Platform : ‘The Danger Is to Think That Everything Is Wonderful’

LORE FITZGERALD; Financial controller for a manufacturing company

The two most guilty were found guilty, which was a victory. But all four should have been found guilty. And for them to only have been found guilty on one charge, I find difficult (to accept).

Our justice system is still very imbalanced because for (the prosecutors) to have to prove that the officers had intent prior to the beating was more complicated than at the first trial. And for them to be found guilty on the second trial and not the first, it makes you wonder where is the justice. Our system is subjective.

Now we have to wait to see what happens in the Reginald Denny beating trial.

The Rodney King beating trial was dealing with brutal force and in the Denny trial, it’s attempted murder. And yet Denny and King are both alive. Just looking at those two trials, you can see a biased system. Additionally, the men involved with Denny’s trial are in jail. The officers never were.

HYUNG-KI JIN; Senior adviser to the Korean Business Assn. of Southern California and a professor of business administration at Cal Poly Pomona

I believe that the Korean community is quite pleased with these verdicts. It shows that the legal system worked to some degree. No one is above or below another, and everyone should be treated equally. If Rodney King made a mistake, he should have been brought to court, not mistreated on the street.

Korean merchants do much business in the African-American and Latino communities and--except for rare instances--we have good relations with those communities. I would like to see African-Americans and Korean-Americans develop joint-venture business projects in South-Central Los Angeles.

We have much in common with the African-American community because many Korean-Americans have been mistreated because of race. Many of us are immigrants and face discrimination on that basis also. I hope that the African-American and Korean-American communities find ways to build a better city.

TSEHAI ESSIEBEA FARRELL; Author of “Transformation of Race” and a consultant who provides diversity-resolution programs for companies, organizations and individuals

The verdict was the dawning of simple justice. However, the verdict is not a panacea. People shouldn’t have to riot, march and appeal to get fairness and equity in the judicial system.

There is a pervasive sense among whites that blacks are dangerous and threatening. But why? African-Americans have never engaged in prolonged and wholesale persecution of American whites. On the other hand, whites bear the actual historical responsibility for brutality against African-Americans and native Amerians, violations that continue to resound in our society.

In an abusive family situation all the members have to get help--perpetrators and victims. And nations with a history of abuse, such as our own, must also come out of denial and seek healing.

M. MEREDITH BEAL; Retired financial analyst for the Los Angeles School Board

I think justice was served, though it was a long time coming. But the verdicts don’t solve the entire situation. They are just a temporary notification that things should be better and could be better.

We (black people) have to coordinate our activities to conform to the justice that we speak of. Some people think that all the privileges that we arrive at have to be granted by somebody else. Privileges aren’t going to fall out of the sky. In order to get good jobs, we still have to prepare ourselves. In order to have good leadership, we still have to get an education because 10 years from now (people) will need to be qualified to rule the cities, the counties and state governments.

FRANK DAWSON; Independent producer, Los Angeles

For justice to have been truly served, the officers should have been convicted in criminal court during the original trial. I think it’s important that we do have the federal judicial system that can step in in cases like this so that there is some semblance of justice. But I have to say it’s a sense of relief that the trials are over. It’s a good thing for the city, although I feel a lot of the tension in the city was artificial and manufactured by the news media.

The danger here is to look at these trials and the verdicts and think that everything is wonderful and justice has been served. Justice has not been served until the economic issues have been dealt with. Also, we still have to wait to see what happens with sentencing of the two convicted officers in August.

If the officers do serve time, which (they) better, they will probably do it in federal prison, a place that has been called “Club Fed.” It’s not the same as time served in other penal institutions.

DAVID CLEMENT; President, Pacific Palisades Democratic Club, Pacific Palisades

Speaking for myself only, I thought the officers should have been found guilty in the first trial, and I thought the second trial was like double jeopardy. However, I’m very happy that at least some of them were found guilty this time. It keeps the lid on.

Our biggest problem in this country isn’t racism, it’s class, the dirty little secret of American politics. Americans are singularly unprepared to talk about class, although they’ll talk a lot about racism. The money promised to clean up after last year’s riots was not passed by the federal government, and we’re probably in worse shape here now than we were then.

We can all go out and hold hands on the Fourth of July and say we’re going to try not to be racist, but that’s superficial. When some people have a lot more than others, it’s no wonder there’s social tension, especially when we don’t have decent social-service programs to help people.

TONY LAM; City Council member, Westminster

I feel the jury did their best under the guidelines the law provided. The civil rights of anybody cannot be violated. It’s time that people put fear behind their backs and look forward with positive thinking. I don’t believe in any form of violence. We can always resolve the differences between people with negotiation.

And prevention is the name of the game as well. We have to educate youngsters to know that the law of the land is the guideline, and that they should put hatred behind the door and work toward harmony with different ethnic groups. It’s not easy. But I’ve seen a lot of change in my city in 18 years. They said Westminster was very prejudiced, but I don’t see it. In December, 1992, they elected a new blood like me, and I am the very first elected Vietnamese-American official in all of America.

DAN PEIFER; Private Investigator, Simi Valley

I kind of feel like if you’re going to have trial after trial until you come out with a verdict you’re happy with, the justice system is in trouble. What’s stopping them from having another trial after this, and if the verdicts are different, then having another? I feel the Simi Valley jurors were competent and things should have ended the original way they did.

You’ve got a lot of these leaders like Jesse Jackson and these other minority leaders I hear Rush Limbaugh talking about. When the Reginald Denny trial is held, I wonder if you’ll hear those same leaders cheering if the four black males are found guilty, the way they cheered when some of the officers were found guilty.

CATALINA RAMOS; Community activist, Pico-Union

The verdict is just in one part, but it’s unjust in another way. I think all four were guilty. I have seen a lot of violence on the part of the police in my neighborhood. And a lot of times it’s based just on people’s appearances, on they way they dress. I have seen kids from my apartment window, and they were dressed like gang members, but they weren’t. They were good kids, and the police would harass them just because of how they looked.

ERIC MANN; Director, Labor-Community Strategy Center, Los Angeles

I think the real victory in the case was the fact that the supervising officer was convicted. That was a positive. It said the supervisors will be held accountable. Everyone in the LAPD is going to be looking up instead of down in the future. Those who were responsible for not stopping the action were at least as guilty as those who perpetrated it.

Another positive is that the trial was generated by public opinion. It was like the civil-rights movement of the 1960s. The rebellion following the first case presented the only chance of conviction in the second case. I think this was prosecuted as an anti-rebellion case and not as a civil-rights case.

But this was not an exoneration of the legal system. The elected political Establishment learned nothing from this. Their reaction was “Whew!” But we saw no bold programs coming forth.

The level of disparity between rich and poor is the underlying cause of police brutality. As well as the tragic abdication of many formerly white liberals who have come to tacitly approve of police brutality against people of color. Because the poverty is so extreme, a large number of people still want more police and more repression. I don’t think there is any low-income person--Latino or African-American--who feels any safer tonight.

JUDY ABDO; Mayor, Santa Monica

Now we can start working on the issue of unity, to try to rebuild Los Angeles in a way we can all be proud of. What’s been wrong in the last year is the feeling we had that people weren’t treated the same.

Before, we all tried to ignore that racism was and is part of our city. A lot of us wanted to believe that we were different here in L.A. But it’s important to face up to this as a first step.

Now we have to concentrate on how all the pieces of our community fit together, to see it as a whole. All of us, people on the West Side, people in Santa Monica, need to be aware when things aren’t going well in another part of (greater Los Angeles), and to be part of the solution. We’re all in this together.

RANDY JORDAN; Resident of Mission Viejo, publisher of Black Orange, an African-American magazine in Orange County

I was expecting this verdict, which was adequate. But if anyone believes this decision vindicates the justice system in this country, they’re way off. Instead, I believe these proceedings painfully illustrate the injustice that still prevails against minorities. In actuality, the Simi Valley verdict was the true color of our justice system. That decision, which found none of those officers guilty, was the norm, not the abnormal.

The media hyped this thing like it was a boxing match. Not a day went by when there wasn’t some type of promotion on the radio, television or newspaper that count-downed the days until the big match. It was sickening.

KELLY LEE; Salesman, Hollytron Electronics,Los Angeles

I did not like the split decision because they were all doing the same thing. Either all four are guilty or not guilty. I thought all four would get acquitted.

The same thing happened to me several years ago (in the San Gabriel Valley). I called a local police station. I complained about the officers pulling me out of the car, using bad words, handcuffing me and holding me in their car for several hours. There was no response.

BYUNG DUK YANG; Construction worker, Los Angeles

The verdict was not satisfactory--I thought it would be “not guilty.” Although police actions are often cruel, this verdict was affected by a lot of politics.

Last year’s riot was a struggle between black and white, but because Korean businesses were close to blacks, Koreans were the ones who were most hurt.

GLEN (FINGERS) SCHRIVER; Bartender, Simi Valley

I think the verdicts (in the second trial) were pretty fair. They were justly done. I’m glad the policemen got convicted. I think the officers were wrong, and the two that got hung caused most of the problems. Now we should be going about our lives.

In the future, people in law enforcement should go back over their rules and make sure it won’t happen again. As for the riots, things just got out of hand for everybody last year.

Half the people who come into the bar in Simi Valley where I work have been in jail. I just got out yesterday myself. I’ve never had any problems with the police, though, because I was always in the wrong.