Was Police Investigation an Empty Ritual, or Will It Bring Change? : The Times asked a diverse group of people, most of them Los Angeles residents, to comment on the report of the Christopher Commission. The following commentaries are taken from the interviews. : They Stick Together

America is a better country than any other, but we have our faults. We all know racism exists. Minorities know. They’ve dealt with the police. It’s good they got it on tape, finally got proof. For the report to point it out, after the videotape--they had to. They had no choice.

I feel the Christopher Commission and the Establishment--they’ll all stick together. I don’t think they have any intention of replacing Chief Gates. The police are getting punished with words in the report, and that’s good, but the outcome is yet to be seen.

There is a change I see around here now. You’d always see police beating up blacks, Mexicans or what you might call the low-class white people. Now you don’t. They still harass people, but it’s not like it was.