NAACP Raps Police Over Gang Sweeps

The police crackdown against gang violence in South-Central Los Angeles drew heavy criticism Thursday from the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP, which charged that police are “harassing” largely black neighborhoods and making hundreds of petty arrests that may never be prosecuted.

Raymond L. Johnson Jr., president of the 10,000-member chapter, lashed out against police for last weekend’s “gang sweeps,” which led to 1,453 arrests by special teams of Los Angeles Police Department officers.

As of Thursday, those arrests had resulted in criminal charges in 103 cases, according to city and county authorities. Fifty-eight of those cases involved felonies, nearly all for alleged narcotics crimes. The remainder were misdemeanor cases ranging from possession of guns and knives to loitering and littering.

At a press conference, Johnson said many of the arrests have been for reasons as simple as failing to carry proper identification or spitting on the sidewalk. He also sharply criticized police for stopping and questioning young blacks on the street just because they are wearing clothing in gang colors.

“What is very disturbing is the fact that 46% of the individuals (arrested over the weekend) were not gang members,” Johnson said. “These same arrests would not have occurred in Westwood Village, had the sweeps occurred there last weekend.”

Although he stressed that NAACP leaders support the additional police presence, Johnson called for police to change their tactics and to exercise greater caution in making arrests. “When the hammer falls, it better fall on target,” he said. “That is our message to Chief Daryl Gates.”

LAPD spokesman Lt. Fred Nixon responded to the charges by saying authorities are still processing cases that will be filed as a result of the sweeps. Even so, he said, the sweeps are only one tool police are using against gangs.

Police consider the sweeps effective despite the low number of criminal convictions that may result from them, he said.

“(We are) getting the message out to gangs that L.A. is not the place to engage in drug trafficking and the violence we’ve seen for so long now,” Nixon said. “The petty violations are a tool that we consider appropriate against gang members.”

About half of the 1,000 officers who took part in the sweeps Friday and Saturday nights were concentrated in the South-Central area, but those officers did not approach the problem any differently than in other parts of the city, Nixon added. He said it is impossible to prevent non-gang members from being arrested during the sweeps for petty crimes.

“That kind of picking and choosing becomes a little bit too complicated,” he said.

Police have yet to announce whether additional sweeps will be conducted this weekend, Nixon said, but “we’re going to do it as often and for as long as it’s necessary” to solve the gang problem.

So far this year, the NAACP’s Los Angeles chapter has received 103 complaints from the community of police harassment, contrasted with 28 during the same period last year, according to Johnson.