Has Brutality Crossed the Line to Torture? : Police: We are seeing more cases of violence here that look like human-rights violations in foreign dictatorships.

Have you ever entertained the notion that what we call police brutality is, in reality, torture? It is an ugly thought. But we must come to grips with the possibility.

In July, Richard Gomez, a 15-year-old Latino, stated that he was brutally beaten, without reason, by two Los Angeles police officers during his arrest on gun-possession charges, and later while handcuffed in the patrol car. He said he was then denied medical treatment. The officers reported the arrest as one “without incident.” However, Gomez had to undergo emergency, life-saving surgery for a damaged liver and internal bleeding.

In another case in July, two off-duty Los Angeles County deputies and a Maywood officer stormed a Maywood city jail cell and beat Marino D. Castillo, a Latino, under the mistaken belief that Castillo had assaulted several officers. They beat him and threatened him with death until another officer stopped them.

These are not isolated incidents. During the last several years we have been bombarded by cases of brutality. Many of them, like these two, involve deliberate, unwarranted beatings of helpless men, women and youth.

Numerous studies have documented racism as the most common reason for police brutality in the United States. The common denominator is that the majority of victims of police violence are Latino and African American, while the perpetrators are white. But racism is not the only reason. Among the victims are people who protested the violation of their civil rights and were punished for daring to do so, or crime suspects and suspected gang members getting “Dirty Harry” justice for their alleged crimes. Some were innocent.

None of us could have escaped the numerous stories in the media, even videotapes, that have documented police violence. We have read or seen accounts of prolonged beatings during arrest, maulings by police dogs, beatings of prisoners being transported to jail and beatings of inmates at police stations.

But for middle-class America, it is still difficult, or traumatic, to think that torture is being practiced by some of those who are sworn to protect and serve. Torture is undemocratic and “un-American,” a practice of dictators, the military and death squads in other countries where the rule of law is nonexistent. It is seen as being politically motivated to extort information from revolutionaries, or to deter political activity by those who oppose the government. Reports from Amnesty International and America’s Watch detailing torture and human-rights violations in other countries are viewed as something remote from us. But this is a mistake. A racist beating of a Latino or black by an American policeman is just as painful and as much a violation of human rights as a racist beating of a black by a South African policeman.

The word torture is not even part of our active vocabulary when we consider brutal actions by law-enforcement officers. Several years ago, I participated in a press conference of several undocumented refugees and immigrants who had staged a hunger strike to protest inhumane conditions and treatment in the El Centro immigration detention center. One of them, relating that their strike had been broken after several days by immigration agents who beat them and dragged them into solitary confinement, referred to those actions as torture. The reporters present fell into deep silence. They were troubled by the obvious contradiction that a Salvadoran, possibly a victim of torture in his own country, would be charging American officers with such a practice. About 15 minutes later, a Chilean reporter working for a Spanish-language newspaper asked the detainee why he referred to the agents’ actions as torture. “Well, they beat us and put us in solitary confinement to force us to give up our hunger strike. Isn’t that torture?” he asked.

Because it is committed under color of official authority, police brutality is a violation of human rights. It may inflict severe psychological trauma to its victims. Even without political motives, it has far-ranging political implications when committed against members of minorities who, by reason of their race, color or national origin, are already disfranchised and excluded from equal participation. Police violence further disfranchises them. It sends a message of inferiority. It causes further disillusionment and apathy about participating in the system. It corrodes the democratic fiber of our society.

While you may not accept that police brutality is in fact torture, surely the degree of violence of some of these cases makes them especially hideous. This should motivate us to promote community and official action to eliminate it from our society. The lawsuit filed this week against the sheriff’s station in Lynwood will expose these issues anew and present another opportunity to begin corrective action. Good law enforcement is an indispensable element of a democratic society.