LAPD WATCH : Can We Talk?
The fracas between two Los Angeles police officers and a civilian LAPD employee in the parking lot of the downtown headquarters is embarrassing, to say the least.
There are conflicting stories as to what triggered the brouhaha in the restricted-access parking lot of Parker Center. One report is that the officers asked the woman, a veteran employee who was dressed in civilian clothes, to identify herself but she did not show her LAPD identification. But if the dispute started over identification, how did it escalate into a violent confrontation? The civilian wound up being hit with a baton and handcuffed and one of the officers suffered minor injuries.
The City Council’s Public Safety Committee and the ad hoc committee that was formed to enact recommendations of the Christopher Commission plan to ask some probing questions. At the very least, they should find out why the officers didn’t radio the jail division to verify the woman’s identity or simply ask another employee to come out and identify her.
Was this an example of short tempers, misunderstanding and overreaction? Or was race or sex a causative factor? (The woman is black, and the officers are white men.)
These questions are, unfortunately, relevant in the wake of the Rodney King beating and the Christopher Commission’s documentation of racial and sexual bias in the police department.
No matter what actually happened in that parking lot, the LAPD has another sad embarrassment on it hands--and more explaining to do.
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