In the past decade, much has been written and said about the problems related to the LAPD’s “culture.” In fact, when Bill Bratton first became chief, he was repeatedly asked what he would do to “change the department’s culture.”
I’ve certainly used that phrase in writing more than a few times.
But in thinking about the events of last week’s May Day melee, I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve gotten it wrong. At this point in the department’s history, it isn’t the LAPD culture that’s the problem at all. Most Los Angeles Police officers are hard-working, honorable people doing a difficult and dangerous job that they quite rightly suspect is neither appreciated nor understood by most of the public they protect and serve.
There is, however, a subculture within the department that is quite problematic.
For purposes of discussion, let’s call it the Knucklehead Culture.
By the way, by “knucklehead” I don’t mean stupid. Not by a long shot.
I’m borrowing the term from its newer usage in gang/prison/hip-hop parlance. (And no, I’m not comparing cops to gang members or prison inmates, so those of you rushing to your key board to shout at me about this….don’t go there.)
When a homeboy, or an inmate, or someone who lives in and around either of those cultures says, “Oh, he’s just a knucklehead,” nothing more need be explained. That means that the gangster…..or the kid….or the guy locked up….is a one of those most likely to be at the center of trouble. He (or she) is quick to take offense, and quicker to retaliate. He’s “hard headed,”—meaning he often doesn’t listen to cooler, wiser voices around him. He’s usually a risk taker. He’s certainly a warrior—at least in his own mind.
On the surface, at least, he thinks he’s right, and that everybody else doesn’t “get it.”
A police version of that Knucklehead personality is alive, well and running rife though the countryside within the Los Angeles Police Department. Connie Rice called it the “gunslinger” mentality, or “warrior policing” when she and her Blue Ribbon Rampart Review Panel delivered their Rampart Reconsidered Report last July. When asked to comment on the issue some years ago, former LAPD Deputy Chief David Dotson called the same any-means-to-an-end, do-what-you-got-to-do attitude “expediency corruption.”
When he was interviewed last week on KPCC’s Larry Mantle Show. my friend, LAPD chronicler, Joe Domanick, described how this Knucklehead thinking operated at Metro Division “They’ve been known for decades as the shake rattle and roll boys,” said Joe, and added that even Bratton had recently mentioned concern about “the culture of the Metro Division.”
Here are five more quick examples of the Knucklehead Factor:
1. The cop who beat the kid in this incident…..and this one are part of the Knucklehead Culture.
2. Officers who used to pick up gang members and drive them to “enemy territory,” make them get out, and then, incredibly, announce the terrified homeboys’ presence on a bull horn, are operating from within Knucklehead ethos. (Yes it really happened. Repeatedly. I’ve debriefed kids multiple times myself over the years.)
3. It was Knucklehead Culture that led North Hollywood detective, Martin Pinner, to be so intent on nailing a Vineland Boyz gangster that he told the guy a particular 16-year-old girl had definitively fingered him as a murderer–although the girl had done nothing of the kind. The Vineland Boyz later killed the 16-year-old because of the cop’s lie.
4. It’s the small things, as well as the big ones. The Central division officer who recently gave a homeless woman a citation for dropping cigarette ash on the sidewalk in Skid Row is part of the Knucklehead Culture. (We’re not talking about the cigarette butt, mind you; we’re talking an ASH. I saw the damned ticket or I wouldn’t have believed it.)
The homeless woman of course, can’t possibly afford to pay the ticket, which means it will go warrant and eventually that same officer—or some other officer— will arrest her. Most of the Central Division officers wouldn’t dream of giving this kind of spirit-defeating, chicken sh*t ticket. But some would and do on a regular basis. Unfortunately, I’ve heard good officers make excuses for this Knuckleheaded behavior. Among the 12-step crowd, they call that enabling.
5. The sheriff’s deputy that Jorge Gonzalez writes about in his letter below is a nice guy turned Knucklehead. (The culture exists in the sheriff’s department too, particularly in the jails.)
Just to be clear: Javier Perez, the central figure of the Rampart scandal, is not a Knucklehead. He’s a criminal. Perez and Nino Durden were true bad apples. The exceptions.
This Knucklehead Culture is different. It isn’t representative of the department as a whole, but neither is it a series of isolated flukes.
It’s a virulent strain of perhaps otherwise likable and skilled officers shaving the moral, legal, ethical dice, and calling it righteous. And they’ve been doing it for so long, while so many others have looked away, that it seems like normal.
If a cop gives a woman a ticket for littering ashes, you can bet that there is a lot more to the story and that she asked for trouble. Did you check that out? Did you go to the policeman to get his side before you wrote the attack against him? And, how old are some of these stories?
Perhaps, this is this more of the same complaints against the establishment just to blame them for personal failures of others? Plus, it doesn’t help to say that there are good police, because that’s not what the readers will take away with them.
Knuckleheads. Yeah [said with a deep sigh]. There’s a lot you can say about them. They’re most frequently (but not exclusively) male. Kind of whine-y. Have a poor sense of social boundaries. Thin skinned and easily slighted themselves, they are quick to slight others. Their judgment just sucks. On and on. Seems every place of employment has them. Thing is… what do you do with them? Or, do about them? Coworkers and colleagues typically identify them first. They can be called to the attention of supervisors, who really don’t want to deal with them either. Lots of the behavior gets dismissed as “this time,” “if s/he does it again,” “but what about the time when,” “that’s just the way s/he is,” and “I’ll talk to him/her.” Except you assume the latter never gets done because the Knucklehead is whine-y, full of excuses and exceptions, has a poor sense of social boundaries, quickly defensive, easily slighted, postures aggressively, etc which doesn’t make the individual any easier to supervise than it is to work with them. If they’ve somehow been promoted to a supervisory position, and you have the misfortune to work under them, your only option is a job search. It’s that threat of retaliation that makes them tricky to deal with for all involved.
Funny thing about the Knucklehead is they often fill a niche in the work environment. There is something that they are willing to undertake that everyone else will do their damnedest to get out of. Something that pricks everyone else’s sense of right and wrong, but worries these folks not at all. In my experience, having them around means you don’t have to look too deeply at some work environment practice no one wants to own. In the best scenarios I’ve seen, they are assigned to this niche, but otherwise ‘caged.’ They have this limited arena in which they’re allowed to operate, but no where else. And, maybe as demonstrated by the unfolding of “MacArthur Park,” they are expendable. They’re really not all that likable. No one really trusts them. They’re tolerated in the work place as an artifact of the milieu, but no one misses them when they’re gone.
Still. If they’re warranted to carry a gun, deploy lethal force, and offered a unique position of authority over others, in situations that are tough to deconstruct later, they’re too dangerous to have around. Where’s Charles Goldwasser when we need him?
Woody, the ash story happened a month or two ago. (Didn’t go back to my notes, so was writing from memory. But it occurred in March or April.) And, although I didn’t ask the officer who wrote the ticket, I talked with another officer at central, plus a service provider who knew the woman.
Martha Puebla, the sixteen-year-old girl used in the “ruse” by the detectives, was shot to death in May 2003.
If you follow the links, you’d find that the two video-taped incidents of the officers whacking the kids occurred in December 2006, and April 2007. (Actually, in the first incident, the officer applied a choke-hold to a handcuffed teenager, slammed him into a wall, then took of his handcuffs, and challenged him to a fight.)
About driving homeboys into “enemy territory,” I got a call about a new incident last week. I have yet to research it. If it is as the gang intervention person thinks it is, it’s hair raising. But I honestly don’t know until I check it out. However, I’ve thoroughly documented two of these cases over the years, and had many more reported to me that I didn’t follow up on.
Anybody ask Bill Bratton for the video shot by police the day his well-trained elite squad showed off all their neat moves in MacArthur Park? Didn’t think so. Where’s the media on this story when we really need them? Bratton is more transparent than he is a fighter for transparency.
Celeste, you sound as if you’re taking my responses personally. Don’t. I just want to make sure that all sides are given equal representation.
On the ash example, the people with whom you spoke would not have known about all that occurred. The second example is four years old. The other two are more recent, and I suspect that there has been some resolution to them with answers, which we don’t have. The last one is still hearsay from a person with a conflict of concerns.
In any event, I don’t see fairness to the police, but I do see a lot of accusations that are not backed up with facts or interviews from the accused. More balance tends to provide more accuracy.
Woody, Not to worry. I was a bit sleep deprived this morning and, as a result, my inner adolescent got out and began defensively answering your comments. She’s back in her room now.
Who are the Knuckleheads
If we are looking for knuckleheads at MacArthur Park, we should be looking at:
1) The idiots throwing rocks and bottles at the police.
2) The one who gave the command to the squad to disperse the demonstrators from the park.
3) The one who approved this command at central?
4) The ones who designed/approved the aggressive crowd control protocols.
5) Squad members who did not follow standard protocols in their dispersal of the demonstrators and reporters from the park.
Protocol/Training:
Each member of the Metro Division squad is carefully screened, has a high proficiency rating, a minimum of four years of service, and is given intensive training in crowd management as well as non-lethal weapons use
This standard training/protocol would be to NEVER let anyone (including reporters) get behind your picket line. This would tend to explain why the police were pushing/poking the reporters who had refused to move as was seen on the video.
This standard training/protocol would be to fire foam bullets at agitators or demonstrators (including reporters) who seemed to be confronting the picket line, to MINIMIZE PHYSICAL CONTACT with the demonstrators.
WHO ARE THE KNUCKLEHEADS
— Not the officers who performed according to their training.
— Management (commissioners?) who approved the protocols for crowd dispersal.
— On site commander who issued the command to disperse the crowd.
— Someone at Central who likely approved the command.
Bratton does seem pissed about this. But as I said this happens every so often – last at the 2000 Dem Convention when media types got bashed and nothing was done. And check the historical record. In “Making of the President 1960” Theodore White singled out the LAPD in his chapter on the Dem Convention here for their “Brutality.” Plas la Change and all that . . .
LAPD Manual
548. DEPARTMENT RESPONSE TO IMPENDING RIOT. When the City is confronted with a situation which may escalate into a riot, the Department must establish control of the situation by reacting quickly and committing sufficient resources to control the situation. Control must be established in all parts of the involved area so that there are no areas into which the Department cannot go. Law violators must be arrested and their prosecution sought. Finally, the Department must remain in the affected area with adequate personnel and equipment for a sufficient period of time after order is restored to convince all concerned that additional outbreaks will not be tolerated.
572. USE OF CHEMICAL AGENTS. The field commander at a police situation has the responsibility for determining the need for the use of a chemical agent and the authority to direct its deployment. In no event, however, can authorization for the use of a chemical agent be given by an officer below the rank of Sergeant or Detective. The use of a chemical agent for crowd or riot control must be authorized by an officer of the rank of Commander or higher.
573. USE OF NON LETHAL CONTROL DEVICES. To reduce the number of altercation related injuries to officers and suspects, the Department authorizes the use of selected non lethal control devices.
Approved non lethal control devices may be used to control a violent or potentially violent suspect when lethal force does not appear to be justifiable and/or necessary; and attempts to subdue the suspect by other conventional tactics have been or will likely be ineffective in the situation at hand; or there is a reasonable expectation that it will be unsafe for officers to approach to within contact range of the suspect.
http://www.lapdonline.org/lapd_manual/volume_1.htm
CAN’T WE JUST GET ALONG?
Left LA in the ’60s when I went into the service, but I remember spending a few hours there, picnics, whatnot. Nice, postage-stamp little park I’d assumed had long ago been swallowed up by developers.
Venue for a police riot? Who woulda thunk. And that’s what it was, folks. Aggressive police tactics at a free-speech event? You’re lucky you didn’t have another Kent State.
Who knows what the answer is for the LAPD’s problems. They sure don’t. Sounds like you need an industrial-strength head shrinker to take over the department. We all know what flows downhill, right?
Sam, thanks for coming by. I hope you’ll keep commenting as there’ll be more LAPD stuff coming this week. I’ve talked to several people from command staff, and critics of the department, who—if they’re thoughtful—are equally befuddled by the events of that day. I think it’s as you suggest: this time there are no easy answers. But what happened on May 1st assuredly points to something that has to be addressed—for the health of the department and the health of the city.
[…] Okay, so on Tuesday morning the LAPD—in the person of Chief Bill Bratton and Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell-–gave the first bounce in what will be an unfolding report to the Police Commission and to the City Council on the May Day melee. They did it with an elaborate and lengthy Power Point that included police surveillance videos, the stuff that we’ve all seen on YouTube, plus TV news clips and some of the department’s radio broadcasts. Both the cops-can-do-no-wrong crowd, and the unwavering LAPD haters have, predictably found things to criticize in the report (too big, too small, too hot, too cold, blamed the department too much, didn’t blame the department enough…yadda, yadda, yadda). But, for most part, the report seems to be a good first stage in a reasonably honest attempt to sort things out. While the union has focused on the need for additional training (not a bad idea) Bratton and McDonnell didn’t let the department off the hook quite so lightly. He even took some initial stabs at some of the less-easy-to-quantify culture issues that many of us cop-watchers have been talking about. […]
I live in Canada and can’t even comprehend your problems.
I believe that violence does not solve anything, and retaliation by authoritative figures has a huge negative impact on society.
If you want a simple but lengthy solution, then you should lead by example and take care of the police violence in priority of inner city violence and nurture ghettos as if they were starving children. Feed the poor instead of feeding the tyrannical system that spends its funds on useless research and bigger weapons.
Sorry if it sounds dumb and too easy