Footnotes
The Centers
1. On police malpractice in Los Angeles, see Ed Cray, The Big Blue Line (New York, 1966), passim; Day of Protest, Night of Violence (Los Angeles, 1967); "Police Malpractice and the Watts Riot, A Report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California," (process, 1965). In fact the perceived brutality is far more than documented cases would suggest. The former executive director of the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations, John Buggs, told the California Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, "I don't believe there's any question at all but what the vast majority of the Negro population of this county believes that there is unequal administration of justice. I don't believe -- and this is a very broad statement and I realize it -- that I could find a thousand Negroes out of the 461,000 who would think otherwise." Buggs is quoted in the advisory committee's "Report on California: Police-Minority Group Relations" (Washington, 1963), p. 8. Buggs' claim is supported in part by Nathan E. Cohen, "Los Angeles Riot Study, Summary and Implications for Policy" (Institute of Government and Public Affairs, UCLA, process, 1967), pp. 11-12, expanding upon Walter J. Raine, "Los Angeles Riot Study, The Perception of Police Brutality in South Central Los Angeles" (Institute of Government and Public Affairs, UCLA, copyright 1967), passim; and by "A Report of Attitudes of Negroes in Various Cities," prepared by John F. Kraft, Inc., for the United States Senate Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization (mimeographed, 1967), pp. 23-26.
2. On the "brother officer" concept, see pp. iii-iv of the Los Angeles Police Department's Board of Rights Manual (1953) written by the late Chief of Police William H. Parker: "A strong fraternal feeling has always existed among policemen particularly within any given department. Many policemen will jeopardize their own positions to protect a brother officer. One of the principal reasons for policemen believing that they must 'stick together at any cost' is the prevalent opinion that the public is generally opposed to them personally. The protective belief is shared by many supervisors as well as the rank and file policemen." See also William A. Westley, "Violence and the Police," American Journal of Sociology, XLIX (1953), pp. 34- 41; James Q. Wilson, "Police Morale, Reform, and Citizen Respect: The Chicago Case," in David J. Bordua, ed., The Police: Six Sociological Essays (New York, 1967), pp. 138-39; and John H. McNamara, "Uncertainties in Police Work," ibid., p. 246.
3. Task Force Report: The Police (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967), p. 197.
4. Ibid.
5. See "A National Survey of Police and Community Relations, A Report of a Research Study Submitted to the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice" (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967), p. 225. In a letter to the ACLU of Southern California on October 18, 1967, then-President of the Board of Police Commissioners Frank G. Hathaway offered this explanation of the apparent discrepancy: "The Chart published in 'A National Survey of Police and Community Relations' does not indicate, nor does the Department allow that all dispositions be made 'public.' Persons or organizations other than the press, City officials, Department employees, and parties to complaints are not notified of dispositions. ¶ The Department did not consent to the publication of the subject chart nor were we notified of the intent to publish. Verbal and written explanations which accompanied the chart were not published; consequently, it is not complete in every detail. ¶ With the qualifications above, the chart appears to be accurate."
6. Task Force Report: The Police, op. cit., fn. 516.
7. On police secrecy as an integral part of departmental administration, see Arthur Niederhofer, Behind the Shield (New York, 1967), pp. 5,118,172,185; William A. Westley, "Secrecy and the Police," Social Forces, XXXIV (1956), pp. 254-257; Ed Cray, The Big Blue Line (New York, 1967), pp. 202-03; Jerome Skolnick, Justice Without Trial (New York, 1966), p. 14. As a function specifically in the handling of complaints in San Diego, see "The Police and the Community, Volume I, A Report of a Research Study Submitted to the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice," (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966), pp. 70, 172-75; in Philadelphia, ibid., Vol. II, pp. 199, 204; in Washington, D.C., in Report of the President's Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966) pp. 222-23; and in New York City, Paul Chevigny, Police Power (New York, 1969), p. 82.
8. In none of the 106 complaints filed by the three police practices centers has the Board of Police Commissioners of Los Angeles exercised its legal authority to hold a public hearing on a civilian's complaint. In an unpublished paper on file in the Harvard College Law Library, Peter G. Barton finds the hearing process, "if one exists at all," an "area of dissatisfaction." See "Civilian Police Review Boards, Ombudsmen, and Things Like That," unpublished typescript "submitted to Professor Vorenberg in the Seminar on Issues in Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice ... April, 1968," p. 26. Barton relies heavily upon Beral and Sisk, "The Administration of Complaints by Civilians against the Police," Harvard Law Review, LXXVII (1964), pp. 449 ff.
9. See Jerome Skolnick, Justice Without Trial (New York, 1966), p. 234, describing the Oakland, California, system where "[i]nternal controls over policemen reinforce the importance of administrative and craft values over civil libertarian values." An untitled press release of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission (Detroit, April 27, 1965), notes, "The reason given by the [Detroit] Police Department [for sustaining three civilian complaints] was that the officers had violated the police manual, rather than finding as the commission investigation showed that there was sufficient cause to believe that the civil rights of these individuals had been violated because of their race ... "
10. This is the full text of a letter from Elbert T. Hudson, president of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, to Mrs. Mary B. Pacheco, January 11, 1967. See also Chevigny, op. cit., p. 81.
11. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, reprint edition (New York: Bantam Books, 1967), p. 310.
12. Violence in the City -- An End or a Beginning? (Los Angeles: Jeffries Banknote Co., 1965), p. 31.
13. These and subsequent figures are drawn from the "Annual Report, Internal Affairs Division, Los Angeles Police Department" (process, 1965, 1966, 1967), at p. 14. Even police officers question the low number of findings for complainants. According to Deputy Chief Klug of Cincinnati, "The thing that bothers me is that police continue to receive huge numbers of complaints but there are only a few instances where the complainant is upheld. They can't be wrong that much -- and we can't be right that much." See Task Force Report, op. cit., p. 196, quoting The Washington Post, June 26, 1966.
14. The departmental memorandum to "All Commanders" from "Internal Affairs Division" regarding "personnel Complaint Investigations, November, 1968," one of the latest of these monthly reports available through private channels to the ACLU of Southern California, lists departmental reprimands issued to two officers who discharged service revolvers at a suspect in violation of departmental shooting policies. At the same time, an officer who was found sleeping while on jail duty was suspended for four days, and another who "during a five-month period cohabitated with a divorced woman in the residence in which her two minor children also resided" was suspended for 22 days.
15. Police are quick to state that community cooperation is the most important single factor in criminal investigation and crime prevention. See, for example, "Guide to Community Relations for Peace Officers" (State of California, Department of Justice, 1958), p. 20.
The Victims
1. See Lucero v. Donovan, 354 Fed Rep 2d 16 (1965), and the article by counsel in that case, Hillel Chodos, "Pleading Problems in Police Malpractice Cases," Law in Transition Quarterly, II (1965), pp. 158-178.
2. In the thirteen month period beginning January 1, 1968, and ending January 31, 1969, 60 Los Angeles police officers were punished for the use of excessive force, the use of "improper tactics" in handling prisoners (not otherwise defined), violations of departmental regulations on the discharge of firearms at fleeing suspects, and false arrest. They were penalized with punishments ranging from reprimands to removal from the force, according to the monthly memorandum to "All Commanders" from the LAPD's Internal Affairs Division regarding "Personnel Complaint Investigations." Records in the clerks' offices of the Municipal and Superior Courts indicate that only one of these men, a police sergeant, was subsequently prosecuted. (He had been off-duty at the time he became involved in a physical altercation with a male friend of his estranged wife, was charged with felonious assault, then pled "no contest" to misdemeanor assault. He was given a suspended ten-day sentence and six months probation by the court. The department handed him a 3D-day suspension.) There is no record of any on-duty offender being prosecuted, despite departmental findings of the use of excessive force (assault), "improper tactics" (assault or battery), or "shooting policy violations" (assault with a deadly weapon). Three officers were named twice in departmental records of punishment during this period. Among those not prosecuted were an officer removed from the department for the use of excessive force; three who fired their weapons or used them in a threatening manner while off duty and were thereupon removed from the force; two officers who assaulted two handcuffed prisoners and were suspended for 30 and 60 days; another who "cocked ... pointed revolver at juvenile in custody," suspended for 90 days; another who committed perjury in court, and permitted to resign from the department; and an officer who used "unnecessary force" on an arrestee and was suspended for 15 days.
The Complaints
1. For national crime statistics, see the summaries in The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1967), p. 44; and Uniform Crime Reports for the United States, 1967 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1968), p. 32. California's far more thorough and accurate statistics are reported annually in Crime & Delinquency in California (formerly Crime in California), published annually by the Bureau of Criminal Statistics, Department of Justice, Sacramento.
2. Statistics of police strength are from Crime and Delinquency in California, 1966, ibid., p. 301; and "Los Angeles Police Department 1966 Annual Report," (Los Angeles: LAPD, 1967), p. 7. About 20 percent of LAPD strength is in the Detective Bureau, the other large division with frequent community contact and primary criminal law enforcement duties.
3. Field interrogations have been severely questioned as an abrasive factor in police-community relations, and as a law enforcement tool. See "The Police and the Community: The Dynamics of Their Relationship in a Changing Society," A Report Prepared for the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice by Joseph D. Lohman and Gordon E. Misner (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1966), passim. Sharply criticized by this report for the practice of random field interrogations, San Diego Chief of Police Wesley S. Sharp issued orders to restrict their use. See Ken Reich, "Report on Attitude of San Diego Police Creates Sharp Stir," Los Angeles Times, July 30, 1967, Pt. II, p. 1.
4. In the only other study of a body of police malpractice cases, Paul Chevigny, Police Power (New York: Pantheon, 1968), p. 73, notes "... [M]any incidents of the use of force by policemen bear an unfortunate resemblance to assaults by private citizens; they are hotheaded reactions to a real or imagined insult ... This is shown, if in no other way, by the fact that so many police abuses take place in front of a crowd of witnesses, and no real attempt is made to conceal the act until criminal charges are filed after it is over."
5. The police officer's security, at least in the case of the Los Angeles department, may be a result of the officer's anonymity. Badge numbers are hard to read, especially at night; moreover, contrary to public belief, badges are not permanently assigned to individual officers. Police in Los Angeles have been testing the use of nametags similar to those worn by sheriff's deputies, and in March, 1969, adopted them for all officers.
6. "A significant pattern which emerged was that in the 13 cases [of 22 in which the commission took sworn testimony] where the only charges seemed to be resisting arrest - the original reason for the arrest, if any, seemed not to appear when the person was booked," according to an unpublished "Report to John A. Love, Governor of Colorado, from the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Commission on "Discussion, Conclusions, and Recommendations Resulting from Hearings on Excessive Use of Force by Denver Police," (Denver, Colorado, 1964), p. 3. See also Cray, The Big Blue Line (New York: Coward-McCann, 1967), pp. 124-25.
7. In 1966, police in Los Angeles County released 31 percent of all those arrested for felonies. District attorneys refused to file on another 10 percent, and 4 percent were ultimately acquitted. See Crime and Delinquency in California, 1966, p. 32. Misdemeanor dispositions are not recorded, though these are the bulk of the charges the centers' clients face.
8. See Crime and Delinquency in California, p. 86, noting that in 1966 the Los Angeles district attorney's office secured convictions in 81.6 percent of the felony cases it handled.
9. In a one-month survey of Superior Court dispositions in Long Beach, California, the Los Angeles County public defender stated "that the Public Defender's Office pleaded 52 percent of its clients guilty at some stage in the proceedings in the Superior Court (as opposed to pleas by private counsel in 42 percent of their cases), however, 83 percent of the Public Defender's pleas were to a lessor charge than the original filing (as opposed to 73 .percent by private counsel)." Letter from Richard S. Buckley, Public Defender, to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, May 23, 1968, p. 7.
10. Victims of police malpractice have a difficult time securing attorneys willing to take on civil suits against law enforcement officers. See Cray, The Big Blue Line, pp. 211-12, for an explanation.
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by Ed Cray
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