officers - The Black Vault

public relations firm executive and
the founder of a Mexican-American
business association.
: "I heard people asking: 'How
could it happen in L.A.? It's such a
taid-back place, not violent like
New York.'" ·
: Protests have poured in from
everywhere-the mayor's office
teceived phone calls from as far
away as Hong Kong, Japan and
Australia. One East Coast mayor
compared Los Angeles to Montgomery
and Birmingham in the
days of civil rights violence in the
South. In Seattle, a city council~
woman concerned about police
brutality proclaimed "we are com­
~itted to seeing to it that Seattle
does not become another Los Angeles."
: "I'm not sure I can remember a
~ocal issue that has provoked so
much discussion from so many
quarters," said talk show host Michael
Jackson, ·whose Los Angelesbased
program has been on KABC
:radio for 23 years.
· In fact, Los Angeles has not
received so much attention sjnce
the 1984 Olympics, heralded then
~s the dawn of the city's golden
~ge.
I
n opinion polls and on talk
shows such as Jackson's, people
are asking hard questions about
•:•the system." Is the Police Depart-:
ment racist? Should the mayor of
Los Angeles be ·granted the authority
to fire the chief and other
city department heads-a prerogative
enjoyed by most mayors? Can
a City Charter drawn by a group of
weaithy, white, middle-class businessmen
nearly a century ago be
responsive to a modern society
where minorities are in the majority?
; Some c_ritics suggest the beating
revealed a character flaw in the
Oity. .
i "An incident like this exposes a
·iiarker side of the . city which I
~ink many people experience in
Los Angeles," said Larry Joseph­
~n, a commentator on National
'Public Radio who broadcasts part
W
the year from Los Angeles and
·P.art from New York. "Underneath
·j;he city's. have-a-nice-day facade,
'~ere is a meanness or a coldness.
Jt's just not as friendly as it seems."
.~ Others see the beating as evi-
1jence that the city still has enmity ·
.~ainst nonwhites. The officers
• who. stood by while comrades
. worked over King have been likened
to the policemen who did not
· nothing to stop a mob of several
thousand Anglo ·servicemen from
cluobing scores of youri~ Mexican­
Americans in an infamous r~mpage,
known as the Zoot-Suit Riots
in downtown Los Angeles 50
ye~rs ago. The riots followed another
ugly episode-"The Sleepy
Lagoon" murder case in which
.anti-Mexican feeling led to the
wrongful convictions of 1 ~ Mexican-Americans
OJ:} a vanety of
charges. They were later exonerated.
. .
One person who saw connections
between the King beatipg and Lo~
Angeles of old is Robert Towne,
who wrote the screenplay for the
movie "Chinatown"-a blend of
history and fiction that paints a
hauntingly sinister view of the
city's early power structure.
Towne said the beating reminded
him of events that preceded the
1965 Watts riot.
"It's not like anything in this city
since Watts, where the Police Department
failed to see what they
were dealing with was not a bunch
of hoodlums but a social revolution,"
TownE;! said.
The screenwriter stressed he
was not predicting that the King
.beating would lead· to another riot,
but just noting that "the same
fundamental insensitivity we
hoped was dead and buri~d ,has
raised its ugly head once agam.
When cities become victim~ of
their own bad publicity, the
results can be devastating. Officials
in Phoenix ·estimate the city 'is
losing more than $140 milli.on froJ?
boycotts by groups protestn~g Ar~-
2!ona's refusal to adopt a hohday 'In
• SLOW RECOVERY FOR KING
Victim is -suffering headaches,
scars and facial numbness, his
ex-wife and doctors say. Bl
honor of the Rev. Martin Luther
· King k Boston and Ph~ladelph~a
lost substantial convention business,
according to surveys, afterthe
cities became known as hotbeds
of police-community hostility
during the 1970s. .
In Dallas, it took 20 years, a
popular TV show and a national
political convention to erase· the
image of the town that killed
President John F. Kennedy. With
·. the 1963 · assassination, ·the .city's
•
reputation for social intolerance
was etched deeply on the national
consciousness. For years, conspiracy
theorists chewed on the notion
that the President's assassin was
the agent .. of. t:ight-wipg Pallas
billionaires.
A city that falters in front of the
~ · whole world may have. to spend
years proving it is· not a loser.
In Los Angeles, the process is off .
to a slow start:
The debate:· over Police Chief
· Daryl F. Gates has deteriorated ·
into a paralyzing struggle between
the mayor and City Council, and
doubts about the Police Department
have mushroomed into skepticism
about local government in
general.
"The whole issue of who is in
-charge and how do we govern a
city of this complexity is now on
' the table.," said Jane Pisano, president
of the 2;000 Partnership, a
coalition of .academic, civic and
business leaders.
As Towne put it, there is ~
~isturbing "appearance of a moral
vacuum at the top of city government.
It lets you know that this
city is not working as well as it
once did."
This line of discus'sion inevitably
leads back to the ·city Charter-a
· doc~ment drawn up in the early
1900s by reform-minded Anglo entrepreneurs
who wanted an antidote
to the widespread governmental
corruption of the day. The
charter brought about a Civil Service
system that was meant to
ensure basic city services were run
by professionals beyond the reach
of political hacks.
Today, that mechanism is under.
·attack because, .critics argue, it
· .protects Gates from being held
;accountable for his occasional ·racially
tinged comments. Minority
leaders in particular have argued
. ·that such comments encourage