Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 20, 1991 TAG: 9103200426
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
After the videotaped brutal clubbing, kicking and stomping of an unarmed black man by officers of the L.A. police force, two-thirds of Los Angeles residents polled said they believe such acts are common. A majority said Gates is not doing a good job.
He has, with good reason, lost the confidence of the public and become a liability to his department and city. Under any normal standards of accountability, he should go.
Gates' repeated claim that the savage treatment of Rodney King was an :wq! "aberration" is an attempt to escape responsibility. The evidence suggests a pattern of abuse and a code of secrecy surrounding it.
Consider that the videotape shows four officers systematically beating the helpless and unresisting King without apparent fear that any of the witnessing cops would report them. The officers coolly took turns in assaulting King.
It's hard to believe this was a spontaneous flare-up, especially when the police supervisor present just watched.
When Gates was initially asked to comment on the videotaped beating, he reacted defensively. Unlike the rest of America, he refused to draw any conclusions and said he would look into events leading up to the incident.
But the events leading up to the incident were irrelevant to the brutality. When the chief fails to condemn such conduct quickly and firmly, it further fosters the climate that leads to abuse.
Gates, you may recall, is the same police chief who recently suggested that casual drug users should be shot. In 1982, trying to explain the death of a black man who had been subjected to a choke hold, he said blacks react differently to such holds than "normal" people do.
Sad to say, it took the nationally shown videotape to prompt action. The officers who beat King face prosecution. And the Department of Justice says it will review 15,000 or so complaints of police brutality it has received from around the country in the last six years to see if there are any patterns.
Why wasn't such a review conducted years ago?
Those who study policing report an increase in the use of excessive force. They attribute this, among other things, to the stress of police work, the increasing fear of the high-powered weaponry criminals possess, and alienation from minority communities they police.
None of this excuses brutality. Three days after King's beating, President Bush called Gates "one of the all-American heroes." Bush's hero, if he refuses to resign, should be removed from office.
by CNB