The Cops Aren’t Laughing Now

Could better police work have brought an earlier end to the horror of Jeffrey Dahmer, the admitted serial murderer who was arrested recently? That’s the terrible question that’s haunting Milwaukee.

Dahmer, who is white, has confessed to butchering 17 boys and young men. Most, according to authorities, were homosexual. Most were also black, Latino or Asian. Their sexual orientation and race or ethnicity have prompted troubling questions about the police response.

Dahmer has confessed to killing a Laotian youth and eventually four other victims after police were called on May 27 by neighbors who saw Dahmer chasing the naked and bleeding 14-year-old. Did officers dismiss the assault on the Laotian teen-ager because they saw it as merely a spat between homosexual lovers?

Did insensitivity or racial prejudice influence their actions? Did they ignore the concerns of witnesses because the witnesses were black? Would the officers have left without filing a report or making a computer check of the suspect’s name if the pursuer had been black and the victim had been white?

Had the police only punched Dahmer’s name into the police computer, they would have discovered that he was on probation because of a child-molestation conviction. Had the authorities checked further they would have determined that the victim of that earlier molestation was the brother of the Laotian teen-ager who was seen fleeing from Dahmer.

A review of a tape of radio conversations among officers suggests that they bought Dahmer’s bogus explanation and were deceived into believing the 14-year-old was an adult. Although the recording is difficult to follow in places and is thus open to interpretation, it does reveal unseemly jocularity; one officer, for instance, said his partner wanted to “delouse” before taking the next call.

These developments in Milwaukee come on the heels of the Christopher Commission’s chronicle of insensitive transmissions among Los Angeles squad cars. Not surprisingly, Milwaukee’s police chief, Philip Arreola, has suspended the officers involved pending an inquiry. The chief, who is Latino, has also asked that the officers not be judged prematurely. That is only fair. But as the Christopher Commission report took pains to suggest, the LAPD isn’t the only police force in America with serious problems.