Violent Police-Citizen Encounters: An Analysis of Major News

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Situational Characteristics

The circumstances leading up to the final violent assault between the police officer(s) and the civilian victims could be analyzed in 113 of the altercations. For these 113 cases, the preceding events can be grouped into nine main categories, listed here in order of greatest occurrence: lack of respect or compliance on the part of the victim; perceived threat; traffic dispute or stop (included malfunctioning equipment or allegations of erratic driving); mistaken identity (the civilian appeared to match a description of an armed and dangerous individual); riot or protest-related incident (citizen was perceived or actually involved in a riot or protest); drug-related arrest (six of the eight reported incidents involved the forcible entry into homes of civilians in a search for drugs that did not exist); police chase or attempted escape; accidental shooting; and questioning or confession. The basis for classification was the circumstance that seemed to contribute the most to the assault. For example, if a motorist was stopped by police officers and proceeded to act in a threatening manner towards the officers, the incident was classified as a perceived threat, not a traffic stop. Only a few of the cases required this type of judgement call. The number of cases falling within each of these categories are displayed in Table 2.


Table 2. Situational Characteristics

The largest proportion (29.2 percent) of the cases involving a violent police-citizen encounter stemmed from a lack of respect or compliance on the part of the citizen toward the police officer. This finding is consistent with previous findings (see, for example, Croft, 1985; Westley, 1970). The actual circumstances surrounding the inadequate display of deference toward the officer were varied: The victim may have refused to provide his or her identification to the questioning officer, the victim may not have followed orders from the officers as quickly or as well as the officers may have liked, the victim may have had a "bad attitude" or failed to give the officer the amount of deference they expected, or, in a few cases, the victim may not have been able to communicate with the officers due to a handicap or lack of fluency in the English language.

Twenty-nine cases (25.7 percent) were the result of a perceived threat -- either the officer felt that his (rarely her) own life or the life of another citizen was in jeopardy. Complaints of brutality that resulted from the circumstances included within this category may be rationalized by many individuals. The police officer(s) involved felt that he or she was in a life or death situation: a gun may have been pointed at the officer or another citizen, or there may have been an escalating physical struggle. According to the findings of this study, more of the victims of police brutality had been disrespectful to officers than had posed a serious physical threat to the officers or other citizens.

In police/minority situations the use of racial slurs can be important. The use of racial slurs or epithets by officers in reference to citizens was noted by the media source in 25 of the 130 cases, with most of the targets of this form of abuse being African Americans. Only two slurs against Latino citizens were reported. Racial slurs and epithets, derogatory statements directed toward a minority group member, have been reported to be common in a number of police departments. For example, the Christopher Commission, in its review of the Los Angeles Police Department, found numerous racist comments in computer transmissions between the cars of the patrol officers, including some from sergeants who were on street patrol. Further, citizens are not the only recipients of racist treatment by the police officers. Janine Bouey, a light skinned black female officer with the Los Angeles Police Department complained to the department about the use of racial slurs that were made against suspects while in her presence (Serrano and Soble, 1991). Gregory Thomas, also of the Los Angeles Police Department, complained to a supervisor on several occasions that a fellow officer continually referred to him as "boy" and made racist jokes on Martin Luther King Day (Hudson, 1991).

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Penalties

Of the 130 cases we analyzed, only 17 (13.1 percent) had a penalty reported against the officer involved. The actual penalties are listed in Table 3. A total of five officers lost their jobs, six were either reassigned to desk duty or suspended with pay, four were suspended from duty without pay for 10 to 60 days, and only two officers were charged with criminal offenses.

The percentage of these cases with officers being punished is a bit higher than the comparable percentages reported by several departments cited in the newspaper accounts. This may be because incidents reported in the newspapers probably of a more serious nature. For example, in Long Island, New York, out of 600 complaints of excessive force over a four year period (1987-1990), only nine of the complaints (1.5 percent) resulted in any punishment. In these cases the most severe penalties involved officers losing a few days pay or some accrued time. In 31 years, only one officer has been fired for the use of excessive force on Long Island (Tayler and Bessent, 1991). Similarly, the Chicago Tribune reported that in 1989-1990, there were 15,596 citizen complaints filed against the city of Chicago Police Department, with only 329 (2.1 percent) upheld. Many of these cases resulted in a suspension of less than 30 days. Additionally, the Justice Department reported that of 48,000 complaints against officers over the past six years, only 2 percent resulted in charges against the officer involved (Jackson, 1991). In complaints where black citizens are involved, there seems to be an even greater likelihood that the officers will not be punished. In a study of 4,400 complaints from 1987 through mid 1990, the Los Angeles Times reported that only 8.4 percent of the complaints were substantiated. The study indicated that black citizens who filed complaints against white officers had the worst chance of substantiation, with only 4 percent of these complaints found to be valid by Internal Affairs investigations. Black citizens in the city of Los Angeles comprise only 13 percent of the city population, but account for 41 percent of the official complaints against officers (Rohrlich and Merina,1991).

Several reasons have been proposed for the few penalties given to police officers because of malpractice: the lack of credible witnesses and victims; the tendency for jurors not to convict officers; and the need to maintain a working relationship between the District Attorney’s office and the police department. In a trial, the defense attorneys for the accused officers have access to school, work, medical, and arrest records of complainants and victims. However, personal information concerning the officers is not obtainable (Tayler, 1991). If the victim has a long criminal history, the jury may not find the testimony credible. Jurors are reluctant to convict officers who are charged in brutality cases. In one of the cases analyzed in this study two officers admitted on the stand that they had beaten a car theft suspect, and that something inside of them had "just snapped." The officers were found not guilty (Freed, 1991).


Table 3. Summary of Penalties

Before a complaint can ever be considered for prosecution, the complaint must first be filed with an agency. While some departments have outside agencies that also take complaints, in most cases the complaint must be filed directly with the police department the victim is complaining against. According to the Hartford Courant, when a complainant first enters the station to file a complaint against the Hartford Police Department, he or she is first told that they could be arrested for filing a false police report (Barger and Thibault, 1991). Further, in a sworn testimony given by Robert Sobel, a former Los Angeles County Sheriff Sergeant, Sobel stated that he had "shortstopped" citizen complaints against those under his command to protect them. Sobel called the complainants and gave them the impression that their complaint was being thoroughly investigated (Merina, 1991).

In his public testimony, Cawley gave an example of how the "Us vs. Them" mentality works in a real-life situation. He explained, in his experience, the treatment a civilian would receive at the precinct if he attempted to report an officer's brutality:

He [the Desk Officer] would give [the complainant] the paperwork to fill out. Then they'd ask him for a pen. He'd tell you listen there's a bodega across the street, go there and buy it. I'm not helping you. Then if they needed any help with [the complaint form], he wouldn't help them. Then if the person went through all the aggravation to fill out the complaint report ... they'd tell you, 'Listen, we have to get it typed now. There's a waiting line for the typing. It's going to be about three hours, so sit right there and wait.' Half the time people would say, 'Three hours, you got to be crazy', and they would leave. As soon as they left, he'd crumple it up and throw it right in the garbage. (Tr. 130)

-- The City of New York: Commission Report: Commission to Investigate Allegations of Police Corruption and the Anti-Corruption Procedures of the Police Department, by Milton Mollen

In a review of practices within the Oakland, California, police department, Skolnick and Bayley (1986) have discussed problems associated with departmental investigation of officers. James Chanin, an attorney who advises citizens on the filing of brutality complaints, says that he never advises clients to seek redress through Internal Affairs: "If someone comes in with black and blue marks and says this officer beat me, they will not seriously entertain the notion that the officer could have done it -- or even if they do, there’s no set of circumstances where they’ll find the complaint substantiated" (quoted in Skolnick and Bayley: 157).

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Discussion and Conclusions

Our data suggest that police brutality is a national problem. The major newspapers we examined from January 1, 1990 to May 31, 1992 reported 130 detailed and important cases in 15 different states. Significantly, the nation’s leaders do not seem to be willing to face these facts. The early 1990s report prepared by the Justice Department, the only nationwide review of police brutality, has not been released in any detail. While our data have some flaws, they are among the best available at this time.

The Kerner Commission report, which was prepared more than two decades ago, stated that to earn respect, police officers and the courts must administer justice in a way that is free from discrimination or prejudice. Unfortunately, the findings of our study suggest that street-level justice still is not administered in a color-blind fashion. Minority citizens accounted for the vast majority of those who were abused in a serious manner by (mostly white) police officers. These findings suggest that some serious racial discrimination exists in the application of U.S. law enforcement in the 1990s.

Our analysis uncovered several interesting findings. One was the possible existence of a "ladder of dominance" among the racial groups. In terms of who gets targeted, whites were found to be the least likely, then the Latinos, and finally the blacks. In addition, there is a similar pattern for the officers. In the few cases involving allegations against black officers, the citizens were all black. For the few cases of Latino officers, the complainants were either black or Latino, not white. Only in the case of white officers were the complainants from all three groups. This finding held true for both male and (the few) female officers. This pattern suggests that officers may only assault those whom they view as members of an equal or inferior racial group. However, before a definite conclusion can be drawn, more cases involving minority police officers would need to be analyzed. Our finding here is only suggestive.

Another interesting finding is the relative lack of penalties given to the officers involved in violent altercations with citizens. Even though the percentage of officers who were penalized in this analysis was somewhat higher than other reported statistics, in this analysis only 13 percent of the officers received some sort of penalty for their alleged involvement in assaults against citizens. Further, in only 3 percent of the cases was the officer ultimately relieved of duty. If harsher penalties were applied, perhaps the rate of police brutality against citizens would decline. We can also recall that the Los Angeles Times study found that black officers were twice as likely as their white peers to be found guilty of misconduct. If the complainant was white, the substantiation rate for black officers was twice that for white officers, while Latino officers were penalized three times more often. It would be interesting to see if this finding could be replicated on a national scale, perhaps controlling for offense of the officer and other important considerations.

Some might suggest that the higher violent crime rates of black Americans might be one reason for the higher rate of police violence against black Americans, especially black men. The idea is that violent criminals are more threatening and thus more likely to provoke police violence. Thus, according to 1992 Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics, black citizens accounted for 45 percent of the total number of arrests for violent offenses (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1993). Mutalia (1982) found that black citizens accounted for 60 percent of those who died in 1,428 justifiable shootings by police officers from 1975 to 1979. According to Mutalia, the disproportionate rate of black victims who were fatally shot by the police was in direct proportion to the level of crime committed by black citizens. However, the data suggest that this proportion is much higher than the arrest-for-violent-crime rate.

Our data suggest some serious problems with this argument. The proportion of black citizens who are victims of police brutality is higher (86.9 percent) than the rate reported for their involvement in violent criminal activity that resulted in arrest (45 percent). Furthermore, as the examination of situational characteristics demonstrates, African American citizens do not have to be involved in the commission of a crime to be victimized: having a disrespectful attitude towards the officer, being involved in a routine traffic stop, or just resembling a violent criminal could very well make an otherwise law-abiding citizen become a target for abuse. In nearly 75 percent of the cases, the victim was not recognized by the officer at the scene as being a direct threat to the officer or other citizens.

In our data more minority citizens were assaulted for lack of compliance/respect to an officer than for posing a serious threat to the officer or another civilian. It is significant that all the victims of abuse in these circumstances of "disrespect" were black or Latino. According to the earlier Kerner Commission report (1968), a criminal justice system cannot function effectively unless it receives the respect of the people it serves. However, by the same token, the criminal justice system must prove itself deserving of respect before the people will defer to it or its agents. Acts of brutality do not instill respect, only resentment and fear.

In the categories in which the officers’ behavior was more proactive in nature, the social class of the victim seemed to have some relation with the assault. Pro-active cases included the traffic stop and mistaken identity categories. In these incidents, the officer stopped the victim on his or her own accord; the civilian did not come to the officer’s attention as a result of answering an assigned call. In the mistaken identity incidents, the officer stopped the citizen because he or she resembled a bank robber, mugger, or drug dealer that was reportedly loose in the neighborhood. According to the descriptions given in the media, the victims whose assault stemmed from a case of mistaken identity were of middle or upper class status. Further, half of those assaulted as a result of an incident related to traffic were of middle or upper class: college students, a former Los Angeles Lakers star, a former police liaison officer, and a successful entrepreneur. In situation where the civilians were indeed of middle or upper status and victims of pro-active enforcement by police officers, the victims were all black. These data suggest that these African Americans may have come to the attention of the police because of their "violation" of the white image of their racial group, that is, they were not lower-class blacks. The middle and upper class status of these black individuals may have indicated to the officers that the victims possessed wealth and resources that rightfully belonged to whites like themselves.

James Q. Wilson (1968) has argued that the class of the victim is more important than race as a determinant of police mistreatment. In his view race only accentuates the brutality. However, our data seem to contradict this argument. If Wilson were correct, more lower-class whites should be the victims of police brutality, and reports of police abuse against higher- class blacks should not be so common.

Finally, in our view the cost to the taxpayer of the misconduct of police officers needs to be addressed at the level of public policy. In reviewing cases for this analysis, we found that since 1989 taxpayers have paid out at least $134 million in awards to citizens alleging police brutality, with another $116 million in lawsuit awards pending. These costs did not include legal fees, which in many cases can be substantial. In the County of Los Angeles alone, $20 million had been paid to citizens alleging police brutality since 1989; this figure does not include $34 million in litigations fees in the same time period. Since only 22 different cities were found to report costs associated with lawsuits alleging police misconduct, the actual nationwide figure is certainly much higher. The costs of police brutality are not simply the scars on the minority victims, which are the most serious, but also the high costs for local governments in the United States.

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Notes:

1. The number of incidents reported by state were: Alabama (1), California (35), Connecticut (3), Florida (1), Georgia (1), Illinois (7), Louisiana (1), Maryland (2), Massachusetts (7), New Jersey (1), New York (52), Tennessee (1), Texas (4), Virginia (2), Washington (6), Washington, D.C. (4).

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