Readers React: ‘Ferguson effect’ cited by LAPD Chief Beck is a red herring

To the editor: I cannot believe that Los Angeles Police Department Chief Beck blames the police activity in Ferguson, Mo., as the cause and beginning of public distrust of the LAPD. (“Charlie Beck: The real Ferguson effect in L.A.,” Opinion, Feb. 11)

Having joined the force in 1977, he knows there have been decades of distrust of the LAPD in minority and poor communities. Trust must be earned. Actions, to name a few, such as the Rodney King beating, the Rampart scandal, racial profiling, officers tampering with in-car video and audio devices and the excessive number of officer -involved shootings all help create distrust.

Crime continues to rise even though LAPD receives more than $1 billion of our tax dollars. Whatever the answer Beck wants to give for his failures, he cannot blame it on this “Ferguson effect.”

Paula Minor, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Public safety consumes more than a third of our city’s budget, the LAPD nickels and dimes us with jaywalking and other petty tickets, and it has participated in the incarceration of people for nonviolent drug offenses (expanding our prisons) — and now Beck says the department wants our trust.

What delegitimizes the criminal justice system is not just atrocities in Ferguson and Baltimore, it’s realizing “the system” is run like an industry. Beck is its CEO, and his two pieces in The Times last week (this op-ed article and a letter to the editor) are the latest PR campaign.

Luke Wigren, View Park

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