SO HOW FAR HAVE WE COME SINCE 1991?
Thursday marked the 25th anniversary of the night LAPD officers beat Rodney King, fracturing his bones in 59 places and nearly killing him.
In an interview with the Marshall Project’s Bill Keller, Jill Leovy, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America, talks about what we have learned since the King beating and the LA riots.
Leovy discusses black-on-black violence and why law enforcement must give up the “broken windows” style of policing, the targeting specific geographic areas, and stop-and-search practices, and instead focus on “ensuring judicial resolution of serious crimes.” The majority of homicides of black men across the nation go unsolved. Leovy calls for diligent and efficient investigations of violent crime in black communities, and rigorous prosecution on behalf of victims.
“The real problem is that formal justice is materially lacking among populations that suffer high rates of violence,” says Leovy. “It’s missing, and it must be supplied.” And “dialogue,” “improved relations” between cops and communities of color, and youth programs won’t solve that underlying problem, she says. Here are some clips:
The unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County posted solve rates for homicide in the thirty-percent range through some of the most violent periods of the eighties and nineties. This translates to thousands of killers operating with impunity over decades in America’s poorest urban enclaves – dozens per square mile in South Los Angeles over just a few years. And that’s just a glimpse of the uncharted depths of the impunity problem, a statistical dark zone, where no good information exists on the frequency of non-lethal crimes, assaults and threats. The resulting lawlessness is a cruel form of deprivation afflicting tens of thousands of mostly poor, minority residents of America’s inner-cities, who get roughed up, robbed and raped with appalling frequency and live in daily fear that their sons might be killed. Its remedy must be to supply official justice, not just engage in “dialogue.” Violence is not a problem for coaches and pastors to solve; the state must do its job.
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What is so strange and interesting is that the political back and forth over policing has been so consistent, for so long, with the same durable themes and complaints sounded on both sides, not just since Rodney King and the millions of dollars spent on police reforms after the L.A. riots, but since long before, back to the 1960s, even the thirties and forties. Much has changed and yet nothing has. We are chasing each other around a box.
Self-styled progressives, especially, often talk as if legitimacy-building were merely a matter of creating “improved relations” between police officers and minority residents of urban neighborhoods. If police were just nicer, more sensitive, had a better understanding of civilians, or vice versa, things would improve. This is as hollow, in its way, as conservative talk of self-generated cultural and moral renewal in black neighborhoods. Legitimacy will not be built solely of community meetings, youth programs, skillful official propaganda, or artful expressions of empathy. They may have value, but as a cure for lawlessness I think they miss the core point, and in some cases risk deputizing civilians to assume conflict-resolution functions that rightly belong to the state. The state’s job is to intervene in conflicts – yes, even between people of the same color – and it must do so unequivocally and consistently.
So, police need to annoy and alienate fewer non-offenders, and arrest more serious, violent offenders. Pull back from broken-windows-style saturation, targeting patches of geography, and stop-and-search tactics, and concentrate on ensuring judicial resolution of serious crimes. Broken windows sprang from the premise that police were too focused on violence at the expense of quality-of-life crimes. But the premise is based on error. American criminal justice has never been very effective at investigating and prosecuting violence, especially in black communities; the reported statistics that claim otherwise are flawed. Violent crime in America today, as in generations past, begs for more systematically thorough and effective investigation, and clean, vigorous prosecution. A mother who grieves for a son lost to an unsolved homicide should not go years without hearing from police about new investigative efforts. A witness who testifies in spite of threats should not be abandoned to deal alone with the long-term consequences. Homicide units in high-crime areas should be solving nearly all murders, not half or less. The system will build legitimacy through its constitutionally constrained yet vigorous, response to people who are hurt, violated and bereaved by violence. The criminal justice system must deliver.
I’m not arguing for a hammer. Tensions between police power and civil liberties are real and involve high stakes; their resolution need not tilt toward law-enforcement. But those who claim the mantle of civil rights should not forget that crime victims — not just defendants — are disproportionately black, and that they suffer unspeakably. My newspaper just reported the killing of a one-year-old baby, Autumn Johnson, in Compton. The mother of this black child said: “I feel like my life is over. I wish it would have been me instead of her.” I don’t assert black crime victims are the only constituency that matters. But they deserve more somber, respectful consideration than they get, and they belong at the center of any serious discussion of police reform. Very often, these victims want and need their attackers to be caught and prosecuted. Omit their names, elide over their sufferings, relegate them to footnotes — as is the case in so many popular criminal-justice critiques today — and you lose the claim to humane advocacy.
BATONS, NOW RARELY USED BY POLICE, WERE ONCE (CERTAINLY IN THE RODNEY KING ERA) THE MOST USED WEAPON
Earlier this week, the LAPD released a comprehensive use-of-force report comparing 2015 stats with those of the previous four years. (We posted about the report—here.) According to the numbers, in 2015, LAPD officers used their batons 54 times—21% less often than during the period spanning 2011-2014—and a far cry from the 741 times cops used the weapon in 1990.
The LA Times’ Richard Winton tells the story of how the videotaped Rodney King beating led to fall of the baton as LAPD officers’ weapon of choice. Here’s how it opens:
When the video of Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney G. King shocked the world 25 years ago, the baton quickly became a symbol of law enforcement abuse.
The grainy black and white images showed a group of LAPD officers delivering 56 crunching blows to the African American motorist.
Back then, the 2-foot solid piece of aluminum was an essential tool in the police officer’s arsenal. In 1990, Los Angeles police officers used their batons 741 times during force incidents, more than any other weapon.
But the infamous video marked the beginning of the end for the baton’s reign. By 2015, LAPD officers used their batons just 54 times.
The baton offers a dramatic example of how police behavior has changed since the King beating. Authorities said that officers stopped using them for a variety of reasons: Changes in rules and training and the rise of other types of less-lethal weapons, as well as the lasting stigma from those grainy images.
“Back then, it was pulling out a baton and whacking people,” LAPD Deputy Chief Bill Murphy said. “After that video played that night, no one hardly ever used the baton. It was banished. It became a symbol.”
LESSER-KNOWN, FILMED PRECURSORS TO THE RODNEY KING VIDEO
The video of the Rodney King beating may have been the first viral video of police brutality—one that ushered in an era of many much-watched videos of law enforcement misconduct, and a flood of police body-worn (and dash) cams—but others came before it. When the King story originally broke, Time compiled a list of “America’s ugliest home videos,” caught on film by citizens armed with video cameras. Here’s a clip from Time’s updated version of that original story:
Laguna Beach, Calif. A neighbor across the street from an unruly party on June 17, 1990, recorded a harrowing 90 seconds of violence. Although a car partly blocked the view, an officer can be seen on camera swinging his leg in a kick at Kevin Dunbar, 24, a homeless man, while a number of other officers held him after he refused to obey an order to get down on the ground. The man, his face bleeding, was then lifted to his feet and led away to a squad car. A lawsuit against the Laguna Beach police department was filed last month, and the tapes are expected to be important evidence.
Chicago. Max’s Italian Beef Restaurant on the northwest side had a security camera in full view, but the two uniformed police rifling the cash register and prying open the safe last July were too busy to notice. The veteran officers allegedly lifted $7,000. They were indicted and await trial.
KING’S DAUGHTER LORA KING REMEMBERS HER FATHER
The LA Times has a wealth of King-related reading material. In one of the stories we didn’t want you to miss, the Times’ Angel Jennings speaks with Lora King about her father, his legacy, and the human behind the symbol—the dad, the addict, the troubled man still carrying the emotional scars of the beating and the guilt of the riots when he died in 2012. Here are some clips:
Lora King was 7 years old on March 3, 1991, when her dad, on parole and drunk, was infamously beaten in Lakeview Terrace.
Days later, King limped toward his daughter. His face was still swollen. One eye was protruding out of its socket. He talked from the side of his mouth like Popeye.
“I was terrified,” she recalled. “He looked like a monster, but he had a big smile on his face like it was no big deal.”
She had seen George Holliday’s grainy video of baton blows raining down on her father on the evening news. He told her he was fine.
Many years would go by before father and daughter truly reckoned with the emotional scars left by the beating.
“I purposely never brought it up because I always felt that he couldn’t escape it,” said Lora King, 32, an administrative assistant at a Glendale accounting firm. “I tried to stay in a happy place.”
She remembered a father who spent Fridays crisscrossing Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties to pick up his three daughters.
On the long ride, he would map out the plans for the weekend. Sometimes, it was skiing at Mt. Baldy, surfing in Venice, a day at Raging Waters. He also liked to go to places where famous people, including black celebrities and artists, would draw attention away from him.
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She stopped looking at her father through the eyes of a child years ago.
In the years after the beating, Rodney King continued to have trouble with the law. In 1993, he crashed into a wall while driving drunk. Two years later, he served 90 days in jail after being charged with a hit-and-run for knocking his wife down with his car. He was hooked on PCP.
Lora King saw a broken man who carried the guilt for the lives lost during the riot that broke out after a jury in Simi Valley cleared the LAPD officers charged in his beating.
He faced real demons, she said.
His frequent run-ins with the law after the beating continued to make him a divisive figure — and a less-than-perfect role model.
A person “beating a dog” would get a actual prison term for something so savage and brutal. No valid justification whatsoever. The arrogance of LAPD cost law enforcement dearly.
My initial reaction when I saw the Rodney King video tape was it appeared to be a text book use of force. The incident was controlled by the sergeant on scene. The officers would stop and evaluate their use of force and only continue when Mr. King refused to obey their commands. Twenty-five years later my opinion has not changed. Their indictment was based on a political decision in an effort to appease the African American community. They did not go to prison for beating Rodney King, they went to prison for every African American that was ever beaten by a police officer. I realize my comments are not politically correct, so let the hating begin.
2 acquittals that never should have happened…..The officers who assaulted Rodney King and the acquittal of O.J. Simpson. They simply evened out. I guess you can call it Karma.
The Jury in Simi Valley was comprised of 10 white jurists 1 Hispanic 1 Filipino.
The O.J.Jury consisted of 9 Blacks 1 Hispanic 2 whites. Go figure.
Twenty-five years later the political prosecution of cops continue. Just ask the Baltimore cops indicted for the Freddie Gray kncident…..
The pressure for Chief Gates to step down was unprecedented. It had to be a humbling experience especially after he said that he would not.
Hey stuff, you out there?
It’s amazing how law enforcement continues to get the blame for all the violence in South Central. The problem is the parents of every gang member. It’s a systemic problem created by every gang member having kids. They are incapable of teaching their kids about respobility, respect, integrity, work ethic etc.
It’s like any addict, until you admit and acknowledge you have a problem, you will never change. Instead they raise their kids to disrespect authority, which does not only apply to law enforcement, but also includes teachers, their own parents or their elders. I worked Compton and had to deal with teenage boys heavily involved in serious and violent crimes. When their parents were notified, they chose to turn a cheek and claim stupid when they were told their sons were involved in gamgs.