and Latino youth.
34
The administration of juvenile
justice programs, as Elizabeth Hinton shows, reframed delinquency as a crime problem that
targeted inner city youth and schools and began an era of criminal justice approaches to
controlling and monitoring black and Latino youth.
35
The Los Angeles Unified School District

32
Ernest Conine, “Fear in the Suburbs Keeps Minorities in the Cities---Away From the Jobs,” Los Angeles Times
April 14, 1971, sec. Part II.
33
Hinton, 243-245.
34
Office of the Chief of Police, Community Relations Section, “Community Relations Program of the Los Angeles
Police Department,” September 1977, Folder 3, Box 1211; Office of Criminal Justice Planning, “Meeting of the
California Council on Criminal Justice,” January 10, 1979, Folder 1, Box 1357, both in Bradley Papers; Ad Hoc
Committee on Juvenile Justice, “Juvenile Justice Center,” nd, Part II, Folder Violence, Box 5, Robert L. Docter
Papers, Urban Archives Center, Oviatt Library, California State University, Northridge (hereafter Docter Papers);
Ad Hoc Committee on Juvenile Justice, “Juvenile Justice Center Proposal,” January 1974, Part II, Folder Violence,
Box 5, Docter Papers; UPRI, “Juvenile Arrest, Detention, Disposition Procedure,” 1975, Folder 8, Box 33, UPRI
Records.
35
Hinton, 244-296.
253
(LAUSD) led the way, spending $7 million on uniformed security personnel and $4.8 million in
special police funds in 1974.
36

Although juvenile crime and truancy were growing problems—whether viewed through
LAPD statistics or community perceptions—the police and LAUSD exacerbated them through
zero-tolerance policies and often targeted schools in South Central and East Los Angeles that had
been sites of student protest in the late 1960s, such as Manual Arts and Lincoln High School, for
increased security measures.
37
The LAPD, in cooperation with the LAUSD Security Section and
the Board of Education, implemented policies giving the police the authority to enter schools and
put down “unlawful” or disorderly activity in the wake of 1968 student protests. By the early
1970s, the LAUSD’s Security Section, which had been reorganized into a full-fledge police
department, worked with the California Council on Criminal Justice to route LEAA funds to
establish new security systems in predominantly black schools in South Central, including
Crenshaw, Dorsey, Jordan, Locke, Manual Arts, and Washington high schools. The growing
attention to juvenile delinquency as a matter of crime control was a national trend that brought
the criminal justice system into urban schools and made police the primary form of contact with
black and Latino youth during the 1970s.
38

36
Joan C. Baratz, “Police Presence in the Schools: Cops and Kids,” February 11, 1977, Folder 31, Box 32, UPRI
Records.
37
Los Angeles City Schools, “City Schools Adopt ‘Get Tough’ Policy Against Disruptions,” March 14, 1969,
Folder 4, Box 1900; Office of the Superintendent letter to Administrators of Elementary, Junior, and Senior High
Schools, “Emergency Procedures for Handling Disturbances, Disorders, or Demonstrations (1) by Pupils, (2) By
Employees of the District, or (3) By Adults Who Are Not District Employees; Bulletin #22,” March 17, 1969,
Folder 4, Box 1901; Superintend of Schools letter to Board of Education, “Contract with City of Los Angeles to
Accept CCCJ Grant - Security Alert System Program,” January 21, 1974, Folder 2, Box 1,459, all in Los Angeles
Unified School District Board of Education Records (Collection 1923), Department of Special Collections, Charles
E. Young Research Library, UCLA (Hereafter LAUSD Records).
38
Chris Carr letter to The F,’ “Locke High School,” June 4, 1974, Folder 13, Box 33, UPRI Records; Los Angeles
Unified School District, “Policy of the Los Angeles Police Department Regarding Regulation of Conduct at School
Campuses,” February 1969, Folder Student Rights: Board Covers & Memos, 1969, Box 8, Part I, Docter Papers; On
schools targeted for increased security in the early 1970s see: Los Angeles Unified School District. “Bid Form:
Manual Arts High School,” March 15, 1974, Part II, Folder Scan, Box 5; William J. Johnston letter to Members of
the Board, “Deployment of Security Personnel,” March 26, 1974, Folder Violence, Box 5, Part II, in Docter Papers.
254
Law enforcement and other local officials pointed to drug use, poor parenting, and
delinquent behavior as the source of rising youth crime rates in order to justify more punitive
measures. Drug arrests by the LAPD reached 30,000 in 1970, 33 percent of whom were
juveniles, an increase of 941 percent from 1960. To address this problem, Mayor Yorty pushed
for more punitive measures for youth drug use, especially marijuana, because permissive laws
encouraged youth to commit crimes or use drugs without any consequences, leading to
recidivism. While the connection between crime and drug use was blurry at best, political elites
linked the two in pushing for harsher sentencing and more aggressive and punitive policing
aimed at inner city schools in particular.
39

Concerns for youth drug use and dealing led to buy/bust operations and arrests on
LAUSD campuses that resulted in discriminatory treatment of minority students.
40
At Dorsey
High School, for example, a police team of 15 officers arrested 38 students on March 26, 1971.
Of the 38 arrested, four for alleged narcotics possession or use, two for loitering, one for
possession of a weapon, and the remaining 31 for being in the presence of students who had or
used drugs. The students were physically searched, handcuffed, chained, pushed into paddy
wagons, and held at the Wilshire Division where Asian students were referred to as “slant eyes”
and a black student as “Pocahontas.” The mass arrest criminalized a number of students with no
prior arrest records, disciplinary problems, or failing grades. As an article in the Japanese
American newspaper, the Pacific Citizen, suggested, “the school officials, in collaboration with

39
California Council on Criminal Justice, “Restructuring of Narcotics Enforcement,” July 1972, Folder 10, Box 35,
UPRI Records; Mayor Yorty’s testimony in Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, Committee
on the Judiciary, Narcotics Legislation: Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, 91
st

Cong., 1
st
Sess., 1969.
40
“Yorty Calls LA ‘Model’ In Fight Against Drugs,” Los Angeles Sentinel, December 14, 1972.
255
the law enforcement agency, planned a mass arrest as the solution to the perplexing drug
problem.”
41

Such undercover operations continued under the Bradley administration, leading to
complaints about the treatment of arrested youths. As representatives from the ACLU suggested
to the Board of Education, the use of undercover officers in schools threatened the due process
rights of youth as officers “cajoled” and “pressured” reluctant students to buy small amounts of
marijuana. Policing in schools, the ACLU’s Joyce Fiske argued, undermined educational goals
and reoriented a war against drugs as a war on youth that threatened to criminalize students:
To adapt an expression that is left over from the Vietnam war, you may “destroy
the schools to save them.” The presence of secret police on our campuses will
eliminate trust, openness, and adventurousness, and it will surely lead to a kind of
observation and intelligence-gathering that will mean spying on the opinions,
styles and behavior of teachers, students and administrators….We must not be
pressured into a war against the young in the name of a war against drugs by those
who will play on the public’s fears to push through changes in the juvenile justice
system….and to justify the expanded role of secret police in the schools.
42

The undercover drug busts, combined with a gang-related shooting death of a 16-year old student
at Manual Arts High School in December 1974, which brought the number of gang killings to 71
for the year, however, prompted school and city officials to bolster the commitment to
increasingly punitive measures as the appropriate response to youth crime and juvenile justice.
43

The move toward punishment coalesced in the mid-1970s over panics surrounding the
growth in youth gang violence in black and Latino neighborhoods. LAPD officials argued that
the rising black gang violence in 1973 amounted to a “gang crisis” perpetuated by a lenient
criminal justice system that released juvenile offenders with little more than a slap on the wrist.

41
Robert M. Takasugi, “Drug Problem on Campus: Dorsey High’s March 26 Incident,” Pacific Citizen, May 7,
1971, Folder 6, Box 26, Julian Nava Papers, Special Collections and Archives, University Library, California State
University, Los Angeles (Hereafter Nava Papers).
42
Joyce Fiske to letter Board, “The Recent Drug Arrests, Due Process and Secret Police,” January 6, 1975, Folder 3,
Box 1831, LAUSD Records.
43
Irv Burleigh, “Sparked By School Drug Arrests: L. A. Studies Stance on Juvenile Law,” Los Angeles Times,
January 2, 1975, sec. Centinela-South Bay.
256
Chief Davis reported that gang activity resulted in over 51 deaths in 1974 and involvement in
1,605 violent incidents, up from 11 deaths in 1971. To deal with the crisis Davis emphasized
punitive measures, recommending that the hardcore gang member who, by definition, had
rejected rehabilitative measures should be subject to court action in every case where sufficient
evidence for conviction was available. “The courts, Probation Department and the Adult and
Youth Authorities,” Davis stated, “must provide effective control measures through incarceration
and/or stringent supervision.” Although Davis promoted rehabilitation and deterrence for
“peripheral” gang members, he believed that only “when gang members continually experience
swift, positive action will the justice system deter rather than encourage the commission of
violent crime.”
44
When gang members met with County Board of Supervisors in 1974 to request
jobs, improved schools, better housing, and recreational facilities rather than more punitive
sentencing to address juvenile crime and delinquency they were rebuffed.
45
Mayor Bradley
reinforced the shifting approach of the police by increasing funds for anti-gang units while
eliminating budget allocations for community relations staff and youth-police programs intended
to increase mutual respect, effectively reorienting views of urban social problems as ones of
crime and behavior in need of policing.
46

Los Angeles officials contributed to the criminalization of youth by reframing juvenile
delinquency as a result of improper behavior in need of monitoring rather than a product of
economic and social inequality. In 1974, as City Councilman Arthur Snyder reported, juvenile

44
Lee Harris, “L.A. in the Grip of Gang Crisis, Police Warn Commissioners: Gang Crisis,” Los Angeles Times
November 30, 1973, sec. Part II; Edward M. Davis, “Punishment Will Halt ‘Contagion’” Los Angeles Times
December 15, 1974, sec. PART VI.
45
Ray Zeman, “20 Youth Gang Heads Say They Want Jobs,” Los Angeles Times, December 28, 1974, sec. Part II.
46
Subcommittee on Equal Opportunities, Committee on Education and Labor. House; Committee on Education and
Labor. House. Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and Runaway Youth. Washington, D.C., 1974; Los
Angeles City Budget, 1977-1978, Los Angles City Budget, 1978-1979; While Bradley called on the LAUSD to take
up the slack for police programs in schools, budget constraints limited the ability of schools to carry on such
programs.
257
arrests represented 35.4 percent of all arrests for major crimes, requiring “get tough” policies and
punitive measures as a response to increased juvenile crime and a revolving door of recidivism,
that was in reality partly a result of zero-tolerance policies in public schools and related
expulsions.
47
County Board of Supervisor Kenneth Hahn was also concerned with the
“cancerous growth of juvenile crime in Los Angeles County,” and proposed a 48-point program
in 1974 to address youth crimes, which had been increasingly linked to violence. “Schools are
being described as ‘forts’,” Hahn stated, “and kid thugs are spreading terror through the streets.”
Hahn suggested ending plea-bargaining in juvenile courts in order to stop a revolving door policy
that allowed hard-core offenders back on the streets and proposed a coordinated program
between the County, the LASD, and the LAPD to crack down on 850 hardcore offenders who, he
asserted, committed 25,000 crimes. The punitive solution to juvenile delinquency intended to
reinforce notions of personal responsibility but, in practice, initiated youth into the criminal
justice system from an early age. Although Hahn suggested enhancing vocational training for at
risk youth, rehabilitative programs, and intervention, he framed the juvenile delinquent as a
criminal who needed to be separated from the community.
48
The LAPD also declared war on
juvenile offenders through selective enforcement of curfew laws, a policy and practice that
complemented the criminalization of inner city schools and spaces. “One way to stop juvenile
delinquency is to lock up all the kids,” Nancy Boyarsky sarcastically reported for the Los

47
“The Problem: Youth Violence,” 1974, Folder Police-Juvenile: 1973-1975 (Part 2 of 2), Box 664063, Snyder
Records; On expulsions and zero-tolerance see Pupil Services and Attendance Section letter to Administrators of
Schools and Offices, “Text of Penal Code Relating to Deadly Weapons and Other Objects or Instruments,”
November 30, 1972, Folder 4, Box 1,335, LAUSD Records; “Pupil Expulsions, 1970-1974,” March 19, 1974, Part
II, Folder Violence, Box 5, Docter Papers; For a general look at zero-tolerance in LAUSD see Judith Kafka, The
History of “Zero Tolerance” in American Public Schooling (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
48
Kenneth Hahn, “Release,” January 4, 1973, Folder 29 Box 32; Kenneth Hahn, “Motion by Supervisor Kenneth
Hahn,” January 9, 1973, Folder 29, Box 32, both in UPRI Records; Hahn 48 Point Program, 1972, 6.4.2.1; Juvenile
Crime Control Update, 1973, 6.4.2.3, Kenneth Hahn Collection, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California
(Hereafter Hahn Collection).
258
Angeles Times, foreshadowing the increase use of incarceration and crime control aimed at inner
city youth during the 1980s.
49

Although concerned with problems of crime and violence in the mid-1970s, Mayor
Bradley did not adopt a wholesale punitive war on inner city youth as he would during the crack-
cocaine crisis of the 1980s. When the City Council held hearings on—and ultimately passed—a
resolution in support of state laws increasing penalties for youth crime after the drugs busts and
shooting at Manual Arts in 1975 by allowing adult courts to have jurisdiction over all 16 and 17
year olds involved in serious offenses, Roes Ochi, director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal
Justice Planning, charged that the motion was a “serious overreaction to the crisis of juvenile
violence” and threatened to treat all youth as potentially criminal. “The Mayor is all too fully
cognizant of the dimension of juvenile violence and the crises our City is experiencing,” Ochi
claimed, “with respect to legislative reform, imposing stricter and harsher measures on juveniles
is not the answer.” The City Youth Advisory Council also advised that rehabilitation should “not
simply be decried as ineffectual” and recommended that Bradley focus on innovative measures
to prevent—rather than contain through incarceration—youth violence and recidivism.
50

Bradley’s support for rehabilitative measures, however, existed alongside his view that youth
crime represented a crisis requiring a strong juvenile justice system, stating at the Council
hearings that “unless the courts understand that we have simply got to remove some of the hard-
core offenders from the community where they can infect others or intimidate others, we are
going to fight a losing battle on this issue.” Although Bradley advocated removal for

49
Nancy Boyarsky, “Justice and the 10 O’Clock Curfew,” Los Angeles Times, January 26, 1975, sec. PART IV.
50
Rose Matsui Ochi letter to Terry J. Hatter, Jr. “Response - Los Angeles Police Department’s Position On Council
Motion to Amend State Law Regarding Detention, Incarceration and Trial of Juveniles,” January 20, 1975, Folder 1,
Box 1338; Los Angeles City Youth Advisory Council, “Statement Regarding Juvenile Justice System,” January 7,
1975, Folder 1, Box 1338, both in Bradley Papers; Erwin Baker, “Council Urges Toughness on Serious Youth
Crime: Recommends Juveniles 16 or Older Involved in Major Cases Be Considered for Trial as Adults,” Los
Angeles Times, January 29, 1975, sec. Part II.
259
“rehabilitation and some training,” his stance marked a moment of transition regarding how to
address urban problems between the 1970s and 1980s.
51

One measure aimed at deterrence was the formation of the Disposition Data Coordination
Project (DDCP), a cooperative program between the LAPD and Los Angeles Unified School
District to keep track of hardcore and at-risk youth in South Central Los Angeles that effectively
served as a means of monitoring black youth. The database, also known as the “Alpha File,”
targeted particular neighborhoods and racial groups—making space and race the pillars of its
information gathering.
52
The project, ostensibly to reduce juvenile crime and truancy, not only
threatened to treat all black youth as criminals or potential criminals, but also made the database
public, revealing the names of juveniles identified as potentially dangerous.
53
The proposal
outlined the hiring of new personnel, purchasing of equipment, and development of overly broad
policies, which were unlikely to delineate between “hardcore” juvenile offenders and innocent
youth.
54

The DDCP epitomized the use of the criminal justice system to address social and
economic conditions that produced juvenile delinquency. As Rose Ochi, director of the Mayor’s
Office of Criminal Justice Planning, explained:
The end goal of the project is to remove hardcore leaders, thereby weakening
leadership, and breaking the organizational network of gangs….The project will
provide the necessary administrative support to manually collect, collate, and

51
Irv Burleigh, “Sparked By School Drug Arrests: L. A. Studies Stance on Juvenile Law,” Los Angeles Times,
January 2, 1975, sec. Centinela-South Bay.
52
Burt Pines letter to The Board of Police Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, “Guidelines for Utilization of
Disposition Data Coordination Index,” nd., Folder 8, Box 37, UPRI Records; In the early 1970s the LAPD ran a
number of youth programs, see: LAPD, “Youth and the Police,” July 1972, Folder Los Angeles, Calif - Police
Department, Box 56, California Ephemera Collection, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young
Research Library, UCLA.
53
Burt Pines, letter to Honorable Police, Fire and Civil Defense Committee of the City of Los Angeles. “Re:
Council Rile No. 75-4750,” February 19, 1975, Folder 8, Box 37; Chief Legislative Analyst letter to Board of Grants
Administration and Mayor Tom Bradley, April 16, 1974, Folder 7, Box 37; Louis L. Sporrer, “Disposition Data
Coordination,” 1974, Folder 7, Box 37, all in UPRI Records.
54
Chief Legislative Analyst letter to Board of Grants Administration and Tom Bradley, “Disposition Data
Coordination Project,” 1974, Folder 5, Box 1320, Bradley Papers.
260
make the information available to the decision makers, and will provide for
monitoring the progress of hardcore youthful offenders through the criminal
justice system.
55

Although city officials believed that the “Disposition Data Coordination Project will maximize
the availability of information on hardcore youthful offenders which is necessary for appropriate
decision making by those charged with the disposition of juvenile offenders,” the program’s
spatial focus operated in a discriminatory fashion.
56
Rose Ochi, while supporting the Program,
warned that “monitoring, which is beyond the scope of legitimate law enforcement agency’s
activities, is going to be employed nevertheless.”
57
Even Walter Parker, director of the LAUSD’s
Urban Programs, was wary of the program’s constitutionality, recognizing that it could easily be
perceived as discriminatory because it targeted black youth.

Residents, moreover, were unlikely
to support the DDCP because, according to Parker, of the “repressive discriminatory matter of
the project being concentrated in only certain minority areas in the city.”
58

The response of the black community to the DDCP revealed the wariness of the
community in calling for police programs to solve social problems related to youth in their
neighborhoods. The ACLU, along with the Urban Policy Research Institute (UPRI), challenged
the constitutionality of the Alpha file. In December 1974, they filed a class action suit to prevent
compiling, maintaining, and disseminating the Alpha File, which they argued burdened a number
of agencies including Parks and Recreation, L.A. School Board, Probation and Parole, and the

55
Rose Matsui Ochi letter to Terry J. Hatter, Jr., “City Attorney Proposed Guidelines for the Disposition Data
Coordination Index Project,” February 13, 1975, Folder 5, Box 1320, Bradley Papers.
56
Chief Legislative Analyst letter to Board of Grants Administration and Tom Bradley, “Disposition Data
Coordination Project,” 1974, Folder 5, Box 1320, Bradley Papers.
57
Rose Matsui Ochi letter to Terry J. Hatter, Jr., “City Attorney Proposed Guidelines for the Disposition Data
Coordination Index Project,” February 13, 1975, Folder 5, Box 1320, Bradley Papers.
58
Walt Parker letter to William Johnston, “Disposition Data Coordination Project,” December 13, 1974, Folder 7,
Box 37, UPRI Records.
261
Los Angeles Housing Authority with the task of surveilling black youth.
59
The City Council
responded by proposing strict guidelines for the file to avoid potential abuse, while City Attorney
Burt Pines found nothing problematic about the program, concluding that the DDCP “does not
constitute an unreasonable police activity and does not give rise to an imposition on the
constitutional, civil, or to the rights of involved individuals.”
60
The publicity surrounding the
Alpha file and a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, however, ultimately led to its demise.
61

Nevertheless, the DDCP reflected preemptive efforts to combat crime that increasingly targeted
black and Latino youth and neighborhoods.
Black residents and officials were also concerned with crime, drugs, and youth violence. A
1972 secret LAPD survey, for example, revealed that black residents desired greater police
protection and resources to deal with the growth in drugs, crime, and violence.
62
Residents of the
predominantly African American city of Compton, which had some of the highest crime rates of
any city in the country, also repeatedly called for increased police and punitive measures to
incarcerate hard-core youth.
63
Some of this sentiment reflected class divisions and a self-help
ideology as moderate civil rights organizations, such as the NAACP, cooperated with the LAPD
to address crime and safety in the 77
th
Street Division and ministerial councils worked with

59
Complaint for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief to Redress Deprivation of Civil Rights, December 11, 1974,
Folder 5, Box 1320, Bradley Papers; Greater Watts Justice Center. “Police Surveillance Tactics,” 1974, Folder 6,
Box 16, CAPA Papers.
60
Burt Pines letter to Honorable Police, Fire and Civil Defense Committee of the City of Los Angeles, “Re: Council
Rile No. 75-4750,” February 19, 1975, Folder 8, Box 37, UPRI Records; “City Orders Alpha File Outline,” Los
Angeles Sentinel, January 23, 1975.
61
Robert Rawitch, “LAPD Halts Listing of Violent Juveniles,” Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1975, sec. Part One,
Folder 25, Box 41, UPRI Records
62
Erwin Baker, “Secret L.A. Study: Blacks’ Favorable View of Police Told,” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1972,
sec. Part II; See also “A Special Report: Citizens in South Los Angeles Don’t Want A Riot,” 1970, Folder Chief’s
Office 1970, Box B-2272, Los Angeles Police Department Bureau of Special Investigations Records, Los Angeles
City Archives.
63
Special Committee Of the Los Angeles County Grand Jury, Public Hearing: City of Compton, 1975; “Crime,
Rehabilitation and Justice,” nd., Folder F8369: 116, California Council on Criminal Justice Records, California State
Archives, Sacramento, California.
262
officers to organize neighborhood watch programs.
64
Editorials in the Los Angeles Sentinel also
suggested that neighborhood block associations modeled on community organizing in New York
City provided an effective means of crime control and community action.
65

Although black residents wanted effective crime control, many were reluctant to make
strong calls for law and order because anti-crime measures often translated into policies of
“shoot first and ask questions later” that led to harassment and targeted entire black communities
as criminal. Richard Allen, writing in the Los Angeles Sentinel, pushed for cooperation between
the black community and the police as a more enlightened approach to addressing rising crime
rates. He proposed an Inner City Crime Control Programs based on the theme of “Law and Order
with Justice.” “If we use this term effectively to portray the colorlessness of crime,” Allen
continued, “the term ‘law and order’ could never be used against minority communities again.”
His second step encouraged elected officials to address the socioeconomic causes of crime,
including unemployment, poor housing, and inaccessible transportation.
66
Indeed, as State
Assemblyman Leon Ralph, who represented Watts and Compton, observed why do blacks
continue to kill blacks, while in the same breath calling you 'brother' or 'sister?' Why is it serious
crimes...continue to climb in our communities? Why is it so many of our young adults have
chosen drugs, gang activity or murder as occupations?’” Ralph suggested that the loss of
employment opportunities led to frustration and despair among black youth leading to rising

64
Daryl F. Gates, letter to Tom Bradley, “Pertinent Matters of Interest in Police Affairs, Police Department
Biweekly Report No. 329,” April 8, 1976, Folder 7, Box 1942, Bradley Papers; Bill Boyarsky, “Law and Order
Major Issue in Mayor’s Race: Gang Warfare Causes Blacks to Worry More About Violence Than Whites, Survey
Reveals,” Los Angeles Times, January 8, 1973, sec. Part II.
65
“A Crime Answer,” Los Angeles Sentinel, October 18, 1973. Michael Fortner argues for the need to recognize the
Black Silent Majority in the history of the War on Crime. While Fortner argues that the black middle class was often
in support of law and order policies, I argue that such support was mediated by growing abuses by the police,
Fortner, Michael Javen. “The ‘Silent Majority’ in Black and White: Invisibility and Imprecision in the
Historiography of Mass Incarceration.” Journal of Urban History (November 13, 2013).
66
Richard Allen, “‘We Must Separate The Issue Of Race From The Issue Of Crime,’” Los Angeles Sentinel, May
24, 1973; See also Richard Allen, “‘Let’s Put An End To Murder, Rape, And Robbery,’” Los Angeles Sentinel, May
17, 1973.
263
crime and violence, calling state-based programs to address unemployment and put people to
work were just as important as increased policing.
67

Community-based initiatives, not surprisingly, preferred programs that focused on
rehabilitation and legal services over punitive measures. The Model Neighborhood plan, for
example, provided federal funds that enabled the Legal Aid Foundation to form the Greater
Watts Justice Center (GWJC) in 1972 and the Mexican American Lawyers Club to launch the
East Los Angeles-based Model Neighborhood Legal Center (MNLC) in 1971. The GWJC and
MNLC provided legal services, information, counseling, and representation to adults and
juveniles in the Model Neighborhood, while also training residents to serve as “law advocates.”
68

Alarmed by the dismal state of police-community relations, GWJC leaders acknowledged “a
serious problem in the Los Angeles community with law enforcement representatives and agents.
This especially demonstrates itself in the day to day contact between patrol officers and
community residents.” Residents complained that the absence of a complaint system enabled and
legitimized police harassment and brutality.
69
The GWJC and MNLC argued that the close-knit
relationship between law enforcement officials and the district attorney precluded impartial
investigations into complaints brought against officers and other internal investigations of the
LAPD.
The GWJC and MNLC organized a number of programs, informational sessions, and
workshops on various issues relating to police abuse, legal rights, and filing complaints—many

67
Ralph Leon, “Something Must Be Done About ‘No Job Market,’” Los Angeles Sentinel, January 30, 1975.
68
Los Angeles Model Cities Program, “Los Angeles Model Cities Program: Greater Watts Justice Center,” 1971,
Folder 10, Box 1407; Los Angeles Model Cities Program, “Model Neighborhood Legal Center,” March 12, 1971,
Folder 5, Box 1407; Greater Watts Justice Center, “Proposed Agreement with The Legal Aid Foundation of Los
Angeles,” September 1970, Folder 10, Box 1407, all in Bradley Papers.
69
Greater Watts Justice Center, “The Greater Watts Justice Center,” Undated, Folder 42, Box 116, CAPA Papers.
264
targeting South Central and East Los Angeles.
70
One of the GWJC’s more prescient brochures
advocated sealing and expunging criminal records in order to prevent rejection of employment or
other social services.
71
They also produced a pamphlet entitled, “Remedies for Police
Misconduct,” which detailed how to file a complaint with law enforcement agencies.
72
The
GWJC worked with community groups and City Councilman David Cunningham to file a suit
against the LAPD to investigate the internal disciplinary procedures of the department.
73
Finally,
the GWJC supported and publicized a case that would allow cross-examination of police officers
to reveal past violent tendencies.
74
The work of the GWJC and the MNLC provided legal
services to underserved communities where increased crime control had a disproportionate
impact. While providing legal services and remedies, the organizations also created an
institutional foundation that facilitated a grassroots movement against police abuse.
The growing attention and response to crime in the African American and Latino
neighborhoods, mostly in the form of youth violence and drug use, however, placed the role of
the police at the center of battles between minority residents and local law enforcement and
political officials during the 1970s. As the debate surrounding the DDCP and school policing
revealed, residents were keenly aware and responsive to police practices that treated their
communities in a discriminatory manner. Over the course of the 1970s, for example, the Board
of Police Commissioners found “a serious conflict has been deve1oping in the area of police-

70
Greater Watts Justice Center, “Criminal Record Remedies: Sealing and Expungement,” nd; Greater Watts Justice
Center, “The Criminal Justice System: From Detention Through Sentencing,” nd.; Greater Watts Justice Center,
“Legal Information for People on Probation,” nd.; Greater Watts Justice Center, “The Minor and the Juvenile
Court,” nd, all in Folder 11, Box 42, RG #9, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Records, M0673,
Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries (Hereafter MALDEF Records); Los Angeles Model
Cities Program, “Los Angeles Model Cities Program: Model Neighborhood Legal Center,” 1971, Folder 10, Box
1407, Bradley Papers.
71
Greater Watts Justice Center, “Criminal Record Remedies: Sealing and Expungement,” nd, Folder 11, Box 42,
RG #9, MALDEF Records.
72
Greater Watts Justice Center, “Remedies for Police Misconduct,” Undated, Folder 42, Box 18, CAPA Papers.
73
Greater Watts Justice Center, “Disciplinary Process Within L.A.P.D.,” Undated, Folder 6, Box 16, CAPA Papers.
74
Greater Watts Justice Center, “Right of Criminal Defendant to Cross Examination of Police Officer as to Past
Acts of Excessive Force,” Undated, Folder 6, Box 16, CAPA Papers.
265
community relations,” and that “a general feeling of dissatisfaction and frustration among a
growing number of blacks and Latinos with the quality of police service in their communities.
Their dissatisfaction stems from what they perceive as officers’ demeaning, self-righteous,
insensitive, and racist attitudes.”
75
As city officials increased resources to law enforcement that
disproportionately targeted low-income urban neighborhoods, schools, and youth, often without
the desired result of lower crime rates, they produced another type of victimization in the form of
higher arrest rates, incarceration, and state violence. Activists and residents viewed safe
communities as a right of full citizenship but were quick to criticize a criminal justice system that
had a disproportionate impact on urban neighborhoods by demanding an end to abuse and the
use of excessive or deadly force.

“A Spark that Can Set the World on Fire”: The Coalition Against Police Abuse

Crime control efforts of improved community relations, Neighborhood Watch programs,
and intervention models did little to mediate the impact of increasing victimization among blacks
who experienced disproportionately high rates of violent crime nor did these approaches mitigate
the fallout of ever-more intense and punitive policing in inner city communities. Between 1974
and the first half of 1979, for example, LAPD officers shot 584 suspects, 55 percent were black,
22 percent were Hispanic, 22 percent white, and 1 percent other, while out of 128 suspects killed,
50 percent were black, 16 Hispanic, and 33 percent white.
76
The LAPD justified the racially
disproportionate nature of shootings and killings as a rational response to the increase in crime,
youth violence, and drug use in inner city and poor neighborhoods, factors that many in the

75
Board of Police Commissioners, “The Report of the Board of Police Commissioners Concerning the Shooting of
Eula Love and the Use of Deadly Force: Part II Investigation and Adjudication of Use of Force Incidents,” 1979,
Folder 7, Box 102, CAPA Papers.
76
In ibid.
266
LAPD believed required more aggressive policing. “We’re dealing more today than we ever
have in the past with what I hesitantly call a drug-oriented society,” Lieutenant Bob Helder
explained in response to a question about the large number of police shootings involving black
and Latino residents during the early 1970s; “we’re finding more and more drug addicts carrying
weapons on the street.”
77

Given the aggressive approach to policing youth, it is not surprising that many police
shootings and killings involved young black and Latino men, such as 17-year old Barry Evans
who had been active in anti-police abuse education.
78
The aggressive practices of the LAPD
went beyond targeting youth, however. As the number of police shootings and abuse increased,
so did cover ups of malpractice that included planting guns on victims to justify officer involved
killings. Although many in the black and Latino community, largely middle class residents,
supported aggressive measure to deal with crime, local activists and some politicized ministers
challenged the rise in arrests, harassment, incarceration, and shootings that accompanied
intensified policing. Claims for greater state protection and municipal services in the form of
more police officers in underserved neighborhoods complemented demands that full citizenship
and racial justice also meant freedom from police abuse and state violence.
79

In response to the growing criminal justice apparatus, punitive policies, and police abuse,
a multiracial group of approximately 60 people met at the People’s College of Law on March 26,
1976, to form a coalition made up of organizations, individuals, and defense committees for
mutual support in the struggle against police harassment, killings, and abuses of power in

77
Jim Mitchell, “Police Shootings,” October 1972, Folder 2, Box 33, RG #9, MALDEF Records.
78
Betty Liddick, “To Be Young, Gifted, Black... and Dead: Tragedy of a Pacoima Youth Young, Gifted, Black...
and Dead Barry Evans,” Los Angeles Times. March 5, 1976, sec. Part IV; Shooting statistics available for the 1970s
do not disaggregate data by age or gender making a statistical count difficult.
79
Doug Shuit, “Police Patrols: Too Many or Not Enough?: Many Resent, Some Understand Tactics in South-
Central L.A,” Los Angeles Times, September 21, 1978, sec. Part I.
267
“communities, jails, and prisons.”
80
In contrast to those residents demanding more policing, the
Coalition Against Police Abuse (CAPA) as the newly-formed organization came to be called,
hoped to address the “isolated and ineffectual” efforts of black and Latino residents to respond to
what they viewed as a systemic pattern of police repression and a militarized police state in the
city. “CAPA,” organizers explained, “came into existence because of the growing need for us as
community people to address ourselves to the systematic attacks of various law enforcement
agencies.”
81

The Coalition Against Police Abuse was a multiracial organization made up of a number
of local defense committees from the African American, Latino, American Indian, and civil
liberties communities. While many organizers such as Michael Zinzun, Bob Duren, S. Deacon
Alexander, and Anthony Thigpenn came out of the Black Panther Party, the legacy of which had
a disproportionate impact on CAPA’s development, they initially operated as a coalition of
leaders from different organizations: Duren represented the Panthers, Zinzun the Pasadena
Community Information Center, Thigpenn the People’s United, Alexander the local chapter of
NAAPR, and Virginia Harris the Scott-Smith Committee for Justice. As founding member and
Black Panther Bob Duren explained, individual defense and justice committees did not have the
ability to change policies and practices of the LAPD on their own. As a coalition, however, they
had a greater chance of success, prompting slogans such as “In Unity There’s Strength.”
82

80
C.A.P.A., “C.A.P.A. Proposal to Liberty Hill, Exhibits,” 1976, Folder 6, Box 3, Liberty Hill Collection.
81
C.A.P.A., “C.A.P.A. Proposal to Liberty Hill,” 1977. Folder 5, Box 3, Liberty Hill Collection; Duren, Bob D., and
Michael Zinzun, “C.a.p.a.,” Undated, Folder Federal Agencies, Box 10, CAPA Papers; CAPA’s coalition model
built on prior models such as the Community Conference on Police Brutality formed in July 1972 comprised of at
least 21 community groups and organizations that ranged from the NAACP, to the Black Panthers, to CASA, “What
Can Be Done About Police Brutality? A Community Conference,” July 1, 1972, Folder 8 Box 19, South Los
Angeles 20th Century Documentation Collection, MSS 078, Southern California Library (Hereafter SLA
Collection); Faith C. Christmas, “Mass Rally Set On ‘Police Abuse’: Clergy Reports on Police Demands in Public
Rally,” Los Angeles Sentinel, August 28, 1975.
82
C.A.P.A., “C.A.P.A. Organizing Manual - 2,” Undated, Folder 7, Box 55, CAPA Papers; Some of the committees
included: Barry Evans Defense Committee, the Anthony Brown Defense Committee, the Scott-Smith Defense
Committee, the Ron Burkholder Committee, the Committee to Defend Carlos Montes, and the Skyhorse-Mowhak
268
CAPA’s original plan was to have co-chairpersons—one Latino and one African American—to
allow for “joint leadership.”
83
As CAPA’s early literature, printed in both English and Spanish,
suggested, organizers framed police abuse as a problem that transcended racial and ethnic lines,
and attempted to unite all those whose rights had been denied by police harassment and abuse.
84

Yet, founding members also organized CAPA with an eye to the lessons they learned
from the disintegration of black and ethnic nationalist movements in the early 1970s. While
maintaining the view that the police operated as a colonial force, CAPA eschewed open and
armed confrontation with the police that had led to increased police repression of the BPP in
favor of community organization, political education, nonviolent protest, and political and legal
avenues of redress. They developed a decentralized organizational structure based on a Steering
Committee consisting of representatives from every member organization. CAPA also worked to
include women in leadership, a source of tension, and, while a predominantly black organization,
to reach out to a variety of leftist and ethnic organizations as part of a national and international
movement against police repression.
85

The founders of CAPA came out of a distinct tradition of political organizing, social
movement experience, and Marxist ideological leanings that understood the police as part of a
the historical development of a capitalist state and American Empire bent on the control and
subordination of slaves, free blacks, Mexicans, and Native Americans.
86
The general political
direction of CAPA, thus, envisioned revolutionary structural change but recognized the limits

Defense Committee; Linda Valentino, letter to Pat Russell, July 5, 1983, Folder Public Disorder Intelligence
Division [PDID]/Freedom of Information, Box C-0562, Pat Russell, 06.01, Los Angeles City Archives (hereafter
Russell Papers); CAPA also worked with Mexican American groups in Lynwood to try and oppose police abuse,
“Intelligence Briefing,” June 20, 1977, Folder 13, Box 82, CAPA Papers.
83
Bob D. Duren, “Open Letter to the Community,” 1976, Folder 1, Box 26, Centro de Accion Social Autonomo
Papers, M0325, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries (hereafter CASA Papers).
84
C.A.P.A. “By-Laws Committee,” July 20, 1976, Folder 49, Box 18, CAPA Papers.
85
Mary Pauline Roche, “Unfinished Business: The Production of Resistance to State Violence in Los Angeles and
Derry” (University of Southern California, 2004), 137-139; Vargas, 109-113.
86
C.A.P.A. “C.A.P.A. Proposal to Liberty Hill, Exhibits,” 1976, Folder 6, Box 3, Liberty Hill Collection.
269
and obstacles to such a radical program. They also outlined the need to be more specific on
nature of repression that they were addressing, clarifying that it was not just police practices that
led to repression but the larger system of law enforcement and capitalism in the United States.
“If control by the community is not obtained,” one annual report exclaimed, “prepare yourself!
As the economic picture gets worse we will see more and more police in our neighborhoods - a
signal that another holocaust is near - only this time it may be you!”
87

Unlike many city and police officials who framed the growth in crime and drug use
among black and Latino youth as a problem of morals, poor behavior, and family disintegration,
CAPA addressed economic and social conditions that led to increased crime, gang violence,
prison growth, and a larger police presence in black and brown communities. “As unemployment
and inflation rises the rulers of America find it necessary to employ more police in our
communities,” one leaflet stated; “Police brutality and harassment are at an all time high. Why
should we suffer when the cause clearly points to the government.”
88
CAPA linked rising
unemployment with the growth of police forces and expansion of California’s prison system, a
strategy they viewed as a means to contain poor communities of color while “rich people”
bought greater police protection.
89
For CAPA, the fight against police “terror” was the entry
point in the larger struggle against an “economic and political crisis in which the government,
guided by a false notion of law and order, has begun to legislate and order through the courts
more repressive acts by the police.”
90
Through organizing, mobilizing the community, and
politicizing police abuse rooted in a firm foundation of the analysis of the American racial state

87
C.A.P.A. “C.A.P.A. Report, 1971-1981,” 1981, Folder 24, Box 90, CAPA Papers.
88
C.A.P.A. “Have You Been Harassed by Police or Sheriffs?,” Undated, Folder 7, Box 55, CAPA Papers.
89
C.A.P.A. “Killings by L.A.P.D. Continue: C.A.P.A. Report for 1978,” 1978, Folder 8, Box 19, SLA Collection.
90
C.A.P.A., “C.A.P.A. Statement of Purpose,” 1977, Folder Charter Amendment #1, Box 10, CAPA Papers.
270
and capitalism, CAPA offered an alternative strategy to transform inner city neighborhoods from
spaces targeted for control to spaces of empowerment.
The program for United Action reflected CAPA’s efforts to confront the intersection of
police repression with the expansion of the criminal justice system. They intended “to organize
and mobilize the masses of people to eliminate police crimes and power abuses in our
communities, the jails and prisons.” Other goals included raising public awareness around police
abuse, educating the local community about their rights in relation to the police, encouraging the
community to stand up to police misconduct, and demanding the suspension of habitually violent
officers. The police, CAPA argued, were not in their communities to protect and serve but as a
form of colonial oppressors to intimidate, confine, and control, requiring community control of
the police and sheriff’s departments.
91

Early meeting minutes demonstrated how a diverse group of left-wing activists attempted
to provide a “political education” for the community while also responding to the desires,
demands, and hopes of local residents. “Develop the base!,” organizers exclaimed. In order to do
so, the Steering Committee passed a motion on August 7, 1976, intended to blend reformist and
revolutionary tactics through educational programming for communities.
92
Using rhetorical
questions and statements, such as “HAVE YOU BEEN HARASSED by POLICE?” and “They’d
Like Us To Think We Can’t Do Anything About It [police abuse and jails]…” in its fliers and
literature, CAPA pushed the community to take a political stand on police abuse and demand a
response from the local power structure. CAPA was not a mere expression of a homogeneous
black or Latino community, but a proactive attempt by a committed cadre of activists to educate,
mobilize, and politicize the community to address police abuse and repression as part of a larger

91
“Intelligence Briefing: 009530,” April 15, 1976, Folder 16, Box 92, CAPA Papers.
92
C.A.P.A. “Steering Committee Meeting - CAPA,” August 7, 1976, Folder 49, Box 18, CAPA Papers.
271
project to confront the systemic nature of racism and inequality in American society perpetuated
by the expansion of the criminal justice complex. While community members were not always
responsive, CAPA’s efforts demonstrated how visible, public protest and organizing was part of
an effort to link police abuse to a larger political project for power in minority communities.
Throughout its existence, CAPA grappled with the tension between its political and ideological
position to push residents to action and the effort to respond to the needs and desires that grew
out of the community itself.
93

While CAPA’s program, methods, and strategies changed over time, activists never
wavered from the main objective to expose police crimes, raise public awareness, provide
avenues of redress for individual complaints, and politicize residents to end police crimes and
power abuses. The original organizing manual outlined CAPA’s basic program and laid out a
systematic approach to challenging police brutality that rested on a three-part program of
documenting the case, reaching the people, and mobilizing the people. The manual stressed that
the politicization of the community was part of a step-by-step process requiring block-by-block
organizing, visible protests and marches, knowledge of the justice system, and strategic use of
the media. Although recognizing that “the legal system is slanted heavily against you,” CAPA
emphasized the importance of using the judicial system to mobilize support, advance political
education and visibility, and, on occasion, achieve successful redress. By stressing the use of the
legal system, CAPA linked external criticism of the police with the use of established institutions
as a dual approach of change. The Manual, in short, provided an outline for the politicization of a
community and laid the foundation for CAPA’s future efforts.
94
“In effect,” CAPA organizer

93
C.A.P.A. “Steering Committee Workshop Minutes - CAPA,” September 4, 1976, Folder 40, Box 86, CAPA
Papers.
94
C.A.P.A. “C.A.P.A. Organizing Manual,” 1977, Folder 5, Box 3, Liberty Hill Collection.
272
Anthony Thigpenn wrote to supporters in 1977, “CAPA plans to function as a vortex, a center,
pulling all the separate efforts around police abuse together into one massive punch.”
95

CAPA’s methods reflected a leftist ideological position that encouraged self-criticism and
constant revision of strategy that often resulted in divisions over the nature of organizing and the
process of social change.
96
In February, 1978, S. Deacon Alexander, Chairperson of the Los
Angeles Branch of the National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression (NAARPR), for
example, wrote an extensive letter critiquing CAPA and demanding changes in the
organization’s approach. At an ideological level, Alexander disagreed with Michael Zinzun and
others about the role of the police. “The issue of police abuse can not be used to point out the
fundamental contradiction in our society,” he argued, “CAPA is not and will never be that
vehicle with which we combat the machinery of the State.” Labeling Zinzun an “infantile leftist,”
Alexander stated that the police were only one arm of the state not the state itself. Most
concretely, Alexander charged Zinzun and other CAPA leaders as arrogant by claiming that as
‘political people’ they had a say over the direction of a community organization, alienating many
would-be community allies. CAPA, Alexander suggested, should bring the community together
and respond to the desires of residents rather than acting on its behalf in order to build a mass
base that would produce an alliance of “Black and Brown folk that this country has never seen.
An explosion that will rock City Hall, a burst of anger, which will sound like hell opened up, is
possible under this new proposed change.”
97
Ideological infighting and conflict over the nature
and strategy of organizing led to the weakening of the organization at times, the loss of the

95
Anthony Thigpenn letter to Dear Friends, May 16, 1977, Folder Correspondence – Out, Box 10, CAPA Papers.
96
Roche, “Unfinished Business.”
97
S. Deacon Alexander, “Mike Zinzun: A Polemic,” February 1978, Folder Central Committee, Box 10, CAPA
Papers; “Criticisms of Program,” 1976, Folder 35, Box 86, CAPA Papers; Other critiques of CAPA revolved around
the need for a mass base: R.S. Fraser, “For Rebuilding CAPA on a Mass Base,” 1977, Prometheus Research Library,
New York City, New York.
273
support of defense committees, and the resignation of individuals, such as Bob Duren in early
1977.
98

Such debates led to CAPA’s evolution as an organization, however. Zinzun responded to
criticisms by suggesting that “CAPA can only go as fast as community input,” and called for
increased efforts to raise awareness with residents of CAPA’s work to address police abuse.
99

CAPA attempted to stay true to its goals of both mobilizing and responding to community
desires, as suggested in the motto “We’ll work with you, not for you.” CAPA’s internal
development as an organization, however, occurred alongside on-the-ground efforts aimed at
politicizing residents through mass marches, rallies, and protests that reflected a wide-ranging
agenda to combat concerns that state authority had turned to the police to contain and control
poor and minority communities.
100

From Individual Complaints to Challenging the LEAA: CAPA’s Campaigns

Many of CAPA’s actions were geared toward public protest, raising awareness of police
abuse and harassment, changing the investigative process for officer-involved shootings, and
establishing a civilian police review board. Structural change was a much more ambitious project
for CAPA and would require shifting attitudes and perceptions about minority neighborhoods
and the connection between space, race, and crime in the minds of those in power and whites
living in the suburbs. It would also require a transformation in the economic structure that kept
South Central and East Los Angeles segregated and impoverished, something that CAPA

98
Bob D. Duren, “Open Letter to the Community,” 1976, Folder 1, Box 26, CASA Papers.
99
Michael Zinzun letter to Special Committee, “C.A.P.A.’s Strategy and Tactics,” February 7, 1978, Folder Central
Committee, Box 10, CAPA Papers.
100
Wacquant discusses the ways in which the decline of legalized segregation led to a shift in state capacity to
maintain social control in inner cities through the police and prisons: Loïc J. D. Wacquant, Punishing the Poor: The
Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity (Duke University Press, 2009).
274
recognized was out of its reach. Debates over the nature of change and experience with direct
action protest, however, had important ramifications for the organization.
101

During the spring and summer of 1976 CAPA held numerous demonstrations, rallies, and
marches to protest the practices and policies of the LAPD, such as the picket line depicted in
Figure 20. One of CAPA’s first demonstrations was a picket line in front of Parker Center on
May 6, 1976, attended by 250, including a large contingent of black and Latino youth, to protest
police killings and harassment. CAPA spokesmen presented demands to the Board of Police
Commissioners asking for a citizens review board and hiring of more minority policemen.
102
On
June 19, 1976, CAPA held a march from Martin Luther King Park to McArthur Park in Long
Beach attended by 60 people, made up of roughly 35 blacks, 15 Latinos, and 10 whites. Speaking
at the rally, Anthony Thigpenn described CAPA as a coalition of defense committees “joining
together to gain strength in order to force the establishment of police review boards.”
103
CAPA’s
summer culminated with a Mass March and Rally on July 31, intended to “break the long chain
of apathy that exist in our community,” attended by roughly 300 people, signaling to organizers
the need to work more closely with the community. CAPA finished the first year of organizing
by holding a joint community conference with the GWJC entitled “Police Brutality and Power
Abuses!,” setting the stage for increased cooperation between CAPA and legal aid groups that
would prove instrumental in educating residents to their rights in relation to the police.
104

101
Michael Zinzun letter to Special Committee, “C.A.P.A.’s Strategy and Tactics,” February 7, 1978, Folder Central
Committee, Box 10, CAPA Papers.
102
“Divisional Intelligence Summary,” May 10, 1976, Folder 1, Box 89; Rob Baker, “Protest in Los Angeles:
Coalition Hits Police Abuses,” People’s World, May 22, 1976, Folder 4, Box 16, both in CAPA Papers.
103
S-456, “March and Rally, CAPA,” June 19, 1976, Folder 1, Box 22; C.A.P.A. “Organizing Committee Meeting -
CAPA,” June 5, 1976, Folder 48, Box 18; “Divisional Intelligence Summary,” August 2, 1976, Folder 1, Box 89, all
in CAPA Papers.
104
“People United,” 1976, Folder 11, Box 6, Meyerson vs. City of Los Angeles Records, Mss 081, Southern
California Library (hereafter Meyerson Records); C.A.P.A. and The Greater Watts Justice Center, “A Community
Conference: Police Brutality and Power Abuses!,” December 4, 1976, Folder 8, Box 19, SLA Collection.
275

Figure 20. CAPA Protest, undated, Box Pulled Materials, CAPA Papers, Southern California Library.

Perhaps the most basic, but also one of CAPA’s most important activities, was the
collection of complaints against law enforcement agencies across Los Angeles County. The
complaint files provided evidence of police abuse and combined with similar lists compiled by
the ACLU Police Malpractice Centers, set a foundation for tracking the relationship between the
police and the community over time.
105
By 1982 CAPA received an average of 1,500 complaints
of police abuse annually, which they used to reinforce arguments that law enforcement agencies
in Los Angeles operated with impunity.
106
The number of complaints and geographic diversity,
however, also suggested that even as CAPA operated on the foundation of a core group of

105
Joe Williams, “C.A.P.A. Research Committee,” May 24, 1977, Folder 13, Box 110, CAPA Papers.
106
Roche, “Unfinished Business,” 189.
276
activists, many residents recognized the organization as a viable place to file complaints, get
advice, and mobilize around police abuse.
Working with the GWJC, the ACLU Police Malpractice Complaint Centers, and the
Police Misconduct Lawyers Referral Service (PMLRS), allowed CAPA to pursue legal redress
for some complainants. CAPA pushed individuals to become aware of their right to bring
criminal charges against the police and file claims for damages against the city of Los Angeles,
something that lawyers from the ACLU and GWJC such as Hugh Manes had been supporting—
winning many monetary claims against the police—since the early 1960s. With the help of
lawyers like Manes, CAPA informed people how to act during an arrest or confrontation in order
to provide a strong legal basis for a defense if they filed a lawsuit.
107
Suits could be successful,
such as when CAPA’s Michael Zinzun sued the Pasadena Police Department in 1985 after a
severe beating in which Zinzun was permanently blinded in one eye by officers after attempting
to observe the arrest of one his Pasadena neighbors, resulting in a settlement of $1.2 million but
doing little to alter the operations of the police or change policy. CAPA recognized that suits
were not a “substitute for an organized community to end police crimes,” but understood that
filing charges against the police could have a monetary impact on the city. By bringing lawsuits
CAPA broadened the meaning of Black Power to the legal realm.
108

CAPA’s work revolved around achieving accountability, oversight, and control of the
police as part of the first step in a longer struggle for fundamental social change in society. One
major accomplishment was to compel police to carry and distribute business cards. More often
than not, officers withheld their badge number, name, or reason for stopping an individual in

107
Hugh R. Manes, “What to Do When Police Stop You,” Undated, Folder 23, Box 46, CAPA Papers.
108
C.A.P.A., “C.A.P.A. Report 1983-84”; Michael Zinzun Defense Committee, “For Release: Demand Justice for
Steve Rivers/A. Frank Taylor/Michael Zinzun,” July 21, 1986, Folder Chock Holds LAPD, Box 10, CAPA Papers.
277
neighborhoods of color.
109
After repeated protests and hearings, the Board of Police
Commissioners, over the opposition of Chief Daryl Gates who replaced Ed Davis in 1978,
ordered Gates to revise the department’s business card policy, requiring officers to provide
business cards to any individual they arrested and “to any person upon request.”
110
As CAPA
members recognized, the business card policy was a marginal victory on the road to community
control of the police but also served to educate the community, increase awareness of the rights
of individuals in relation to the police, and laid the groundwork and organizing capacity that
forced officials to pay attention and respond to calls for more substantive reforms.
When the International Association of Chiefs of Police held its annual meeting in Los
Angeles during the fall of 1977, CAPA intended to protest the conference to make visible the
connections between police abuse and the larger criminal justice system.
111
Organized around
themes of anti-imperialism and police brutality, the IACP protest intended to show the police as
oppressors of human rights, similar to regimes in South Africa. “We have a responsibility,”
CAPA’s director Michael Zinzun stated, “to oppose any violations of human rights, and this
conference represents some of the worst.” Activists believed that the Conference was going to
display modern police technologies and tools and the connections between police and multi-
national corporations that manufactured weapons. Zinzun denounced the conference as a time
when police departments had six days to “talk about new ways to oppress us,” to deport illegal
aliens, oppose FOIA requests, and quell riots.
112

109
C.A.P.A. “C.A.P.A. Proposal for Police Information Cards,” May 1, 1979, Folder 6, Box 77, CAPA Papers.
110
Daryl F. Gates, “Special Order No. 13: Business Cards,” June 24, 1980, Folder 15, Box 12, CAPA Papers; David
Johnston, “Police Card Rules Changed,” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 1980, sec. Orange County.
111
Yarbrough. “Intelligence Briefing: Planned Demonstration at International Police Chiefs Conference,” 1977,
Folder 3, Box 82, CAPA Papers.
112
“Intelligence Briefing: 009800 (Rally to Protest Annual Conference),” September 26, 1977, Folder 16, Box 92,
CAPA Papers.
278
Organizers also connected the problem of police abuse to the growth of the federal
criminal justice system under the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA).
Combined with massive funding, CAPA argued, the LEAA contributed to the criminalization of
inner city youth and spaces of color by attacking crime as a problem of policing rather than a
symptom of the larger economic and social structure. The LEAA allocated funds for advancing
repressive operations of the police, something CAPA referred to as the 'police-industrial'
complex. As CAPA’s Research Director, Joe Williams, explained, “LEAA has enormous
significance because it represents the first serious attempt to develop a national apparatus of
repression and control. LEAA is supplying the authority, methods, money, to rationalize the
internal security of the U.S. and has become the major force influencing the 'War on Crime.'”
113

When LAPD officials requested LEAA funding and a special tax bond to develop an
enhanced communications system in 1977, CAPA’s response reflected a concern of a punitive
criminal justice system bent on social control and surveillance. Charter Amendment 1, if passed,
would provide a $40 tax override million to fund the expansion of the LAPD’s Emergency
Command Control Communications System (ECCCS), which the department established in 1967
with the help of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and LEAA funding.
114
The expansion of the
ECCCS, according the LAPD, extended the department’s use of technology to control space and
fight crime. “Through the application of advanced communications and computer technology,”
the LAPD believed the ECCCS “will improve the level of police service to the citizens and
provide additional safety to the field police officer.”
115

113
Joe Williams, “The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration,” Undated, Folder 41, Box 116, CAPA Papers.
114
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “Los Angeles Police Department Emergency Command Control Communication
System,” April 28, 1975, Folder ECCS, Box 10, CAPA Papers.
115
Los Angeles Police Department, “Emergency Command Control Communications System Information Sheet,”
1980, Folder 9, Box 36, UPRI Records.
279
Opponents of the ECCCS viewed the measure as an excessive amount of funding to an
already large LAPD budget during an era of cutbacks in social programs part of the development
of a surveillance state.
116
Representatives from CAPA argued that more technology was not the
answer to reducing the problems of crime, police violence, or poverty. “ECCS will not stop
police killings in our communities, nor will it feed the hungry or develop employment for the
jobless in Los Angeles,” stated a CAPA representative, “The ECCS is just another intelligence
and para-military apparatus that will be used to violate our civil rights and maintain control over
our lives.” CAPA offered an alternative vision, demanding “we need JOBS in our communities
to cut down and to stop crime---not a (big brother) police system.”
117
CAPA cited a Police
Foundation study that found “little or no relationship between speedy response time and crime
prevention and/or detection,” to claim that the “LAPD’s argument exploits the citizen’s justified
fear of violent crime.”
118
Although voters approved Charter Amendment 1 by a near two to one
margin, CAPA’s efforts to oppose the ECCCS reflected the ways activist attempted to place the
problem of police abuse in a larger context of an overarching criminal justice system.
119

While CAPA envisioned changes to address the multifaceted nature of social and
political relations at the root of police abuse, the daily work of collecting complaints, attempting
to educate and mobilize residents, and bringing police harassment to the attention of local
lawmakers was much more decisive in shaping the nature of policing. Committed activists
worked alongside mainstream civil rights groups such as the NAACP, ministerial alliances, and
with Model Cities agencies such as the Greater Watts Justice Center, to address the problem of

116
Heber C. Jentzsch, “40 Million Dollar Rip-Off,” Los Angeles Free Press, June 27, 1977, Folder Charter
Amendment #1, Box 10, CAPA Papers.
117
C.A.P.A. “Vote No May 31 Charter Amendment - 1,” 1977, Folder Charter Amendment #1, Box 10, CAPA
Papers.
118
“Argument Against Proposed Charter Amendment No. 1,” 1977, Folder Charter Amendment #1, Box 10, CAPA
Papers.
119
Erwin Baker, “Police Tax Proposal Receives Approval,” Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1977, sec. Part I.
280
Officer Involved Shootings, to pass legislation protecting the right to witness police arrests, and
to convene public hearings on police and the use of deadly force. Through the work of ten to
fifteen dedicated organizers, CAPA pushed the LAPD, Board of Police Commissioners, and
LASD to change a number of policies and placed the problem of police violence, lack of
accountability, and resistance to police abuse at the center the meaning of civil rights and social
justice during the 1970s and 1980s.
120
CAPA’s efforts, while often limited, increased awareness
and organizing around policing and the use of deadly force that coalesced after highly publicized
shootings and chokehold deaths led many African American and Latino residents to believe that
anyone—not just criminals—were subject to police violence.

Excessive Force: Officer-Involved Shootings, Eula Love, and Reform

On January 3, 1979, Eula Mae Love, a thirty-nine year old African American widow
raising three daughters on government benefits living at 11926 South Orchard Avenue in South
Central Los Angeles attempted to pay a $22 overdue gas bill. After resisting the effort of a
Southern California Edison Company representative to turn off her gas by hitting him with a
shovel, Love went to a local market to purchase a money order for the unpaid bill. In the
meantime, the gas company representative reported the incident to his supervisor who called the
LAPD’s South East Division headquarters for police support at Love’s home. Two LAPD
officers, Lloyd O’Callaghan and Edward Hopson, one white and one black, were assigned to the
case, which was labeled a “business dispute.” When the officers arrived at the house they found
Love in her front yard holding a kitchen knife. The officers approached Love with guns drawn,
cornering her and O’Callaghan hit the knife out of her hand with a baton knocking her down. As

120
On continued attempts to bridge divides and organizing see: Charles L. Chapple to Liberty Hill Foundation,
October 25, 1978, Folder 11, Box 7, Liberty Hill Collection.
281
Love reached for the knife, the two officers opened fire within site of Love’s daughters,
emptying their guns, hitting Love eight times and killing her on the scene.
121

The officers faced no prosecution and the LAPD’s Shooting Review Board found that the
officers acted within the Department’s guidelines concerning the use of firearms and deadly
force. Chief Gates defended his officers and argued that the Love shooting was an act of
“legitimate self-defense.” Gates’ response to the Love shooting and the larger conflict over
police abuse reflected his perspective, developed under the tutelage of Chief William Parker, that
the police were an aggressive force tasked with maintaining law and order. The dismissive
attitude of Gates and the LAPD to the killing of Love and other black and Latino residents
through use of the choke hold set the stage for an escalating battle that mobilized a wide variety
of interests and undermined support for the police in the black and Latino communities.
122

In the weeks that followed, the African American community, and some Latino allies,
reacted with an “outpouring of criticism, anger, fear and distrust” directed at the police, City
Council, Mayor Bradley, and Board of Police Commissioners. The Love incident quickly
became a “lightning rod” for the expression of deeply felt hostility toward police practices in
minority communities and an organized anti-police abuse movement that accompanied the
LAPD’s intensified War on Crime.
123

While CAPA led the charge, the Love killing allowed for a moment of unity between
groups with different ideological positions and brought new organizations into the struggle
against police abuse. The Love killing and repeated instances of arrests and harassment of
ministers such as M.M. Merriweather prompted a group of 169 ministers representing nearly

121
[Michael Zinzun], “Mrs. Eula Mae Love -- WHAT REALLY HAPPENED?,” 1979, Folder 25, Box 55, CAPA
Papers.
122
Domanick, To Protect and to Serve, 259.
123
Board of Police Commissioners, “The Report of the Board of Police Commissioners Concerning the Shooting of
Eula Love and the Use of Deadly Force: Part III Training and Community Relations,” 1979, Folder 7, Box 102,
CAPA Papers.
282
250,000 black churchgoers to charge the LAPD with brutality, racism, and improper tactics.
124

The Gathering, as the group came to be called, worked to start a “cooperative movement for the
redemption and renewal of our town” by placing police shootings and abuse at the center of their
work.
125
They addressed police-community relations through a Working Committee on
Community and Police Issues and developed a ten-point program for addressing the critiques of
the black community against the police. The program consisted of meetings with various public
officials to voice their disdain for the practices of the LAPD, support for a civilian review board,
pushed for a new shooting policy, affirmative action in hiring and recruitment, and an end to
abusive practices.
126

After the Love murder, the ministers cooperated with CAPA and other groups to demand
further hearings into abuses by the LASD and LAPD.
127
The Gathering not only brought a broad
base of support to the anti-police abuse movement but also contributed to the link between the
struggle against police brutality and politics. When Gates charged The Gathering with being
unrepresentative of the black community and claimed that their coverage of the Love case was,
in effect, a “public lynching,” Bradley finally took a stand on the police abuse problem,
defending The Gathering, acknowledging the widespread concern surrounding police violence,
and publicly speaking out against the officers involved in the Love shooting.
128
Bradley’s stand,

124
Citizen’s Commission on Police Repression, “The Rap Sheet,” April 1979, Folder 10, Box 4, MALDEF Records.
125
Charles Blake, William Brent, H. Hartford Brookins, P.J. Ellis, Charles Golden, R.O. Harris, C. Garnett Henning,
et al. letter to Fellow Clergymen, January 17, 1979, Folder 3, Box 2736, Group V, Records of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
(Hereafter NAACP-LOC); The Gathering included a number of local ministers including Bishop Ralph Houston,
Reverend E. V. Hill, Reverend James M. Lawson, Jr., Reverend Edgar Edwards, Thomas Kilgore, M.M.
Merriweather, and Reverend J. B. Reese.
126
The Gathering, “Working Committee on Community and Police Issues,” March 22, 1979, Folder 3, Box 2736,
Group V, NAACP-LOC.
127
Charles L. Chapple and Anne F. Davis letter to Kenneth Hahn, September 11, 1979, 1.43.1.15., Hahn Collection.
128
“The Chronology of the Eula Love Case,” 1979, Folder 15, Box 40, UPRI Records; Penelope McMillan, “Mayor
Calls Meeting on Police ‘Tension,’’” Los Angeles Times, October 13, 1979, sec. Part II; “Plaudits for Tom,” Los
Angeles Sentinel, May 10, 1979.
283
based on his record as a police officer, brought praise from local organizations and demonstrated
the ability of police issues to link together disparate elements of the black community.
The City Council’s Police, Fire, and Public Safety Committee held hearings throughout
the spring of 1979 to address the public outcry from the Love case. The Committee heard from a
number of community members and organizations, who collectively complained that the LAPD
“does not enforce laws and provide service in a consistent manner throughout various sections of
the City and equally for all types and groups of people.”
129
Chief Gates parried, insisting that
police policies “are uniform and consistent throughout the City,” and recommended that the
Board of Police Commissioners allow the department to use hollow-point bullets to provide
officers with more lethal weapons to prevent a “free-fire” attitude. Such statements irked
residents and activists alike who had witnessed repeated instances of uneven policing and
tendency of officers to resort to the use of force in minority neighborhoods.
130

The District Attorney’s report exonerating the two officers, stating that they acted in self-
defense and that no disciplinary action was required, incensed the black community. Paul
Hudson of the NAACP stated that “I think that this very well may be the straw that break’s the
camel’s back.” CAPA, the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and
other organizations organized a Police Crimes Tribunal for April 28 where residents served as a
Grand Jury on police crimes, presented demands for greater civilian oversight of the police, and
mobilized support for a civilian review board proposal.
131
The pressure pushed Mayor Bradley to

129
Police, Fire, and Public Safety Committee. “Police, Fire and Public Safety Committee: Item No. 1, C.F. 78-
2388,” May 24, 1979, Folder 24, Box 55, CAPA Papers.
130
Gates letter, Folder 24, Box 55, CAPA Papers; On hollow-point bullets see John Mack and Ramona Ripston
Testimony in Subcommittee on Crime, Committee on the Judiciary, Police and the Use of Deadly Force: Hearings
before the Subcommittee on Crime, 96
th
Cong., 2
nd
Sess., 1980.
131
Citizen’s Commission on Police Repression, “Justice for Eula Love and All Victims of Police Abuse,” 1979,
Folder 12, Box 9, 20th Century Organizational Files, MSS 077, Southern California Library (Hereafter 20
th
Century
Files); Organizations included NAACP, SCLC, ACLU, NAARP, CES, CAPA, CCOPR, Normandie Ave Justice
284
call for further investigation and demand that the Board of Police Commissioner to review the
case and the LAPD’s shooting policies. While Bradley focused on needed changes in training
and supervision of officers, representatives such as Reverend Thomas Kilgore, Paul Hudson, and
CAPA warned that unless the department established a more stringent monitoring system that
was accountable to external oversight, rooted out racism, and recognized police violence as a
problem of civil rights, little would change.
132

Although polls often demonstrated the widespread support the LAPD had among Los
Angeles residents, perceptions of the department shifted after the Love shooting. A 1979 Los
Angeles Times poll revealed that 62 percent of blacks, 37 percent of Hispanics, and nearly 25
percent of Anglos “disapproved of the way the Los Angeles Police Department was doing its
job.” The poll found that the department “suffered a serious decline in public support during the
last year and a half, especially among blacks.” Not only did survey participants believe the Love
killing was an example of police brutality—rather than the proper use of force—but also
revealed a perception, among African Americans in particular, that the LAPD was “tougher on
blacks.” Indeed, 62 percent of blacks, 42 percent of Latinos, and 41 percent of Anglos responded
that officers treated blacks more harshly.
133

Pressure from the community and public officials pushed the Board of Police
Commissioners to undertake an extensive study of the Love shooting, which ended with a four-
part report stating that the officers involved made “serious errors” in approaching Love and
recommending changes in the LAPD’s policies regarding the use of force, investigatory and

Committee, People’s College of Law, United Church of Christ, First Unitarian Church, the Immigration Coalition,
Human Services Coalition, and the Association of Black Social Workers.
132
“Love Whitewash Incites Outrage: Police Killing Upheld,” Los Angeles Sentinel, April 19, 1979.
133
George Skelton, “Public Taking Dimmer View of L.A. Police,” Los Angeles Times, May 15, 1979, sec. Part I.
285
disciplinary procedures, and human relations training.
134
Although Gates criticized the Board
report, claiming the conspiracy “which has practically destroyed the CIA and FBI is now
threatening the LAPD,” he accepted limited changes to the use of force and disciplinary
guidelines. On September 26, 1979, Gates issued Special Order Number 32, which outlined
revisions to complaint procedures, stressing the thorough review of all complaints in “an
atmosphere free of real or imagined intimidation, without fear of reprisal.” Yet, the order did not
alter disciplinary procedures, a power that remained with the chief. The most concrete change
was a revision to the LAPD’s shooting policy that stressed “reverence for human life,” the
gradual escalation of force, and permitted the use of firearms only in self-defense or physically
threatening situations.
135

The Police Commission, while doing more than previous rubber-stamp Commissions by
forcing Gates to concede to demands for reform after an 80-minute meeting with Bradley and
Police Commission President Stephen Reinhardt on October 16, 1979, as shown in Figure 21,
did little to alter the culture of the LAPD or provide rigorous external oversight of the
department.
136
Community groups such as CAPA, the ACLU, the GWJC, and the Citizens’
Commission on Police Repression (CCOPR) blasted the Police Commission report as evidence
of marginal changes that would not create fundamental reform in officer practices. Ramona
Ripston of the ACLU explained, “I don’t think there was any important change that would
guarantee people in South Central Los Angeles…are treated better.”
137
Indeed, two more black

134
Board of Police Commissioners, “The Report of the Board of Police Commissioners Concerning the Shooting of
Eula Love and the Use of Deadly Force: Part I The Shooting of Eula Love,” 1979, Folder 7, Box 102, CAPA Papers;
Board of Police Commissioners, “The Report of the Board of Police Commissioners Concerning the Shooting of
Eula Love and the Use of Deadly Force: Part III Training and Community Relations,” 1979, Folder 7, Box 102,
CAPA Papers.
135
Daryl F. Gates, “Special Order No. 32,” September 26, 1979, Folder 4, Box 7, Meyerson Records.
136
Claire Spiegel, “Gates, Reinhardt Agree to End Love Shooting Dispute: Emerge From 80-Minute Session With
Bradley to Say They’ll Put Controversial Case Behind Them,” Los Angeles Times, October 16, 1979.
137
McMillan, Penelope, “Police Board No Longer a Rubber Stamp,” Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1979.
286
residents were shot and killed within the two months of the Love murder. In the cases of
Cornelius Tatum and James Richardson, the department also failed to report the OIS to the
District Attorney within 72 hours as required by law under a new program called Operation
Rollout.
138
A list of police killings compiled by attorneys for a lawsuit against the LAPD also
revealed at least 35 deaths in the two years after the Love shooting.
139
The repeated killings and
lack of communication about the shootings demonstrated that the LAPD’s on-the-ground
practices did not comply with departmental policies and continued to target areas of segregated
poverty for intensified policing.

Figure 21. Mayor Tom Bradley, Police Chief Darryl Gates, and Police Commission President
Stephen Reinhardt. 'The debate…is over'--Mayor Bradley is flanked by Police Chief Daryl
Gates, left, and Police Commission President Stephen Reinhardt at news conference following

138
Doug Shuit, “2 More Fatal Shootings by LAPD Under Investigation,” Los Angeles Times, February 10, 1979,
sec. Part II.
139
“County of Los Angeles Police-Involved Killings,” 1980, Folder 15, Box 6, Meyerson Records.
287
their talk, October 16, 1979. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, UCLA, Library Special
Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.

Activists from the NAACP and CAPA, speaking at a hearing at the County Board of
Supervisors in the fall of 1979, condemned the supervisors for their silence on police abuse,
tacitly approving of police practices, polices, and procedures that increased the level of physical
mistreatment of poor and minority residents in the name of a War on Crime. “Without probable
cause,” Charles Chapple of CAPA claimed, “pedestrians and automobile occupants are detained
and profaned, physically and mentally abused and arbitrarily arrested.” Although acknowledging
a desire for safe communities free of crime, activists challenged the assumptions of criminality
made by police based on geography, race, ethnicity, or appearance. “Some of us did not feel that
a person was a criminal because he lived in an economically deprived area of the community, or
because he had a Spanish surname, or because he was black, or because we resisted his manner
of dress or speech or the way he styled his hair.”
140

The changes to police disciplinary procedures, shooting policies, and new OIS
investigatory programs may have resulted in better investigation of shootings, but they did not
necessarily alter the behavior or attitudes of law enforcement officers on a day-to-day basis. The
shooting of 19-year old Kenneth Ramirez in the head on October 15, 1980, came on the heels of
the Love investigation and revealed similar grievances within Latino communities towards the
police. LAPD officers in pursuit of a robbery traced the suspect to a car registered to Ramirez’s
father. When they arrived at the Ramirez Mission Hills home, Kenneth Ramirez approached the
patrol car. Officer Wendell Rhinehart, who had not left his vehicle, pulled his gun and fired a
shot, killing Ramirez instantly. The LAPD’s investigators found the shooting of Ramirez an

140 Patricia W. Watson, “Presentation by Paul Hudson and Others Representing NAACP and Coalition Against
Police Brutality, Reporter’s Transcript of Proceedings,” November 6, 1979, 5.1.1.8., Hahn Collection.
288
accident and that the officer’s gun misfired when it was taken out of the holster.
141
The OIS
investigator also asserted that Officer Rhinehart acted “well within department policy” by
drawing his weapon.
142
The Hispanic Advisory Committee reported that many in the community
found it difficult to accept the department’s conclusions that the Ramirez shooting was
justifiable, as officers clearly continued to resort to the use of firearms in non-lethal situations.
The HAC indicted the Board of Police Commissioners and the LAPD for disregarding demands
for more stringent control of officers and called for a more responsive, “humanistic soldier” as
the model for LAPD officers while representatives from the Mexican American Bar Association
reiterated longstanding demands for more Spanish language training for officers.
143

Police violence was more than a matter of accountability but of basic rights and that the
way the police waged its War on Crime in minority communities led to a loss of faith in the
department. John Mack of the Los Angeles Urban League, for example, revealed the
ambivalence and growing lack of faith among his constituency for Los Angeles law enforcement
agencies. While recognizing that there were an “overwhelming number of black who desire a
strong police department to protect our families and other loved ones from the serious physical
danger that exists in every section of the city of Los Angeles,” Mack argued that the police and
sheriff shootings in the black community undermined attempts to create an “effective police
department.” Rather, Mack continued, “some feel as if they are practice targets for some police
and sheriff’s deputies.”
144

141
J. Michael Kennedy, “Youth Slain in Policeman Error,” Los Angeles Times, October 16, 1980, sec. Part I.
142
Eric Malnic and J. Michael Kennedy, “L.A. Officer Shoots, Kills Unarmed Man,” Los Angeles Times, October
17, 1980, sec. Part II.
143
Hispanic Advisory Council, “Evaluation and Critical Analysis of the Report on LAPD Officer-Involved
Shootings, 1974-1978/9,” 1980, Folder 4, Box 7, Meyerson Records; On Spanish language training see: Alex
Jacinto testimony in Subcommittee on Crime, Committee on the Judiciary, Police and the Use of Deadly Force; and
Hispanic Advisory Council, “Hispanic Council Urges More Spanish Language and Culture Training for Police,”
June 9, 1981, Folder 4, Box 7, Meyerson Records.
144
Subcommittee on Crime, Committee on the Judiciary, Police and the Use of Deadly Force.
289
The LAPD and LASD, by refusing to cooperate with demands for greater accountability,
not only missed an opportunity to work with community members to address problems of crime
but also contributed to perceptions of violent inner cities in needs of even more intensified
policing. As Paul Hudson of the NAACP remarked, by operating with impunity in black
neighborhoods, “the police aid and abet those that would have us believe that Black communities
are jungles of crime and violence…Blacks are frustrated with police oriented solutions. At the
same time police find money and support for SWAT, helicopters and controlled expansion
rounds, they say they are forced to reduce community relations staff because of budget cuts.”
145

Although CAPA had long recognized the shift towards a crime control approach to dealing with
social problems, the Love killing made the issue of police use of deadly force more prominent
for a wide range of residents because, as with Love, one did not have to be a criminal to be
subjected to police abuse under the pretense of fighting crime.
Hopes that the LAPD would work to train more humane officers and implement changes
in policies relating to the escalation of the use of force ran headlong into publicity surrounding a
series of deaths from the use of the chokehold, which further mobilized black and Latino
residents and activists to demand reform. As far back as 1970, the LAPD conducted a “Control
Hold Study” to determine the proper use of “non-lethal” holds, which generally supported the
use of the control holds as effective means of subduing suspects but also recognizing that
“pressure applied to a suspect’s throat over an extended period of time is hazardous.”
146
With the
Carotid Control Hold, the LAPD committee and appointed doctor believed that without proper
training, the technique could be harmful to brain functions. The Committee recommended that,
despite potential ill-effects, all the holds should be continued to be because of a need for officers

145
Paul Hudson statement in ibid, 171.
146
E.M. Lembke, “Control Hold Study,” April 17, 1970, Folder Chief’s Office, Box 2272, PDX/82.
290
to be trained in self-defense in what the Department officials saw as an increasingly violent,
crime-ridden society.
147

It proved a deadly decision. As the Eula Love, Kenneth Ramirez, Cornelius Tatum, and
Richardson shooting deaths demonstrated, officers did not strictly adhere to the use of force
guidelines, a fact that was especially evident in applying the choke hold. The growing connection
between PCP use and black residents shaped the contours of the LAPD’s increasing use of force
in inner city communities. By 1978, the LAPD, city officials, and residents decried the growing
use of PCP and its deadly impact in the black community, calling for increasingly punitive
sentencing, rehabilitation, and intervention programs. The effect of PCP on users increased
adrenaline, strength, and what officers referred to as “maniacal behavior” and “superhuman”
strength. The connection between PCP, low-income neighborhoods, and what officers often
referred to as “crazed” users—who were often black—ensured that officers increasingly
approached black residents with heightened suspicion and fear. The result: widespread use of the
choke hold in black neighborhoods and in situations that often did not warrant such an escalation
of force.
148
Between 1975 and 1985 the use of the choke hold resulted in 16 deaths and twelve of
the victims were black.
149
As James Cleaver of the Los Angeles Sentinel suggested, “The bottom
line to all of this is that PCP Plus COPS Equals DEATH in this community.”
150

147
City Clerk letter to Tom Bradley, Robert Farrell, David Cunningham, Police Commission, Police Department,
Chief Legislative Analyst, and Police, Fire and Public Safety Committee, “Policies of Los Angeles Police
Department Re to Use of Physical Force in Subduing Suspects,” July 12, 1978, Box 758964, Robert Farrell Records,
CCL/08.01, Los Angeles City Archives (hereafter Farrell Records); Chief of Police letter to Honorable Board of
Police Commissioners, “Response to the City Council’s Recommendations on the Use of Physical Force,”
September 19, 1978, Box 758964, Farrell Records.
148
On PCP, the choke hold, and impact on users see: Police, Fire and Public Civil Defense. “Police, Fire and Civil
Defense Report,” June 13, 1978, Box 758964, Folder PDID, Farrell Records; Robert Farrell, letter to Mariana R.
Pfaelzer, July 25, 1978, Box 758964, Farrell Records.
149
David Johnston, “Bradley Orders Probe of Statements by Gates: ‘Disparaging’ Remarks About Blacks, Jews,
Latinos to Be Investigated by Police Commission,” Los Angeles Times, May 11, 1982. On deaths between 1975 and
1981 see “Appendix on Choke Hold Case,” 1982, Box 758964, Farrell Records.
150
PCP Plus Cops Equals Ultimate – Death, Los Angeles Sentinel, May 8, 1980.
291
City Councilman Robert Farrell pushed the Council to take action on the use of the
chokehold by the LAPD beginning in 1978. After initial efforts went nowhere, he gained more
traction after the scrutiny of the LAPD surrounding the Love killing and the growing evidence of
discriminatory use of the choke hold, presenting a motion on June 18, 1980, demanding that the
city council investigate the choke hold policies. “If the reports are accurate,” Farrell stated, “then
the issue of appropriate use of force by police officers in the field must be reviewed…A baton
applied across the throat is NOT an acceptable technique.”
151
The outpouring of public
opposition to the use of the choke hold resulted in the filing of a lawsuit to enjoin Los Angeles
law enforcement from using the technique.
152
In Lyons vs. Los Angeles, the court issued a
preliminary injunction against the use of the choke hold in 1981 and the Board of Police
Commissioners ordered Gates to conduct a thorough investigation of the LAPD’s policy,
training, and use of the hold despite prior reports that officers received more than adequate
training in its application.
153

Gates reiterated policy language in the Police Commission’s guidelines stating that a
threat of “serious bodily harm” must be present for the use of the choke hold. Citing evidence of
the legitimate need for physical force to subdue violent or drug-induced subjects, Gates left the
guidelines intact and clarified the use of the chokehold as part of an escalating use of force as a
situation demanded.
154
“I believe,” Gates stated in 1982, “that the current use of force policy of
the Los Angeles Police Department maintains a proper balance, between officer, suspect and

151
Robert Farrell, “Motion,” June 18, 1980, Folder 20, Box 23, CAPA Papers.
152
“Lyons Vs. City of Los Angeles: Court Docs,” 1980, Folder City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, Box 76, Group V,
NAACP-LOC.
153
Robert Farrell, “Statement of Robert C. Farrell Re: James Mincey, Jr.,” April 14, 1982, Box 758964, Farrell
Records; Howard Finn, “Councilman Howard Finn’s Statement before the Police, Fire and Public Safety
Committee,” April 14, 1982, in ibid.
154
City Council letter to Tom Bradley, “City Council: Choke Holds,” August 21, 1981; Daryl F. Gates letter to
Honorable Board of Police Commissioners, “Update on Use of Force ‘Choke Hold’,” March 30, 1981; Daryl F.
Gates, “Restatement of Department Position on the Limitations to the Use of the Upper Body Control Holds,” 1982
all in Box 758964, Farrell Records.
292
citizen safety. That policy allows the use of the upper body control holds under set circumstances
and conditions.”
155
Gates further enraged the black community when he suggested that blacks
may be more susceptible to injury from the choke hold due to biological reasons.
156
In an
interview with the Los Angeles Times, Gates stated “we may be finding that in some blacks when
it (the hold) is applied, the veins or arteries do not open up as fast as they do in normal
people.”
157
Gates did apologize for his comments and ordered an initial ban on the use of choke
holds.
158

Despite his recanting, Gates defended the department from claims of wrongdoing or
discriminatory policing, angering residents and pushing many to see the police as openly racist.
Councilman David Cunningham compared Gates to Lester Maddox and argued that he should
have no role in public leadership.
159
As a result of the Lyons case and protest from groups such
as CAPA and The Gathering, however, the Police Commission restricted the use of the choke
hold. On June 18, 1982, Chief Gates issued Memorandum No. 6 stating that “that there be a
moratorium on the use of the carotid, modified carotid, and the locked carotid hold in any
situation other than one in which the use of deadly force is authorized…the Department shall use
and assess the effectiveness of the use of alternative control techniques.”
160
The moratorium on

155
Daryl F. Gates, “Statement of Department Position on Proposed Moratorium on the Use of Upper Body Control
Holds by the Los Angeles Police Department,” 1982, in ibid.
156
John W. Mack, “Statement by John W. Mack, President Los Angeles Urban League,” May 11, 1982, Folder 3,
Box 3178, Bradley Papers.
157
David Johnston, “Bradley Orders Probe of Statements by Gates,” Los Angeles Times, May 11, 1982, Folder 35,
Box 74; “L.A. Furor on Chief’s Words About Blacks,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 11, 1982, Folder 34, Box 74,
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Region I, Records, MSS 78/10 c, The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley (Hereafter NAACP Papers).
158
Daryl F. Gates letter to Jacob M. Ott, June 2, 1982, Folder Los Angeles Police Department, 1974-1984, Box 17,
Part VI, CRC Collection.
159
Dave Cunningham, “Statement by Councilman Dave Cunningham,” May 10, 1982, Folder 3, Box 3178, Bradley
Papers.
160
Daryl F. Gates, “Memorandum No. 6 Moratorium on the Use of Upper Body Control Holds,” June 18, 1982,
Folder Chock Holds LAPD, Box 10, CAPA Papers.
293
choke holds, however, led to the greater use of aluminum batons and TASERs and did little to
address concerns over general harassment and abuse.
Regardless of the type of force used by officers, the growing attention to what the
National Council of La Raza (NCLR) called “horror stories” of police killings and general
harassment became a central cause of increasing public discontent with law enforcement and
faith that crime control and safe neighborhoods would come with justice. Police violence against
Latinos, the NCLR stated, had not changed since the Moratorium demonstrations, undermining
Latino faith in law enforcement. Many black and Latino residents, moreover, believed that police
abuse was a more systemic and structural problem arising from every day contact, not merely an
issue of lethal force. As one person interviewed by the NCLR stated:
It’s just like the smog here. We had mayors and supervisors attack the smog
problem. They took out a lot of the residual but the noxiousness of it is still here.
So they have reduced killings to 14 in one year, but there’s still Eulie [sic] Love
and Reyes Martinez….and that’s but the tip of the iceberg….what is not reported
what is not being monitored is the daily instance of police brutality, the daily
instances of efforts to complain which are not received, the daily instances of on-
the-street verbal and physical abuse.
161

Too often, the police viewed crime control in minority communities as separate from concerns
for basic rights, which angered residents, created distrust, and left grievances unaddressed.
Many residents and activists agreed that the police were a necessary force to combat crime
and keep communities safe. The stubbornness of law enforcement to work with community
organizations on issues of police harassment, along with continued episodes of abuse of Latino
and black residents, ensured that tough on crime approaches had the potential to push police-
community relations further apart. Between 1979 and 1986, police shot 372 people and, despite

161
National Council of La Raza, “Los Angeles: Introduction,” 1980, Folder 2, Box 478; National Council of La
Raza, “PART 2: Police Use of Deadly Force in LA: 1980,” 1980, Folder 3, Box 478, Records of the National
Council of La Raza, M0744, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries (Hereafter La Raza
Records).
294
the greater oversight of the Board of Police Commissioners, not one officer was officially
prosecuted and only one fired.
162
The organizing by CAPA and The Gathering, however, raised
police abuse as a political problem that required local officials, the LAPD, and the Board of
Police Commissioners to respond. The larger struggle over police accountability and power
abuses centered on the campaign to implement a civilian review board which gained renewed life
after the Love killing and wave of choke hold deaths.

Turning the War on Crime on its Head: The Campaign for a Civilian Review Board
Visible protests and hearings surrounding episodes of police misconduct and excessive use
of force created an immediate sense of crisis that often dissipated very quickly, leaving
underlying power relations unchanged. The growing lack of faith in the police and the Board of
Police Commissioners, City Council, or Mayor to rein in the LAPD led to dire warnings from
black leaders. Paul Hudson of the Los Angeles NAACP warned that the “frustration level and
distrust, evidenced by the people testifying here today, in my opinion, is beginning to raise to the
level of a pre-Watts riot type of situation. It is not only this city, but in many cities across the
country and there is only so long that people can accept a do-nothing attitude on the part of the
police department and not erupt.” Fundamental changes, Hudson argued, had to be made to
address the frustration and lack of faith in the police among black residents through concrete
action that “builds confidence, not promises.”
163

The solution offered by CAPA was for greater civilian oversight of the police, helping to
organize the Citizens for a Civilian Review Board (CCRB) out of the energy surrounding the
Love shooting and choke hold cases. “Police violence is escalating,” CAPA stated, “There's a

162
“When Cops Use Guns: LAPD Shootings Must Be Independently Probed,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
October 27, 1986, Folder 22, Box 61, CAPA Papers.
163
Hudson in Subcommittee on Crime, Police and the Use of Deadly Force, 170.
295
contract out on the lives of America's dissidents and dispossessed in every city across the
country. But the inflammatory 'law and order' solution to the vast unrest cause by
unemployment, inflation, racism, and sexism is being broadly challenged in Los Angeles
California by an energetic campaign for a Police Review Board to be composed of civilians who
will be the arbiters of police.” The CCRB circulated petitions and gathered signatures in hopes of
putting a referendum on the 1980 ballot to revise the City Charter to include a civilian review
board and special prosecutor to adjudicate complaints.
164

By framing the problem of police brutality and killings as crime, the CCRB turned the
calls for a War on Crime by city officials and the LAPD against itself. They key element of the
review board was that the years of struggle had resulted in only the most marginal of changes.
“The community has made numerous appeals,” the CCRB stated, “but the pleas of the
community (particularly Black and Brown, where the problem is most prevalent) have gone
unheard, or received token responses.” The CCRB pointed to the 27 police shootings since the
1979 killing of Eula Love with no indictments of the officers. The CCRB viewed the conditions
in Los Angeles as “times of crisis” in which conservative forces were “uniting to take away our
hard won freedoms.”
165
At a rally on September 13, 1980, the CCRB argued that as “economic
conditions worsen, the police are used to control community reaction to rising unemployment,
inflation, and the deteriorating quality of life.”
166
The campaign for the review board was at the
crux of the struggle over how to approach the shifting emphasis in policing and sentencing
policies aimed at economic and social problems that left black and Mexican Americans subject
to continued harassment and powerlessness.

164
Stephen Durham, “The Brutality Squad,” 1978, Folder 23, Box 85, CAPA Papers.
165
Citizens for a Civilian Review Board, “Citizens Review Board Recommendation Statement of Purpose,” 1980,
Folder 101, Box 110, CAPA Papers.
166
Campaign for a Citizens’ Police Review Board, “Rally Against Police Abuse,” September 13, 1980, Folder 8,
Box 19, SLA Collection; The campaign for a civilian review board brought extensive intelligence gathering and
surveillance, see: Bell and Gauff, “Intelligence Briefing: 008997,” June 11, 1978, Folder 16, Box 92, CAPA Papers.
296
CAPA outlined the elements of an effective review board in an 84-page report, which
claimed that “Los Angeles stands out as a battleground for who will control accountability and
police discipline.” The Civilian Review Board report provided an in-depth discussion of the
history of the LAPD’s rulings of justifiable homicide, a review of similar boards in other cities,
and laid out the necessary elements of an effective board, including members chosen by the
community, broad power to access vital records and information from the police department,
concrete involvement with the community, and the presence of an independent prosecutor.
CAPA believed that their proposal represented the best program for civilian control of the police
in the country, maintaining a balance between the necessity of a police presence without police
abuse. The proposal would set up 18 documentation centers in each of the LAPD’s 18
geographic divisions with a central Review Board at City Hall consisting of 18 individuals made
up of grassroots community people. The Board, CAPA suggested, should have a number of
investigators to review shootings because the police had shown they could not investigate
themselves and lawyers to replace the DA, who had a dismal record of indicting LAPD officers
accused of maltreatment.
167

Part of the impetus for a civilian review board resulted from efforts on the part of the
LAPD to cover up complaints and misconduct through internal investigations and discipline. As
a professionalized police force, the LAPD was largely free of the criticisms of corruption that
plagued other departments but the lack of external oversight of internal discipline made the
department’s accountability suspect. City Charter Section 202, for example, granted the Chief of
Police sole authority over officer discipline. The Internal Affairs Department, CAPA and the
CCPR argued, was ineffective because it allowed the police to investigate itself, resulting in few,

167
Coalition Against Police Abuse, “Proposal Civilian Police Review Board and Documentation Centers,” 1980
1979, Folder 8, Box 14, Elwin H. Powell Papers, Special Collections and Archives, University of Buffalo.
297
if any, prosecutions of police officers charged with use of excessive force. The LAPD and DA
also worked too closely together, making any investigation of police shootings suspect. Since the
community could not rely on the police or the DA to discipline officers, CAPA argued, “the
People must take their fate in their own hands and establish a more responsive mechanism for
filing criminal charges against police officers.”
168

The issue of police accountability and civilian oversight was tied to larger claims for full
citizenship and racial justice as part of a demand for equal access to state protection and
municipal services, a struggle that had widespread appeal among underserved groups. Many
within the Latino community, for example, also supported the CCRB. “This is not only a black
concern,” explained Rosalio Munoz, staff coordinator of the Chicano Latino representatives to
the Campaign; “police abuse has been rampant in the Hispanic community for a number of
years.” A 1979 survey of Mexican American Bar Association members revealed that police
abuse was the most important problem facing the Latino community suggesting that policing had
the potential to unite racial and ethnic groups as part of a broader demand for inclusion, civic
appeals for equal services, and the protection from unwarranted state violence.
169

As in 1965, the LAPD and the Board of Police Commissioners strongly opposed a
civilian review board.
170
The Los Angeles Police Protective League felt that review of LAPD
disciplinary procedures was unnecessary because, “we have more than adequate remedies and
avenues for redress should violations of law or policy occur involving a police officer”.
171
Other
law enforcement proponents labeled the effort to pass a review board as part of an effort to

168
In ibid, 42
169
Mary Schmich, “Latino Leaders Back Drive for Police Review Board: Meeting Called in Attempt to Dispel Idea
That Campaign Is of Interest Only to Black Community,” Los Angeles Times , April 11, 1980, sec. Part II.
170
PDID, “Intelligence Briefing: Civilian Police Review Boards,” 1979, Folder 7, Box 89, CAPA Papers.
171
Doug Shuit and Penelope McMillan, “Commissioners Oppose Police Review Board,” Los Angeles Times,
October 17, 1979.
298
“emasculate” one of the finest police departments in the nation.
172
The City Council attempted to
shelve the review board plan and other city officials, including Mayor Bradley, opposed the
proposal.
173
While officials and the Police Commission had been willing to hear complaints
about the most blatant forms of police use of excessive force and abuse, they were adamantly
opposed to shifting more power and decision making to an external review board.

Figure 22. Needed: A Civilian Police Review Board, Los Angeles Sentinel, February 28, 1980.

African American and Latino activists collected over 70,000 signatures and received
support from a number of local institutions including the Los Angeles Sentinel. The Sentinel ran

172
Fred W. Kline, “The Effort Is on in Los Angeles to Emasculate Police Department,” April 11, 1980, Folder 11,
Box 22, CAPA Papers.
173
Michael Marten, “Policing The LAPD,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, May 12, 1979, Folder 6, Box 16, CAPA
Papers.
299
an editorial cartoon in favor of the CCRB plan that represented the rise of police shootings by
showing a smoking gun as a symbol of the “smoking gun” evidence of the need for a civilian
review board to provide oversight of the LAPD. Yet, they were unsuccessful at gaining the
required 120,000 signatures to place a referendum on the November 1980 ballot.
174
The inability
to pass a review board revealed the uneven power relations between the community and law
enforcement, contributed to the lack of faith, and a sense of institutional failure in the police
department, which reinforced CAPA’s belief that to bring about change, they would receive little
support from public officials and had continue to educate and mobilize the community against
police abuse.
Conclusion

By 1980, CAPA was barely hanging on, propelled by a dedicated core of ten to fifteen
members. Many of CAPA’s demands, as a result, reflected its radical origins and commitment to
its own constituency of defense committees. Yet, CAPA expressly viewed its role as one of
educating and mobilizing black and Latino communities around the discriminatory nature of
policing. By constantly challenging city officials and law enforcement leadership to develop
more efficient mechanisms of accountability, CAPA politicized the issue of police abuse and the
working of the criminal justice system more broadly. As the local War on Crime manifested in
episodes of police abuse and violence the actions of police brought increased resistance and
protest from a wide variety of groups in the black and Latino communities. Building on the
foundation constructed by CAPA, moderate civil rights organizations, ministers, and local
officials took up the issue of police accountability and demanded reforms in the LAPD’s policies
relating to officer-involved shootings, internal discipline, and community relations training.

174
Campaign for a Citizens’ Police Review Board, “Rally Against Police Abuse,” September 13, 1980, Folder 8,
Box 19, SLA Collection; “The Time Is Now!” Los Angeles Sentinel, February 28, 1980; Robertson, Stanley G.
“L.A. Confidential: Civilian Review Board Needed,” Los Angeles Sentinel, January 27, 1983.
300
While often unsuccessful in achieving their ultimate goals, such as in the Campaign for a
Civilian Review Board, CAPA’s organizers ensured that both the nature of policing and the
understanding of urban problems of crime and violence would not go unquestioned or
unchallenged, requiring law enforcement and city officials to continually reassert and rationalize
the need for more punitive and intensified policing. As a result, CAPA’s impact on local politics
surrounding policing outweighed its size or representativeness. Yet, perhaps the greatest
evidence of CAPA’s impact on the local political landscape was not necessarily its own battles
but the overwhelming energy, resources, and attention that the LAPD’s Public Disorder
Intelligence Division (PDID) spent on maintaining almost constant surveillance of CAPA and
other anti-police abuse and progressive movements in Los Angeles during the 1970s.
301
Chapter 5: Preventing Future Misconduct: The Public Disorder Intelligence Division,
“Subversive” Behavior, and the Struggle Over Police Spying

The existence of a potential threat of detection or the knowledge of close
surveillance on unlawful activities can, however, prevent future misconduct.
-LAPD Chief Ed Davis
1

We need only look back a few years to find a stunning example of how police
surveillance of 'suspect' community organizations and their leaders in Los
Angeles had a chilling effect on many law abiding activists, change-agents, and
do-gooders.
-Brownlee Hayden, Urban Policy Research Institute
2

In a June 5, 1979, flier advertising a special program on police spying and intelligence
networks, the Coalition Against Police Abuse (CAPA) called on community members to join the
battle against police surveillance activities by the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD)
Public Disorder Intelligence Division (PDID). “LAPD spying on community groups like
S.C.L.C., C.A.P.A., church groups,” CAPA warned, “is a threat not only to them but to anyone
who may take a stand against police crimes. Come out and get involved for who knows YOU
MAY BE NEXT!!!!”
3
CAPA’s concern with the LAPD’s intelligence gathering reflected the
intersection between law enforcement efforts to disrupt community organizing, around police
abuse in particular, and the assertion of coercive state authority to maintain social control after
the passage of civil rights legislation. Police surveillance activities, as CAPA’s struggles reveal,
were a key tool used by law enforcement to control, contain, and criminalize social movements,
community organizations, and residents living in inner city neighborhoods.

1
Davis testimony in Senate Committee on the Judiciary, The Erosion of Law Enforcement Intelligence Gathering
Capabilities: Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, 94
th
Cong., 2
nd
Sess., 1976, 3.
2
Brownlee Haydon, “The LAPD Should Come Clean,” September 28, 1978, Folder 22, Box 41, Urban Policy
Research Institute Records, Mss. 011, Southern California Library (Hereafter UPRI Records).
3
C.A.P.A., “C.A.P.A. Steering Committee Meeting and Special Program,” June 5, 1979, Folder Correspondence -
Outgoing, Box 10, Coalition Against Police Abuse Papers, Southern California Library (Hereafter CAPA Papers).
302
Although the LAPD produced, collected, and maintained intelligence files beginning in
the 1920s, after the Watts uprising the department reorganized its intelligence division into the
Public Disorder Intelligence Division (PDID) to keep track of, manage, contain, and disrupt civil
rights organizations and various progressive groups during the 1970s. The PDID contributed to
surveillance activities that criminalized inner city communities of color, undermined social
justice organizations, and reinforced the LAPD’s ability to act outside of political or civilian
oversight by maintaining the authority to define who and what behaviors were defined as
disorderly and criminal. The role of the LAPD’s surveillance function provides an important
insight into the collapse of organized social movements and the social and economic decline of
black and brown communities in the 1980s that produced widespread gang membership, drive-
by shootings, and drug violence.
Yet, the LAPD’s ability to use intelligence gathering to maintain social control and set
the boundaries of acceptable behavior—in inner cities in particular—was not absolute or
unquestionably accepted. Indeed, intelligence gathering pushed many groups to confront the
problem of police spying and used the controversy to bolster their own agendas. Community
organizations, most notably the CAPA, the American Civil Liberties Unions (ACLU), and the
Citizens Commission Against Police Repression (CCOPR) challenged the LAPD’s surveillance
and activities. By raising awareness of the operation of the PDID, these groups created
significant public debate over the legitimacy of police surveillance and the proper limits of state
authority. By using a combination of public protest, community organizing, and the legal system,
they revealed that the movements against police power were much more orderly than the PDID
would have many believe. Unlike the late 1960s and early 1970s when police and FBI spying
disrupted the operations of groups such as the Black Panthers and the Brown Berets, the
303
intelligence gathering carried out by the PDID during the 1970s produced increased resistance
from an organized coalition of anti-police abuse organizations, which ultimately ended in a
major lawsuit and injunction against the PDID in 1983.
4
Despite the successful dismantling of
the PDID, police surveillance continued in the form of the Anti-Terrorist Division. The survival
of police surveillance dealt a blow to efforts to fundamentally reform the nature of police power
and reflected the way local police officials reasserted their authority to use preemptive measures
of crime control and surveillance to monitor inner city communities.
While Frank Donner’s work on the PDID demonstrates the politically motivated nature of
the department’s infiltration network to support business, property owners, and right-wing
ideological convictions, placing the history of the PDID within the turn to preemptive crime
control and monitoring reframes the dominant understanding of police intelligence gathering and
surveillance as part of the shifting nature of state authority that criminalized inner city spaces and
social movements during the 1970s.
5
The motivations behind PDID operations were politically
motivated but, I show, the concern for groups deemed disorderly was also part of a growing
effort to manage dissent and a preemptive effort of state monitoring for social control that
criminalized a variety of groups, none more so than those opposed to unfettered police power. I
place the evolution of the PDID within the context of the development of the carceral state that
turned towards an emphasis on aggressive, militarized policing, a politics of law and order, and
punitive sentencing policies to manage dissent during an era of a growing tax revolt and the
reduction of social services to cities. As long as we view the PDID and demands for police
intelligence as solely the work of nativist, overzealous, right-wing police chiefs, we are unable to

4
See Churchill and Wall, Agents of Repression; FBI. “The FBI’s Covert Action Program to Destroy the Black
Panther Party,” nd., Folder 30, Box 2, Ellie Schnitzer Papers, Southern California Library (Hereafter Schnitzer
Papers).
5
Frank Donner, Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America (University of
California Press, 1992).
304
recognize the extent to which the state relied much more heavily on force and coercion than
rehabilitation or redistribution during an era of urban decline, restructuring, and crisis. Focusing
on the ground where institutions and social movements met and interacted, this chapter shows
how surveillance operations reflected an attempt by the police to criminalize political activity
and the ways the opposition to it challenged the legitimacy of state authority and approaches to
managing urban “disorder” through intensified policing during the 1970s.
The Red Squad: Politically Motivated Spying and Infiltration after the Watts Uprising

The LAPD began intelligence operations in the 1920s during the height of the “red
scare.” Though its targets included the Ku Klux Klan, the Red Squad’s raison d’etre was to
protect the city from the scourge of Communist infiltration. When William Parker entered the
LAPD in 1927 he began as an intelligence officer assigned to infiltrate radical groups. After
becoming chief in 1950, Parker reorganized the department’s intelligence operation into the
Intelligence Division in 1960 ostensibly to monitor organized criminal activities. There were,
however, rumors that Parker had “the goods on everybody” and by the 1960s the files contained
information ranging from labor activists, interned Nisei, alleged subversives of the 1950s, and
anti-war demonstrators and civil rights organizers active during the 1960s.
6
“For the next forty
years information gathered by the Unit was recorded, stored, and maintained indefinitely,” the
Board of Police Commissioners summarized in 1975, “There were few controls on the screening
of the information which was collected in the files and no provision was made for a periodic
audit or review of either the files or their contents.”
7

6
Donner, 249; Board of Police Commissioners, “Statement of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners on
the Public Disorder Intelligence Function of the Los Angeles Police Department,” April 10, 1975, Folder 24, Box
41, UPRI Records.
7
Board of Police Commissioners, “Statement of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners on the Public
Disorder Intelligence Function of the Los Angeles Police Department,” April 10, 1975, Folder 24, Box 41, UPRI
Records. On the history of the LAPD’s red squad see S. McClellan, “Policing the Red Scare: The Los Angeles
305
Despite an audit of the files in 1967 to remove irrelevant material, the operation of the
division had been reinvigorated due to concerns surrounding security, and crime after the Watts
uprising and the rise of militant social movements such as the Black Panthers and Brown Berets.
8

As one intelligence officer observed, “intensive intelligence gathering by LAPD/PDID sprang
from 1965 riots…[the] LAPD reacted by wanting to snoop around to know, beforehand, who the
'troublemakers' were.”
9
Finding “troublemakers” meant spying on and infiltrating law-abiding
and peaceful groups alongside more militant organizations. In 1968, Woodrow Rideaux of the
Watts NAACP chapter, called for a task force to investigate “illegal actions and compensation
for the families of persons killed or injured as a result of illegal covert activities” in Los
Angeles’s black community. Rideaux charged that ever since the Watts uprising drugs, guns