L.A. Policing Is Called Racially Discriminatory

At five public forums held Thursday on the Los Angeles Police Department’s relations with the communities it patrols, the department was roundly criticized as insensitive and intimidating to people of color.

The gatherings were among 24 such forums held citywide in response to the recent videotaped police beating of a suspected car thief who was African American. They were sponsored by Day of Dialogue, an organization founded in 1995 to stimulate discussion of socially divisive issues.

The five forums took place in venues as varied as a formal conference room of the Chamber of Commerce, a warehouse in Watts and a cramped meeting room in Boyle Heights. At these gatherings, negative perceptions of the Police Department were concentrated among minorities.

Early in the morning, on the second floor of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce’s downtown headquarters, a group of nine business leaders engaged Police Chief William J. Bratton as they might a fellow business executive.

But when asked by a moderator to describe their feelings about or experiences with the Police Department, differences within the group, who were among 50 people attending the forum, emerged.

“In my community, my kids are taught to appreciate the police, respect the police,” said John Semcken, vice president of Majestic Realty Co., who is white. Another white participant said he couldn’t remember his last experience with police.

Three of the nine participants were black, and each described being harassed and intimidated by police officers.

Cynthia McClain-Hill, an attorney with the National Assn. of Women Business Owners, said her children had been subjected to random stops and humiliation.

“My sense is there continues to be a culture in the Police Department that is extremely disturbing,” McClain-Hill said. “Class is an issue too, but this is all about race.”

Gene Hale, chairman of the Greater Los Angeles African American Chamber of Commerce, described being treated poorly when officers mistakenly pulled him over as a suspected car thief. “The thing that was so devastating was that they never took the time to say ‘I’m sorry,’ ” Hale said. “Once the police make a mistake, their egos don’t allow them to admit it.”

Bratton said that although police brutality is a national problem, the LAPD “is probably better trained than any department in America, and better monitored. It’s ironic they keep getting in trouble.”

Bratton said the “professional, impersonal, almost indifferent facade” of Los Angeles police sets them apart from officers he has commanded in New York and other cities. “That’s the facade we’re going to try to change,” he said.

Later, at a forum held by the Watts Labor Community Action Committee, 150 African Americans heard Mayor James K. Hahn say Stanley Miller’s arrest “raised a lot of questions” about whether “reforms have happened.”

“I saw what you saw,” he said. “It upset me.”

The gathering, held in a warehouse-like space that featured a closed coffin beneath a portrait of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and a life-sized mock jail cell near a painting of Malcolm X, broke up into smaller discussion groups.

Marcenus Earl, a 34-year-old private investigator who lives in Watts, echoed others at the meeting when he described constant police harassment, which, he said, underlies the Miller beating. “I can have a shirt and a tie on standing in front of my home and still be harassed by police,” he said.

Earl said the opportunity for open discussion with officers was welcome, but rare. “This only happens when something big goes down.”

About noon, at the headquarters of Homeboy Industries in Boyle Heights, a largely Latino gathering of 35 community leaders, former gang members and youth advocates squeezed into a small meeting room to discuss similar concerns. While participants ate boxed lunches, LAPD Inspector General Andre Birotte and Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) listened to a number of stories of police harassment.

The officials said community members had a responsibility to file complaints about such incidents. But one former gang member dismissed the value of that. “To me, it’s just a bunch of paperwork; it’s not doing anything about the real problem,” he said.

Late in the afternoon, about 30 people, mostly Latinos and African Americans in their 20s, gathered at the Mar Vista Family Center, surrounded by children’s posters and toys.

Greg Martin, a 22-year-old Culver City resident and freshman at West L.A. College, said police officers often mistake him for a Latino, though he’s the son of a black parent and a white parent.

He said he had been pulled over twice for reasons that were never explained, and been thrown against a wall on one occasion and against a car on the other. “For a time, I wanted to be a police officer. I still kind of do, but I had all those bad experiences,” he said. “It’s just frustrating when I’m giving all this respect and I’m not getting it.”

As the Day of Dialogue drew to a close, about two dozen people -- whites, African Americans, Latinos and Asians -- sat in a circle in a converted gym. The venue was the Agape International Spiritual Center in Culver City.

Carlene Brown, who is white, 63 and a regular attendee at the center, spoke about the recent police beating and the discussions it had instigated.

“I feel great pain when these things happen,” she said, tearing up. “Meetings like this are important to healing our individual communities and the world.”

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Times staff writer Regine Labossiere contributed to this report.