officers - The Black Vault

conviction seemed quite chancy, out of an'awareness
of the importance of avoiding the appearance of
Establishment complicity i!l official racial oppression-and
these prosecutors were conservative Republican
appointees. · ·
Third, and somewhat paradoxically, the weakness
of local political organizations tempts law-enforcement
leaders to pursue their own imag~s in media
reflections, undermining their agencies' professionalism.
Where strong political organizations control the
routes to higher office, they 1.).lso block the.narcissistic
antics to which we have become accustomed. When
L.A.'s top cop and prosecutor insist that we examine
their personalities by issuing histrionic, Q.ivisive
statements and incompetently managing cases, there
is no political organization to be embarrassed.
The embarrassment is left for the community as a
whole to suffer .. In other communities, a "bad apple"
resolution, in which the miscreants are prosecuted as
deviant cases, might work. In Los Angeles, the only
possibility for effectively expressing indignation
about such thuggery of ouz:. police as that in the King
case, indeed the only way for us to avoid complicity
in it, is for the public to insist that the .chief resign. D
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