A ‘Rodney King’ Case? No, There’s a Key Difference : At this point, officials are taking responsibility

The sight was frighteningly reminiscent of the Rodney King beating of 1991. Law enforcement officers swinging their batons at a downed man and a woman. Overhead, a news helicopter, camera rolling.

The scene made the network news, another shameful incident for Southern California law enforcement. But there was a difference this time. In 1991, Los Angeles Police Department officials repeatedly defended the clubbing of King, saying he posed a threat to the officers surrounding him; after Monday’s incident, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department promptly expressed chagrin at this latest outrage. The department was “very embarrassed,” a spokesman said. He declared the department “seriously concerned about the action of our officers” and said that two deputies had been placed on paid leave until the incident was fully investigated. That was a proper and clearly honest response.

The victims were suspected of being illegal immigrants, and the beatings came at the end of a freeway chase. That chase began with a Border Patrol car trailing a truck south of the Temecula checkpoint and ended when the truck, then being pursued by Riverside County sheriff’s units, pulled onto the shoulder of the Pomona Freeway in South El Monte, where the suspects fled into an adjacent tree nursery. In all, 21 people were arrested, including the man and woman beaten by the deputies.

In addition to Riverside County’s inquiry, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating and the U.S. Justice Department has announced a civil rights investigation. These prompt responses indicate that authorities at all levels learned some hard but valuable lessons from the Rodney King case. But comprehensive policies still need to be developed, and training implemented, to deal with such incidents. LAPD policy, now as at the time of the King beating, requires that ranking officers be summoned when there are chases, many of which end violently in the high intensity of the moment. That policy should be adopted by any law enforcement agency that lacks standing orders of this sort.

Chases also present a continuing hazard that needs broad policy commitments from various agencies that might become involved. How and when is police responsibility in a pursuit to be passed from one agency to another? Are there ways to handle a chase so it presents less risk to innocent motorists? In this case, the pickup rammed cars and its occupants reportedly threw bottles at pursuing officers.

This episode, like the King case, has the added dimension of race. The occupants of the truck were believed to be Mexican nationals illegally entering the United States. Did that fact have any bearing on police tactics? Was it a factor in what clearly was overreaction by the arresting officers, despite the truck occupants’ dangerous and provocative maneuvers?

Unfortunately, this is not the first dangerous run along Southern California highways by people bringing illegal immigrants, usually seeking work, into this country from Mexico. So-called coyotes, men who solicit the illegal entrants and provide the transportation, work both sides of the border setting up the runs. U.S. and Mexican law enforcement should work hard to stamp out these dangerous trips before they start.

Many Mexicans and Mexican Americans believe that the beatings may reflect a growing anti-immigrant feeling in California, spurred by race-related politics. That may or may not be the case, but the possibility should be examined. The tragedy that befell the Los Angeles area after the King beating offers a lesson that must be learned. The prompt and rational calls for a sweeping investigation of this week’s case are proper. Officials must get to the bottom of any incident like this one.