officers - The Black Vault

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r--------____:~::.:.:...:~::!!..:.~=:...-==:..:..:.!...----------jDate: LOS ANGELES TII~S
Chief. Gates Should Do the:
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Rigllt Thil'lg
'why doesn't he just go?" my
friend from out of town
asked, fixing me with a
look at once puzzled and provocative.
Ah, D!ll'yl Gates, I thought, again
.•• still.
"Well," 'I said, "in the end, I
suppose it really' is a question of
·.principle."
That, of course, is precisely the
:problem. On questions of principle,
' the distinction between stubbornness
:-and steadfastness is crucial. One gives
):rise to willful self-assertion, the other
·to responsibility. And it is the confu:
sion between the two that lies at the
heart of the crisis Gates continues to
inflict on Los Angeles. .
What began as a wave of po.p~ar
revulsion against a single incident of
horrifying official violence has become
a flood of rage and StJM>icion.
These forces were not set in motion
by politicians or the media, but by the
facts. And, unless he really -believes
he can discharge his duties in . a
vacuum exhausted of those facts, 1t is
_ .time fqr: Oiite~ ~5> a~cept ~~ ~onox:able
retirement to which his long service
entitles him. -
As they have emerged over the last
week, · several of those facts are
particularly significant: Shortly before
Rodney King, a black man, was
brutally assaulted by officers of the
Los Angeles Police Department,
overtly racist messages were exchanged
via computer between the
squad car assigned to Laurence M.
Powell and Timothy Wind, two of the
policemen in~cted for their part in
the incident, and officers in another
car.
The message sent from the Pow-.
ell and Wind car described a dispute
between members of an African-American
family as something
':right out of 'Gorillas in the Mist'"
' The occupants of the other car
responded, "HaHaHaHa. Let me
guess who be the parties."
, After King was beaten, messages
sent from Powell and Wind's car
joked about the incident and, in one
instance, said, "I -haven't beaten
·anybody this bad in a long time."
The officers responding said, "I
thought you agreed to chill out lor
a while ......
·; It iS more than significant that
(}either Powell nor Wind ever has
~n disciplined for .excessive use
Gfforce.
~ Stacey C. Koon, the sergeant
fiho shot King with an electric dart
8'Un. also exchanged lighthearted
messages with whoever was mantling
the watch commander's desk
at Foothill Division. That officer
sarcastically· referred to King as a
"lizard."
··.
EditionFRI • , l-1AR 2 2 , 19 91
VIEW SECTION, PAGE 1
~HIEF GATES SHOULD DO THE
RIGHT THING
Character:
~ CIVIL RIGHTS
c~~33B
Submitting bffice:
LOS ANGELES
Indexing:
SEARCHED INDEXED ____,
SERIALIZED FILED ____,
MAR 2 f3 1991
FBI
LOS ANGELES p
AIJI"'
.Koon, too, has· been indicted for
his part in the affair and for his
ham-fisted attempt to cover up his
and his fellow officers' misconduct.
The picture suggested by these
messages is far different from the
one Gates painted when he first
called the attack on King an "aberration."
The officers who spoke in
this fashion had no fear of expressing
the most primitive and offensive
racial epithets over an open,
recorded channel of official communication.
·
Similarly, the men who brutalized
King apparently had no compt.mction
about committing their
atrocity in the presence of more
than 20 uniformed witnesses.
Those who subsequently filed false
reports concerning the incident
obviously had no anxiety that any
of those witnesses would contradict
their lies.
People who behave in this heedless
way are not acting out an
aberration, but what is-for them,
· at least-business as usual.
I had an inkling of this recently,
during a conversation in which I
asked an LAPD officer how often
he heard other officers express
,racial slurs: "Well," he said, "you
'hear sort of racial jokes and stuff
all the time. But it's hard to tell
what it really means. It's like, you
know, calling Baldwin Hills 'the
jungle,' like a lot !lf guys do." ·
FBI/OOJ