officers - The Black Vault

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FD-3j0 (R~v. 5-8-81)
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•(Indicate page, name of
newspaper, city and state.)
ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Police Abuse:
Fronting for
the Haves
(Mount Clipping in Space Below)
• War in Iraq, war on
drugs-it's all the same exercise
of power.
'Rogue cops" overstep the line from
time to time. What this actually
mostly means is that officers ordinarily
engaged in the execution of their duties get
caught, as in the case of Rodney King, who
was on the receiving end of a nightstick,
··boot and stun gun. .
When they do get caught there's a
hullabaloo, with calls for indictments of the
offenders, better supervisory pow~rs, eviction
of the police chief and so forth. But the
real function of these unpleasant incidents
is to affirm the system. ·
· In our society the police operate under a
social mandate. If society-meaning in this
instance the Haves, the Overdogs and
kindred beneficiaries of present political
arrangements-truly found the ·sort of
violence exercised upon King unacceptable,
it would have stQpped long ago.
It wasn't as though we had to wait for
George Holliday to focus his video camera
on King!s assailants from the Los Angeles
Police Department to disclose what law
. enforcement often adds up to in practice.
The blotter is replete with evidence of
institutionalized police violence.
Not long before Daryl Gates was sworn
in as police chief in 1978, the so-called
"Masked Marvel," a white ex-cop who had
served five years in the 77th Street
division, appeared on local TV programs to
describe the violent and racist rampages of
his colleagues. .
'
Gates ridiculed "liberals" upset by the
allegations. Soon thereafter he was busy ·
defending the 12 bullet holes left by his
men in the body of Eulia Love, a 39-yearold
black womal). in default on her gas bill.
Most of the many exculpations since
. then offered by Gates have t?een equally as
hollow, but the message also offered by his
flourishing career is that he has been
proceeding along the right lines: The "ugly
· incidents" serve to remi~d people of what
. the police feel themselves empowered by
society to do.
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· Though h~'s deemed it prudent to throw
' three or four of them over the side, Gates
wo~ld have been eminently justified in
" claiming that his men, along with himself,
were acting under orders. President Bush
' himself, fragrant and glowing from a blood
· batli of Iraqi lives designed to banish the
· "Vietnam syndrome," let the other boot
· drop by publicly commending Gates' ef-
· forts against crime-at just about the time
, King was being beaten-and by calling for
. abundant new death penalties in the war
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'lf the Haves truly found the
sort of violence exercised upon
King unacceptable, it would
have stopped long ago.'
-
against the dangerous classes.
_ Now these .are "war aims" to which
· those Los Angeles liberals now denouncing
,;•. Gates have long since subscribed, never
j• more exuberantly~ in the "~ug war."
~ ... Tonight we pick 'em up for anything and
il everything,'' an LAPD .spokesman an­
. nounced on April 9, 1988, the start of
,. •· Operation Hammer in South -Central Los
.,}'.Angeles. Gates himself announced that
~' "We want the message to get out to the
'· · cowar¢; out there •. • . that we're coming
:if in to get them." .By 1990, Operation
,~. Hammer had picked up 50,000 suspects.
Obviously more than one ethnic group was
:::: involved, but there are only 100,000 black
~ youths in Los Angeles.
-''!:
In August, 1988, .88 police from the
Date: LOS ANGELES THiES
Edition: WED • MAR 13 , 1991
r.mTRO SECTION, PAGE 7
Title: POLICE ABUSE: FRONTING
FOR THE HAVES
Character: CIVIL RIGHTS
or
Classifteation: 8 0 _ 3 3 B
Submitting Office:
IDS ANGELES
Indexing:
SEARCHED.___ INDEXED.:..-..,.,_,...__,
SERIAUZEO fl® ...
MAR 20 1991
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FBI - LOS ANGELES /L
i/ ,,,
:s 'Southwest Division raided a group of
Jl·apartments m the 3900 block of Dalton
~! Avenue, destroying them .and forcing 32 · FBitooJ
,_..captives~-~ ~gauntlet of®f\~~~ •II qq s/-J:J-_lfl __ .