Personal Perspective : The Squeaky-Clean Badge That Is Little More Than a Self-Serving Icon

The phone never sounded as loud as it did that early Saturday morning. My father was on the phone. He said that my brother had been taken to the hospital after an incident with police officers.

As a 14-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, I never allowed my personal feelings to interfere with my job. My attitude toward the public was summed up in a ‘60s bumper sticker: “If you don’t like cops, the next time you need help, call a hippie.” It was us against them.

As a Mexican-American officer, I was a minority within a minority in a world only another cop could understand. I was teamed with officers of all races, but we had one thing in common--the badge.

The morning that the phone call came was the beginning of my discovery of the dark side of that badge.

When I telephoned Northeast Police Station, the sergeant on duty explained what he knew. I was paralyzed with dread. I first denied it, then refused to believe it. It was fuzzy, then clear: My younger brother, William, was in grave condition as a result of a blow from a police baton to his head. This was not just any police baton. It was a LAPD-issued PR24 side-handled metal baton. The incident had occurred in the Los Feliz area--in my division.

While I was at the hospital, my captain pulled me away from my family. “He’s not gonna make it,” he said. “The doctors just told me. I’m sorry.”

I wanted to know who the officers were who were so damn out of control that they would beat someone this bad. The captain said the two patrol officers were from Newton Division. The sergeant involved was from Hollenbeck. He was a friend.

A tidal wave from hell hit me when I looked at what my brother officers had done to my 26-year-old brother. His head was so swollen that he was unrecognizable. A brain specialist compared the injuries to a person landing head first--after a three-story fall. William’s skull had been fractured from one side to the other.

How could this have happened? William was working two jobs and in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. We had always worried about my brother John, because he served in Vietnam. He returned home with the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

John pinned that Purple Heart on William’s uniform at the funeral. William Roy Retana was promoted to staff sergeant, U.S. Air Force Reserves, on the day his skull was shattered.

A handful of my brother officers sent me flowers and a sympathy card. The same officers called to ask if it would be OK for them to attend the funeral. I said it would be inappropriate.

I called the office of the chief of police and requested a thorough investigation. I just wanted to know what had really happened. It was not to be.

The press release describing the investigation of William’s death was standard fare. The officer “struck Retana on the left shoulder with his monadnock baton. The blow glanced off Retana’s shoulder, striking him on the left side of the head just above the ear.”

According to a newspaper article, however, a confidential report to the chief of police, prepared by the same unit that had authored the press release, disclosed that “the officer missed Retana’s shoulder and hit his head.” The article also reported that “the officer was uncertain whether his baton had contacted William’s shoulder at all.” No bruises or marks were observed on my brother’s shoulder.

The press release also used the standard buzz words to describe William’s behavior--”resisting arrest” and “hostile manner.” Fact was that William never touched or hit any officer.

After talking to my brother’s ex-girlfriend, reviewing documents and talking to investigators, I began to realize what had happened. After all, I was one of their own.

William was at his ex-girlfriend’s house talking with her through the front screen door. She asked him to leave; he wanted to talk. She phoned the police to report a burglar at her house, knowing it would bring a quicker police response. The first officer to arrive was a sergeant. As he waited for other officers to arrive, the woman emerged from the house. When two uniformed officers arrived, William was talking to her on the sidewalk.

The sergeant said not a word to the officers as they approached William. No one asked William if he and the woman knew each other.

The sergeant moved and stood behind William. An officer drew his gun and pointed it at my brother. The sergeant ordered the officer to put his weapon away, since William was unarmed. The officer holstered his gun and drew his baton. The sergeant then began striking William on his back and legs. One officer delivered a “power stroke” to the left side of William’s head. “Boom, boom, boom, legs, back, head; it all happened so fast,” a witness would later say. William collapsed.

My brother was never charged with any crime. The death report first listed the cause of death as an “accident.” It was later quietly changed to “homicide.”

My parents filed a wrongful-death suit against the city. During pre-trial depositions, one officer changed his testimony and two pages of the original report were “lost.”

The district attorney never filed any charges against the officers and the officers were never disciplined by the department. The LAPD’s Internal Affairs Unit, which investigates officer-involved use-of-force cases, called me at home to report that everything that had occurred that day was appropriate, though “training does not include hitting someone in the head.”

The LAPD has one unofficial-official rule I did not know about when I joined: The department puts symbols ahead of human lives. The squeaky-clean badge, which separated us from them, was now covered with blood. It was a self-serving icon.

My parent’s decision to settle the suit out of court was due to an illness in the family and to the fear that a long and emotional court struggle could prove too stressful. No amount of money could bring their son--my brother--back.

The following year I found it increasingly difficult to be a police officer. I’d killed a man. I’d almost lost my life. Now a brother had been killed by a brother officer.

I requested and was granted a transfer to a busier division. I didn’t hate anyone, anymore, except I began to dislike my brother officers, their tiresome jokes and attitudes, and especially the damn mottos. I started having nightmares. I froze many times when a man with a gun or knife would appear from nowhere.

In February, 1987, I failed my partner--and myself. I did not search a suspect who turned out to be armed. “Don’t worry about it,” my partner said. “I won’t tell anyone; they won’t know.” But I knew.

It was my last day behind the badge.

James R. Retana is working on a book about his career as an LAPD officer.