officers - The Black Vault

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f0-3.50 (Rev. 5·8·81)
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(Indicate page, .lame of
newspaper, city and state.)
I' COLUMN ONE
Brutality:
Hard Issue
for Police
• Has the videotape of the
King beating exposed a
dirty little secret? Or is the
problem of excessive force
being blown out of
proportion? Experts differ
sharply on the matter.
By ERIC HARRISON
TIMES STAFF WRITER
John Davis, a white 46-year-old
farmer in rural Mason County,
Wash., has little in common with
Los Angeles' Rodney G. King. But,
in recent weeks, whenever he has
watched the videotape of the beating
King received at the hands of
Los Angeles police officers, Davis
has been carried back to a summer
afternoon in 1985.
·.On that day Davis was beaten by ;
sheriff deputies, in the words of
one witness, until he "looked like
he had been dipped in 8: bucket of
blood."
Davis and his 15-year-old nephew
were driving a load of hay in a
horse-drawn wagon down a public
road when a sheriff's deputy ordered
him to move over to let cars
pass. The patrol car's loudspeaker
. frightened the horses, though, and
. Davis couldn't control them.
·· "That was when the deputy drew
his gun. When the farmer stepped
·down, he was beaten, kicked and
· shocked with an electric stun gun
by the .deputy and two others who
c.arri:ved on the scene. They
: swar.Itled over him, Davis recalled.
·"It just escalated into more and
:greater excitement. Their adrenal­
; ine ju~t kept building until the
. climax," he said.
· .The videotape of the King beat­
•ing began airing several days be­
: fore a federal appellate court
(Mount Clipping in Space Below)
\
awarded Davis a $375,000 settle- ·
ment stemming from his beating.
. When he saw the'tape, "boy how-·
dy, I had the feelings come right
back to me," Davis said. "There
was the same energy in the air, I
could see it. I'd just cringe to watch
it/'
But how emblematic was that
disturbing videotaped scene? Did it:
truly, as the Davis and other cases
suggest, pull back the covez:s from
America's dirty little secret, a secret
some sl:lggest had never really
been kept under wraps in certain
neighborhoods?
While some activists and lawyers
describe police brutality as
"endemic," particularly in minority
communities, most law enforcement
officials and some legal authorities
say it would be a mistake
to conclude that 'the problem is
getting worse nationwide. On the
contrary, most see it as less severe
today than 20 years ago.
No one can quantify the police
brutality problem because no
agency keeps national records, and
comparing statistics from city to
city is rendered meaningless by
inconsistent record-keeping methods:
""It's almost impossible to speak
·about the problem except in an
anecdot-al, impressionistic manner,"
said Gerald M. Caplan, a
George Washington University
law school professor, who formerly
-·headed the National Institute of
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Date: THURS APRIL 4 19 91
Edition: Front Section: Page 1
Tille:
Character:
BRUTALITY: HARD ISSUE
FOR POLICE
Of
Classifteation:
Submitting Office:
IDS ANGELES
Indexing:
CIVIL RIGHTS
80-33B
SEARCHED ~ JNDE_¥:0; /
SERIAUZEO. __\../_'S--J:fLEO,_~___ I
APR 1 2 1991
L
FBI - LOS ANGELES ~ l\ l_../
I~
.
Justice and served as general!
counsel of the District of Columbia:
police. ,
· "The number of people killed by!
pqlice has gone down from the:
mid-1970s to the mid-1980s in:
major cities," said Patrick V. Mur-!
phy, who rose from a beat patrol-:
man. in New York City to head,
police commissions in Detroit and;
New York and a similar post in!
.· )V~hington, D.C. He now directs:
· the police policy _board of the U.S.
Conference of Mayors and will·
serve as a senior adviser to Mayor
Tom Bradley's panel investigating,
the King incident. · ·
"I'm ·satisfied departmentS are:
much stricter about it [police bru- 1
tality]," he said. "The FBI investigates
these things, and it didn't 20i
years ago. Lawsuits have increased:
drarjlatically, and liability forces
ma;y:-Qrs and city councils to-get into·
it." IJ .
amuel Walker, a crlmin.al jus­
professor at the University
Stice
. of Nebraska, agrees that there has
been improved management, higher
p~rsonnel standards and better .
training since the 1960s. Further-.
more, he said, about 30 of the·
nati9n's 50 largest cities have
adopted some form of citizen re-·
vie~ board to handle complaints·
against police officers, many i.n the .
last five years. :
"So L.A.," he said, "is out of step;
at tbJs point." ·
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