PERSPECTIVES ON POLICE BRUTALITY : An Outbreak of Mad Cop Disease : Murderers and rapists often operate under the influence of an adrenaline rush. But they go to jail.

For those who claimed that the beating of Rodney King was an aberration, there has been yet another videotaped installment of the outbreak of a disease endemic to Southern California police. Some call it adrenaline-rush disease. Perhaps a better name is mad cop disease.

Mad cop disease embodies the primal notion that when people get angry there is a surge from the adrenal glands that causes both mental aggression and physical boldness. This phenomenon doesn’t affect only police; bank robbers, murderers, rapists and all manner of criminals also committed their heinous crimes in the rush from the adrenal glands. Yet, when those of us who are not cops get angry, lose it and then step over the line from civilized conduct to anarchical behavior, we get arrested, brought to trial, prosecuted and punished. Not so for cops, especially in Southern California. Why?

There has been a long, long history of police abuse in Southern California. In his 1939 novel “The Day of the Locust,” Nathanael West described a not-uncommon scene in Los Angeles: “He noticed how worried [the LAPD officers] looked and how careful they tried to be. If they had to arrest someone, they joked good-naturedly with the culprit, making light of it until they got him around the corner, then they whaled him with their clubs. Only so long as the man was actually part of the crowd did they have to be gentle.” The good, old civilized days. Dirty deeds done dirt cheap, but not in plain view. L.A. cops used to have class.

So, how could two Riverside County deputy sheriffs club two helpless people by the side of a highway? And how dare they do it in the view of video cameras?

The answer is that rarely do any significant negative consequences flow from such brazen brutality. Indeed, it is a fluke when those charged with enforcing the laws--the police and the district attorney--take any immediate, significant or meaningful action when police cross the line from law enforcement to thuggery.

Case in point: Monday’s incident in South El Monte drew not a word from Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block or from Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, much less arrest of the offending cops. This lack of either outrage or action from the two top law enforcement officers in the county sends a message down the ranks: If you’re a cop in Southern California, you have license to inflict street justice. And, unless what you do turns out to be a cause celebre, not much will happen to you. You might get suspended, but with pay, and when the dust settles, if the incident isn’t on videotape, it will be your word against the word of whomever you hurt, who often will not be as credible as a person wearing a badge.

Probably it never will stop. Civil rights lawyers like me can sue and sue and sue, but verdicts against police in civil rights actions have no effect on miscreant officers because their departments usually pay the damages. Indeed, Los Angeles city and county officials routinely vote to pay punitive damages assessed against cops whom juries have found to have acted maliciously, oppressively, wantonly.

In places other than Southern California, that would be so shocking that outrage would well up, other cops would make arrests and prosecutors would prosecute. But not here. Here, there is only vague mumbling about investigations. England soon may have to slaughter all its cows to protect its population. How shall we in Southern California safeguard our population from the folks with badges who are sworn to protect and to serve?