Violence Is the Best-Kept Police Secret

Widespread media coverage of the recent encounter between Don Jackson of the Police Misconduct Lawyers Referral Service and Long Beach police officer Mark Dickey has resulted in public awareness of a serious problem involving law-enforcement practices.

Critics of the sting and its coverage by NBC complain that it is unfair to “ambush” an officer with a TV camera. Our organization maintains that the sting was a legitimate means of documenting a problem that many people do not want to believe exists.

Other critics say that Jackson “pushed the officer’s buttons” by getting out of the car and by being “sassy.” Although officers should be alert for danger at all times, including during traffic stops, they should also be aware that there are countless totally innocent reasons why a passenger might get out of a car that has been stopped. It is simply not true that people are taught to stay in the car, and every officer knows that there is no law requiring them to do so. A well-trained officer should be able to retain his composure when confronted with nothing more than a person getting out of a car during a traffic stop and asking questions.

Officers also know that the law specifically permits individuals to question, or even curse, representatives of the government. This is the United States, not South Africa, and the First Amendment to the Constitution expressly provides for freedom of speech--whether the speech is directed at a President, a governor, a postal employee or a police officer.

The fact is that if Officer Dickey had intended to behave professionally, he would have resolved the matter without verbal abuse or physical violence. His conduct cannot be justified by the “button-pushing” argument; if his buttons are that sensitive, he is unfit for patrol work.

Notwithstanding the fact that most police officers do a difficult job well, Don Jackson--an officer himself--was correct when he said that the incident was “consistent with a pattern of abuse and excessive force.” The videotape is but one piece of evidence that there is indeed a pattern of violence in Southern California law enforcement, and that in the overwhelming majority of cases the victims are black or Latino. Evidence of the pattern is also found in videotapes of Torrance officers choking and beating a young white man, of San Bernardino officers beating Latino men, and in the violence visited on black undercover officers by other LAPD officers, and on Ken Maddox, a former aide to the mayor.

Several police departments have requested copies of the Torrance videotape in order to train their officers in how not to behave. But when police, confronted by public criticism, attempt to justify their use of violence, they only perpetuate it and undermine the professional standards that most law-enforcement officers observe.

Racism and abuse of power were the salient features of Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates’ gang sweeps, in which 90% of the several thousand young black and Latino men arrested had committed no crime. Then there is the Dalton Street incident of last August, probably the most publicized of the many instances of gratuitous violence by police in conducting residential searches. (Reportedly, 18 LAPD officers face disciplinary proceedings for the destruction of the Dalton Street residences and the personal property of four black families.)

The foregoing cases are the most notorious, but the pattern of violence also is reflected in the large volume of calls to the Police Misconduct Lawyers Referral Service. Slightly more than 200 were received in December, requesting legal assistance in matters ranging from verbal abuse by police to false arrest to physical violence and death. While not all of the calls turn out to involve police conduct that was improper, a frightening number do--so many that the service is unable to find enough lawyers to share the caseload.

Among the reasons for the violence is the failure of government institutions to investigate the problem, to compile and disclose the evidence and to state unambiguously that unnecessary violence is unprofessional and intolerable. Sharing in the responsibility are sheriffs and police chiefs who do not enforce regulations, prosecutors who are reluctant to prosecute police, local governments that are too timorous to exercise oversight, the state Legislature, which passed laws shielding complaints against police from public scrutiny, and courts that show extraordinary leniency in sentencing officers convicted of using excessive force and in granting them relief from discipline imposed by responsible tribunals.

If, as some suggest, Don Jackson was provocative, it was only in provoking a public debate on an issue that has been ignored in most communities. Having now been exposed to what is virtually a daily event in minority neighborhoods in Southern California, the public should turn to local governments to correct the problem--and should be as sassy as necessary.