officers - The Black Vault

•
the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
"Back in 1959, long before Daryl
Gates was police chief, I was a cook
on the Santa Fe Railroad between
Chicago and L.A. and the rap then
was that you had better watch
your Ps and Qs when you got to
L.A. because the police were pretty
overbearing."
Days; who directed the prosecution
of hundreds of civil rights
cases against police officers accused
of misconduct, said he was
not surprised by what he saw on
ihe videotape. · ·
"My sense is that Los Angeles
long has promoted a permissive
attitude with respect to police use
of excessive force," said Days, now
a professor of constitutional law at
Yale.
Los Angeles Police Commissioner
Melanie Lomax said she is not
convinced that what happened to
King was an isolated event.
"I'm not convinced this is an
aberration (as Gates suggested
Tuesday). Many people in minority
communities say it happens all the
time. Black and Hispanic men have
been singled out for a different
. form of justice by ihe police.
· In other cities, where police
conduct ·has ignited community
c;mtrage, officials and other-observers
warn of the consequences. ...
"For years, .the African-American
conventions would not come to
Boston in the wake of the. school
busing controversy,"·said Neil Sullivan,
chief policy adviser to Mayor
. Raymond L. Flynn.
Sullivan said the conventioneers
watched how police handled demonstrators
protesting school segregation
and concluded that the
city was a hostile place for black
people.
Columnist Ace! Moore, a .30-
year-veteran of the Philadelphia
Inquirer, said the image of a city
can suffer for years after a policecommunity
crisis has .been re-
---~lved. . .... __ .
•'The Philadelphia Convention
and Tourist Bureau did a survey
that found that a lot of groups
: didn't want to come because of a
:' perception of the city as kind of
.. police state, long after the reputa­
: tion wasn't warranted," Moore
. said.
In Dallas, said Mayor Strauss, a
. series of police shootings in 1987
· ·resulted in racial tension that "tore
at the fabric of the city."
In homes across America, many
-were outraged .as they turned on
their television sets and saw the
pictures of the police actions.
Some of those who called Bradl~y's
office were interviewed.
Edward Viens, a 48-year-old
antique dealer in Coventry, R.I.,
said he was so ·angry he called
_ B~adley'a office. ·
"Jt was the most disgusting
thing I ever saw," he said. "I
couldn't believe what I was seeing .
Everyone of. those cops should
have their badges taken away and
they should be thrown in jail.
... I "love Los Angeles. My niece
just moved out there but I'm ner­
VoUs ilbout her being there now,"
• he said. "'When I· saw those pic­
~ures I kept thinking that the only
thing those· police were lacking
were the whfte robes.''
Elizabeth Hart, a cashier in a
. family restaurant in Rutiina, Vt.,
~· ~d: "It's-ironic that after watchr·.
iing atrocities in Kuwait. we get to
turn on the television to see atroci­
. ties in our back yard ~n Los Angel­
:~~es. . .
·t "In Vermont. we treat animals
·:-~ore humanely m death than this
: man was treated by the"Los Angelt
es police," she said. "Here in Rutland
there is a great deal of outrage
i. about this." ·
--------~-------------- ---- -----