How to respond to May Day melee
Re “No walk in the park,” editorial, May 8
Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton should be fired for the May 1 MacArthur Park melee, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa should show the backbone to do it.
Bratton’s police used a small confrontation in one corner of MacArthur Park to justify a full sweep of other parts, brutalizing hundreds and terrorizing thousands who had nothing to do with the initial altercation. The L.A. riots of 1992 were a direct result of public perception that police brutality is protected by government, and that perception grows now despite the media show.
The lessons of the Democratic National Convention lawsuits of 2000 went unheeded after years of supposed training. The massive immigration marches of 2006 and the smaller ones this year pose the type of potential that the region cannot afford to mismanage.
May 1 was a failure of leadership at the highest levels. If the police misconduct had occurred in any other part of town, with a different shade of people, there would be unending howls for Bratton’s removal. Where are the public officials of conscience? Firing the chief is a necessary symbolic act for the public and a crucial lesson to the LAPD that those whose leadership sets the stage for the trampling of the right to assemble will be the first to be held to account.
VICTOR MANRIQUE
Los Angeles
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Your editorial Tuesday suggesting that the L.A. Police Commission judiciously delay reappointing Bratton pending investigation of abusive police behavior during the MacArthur Park protests makes sense.
The commission, however, must balance politics with reality, weighing carefully the findings of the recent report issued by another commission, the one led by attorney Connie Rice, exposing the resistant cultural underbelly of the LAPD. An institution as hidebound and militaristic as our Police Department acquires its character over decades. Remaking the department will take a generation of vigilant managerial determination, not to mention new standards of discipline and clear thinking.
Smart and politically savvy, Bratton heard and understood Rice’s analysis. His actions in immediately demoting responsible commanders at MacArthur Park reflects this awareness. But change-driven oversight and action must flow from more than the chief.
The media, the mayor, the City Council, activist citizen groups and the city’s population as a whole must demand a full, continuous and uncompromising accountability from this and subsequent LAPD leaders. Otherwise, the department will revert to its previous character and leave the city the worse for assuming Bratton alone could complete the task.
PAUL VANDEVENTER
Los Angeles