Editorial: The Police Commission vs. its audience

Here are a few of the things that have gone on at recent meetings of the Los Angeles Police Commission:

Spontaneous outbursts from the audience. Insults hurled at the police chief. Widespread whistling, chanting, foot stamping and sign waving. Rowdy protesters removed by officers. A black man in a red Ku Klux Klan outfit. More profanity than a Tarantino movie.

The commissioners don’t like the rudeness, understandably. What’s more, it can get in the way of doing business. But what can be done? Should unruly speech and behavior be banned? And if so, how should the commission draw the line between what is permissible and what should not be tolerated? Those are the dilemmas facing the commission as it prepares new rules to keep misbehavior in check.

It’s a tricky business. Rules must be crafted with extreme care, weighing peoples’ right to express themselves openly and honestly and without fear at a public meeting against the commission’s need to work productively. A first attempt at rewriting the rules, originally set for a vote last week, didn’t find the right balance. The proposal was overly punitive in some areas, vague in others. For example, it would have allowed people who made remarks that were “repetitious, personal, impertinent or profane” to be ejected from meetings.

That’s alarming, and probably unconstitutional. What does “personal” mean? Is it “impertinent” to criticize a vote by the commissioners? Maybe it is, but it’s also a 1st Amendment right. And how many times may a person say the same thing before being deemed “repetitious”? The commission has the right to set certain rules about when and how people can speak, but not to police the content of their comments.

The proposed rules also would have prohibited people from requesting to speak on a specific agenda item once discussion about it is underway. That unfairly shuts out people who are moved to participate during the course of debate.

These concerns and others prompted the commission to delay the vote until Sept. 15, and to give the city attorney’s office a chance to review the proposal. That’s good.

What the rules must not do is shut down healthy debate. The weekly meetings have become a forum for concern about how police interact with the community and about anger over police killings of unarmed African Americans. The June meeting on the shooting of Ezell Ford was particularly raucous. Activists crowded in, interrupting the proceedings several times. Many of them have continued to attend commission meetings and are, at times, unruly.

This is unpleasant for commission members, no doubt, and they have a right to ban truly disruptive behavior. But they should err on the side of tolerance. These are contentious and divisive issues about which people are understandably passionate and should not be silenced. To overreact would do a huge disservice to the public and the Police Department.

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