officers - The Black Vault

FD·350 (Rev. 5·8·81)
cate page, name of
newspaper, city and state.)
(Mount Clipping in Space Below)
LOS ANGELES THiES
Date: SUN 1
f.ffiR 31 1
19 91
Edition:
PERSPECTIVE ON POLICE OPINION SECTION, PAGE 5
Can Brutaliz~rsJ~are 1r~ ~: ~~~~~~~ZERS CARE
for Justice?/:~~IVIL RIGHTS
Submitting Office: 80-33B
LOS ANGELES
There's a universal
minority of overzealous,
violence-prone cops.
Only civilian review can
control them.
By DEBRA CARRILLO
Had Rodney King not had the
benefit of videl)tape,_ you
wouldn't know his name today. I
know this because I'm a deputy public
defender for the County of Orange, with
dozens of clients who have been
victims of police brutality, with
only their word against the
officers' word. This isn't just a
Los Angeles problem.
Ah, you say, here's another
liberal defense lawyer jumping
on the Rodney King bandwagon.
Right and wrong. Yes, I am
another liberal, proud to safeguard
the constitutional rights
of all citizens.
I am also an ex-cop.
My first great disillusionment
ih law enforcement was an unforgettable·
!l10ment in the Orange
County Sheriff's Training
Academy. A crusty investigator
was teaching us .about probable
cause-suspicious criminal activity
that justifies police contact
with a citizen. One of the
recruits was having trouble
grasping the concept. Exasperated,
the investigator leaned
forward conspiratorially. With
melodramatic flair, l}e whipped
a ball-point pen from his pocket
· and· held it between his fingers,
rotating his outstretched arm
slowly for all to see: "This is
probable cause." He explained
that what mattered was how the
·officer described what happened.
He was teaching a creative-writing
course in law-enforcement fiction.
·On the street, I was shocked by the
attitude of a small percentage of officers.
They were the zealots, frequently arresting
people for resistin? arrest an~
Indexing:
for assault on a police officer. Curiously,
. it always appeared to be the .arrestee
who came out on the short end of the
nightstick. Even more curiously, these
people were often arrested for only one
or both of these charges. Why were they
, "apprehendeq in the first place?
·· Other officers, in the majority; were
able to work a 20-year career witl}out a
single arrest for either of these charges
Too often, defendants would arrive at
the station with an· officer gleefully
recounting how he had slammed on his
brakes so that the handcuffed and
-helpless "dirtbag" would·have
.his face "waffled" .I?Y tbe
metal grille separating the
patrol unit's front and back
:Seats. Gang-in-blue officers
have the luxury of selecting
their victims: almost always
male, poorly educated,· frequently
with some sort of
criminal history anQ. a member
of a minority group.
Newport Beach officers gained notoriety
in the early 1980s for their efforts
to keep Newport Beach "clean." One of
their unwritten codes was NIN: "(Negro)
in Newport." Officers w?uld stop
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the cars of blacks on a pretext and
strongly encourage them to leave the
city. The radio chatter would describe
the incident as "November-India-November.''
-
Ah, but I digress. If Rodney King had
been my client, without benefit of
videotape, there would be a thick stack
of protective police reports by the
officers who witnessed the beating,
neatly justifying and minimizing the
brutal actions of their brethren. As
reflected by the casual attitude of the
. onlooking officers, jovial post-event ra­
: dio colloquy and supervisorial participation,
what occurred was standard operating
procedure for a certain cadre of
the LAPD's less-than-finest. ·
I have worked as a criminal defense
attorney for Orange County for nearly
FBI/DOJ