Failures and Frenzies

Cops never like to be second-guessed. We civilians can’t know what it’s like, they say, to have a job in which every encounter can turn deadly. Point taken. But the very fact that their job demands split-second decisions weighing risk against the terrible responsibility of taking another’s life means that well-thought-out guidelines and rigorous training are critical. What “second-guessing” amounts to is looking for places where policy and training failed.

Such an examination occurred in February after a Los Angeles Police Department officer fatally shot 13-year-old Devin Brown. The same cathartic and instructive process has now been started in the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department to prevent a repetition of the kind of shooting frenzy that erupted in a Compton neighborhood last week.

Much like the earlier incident, this one involved a short chase that ended when the fleeing driver was forced to stop, then backed toward a patrol car that had pulled up to block him. By now most of the country has seen the amateur videotape of 10 deputies firing 120 rounds. Unlike in the earlier shooting, the driver was not killed, though he was hit four times and hospitalized. It turned out he was unarmed.

The miracle is that no one was killed, though one deputy was hit by crossfire and bullets smashed through windows and walls of five houses.

A community’s trust in the sheriff’s deputies who patrol their city was badly damaged as well. Compton officials voted five years ago to disband the city’s own police force. Crime rates have dropped since the city contracted with the sheriff. Yet in Compton as in other historically African American areas of the county, personal experience and collective memory of police harassment and abuse have left residents suspicious of anyone with a badge.

As in most such cases, this shooting frenzy appeared to involve a number of breakdowns. First there was the matter of whether the 10 patrol cars were chasing the wrong vehicle, one that was similar to a car described by a radio dispatcher as having been involved in a shooting. Adding to the confusion were the sheer number of deputies joining the chase and the fact that no one appeared to be in charge. There may have been a phenomenon called “contagious fire,” in which one officer fires, adrenaline kicks in and everyone starts shooting. It’s a natural instinct that must be unlearned through training, or the consequences can be deadly. That they weren’t this time was sheer luck. The only other good news is that the county has an independent team of investigators that is considered a nationwide model.

There is one change that need not wait for an investigation. The county should follow the lead of police departments in Boston, Cincinnati, Detroit and now the city of Los Angeles, and direct officers to simply get out of the way of a vehicle unless the occupants are using weapons other than the vehicle itself.