Readers React: The L.A. Police Commission’s ineffectiveness invites disruption by protesters

To the editor: This article is on point: Los Angeles Police Commission meetings have devolved into chaos. The same dysfunction has reared its head week after week for at least the last year that I’ve been attending. (“Once-sedate L.A. Police Commission meetings upended by protesters set on disrupting business as usual,” May 20)

Can we finally be honest and say that the emperor has no clothes? I hope so. The Police Commission has proved itself ineffective.

Disproportionate numbers of black and brown Angelenos still die at the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department, but the commission won’t hold the force accountable and it won’t address the issue of race or racial profiling. Why should the community desist from verbal disruptions when valid life-and-death concerns, time and again, are answered with silence, platitudes or smoke and mirrors?

What is the alternative?

Karen Hilfman, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Having worked in the Watts community for 26 years now (and having lived there for a time), I’ve seen more than I care to about the self-inflicted causes of educational under-performance, poverty and the crime that attracts unwanted police attention.

The “mayor” of skid row General Jeff Page defends the Black Lives Matter strategy of uncivil disruption at Police Commission meetings, saying, “You’re damn straight I’m going to speak out and holler and kick and scream, because I have a sense of urgency that something needs to change.” He’s 100% right that “something” needs to change, but I doubt he’s going to come down here and speak out, holler, kick and scream at the gangsters, drug dealers and assortment of criminals actually causing the mayhem in the black community.

No, it’s so much safer in the Police Commission’s meeting room, isn’t it?

Jim Tetreau, South Pasadena

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