Cat's out of the bag: LAPD Chief William Bratton has identified all eight cops involved in Wednesday's televised beating of car-theft suspect Stanley Miller in Compton, including the one who pounded him 11 times with a big metal flashlight.
But Bratton identified the lead beater - 7-year vet John Hatfield - as Latino, potentially defusing or at least muddying precise comparisons to the racial landscape in the Rodney King beating ...
This is not to say there wasn't racism involved - it can't be said, since I doubt you'll ever be able to prove such a thing in a court of law. But as the probe unfolds, race will be the defining question in the minds of Angelenos who saw the '92 riots as a "civil uprising" and still see the LAPD as a stronghold of bigots despite the department's actual rainbow makeup.
To his credit, Bratton's also been vocal and quick about pushing for a thorough investigation - a lot of tough and politically expedient talk that will have to be backed up by the performance of the Internal Affairs division. And that will hinge on whether IA's performance has shifted - from the sort of weak-kneed stance that led to only a handful of Rampart cops being successfully prosecuted thus far - to more of a zero-tolerance attitude toward police misconduct.
I'm going to go out on a limb here: I feel for the cops - not these goons in particular, but for all beat cops.
LAPD is arguably the most poorly-staffed big-city department in the nation. The daily grind of being constantly lied to, spat upon, cursed at or just plain loathed by the vast majority of people you interview probably puts a sour taste in your mouth.
For cops in the roughest neighborhoods, the ratio of crackhead-wrestling to kitten-saving is probably depressingly high. Then there's the patrolman's diet: 95% boredom / 5% raw fear - you have to be able to go from perpetual vigilance on otherwise quiet streets to swift, strong - and lawful - action in a gear-stripping heartbeat. Most cops take this all in stride - it's the job. You don't let it eat you up, you'll be okay.
But at some point, something makes the tension in you snap. Instead of punching a locker at the stationhouse, you find yourself jumping from your cruiser after a lengthy, bullshit car pursuit, and sprinting across a weedy patch of dirt after a guy who may or may not be armed to kill you. He goes to surrender, but isn't dropping to the ground fast enough, and you grab whatever's at your side that you can use to put him down to make your heart stop pumping adrenaline, and get your collar.
And in the midst of this very human experience, you either remember your department's strict use-of-force rules - honed and refined to a razor keenness after the '91 fuckup by your colleagues that set Los Angeles ablaze - and do the right thing to put the guy down effectively and humanely.
Or you do something incredibly stupid and wrong on what turns out to be the feed to national TV.
Posted by: mack_reed on Friday, June 25, 2004 - 08:58 AM
