Police Abuse and Authority

The problem with police in this country today goes far beyond the Rampart scandal. Throughout this country the beating and pepper-spraying of peaceful protesters, the shooting of homeless people and planting drugs on suspects seem to have become the accepted way of dealing with the public.

Maybe requiring all police officers to have a college degree would create some hope of changing the police culture in this country. Moreover, if the Supreme Court continues to give police more authority, such as the disintegration of our 4th Amendment right (search and seizure) there may be no hope for future change. Very often I am reminded of Friedrich Nietzsche’s words: “Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.”

DAVID J. ABBOTT

Santee

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Thoughtful and worrisome words by Walter Prince (Commentary, March 2) about the several options available to L.A. as the city faces the upcoming Rampart litigation. [L.A. should] end its own version of the failed and hideously expensive war on drugs. The city has no obligation to enforce federal laws.

The war on drugs is one of the root causes of the runaway scandal; for another, consider racism. The O.J. Simpson jury tried to tell L.A. that it had a problem but nobody listened. But then so did the Kerner Commission, circa the late 1960s.

GERALD M. SUTLIFF

Emeryville, Calif.

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Prince was right; we must prepare our city for the financial impact of the Rampart investigation. But he was wrong in one respect--not all city leaders have their “heads in the sand” when it comes to Rampart. I have already put a viable solution on the table--a solution that will not jeopardize the quality of services Angelenos have come to expect and deserve.

Last month, I proposed that Los Angeles bond the $300 million in tobacco settlement funds we will receive over the next 25 years. Bonding our share of the settlement money will provide at least $100 million in immediate funds. Bonding will not impact the city’s debt limits or credit rating and will guarantee the city’s receipt of tobacco settlement funds with zero financial risk. It is in the city’s best interest to transfer its risk of declining tobacco revenues to investors who are better suited to carry this risk. Bonding will preserve our level of city services, require no taxes and enable the city to secure its tobacco funds--allowing us to prepare for future obligations in a sound, fiscally prudent manner.

I also want to reassure all Angelenos that sacrificing city services is not an option. Los Angeles taxpayers will not pay twice for these terrible injustices.

RICHARD J. RIORDAN

Mayor of Los Angeles

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Of the many hundreds of column inches The Times has run on the LAPD Rampart scandal, one line stands out: Urging that the investigation remain an internal police department procedure, Chief Bernard Parks said, “We need to allow the system to work” (March 1).

If the system worked, we wouldn’t have had a Rampart scandal.

DON BUSTANY

Los Angeles