LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW : Patrick Murphy : One of Nation’s Foremost Cops Brokenhearted by the Brutality

Patrick V. Murphy, former police commissioner of New York City, combines the geniality of Irish cop walking the beat with the erudition of professional bureaucrat maneuvering his way through crisis. In one breath, he speaks proudly of four generations of his family who have served in police departments. In the next, he acknowledges that as recently as 25 years ago, many police chiefs were racist reactionaries. There are few law-enforcement professionals as respected as Murphy. Last week, he was named as an adviser to Mayor Tom Bradley’s commission studying the Rodney G. King incident.

Murphy grew up in New York, earning a BA from St. John’s University. After serving as a Navy pilot during World War II, he became a New York City cop. He rose to the position of deputy inspector. In 1962, he was named the police chief in Syracuse, N.Y., the first in a rapid succession of top law-enforcement posts. He was the public-safety director in Washington in 1967-68. He served in the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration--where he first met Warren Christopher, the lawyer who heads Bradley’s commission. He became police chief in Detroit, then returned to take the top job in New York.

Police departments in crisis is not a new subject to Murphy. His tenure as public-safety director in Washington included the widespread rioting that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. When he was chief in New York, the Knapp Commission was documenting pervasive corruption in the department by day, while a terrorist group, the Black Liberation Army was gunning down cops by night. In 1973, Murphy retired from active-duty police work, but remained deeply involved in law enforcement. He became president of the Police Foundation, a position he held through 1985. Since then, he has worked as a consultant to the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington. Murphy, 70, has eight grown children. He is married and lives in Bethesda, Md.

Question: Is it a help to a local police department, especially one under criticism, to have people who aren’t from Los Angeles, such as yourself, coming in in the midst of a political controversy? How can this be helpful to police officers?

Answer: I won’t have a vote. I’m kind of a technician. I just assume the commission will look at (the LAPD) structure and be calling on me for information about how do other departments do this, how do other departments make policy about the use of force. How do they do it in Detroit? How do they do it in New York? Policing in the United States is a great mystery. We have 15,000 independent, isolated, fragmented departments.

Q: What if somebody said, “Chief, you may think that’s what you’re going to do, but this commission is really a vehicle for getting rid of (Daryl F.) Gates. That’s its main purpose?” What would you say to that?

A: I don’t see it that way. My view of it is to be offered an opportunity to contribute to something better in the future. Chief Gates is 64 years old--if he stays another year or two, Chief Gates will still go. What can be done to make policing even better in Los Angeles in the years ahead? That’s my view.

Q: What’s your impression of the strong-chief setup? Where does that come from?

A: It’s very nice, and every police chief would like to have life tenure, I guess. I would have liked to have had that power--and he has great power. I acknowledge there must be civilian oversight of a police department. Otherwise, you could see things like what (J. Edgar) Hoover did with the FBI. Hoover was too powerful. It was never written down, but in effect he had life tenure and he stayed until he was 77 or something.

There’s not enough proper political oversight of police departments--simply because mayors and elected officials don’t know how complex the job is. The citizen walking down the street thinks he could do a police officer’s job in a minute, and most people think they could do the chief’s job better. It’s not like that. It’s very complex work because you’re dealing with human behavior.

Q: What, in your experience, generates police brutality incidents? Not talking about any individual case, but in departments where there has been a problem or as many complaints as there has been in L.A.?

A: (In) any large police department, there will be outlaws. No matter how carefully you screen and train and supervise, there will be an individual off the reservation, and you’ve got to catch them and prosecute them. What’s so shocking about (the King incident) is that so many officers were involved . . . . I’m a firm believer in accountability . . . . In no uncertain terms I would say “I will not tolerate brutality. I’ll hold you accountable.” If you’re smart, you’ll hold the people under you accountable right down the line, because “I’ll chop your head off as fast as I’ll look at you.” . . . .

Q: What’s your impression of how Chief Gates has done so far, as far as disciplinary action?

A: I kept watching to see if people above the level of sergeant would be held accountable.

Q: That hasn’t happened.

A: Well, I haven’t seen that yet, and that’s why I’m surprised. My bias would be to make a decision about that, and send a message.

Q: In this case, though, does the life tenure of the chief encourage accountability? If he’s not afraid for his job, then maybe there is less of a need to hold other people accountable in a way that would make the department look bad.

A: I, frankly, don’t know the answer to that . . . . I’m a great admirer of the Los Angeles Police Department. I wrote a book in which I said the best policemen in the country were in Los Angeles. That’s why I’m so brokenhearted about this; I can hardly believe it . . . .

Q: Will the police be better for the King incident?

A: Well, I think it reveals something. Look, if it shocked me, what must it do to the public? I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve dealt with all kinds of brutality and corruption, and I am shocked by that. I can’t believe that 20 cops would stand around like that, and a sergeant. That’s the ultimate. It just surprised me that a bright chief couldn’t control that better. I was so shocked.

Q: Can good come out of it?

A: Well, like any abuse that comes out of the closets, once it’s exposed to the light of day, then some reforms will be instituted, or the problem will be watched more.

Q: There was an ad in the paper, taken out by the police department, mentioning all the police officers who had been killed. What’s your reaction?

A: I didn’t see the ad. I certainly agree that the number of officers killed and shot is often ignored. We don’t think about the terrible price police officers pay. I would hope the ad also condemned what was shown on the videotape, because not one of us can claim to be a professional police officer without condemning that. So if they’re calling attention to the other side of the problem, in all fairness, I would hope they condemned that.

Q: There was a published report that arrests in L.A. are down. Nobody could say definitely whether this was related. But do you think just the furor discourages police officers from doing their job?

A: So it’s a terrible experience that they’re going through, and they have my sympathy, every one of them. The leaders have an even tougher assignment to support them, encourage them: “You know if you’re a good cop, and 98% of you are, and something went crazy there. But we’re protecting these people. Let’s go out and do our jobs and try and put it in perspective. There will be better days ahead. This will be behind us one day.” To try to give them that kind of support and encouragement. And, of course, they cannot tolerate any kind of a mutiny within the department. There must be discipline, direction, and that’s what, at every level, the top- and middle-management supervisors, must do.

Q: What about the numerous brutality complaints in Los Angeles?

A: I know they’ve had many. Unfortunately, we don’t have good statistics to compare. And we get complaints of excessive force every day. What many people don’t understand is that police have the right to use force. It’s their duty to use force.

Q: To a lot of people the King case says this vindicates the view that there is a pattern, a practice of brutality. Does this case vindicate that view?

A: That problem could not exist in any major police department . . . .

Q: King wouldn’t have had a prayer if that video camera hadn’t been on. Nobody would have believed his story. Nothing would have happened.

A: . . . . That may be true.

Q: What if incidents like the King incident are necessary for cops to do their job to maintain public order?

A: They’re not necessary. It’s necessary to use as much force as required to control the subject. Once the handcuffs are on, fine. Not one more blow after that. With that many officers on the scene? There is no excuse for that. No excuse.

Q: In a situation where the officers may feel order is breaking down--maybe a different level of police response is required just to maintain their own safety .

A: They have every right to protect themselves . . . . They have every right to use 10 cops to subdue one guy, because that’s our job . . . . But when the officer starts thinking of himself as the thin blue line who has to bring people to justice because no one else will, that is trouble. This fellow needs counseling.

Q: Is more cops an answer?

A. Well, they have a very low ratio of police officers (in Los Angeles) . . . . But this city, Washington, has twice as many police officers, and it has the highest murder rate in the country.

Q: Is more black officers the answer?

A: Our police departments should be representative, no question about that. The police should be of the people, for the people . . . .

Q. What about some of the larger issues that are going to affect the police officers? Do you think gun control can help toward the police brutality problem?

A: Yes, very much. It is such a sad commentary on this society that thousands and thousands of police officers have to put bulletproof vests on every day. Unlike the soldier in combat who’s taken off the line for R&R;, we have police officers putting bulletproof vests on every day for 20 years.

. . . . That affects the way you think. “Why am I having to put this uncomfortable thing on and perspire? Because there are guns out there. Because cops are getting shot. And because if I work in a certain precinct and it’s Friday or Saturday night, I am going to respond to eight calls with a gun.” . . . When they roll up on these calls and they say, “Freeze! Throw your hands up!” and (the suspect) keeps walking, you’re thinking, “I’m in the funeral parlor.” . . .

Q: Is there a risk of wider civil disorders following this? I’m thinking of Miami, where highly publicized police brutality cases were followed by widespread rioting .

A: There’s no question about the fact that that incident gives a little platform to some of the people who like to attempt to radicalize communities. I read Al Sharpton was . . . (in) L.A. Good luck . . . .

But obviously it’s ammunition for people who want to incite communities. I don’t know where it goes. I hope to God it doesn’t mean anything like disorder, because I had to deal with one riot, and I never want to wish that on any other police chief. But things are different from 25 years ago. However, Miami had one.

Q: What if you saw King? What would you say to him now?

A: Well, I’d tell him I’m sorry about what happened to him--and yet when the police pursue you, it’s always better to immediately respond. That’s a human being in that car, and maybe that officer who’s pursuing you took a dead baby out of a crash last week, killed by a drunken driver. He’ll assume maybe you’re a drunken driver. Why press that officer by not pulling right over? When you get out of the car, be under control. Don’t horse around, because they’re human, again. They can get a little out of control. None of this is to justify what happened, but it explains, maybe, why the situation can begin to get a little out of control in the first place.