Members of South L.A.’s black community reflect on their relationship with the LAPD

All three of them are black. They said police harassed them multiple times in their lives. As long-time residents of Los Angeles, they have witnessed first-hand how much policing methods and the relationship between the force and the black community has changed over the last three decades.

Hutchinson describes the present relationship between the LAPD and Los Angeles’ African American community as a “glass half-full, half-empty” situation: “Obviously it’s not the same police department that was there. You have much more diversity now within the department...you don’t see the high levels of use-of-force that we saw years ago. But unfortunately you are far more likely to be stopped than a young white or anybody else for that matter.”

“That raises the question: Are African Americans still being racially profiled? If so, what does that say of all the changes the LAPD have said they have made to reform the police department?”

Growing up Black

“Going back in time for many, many years...the LAPD was basically seen as a lily white, racist organization,” said Hutchinson. “Policing in African American communities was strictly ‘us versus them.’”

“I remember even in high school, we had off-campus lunch and the police coming to the area often where most of the black kids hung out for lunch,” said Rev. Najuma Smith-Pollard, a pastor and community leader who also serves as the program manager for the USC Cecil Murray Center for Civic Engagement.

“As a young person you start being really concerned and fearful about being arrested...Not that I was engaging in any illegal activity...but just kind of always knowing the ‘po-po’ can come any minute,” she said.

“It was just part of the cultural understanding that the police are not friends: they out to get us.”

The antagonism was not unique to the city of Los Angeles. The Rev. Smith-Pollard also lived in Santa Monica for a time and remembers the Santa Monica Police Department had targeted assignments, she said.

“In 1965, my mother’s sister’s son was murdered by the LAPD,” said Rev. Jonathan Moseley. Moseley’s cousin was a WWII veteran who owned two businesses. The police said that he had attempted to rob a local convenience store and then taken his own life. When Moseley’s uncle arrived from Texas to inquire about his son’s death, he was not given any further information.

“They told my uncle, as he continued to pursue and get evidence to find out what exactly happened, ‘Reverend, you need to get back to Texas or the same thing could happen to you,’” he said.

1965 was the same year as the Watts Riots, when tensions between the black community and law enforcement spilled over and sparked rioting in the neighborhood of Watts. The California Army National Guard was deployed and curfew zones were established in South Los Angeles to restore order. 34 people lost their lives.

John Thomas remembers growing up as an African American in a working-class community like South L.A. in the 1960s to the 80s was particularly challenging.

“I never had a positive interaction with law enforcement prior to becoming a cop. If you were a young African American male, regardless of whether or not you are engaged in criminal activity, during that period, you were often looked at with suspicion,” he said.

Thomas often still thinks about the time police handcuffed him and his friend and accused them of being thieves.

“Had that woman said ‘yes’, my whole life would have changed. My family did not have the money to fight any type of charges and I probably would have been like so many other African American young men at that time,” he said. “I would have taken a plea [to a lesser charge] and would have been incarcerated.”

At the same time, Thomas remembers that whenever his grandparents, who used to be sharecroppers in the South before moving to California, saw a black police officer, they would say, “That’s progress...You would never see that in the South.”

“I also felt like if I get a chance, I could be a different kind of cop,” he said.

After graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles, Thomas joined the LAPD. In his 21 years of service, he had been a patrol officer in areas spread throughout the city, worked on the force’s gang enforcement detail, and even served on the administrative section for many years.

“No Justice, No Peace”

In 1991, when Thomas was working in LAPD’s gang unit, George Holliday stepped onto the balcony of his home in San Fernando Valley and shot a video of four LAPD officers pummelling a black motorist with their steel batons. The grainy footage of the police beating Rodney King was picked up by news agencies around the world.

One of the officers, Sgt. Stacey Koon, used to be a sergeant at the 77th Street Division — an area with high violent crime and gang activity and where Thomas had also worked.

“When I looked at that videotape, I was appalled just like any sensible person would be,” said Thomas. “I knew he [Koon] knew better. We were taking big guys like Rodney King into custody all the time in the 77th and we didn’t resort to batons...To this day, I have never seen anyone other than an African American male ever be treated like that.”

Thirteen days later, the black community was dealt another blow: the killing of Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old African American girl shot to death by Sun Ja Du, a Korean convenience store-owner who alleged that she was stealing a bottle of orange juice. Harlins was found with the money clutched in her hand.

Du was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter. Her sentence: a $500 fine, community service and probation, but no prison time. A year later the four officers involved in the Rodney King beating were acquitted of all charges.

“I knew the community was ready to explode and it did,” recalled Hutchinson. “I heard people on the street screaming and when it [the verdict] came in, I heard curses...I knew there was going to be problems.”

“The word on the street was that these guys better get convicted and if they don’t...the people were going to take it to the streets,” recalled Thomas who was working undercover for LAPD’s Narcotics Division at the time.

Rioting started that evening. Stores were broken into and looted, businesses were burned to the ground. White motorists and Asian businesses were specially targeted, reflecting long-standing tensions. More than 3,000 fires were set across Los Angeles. The police and fire departments were hopelessly overwhelmed.

Thomas’ primary job in the first two days of rioting was to go out undercover and provide situational updates on what was happening on the streets but he was soon asked to get back into uniform and resume patrol duty, he said.

“That was probably one of the most difficult times of my career because I literally watched places that I knew and grew up around, burned down to the ground, if you can imagine. Total lawlessness,” he said.

The rioting finally ended after three days, with the arrival of units of the California Army National Guard, the U.S. Army, and the Marine Corps. Fifty three people died, more than 2,000 were injured, and property damage was estimated to be more than $1 billion.

A few years later, the LAPD was rocked by another scandal, this time in the elite, anti-gang, special operations unit attached to the Rampart Division.

“Cover-up after cover-up. Tainting of information. Files missing. People that were supposed to testify, all of a sudden they disappear,” said Rev. Moseley about what became known as the Rampart Scandal.

Hutchinson remembers the scandal cast another light on the force: “It’s not just brutality. Now you’ve got corruption. So you’ve got two things that are going side-by-side...and both are not making the department look very good.”

“You got people who should never have been hired to be police officers...Rampart was a black eye for not only the LAPD; it was for law enforcement in general and for the city of L.A,” said Thomas. “But you know, it brought about change.

In November, 2000, the city of Los Angeles voted in favor of a federal consent decree that placed the LAPD under direct supervision of the U.S. Department of Justice which would oversee reforms. The roles of the Police Commission and the Inspector General in reviewing and auditing the LAPD were also strengthened. The decree was lifted in 2013.

“Training! Training! Training!”

“After Rodney King, it was a challenge but we did a lot of hard work bridging that gap. A lot of hard work’s going into our communities and...our key word is being very ‘inclusive’ and being very transparent,” said Lt. Perry Griffith, a 30-year veteran LAPD officer who now heads the detective section at the Southwest station.

In recent years, the lifetime-term policy for LAPD chiefs has been replaced by a renewable five-year term, the once mostly white force took steps to make itself more reflective of the racial demographics of the city, there is more focus on using data and working with local communities, and with the introduction of body cameras, the department has also taken steps to make officers more accountable.

“Before, we weren’t listening to communities. We were saying ‘This is what’s happening in your community, so this is what we’re going to do. Now it’s more, ‘Tell us how we can help you and at the same time, we’re going to tell you how you can help us,” said Capt. Leland Sands, the commanding officer of the Southwest Division.

“It’s more of a balanced approach to make things better...This same model that you find here at this station, you’ll find at any other station within the LAPD.”

Yet a level of distrust still persists, Rev. Smith-Pollard said.

A survey conducted by the LAPD itself found that a large number of people of color do not see the force in favorable terms.

“I believe that there has been some improvement. There’s still a lot that has to be done,” said Moseley. “The barometer of trust has got to be moving upward to a place where people will have some level of confidence in the LAPD.”

Michael Woo, a former city council-member said that despite reform measures, there is still an issue with how a regular patrol officer on the street interacts with African Americans or Latinos.

Hutchinson’s advice to improve relations: “Training, training, training! You just can’t come in blazing with guns in every situation!”

Complaints of officer misconduct must be investigated and the results released in a timely way and not years down the line, he said. Hutchinson and Moseley also said that the district attorney should prosecute police officers more aggressively.

Since assuming office in 2012, Jackie Lacey, who is also Los Angeles County's first woman and black district attorney, has faced severe criticism for not prosecuting police officers for unwarranted on-duty shootings or uses of excessive force. According to a blog run by community and civil rights activists, more than 400 people across L.A. County have been killed by law enforcement since Lacey took office and only one has been charged so far.

Lacey, however, said that she did not press charges because the shootings were in accordance with department policy: “Prosecuting officers when they're doing their job just because in hindsight, you decide, ‘Well, maybe you didn't see what you thought you saw’ is unfair. I think it comes from...people not really willing to get into the weeds of what really happened.”

Hutchinson added that more work must be done to improve the economic conditions of the people.

“The economy from all indications is a little bit better, but you got to remember the types of jobs are still minimum wage jobs...It is still a struggle to make ends meet,” he said. “No matter how good the economy is, the African American unemployment and poverty rate is always much greater than it is among whites and others.”

Woo has a dire warning for the future: “In a city like Los Angeles as long as there’s a disparity between haves and have-nots, aggravated by not just economics but also by race relations, I wouldn’t count out the possibility that some day in the future, there may be another riot.”