officers - The Black Vault

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Baldwin Hills is an expensive
neighborho9d of stylish homes,
where many of Los Angeles' African-American
professionals live. I
asked the officer, why the nickpame?
"If.you ask for the record, it's
because there are a lot of trees and
shrubs up there, It's real green. If
you're askjng off the record, it's
because that's where the jungle
.bunnies live."
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· · · Clearly, the verbal affron~~·to
Rodney King's human · digrti.ty
committed by uniformed officers of
the LAPD were not aberrations.
Neither, as ''the record demonstrates,
was the violence he suf­
·fered. Last year, the Los Angeles
City Council ,approved nearly $11
million in settlements growing out
9f more than a dozen cases of police
misconduct. . ·
A dozen such incidents do not
comprise an aberration, but a pattern-a
systemic failure to root out
racist police officers and to:deal in
a decent, evenhanded manner with .
all this city's people.
When an institution fails in this
way over a prolonged period of
time, those who have its conduct in
their charge cannot escape responsibility.
The standards-the principles,
if you will-that apply are not
those appropriate to a private individual
or evei1 to a minor civil
servant, but to a public official.
In parliamentary systems, this is
called "ministerial responsibility."
It recognizes the fact that when an
institution itself fails, it is irrelevant
whether the individual at the
top is personally culpable. All that
really matters is that they had the
responsibility.
As a committed, indeed principled,
social and political conservative,
Daryl Gates frequently has
spoken on behalf of those welltested
ideas that are at that philos­
·ophy's core. Among them are the
notion that a mature liberty fulfills
itself in the assumption of communal
responsibilities, as well as the
assertion of individual rights. This
is the ethic of service to the
common good of which th~ chief
·has so often spoken.
· Given Gates' personal strength,
the· relative weakness of the Brad-
1ey administr~tion in its waning
days and the shambling timidity of
the City Council, "this chief," as he
calls himself, probably can hold on
· to his job for some time to come.
But to do so, he will have to
watch-if not encourage-the bit­
. ter polarization of the city along
; Taciallines. A stubborn man might
·do that; a principled one surely
·=would not. ·
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