Block Acts to Ease Tension With Blacks

Sheriff Sherman Block said Wednesday that he has advised his deputies against taking “enforcement action in minor incidents” in black neighborhoods because of “heightened tensions” after a Jan. 23 incident in which a deputy fatally shot a member of the Nation of Islam.

Also, the Sheriff’s Department has produced a 15-minute video on the Nation of Islam that Block said will be shown to all personnel. The video is designed to educate deputies about the Nation of Islam and its goals, sheriff’s officials said.

One community activist called the moves “unprecedented.”

One of the main messages in the video, which is narrated by Assistant Sheriff Jerry Harper, is that “the avowed goals of their organization (Nation of Islam) in some ways are in common with the goals of the Sheriff’s Department and law enforcement in general.”

“Their intention is to get young black men and women out of gangs and to keep them off drugs,” Harper says in the video, “and to the extent they divert young people from drugs, gangs and crime, we support that effort.”

Block said in an interview--his first public statement on the controversial incident--that “the video was made for deputies . . . to make sure they understand we are not at war with the Muslims.”

“We do not want a high tension level because in that kind of environment terrible things can happen.”

Also, Block defended the actions of deputies involved in the traffic stop that led to the fatal shooting.

Some deputies have complained privately that Block did not move quickly enough to come to their defense, a source who asked not to be named said.

Details of Incident

Block said deputies were being provided with details of the incident in which Nation member Oliver Beasley was killed and “have been made aware of the tensions in the (black) community and encouraged to proceed accordingly.”

“That means if I were a deputy in that particular community at this time I would probably avoid taking some enforcement action in minor incidents that might otherwise have caused me to take some action,” Block said. “That is the message going out.”

Block did not define what type of incident would be considered “minor” or what exactly is meant by avoiding “enforcement action.”

But Capt. Doug McClure elaborated by saying “that doesn’t mean that law enforcement action will not be taken when that action is deemed appropriate.”

“It does mean, when men and women of the department have contact with members of the community,” McClure said, “that they be aware that what otherwise might be a minor kind of incident could easily escalate into something major.”

It was not clear how formally word of Block’s advisory was being conveyed throughout the department.

A spokesman for the Assn. for the Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs said union officials did not yet know enough to comment.

Leonard Farrakhan Muhammad, a spokesman for the Nation’s headquarters in Chicago, declined to comment on the department’s action until he could “hear more about what all this really means.”

But the news was welcomed by local black community leaders including Danny Bakewell, head of the activist group Brotherhood Crusade, which has been instrumental in arranging a recent series of meetings between Nation members and law enforcement officials.

“I think this is what can happen when people of like minds sit down in a rational environment and meet each other and understand each other,” Bakewell said. “For the first time I and others were willing to stand up and say we’re not willing to isolate the Muslims and label them as some deranged and hysterical group of people that did not have the respect of the black community.”

Although Bakewell applauded the department’s action, calling it “unprecedented,” he said that “what we need now is to have those kinds of messages and videos given out without the caveat of high tensions.”

Tension has been high in some segments of the black community since the fatal shooting, which occurred after a deputy and a trainee stopped a car in the unincorporated Athens area south of downtown Los Angeles.

Grabbed From Behind

The deputies contend the shooting occurred after several men came out of a nearby apartment building and grabbed them from behind in chokeholds.

When the trainee had his weapon taken from him, he drew a backup handgun and fired five shots. The driver of the vehicle, David Hartley, 18, was wounded in the shoulder and Beasley, 27, was fatally shot in the head. An autopsy report was unavailable Wednesday.

Block strongly defended the actions of the deputy and the trainee.

“The individuals who caused this situation to escalate and culminate in the tragic way that it did have to accept responsibility for its outcome,” Block said, “not the deputies who were there and doing their job and placed in a situation where they feared for their lives.”

Meanwhile, Block said sheriff’s officials will continue to hold meetings with community activists and Nation of Islam leaders “in the spirit of trying to prevent a reoccurrence of bloodshed and violence, and further confrontations.”