Here's material on Bratton's record in Boston, NY
and here in LA -- this was developed by Michael
Zinzun and myself in 2002; followed by stories about Bratton in Boston.
Ends with a critique of a defense of Bratton by
Marc Cooper (I note that the LA Times just ran
brief op eds by Cooper crony Joe Domanick, as
well as by Ramona Ripston of the ACLU and Connie
Rice of the NAACP LDEF, calling for 5 more years
for Bratton. Hopefully some of them are eating
their words (hopefully penned before May 1) --
but with LA's 'liberal' opinion makers, who knows?--MN
PEACE IN THE HOOD -- WHO CAN DELIVER?
YOUTH, YOUNG ADULTS, OG's: PEACEMAKERS SPEAK OUT!
In December 1991, over a decade ago, another
serious effort was made among the many gangs in
Watts and South Los Angeles to devise a truce and
peace movement in the 'hood. On April 28, 1992,
a truce was achieved and cosigned by a number of OG leaders and their homies.
Many of these youth and young adults saw that the
keys to open the door to any meaningful change in
society must be rooted in a social movement. That
movement, in order to grow and flourish, must
keep faith with the hopes and aspirations of
those who are attached to it, with the peace
effort it represents, its programs, goals, and
objectives for justice and social well being. In
1992, the aim of the young people involved in the
truce was to help create jobs, and to end
violence by Black people against Black people and
constant police abuse, both of which seemed to be
a part of their everyday lives. They called for
rumor-control hot lines to counteract
misinformation, and demanded an end to the mass
criminalization of Black youth. Despite efforts
by the police to disrupt the truce, it took root,
and spread to every major city in the country.
Long before anybody else was even talking about
globalization, truce activists and peace-makers
reached out to their counterparts in street gangs
in Brazil, London, France and elsewhere. As the
truce developed, it was transformed into a peace
movement by peace activists from many sets.
It's time to include the next generation of
youth, young adults and gang leaders into this
movement for justice and peace in the 'hood. Any
brush fires or personal conflicts between
individuals from different sets can be resolved.
If peace is going to be restored in LA, we are
going to have to rely on young people like those
who put the peace movement together in the first
place. The city didn't do it; the police couldn't
do it, or stop it! Future success lies in the
many years of effort by peacemakers in the 'hood.
But to make it happen, we need to divert money
and jobs from the war machine and the
prison-industrial complex to the real heroes, our youth.
WHY BRATTON? WHY L.A.? WHY NOW?
Unfortunately, the city has a different plan.
LA's new police Chief Bill Bratton is beating the
drums about an upsurge in killings in LA, but
it's not the increase in shootings by police he's
talking about; it's so-called "gang violence."
Yet LA is silencing or firing the peacemakers - -
activists with street credibility who are trying
to re-establish the truce that once dramatically
cut killings among Blacks and Latinos/Chicanos.
Instead, Bratton wants a "war on gangs" as part
of Bush's "war on terror." Mayor Hahn calls
street crime a threat to the city's economic
recovery. Bratton calls it a national security
threat. They want federal forces to come to LA to
help wage 'war on gangs.' They've opened a window
of opportunity for LAPD to use deadly force,
increase racial profiling and arbitrary stops and
arrests of Blacks and Latinos of all ages.
Bratton says he wants people in L.A. to get
angry. At whom? He's targeting poor Black and
Latino youth. He lets off the hook the rich,
powerful politicians and big businessmen who
destroy health care, bleed the schools, cut jobs
and force people into prison to work for nothing,
and who allow criminal elements like those in
Enron or Arthur Anderson to go free after
stealing billions. Bratton said, at his first
press conference in October: "Where you have
guns, you have drugs. Where you have drugs, you
have youth. Where you have youth, you have gangs.
Why treat them like four different diseases?"
He's fueling the hopelessness that burns as
self-destructive violence! What's his "treatment?" Bratton has:
· Proposed increasing the LAPD by more than 30%
from 9,000 to over 12,000 sworn officers.
· Planned to rebuild Parker Center, which would
mean taking even more money from health care,
after-school programs and other services.
· called for reinstating the old CRASH units
under a new name. But it will be with the same
foot soldiers and culture that led to the
CRASH/Rampart scandal and the hidden atrocities
of 77th, Hollenbeck, and Southeast.
· Swept the growing ranks of the homeless on Skid
Row. He identifies panhandlers and graffiti as
high priority targets for aggressive police action.
· Gone to Israel and consulted with "counter-terror" experts.
· Appointed a cop from the political espionage
"Anti-Terrorist Division" to be his "gang czar.
· Manipulated statistics to produce a sense of
fear and hysteria to build support for his get-tough policies.
In January 1995, as NY City police commissioner,
Bratton admitted to a group of business
executives in Boston that, while crime is
declining, fear of crime is up. "Fear far
surpasses the reality of crime," he said,
according to the Boston Globe. Crime statistics
are manipulated in the interests of the profit
motive -- high crime rates mean high expenditures
on police, on public and private prison
construction and staffing. California prisons
swelled even with low and falling crime rates
through the use of "Three Strikes," mandatory
minimums and denial of parole. Despite the fear
Bratton is trying to create, when you compare
November and early December 2002 to the same
period a year ago, it actually shows a very
similar pattern and number of shootings and
killings. They're related less to gangs, and more
to despair at economic and social conditions
getting worse every day. The holiday season
increases self-destructive, criminal activity
because society rubs people's faces in their
inability to buy the goodies and material
possessions that are supposed to measure human
worth. A further year of war and economic
devastation thanks to George Bush more than
accounts for any minor differences.
Peace activists trying to win young people to a
program of positive social development find they
can't compete with unemployment. In LA, it's
still easier to get drugs and guns than a job.
Another generation is having its dreams blighted
by the cold steel of prison bars. As Twilight
Bey, a peacemaker and community activist says of
Bush and Bratton, "They're camouflaging the
problem of poverty by calling it crime." Crime is
actually committed by all sectors of society,
including police, yet law enforcement targets the
poor. Bratton and Bush have no answers for
growing poverty, and no interest in uprooting the
real causes of crime and violence. That's why
they have singled out Black youth! Gov. Davis has
stated that even though California is billions in
the red, we should still come up with $220
million for a "state of the art death row" at San
Quentin. Racially stigmatized in the media,
racially profiled by the police, Black and Latino
young men are an easy target. Gang members have
turned alienation into a badge of honor and of
belonging to their set. They seek to obtain the
necessities of survival and the markers of
success by any means necessary, and become
scapegoats for the very social and economic
problems that plague them and the rest of
society. These real problems, government
officials can't deal with, because they continue
to be part of the problem themselves!
Repressive new laws and procedures are not only
racist, but are needed by the super-rich, who get
their wealth and power from the people they hold
down and rip off. White supremacy requires the
kind of crackdown and fear-mongering that Bratton
is a proven expert at, in order to keep people
down. These police-state measures violate
everyone's civil and human rights, not just gang
members or immigrants. Lackluster city officials
want youth of color to choose between going to
prison or being swept up into the military.
Don't buy their lies. We have to regain our own
political initiative, to liberate ourselves
through our own efforts. It was the urban peace
movement that drastically cut killings among
young Blacks and Latinos/Chicanos. It was the LA
uprising in 1992 that helped to galvanize the
initial gang truce and cut back on the scourge of
liquor stores in the Black and Latino
communities. Today, we need to develop a campaign
that targets the real culprits and criminals;
that puts responsibility on the greedy, not the
needy. That movement is growing up again. A
recent example, according to brother Stutterbox,
is the unity football games and after-parties
between the five-deuce Pueblo Bishop Bloods,
Broadway five-deuce Gangster Crips and the
five-trey Avalon Gangster Crips. The desire for
peace on all fronts is strong. At the January 11
"Stop the War Against Iraq" rally in Los Angeles,
a prominent image of the struggle was the
appearance of Bloodhound, a truce activist in his
red colors, holding signs saying "Bloods Against Bloodshed" and "No to War."
But these efforts need wider support. Bobby
Brougham from the organization Exodus, who lost
his own son to street violence, recently resigned
from a city-funded gang intervention program
rather than be silenced or forced to support the
political line being promoted by both the city
and police. He says, "The system expects us to
step through a door that was never meant for us.
We have to create our own opening."
We have to find our own solution to the peril we
are in. Many families in our community are all
too familiar with the pain and suffering of
losing a loved one, whether through crime, the
drug culture, drive-by shootings of innocent
bystanders by uncaring, fearful individuals
living in our communities, or by a police bullet.
The community is looking to the truce activists.
As Bobby Brougham says, "We have not abandoned
you all. We are not scared, just tired. Many of
us have grown up to accept this life-style -- that was wrong on our part."
We cannot change society without also changing
ourselves. The correct direction to move now is
to set up urban black unity, empowerment, and
accountability councils, with principles of
cooperation that have proven successful, such as:
1) Mutual respect for all participants; 2)
Principled and peaceful struggle of all issues,
from full and frank discussion, before decisions
are made; 3) Collective work and responsibility
in all activities. There, all the sets can come to the table,
be a part of the decision making process, and
join in the process of reconciliation and
reintegration into the community and family.
We need a program of community self-defense and
self-determination, not more police. We need to
demand an independent investigation of the recent
barrage of police killings and shootings. We need
to revive the call for community control of the
police, a special prosecutor and elected civilian
review board. And this must be linked to a
program to take the money that's now wasted on
the police, the prisons and the military and use
it to provide decent housing and health care,
quality training and jobs, and meaningful
education for all poor and working people.
Crime is crime; it's anti-social no matter who
perpetrates it. We must hold ourselves to a
higher standard than the media that glorify
criminality and violence in films like "Gangs of
New York" or self-hating, woman-hating music.
Young people have a sense of invulnerability that
can lead to arrogance. We need to temper energy
with wisdom; youth don't have to solve all their
problems alone. Together, we can create a new
ethic to put the community's best interests above
selfish, uncaring individuals, whether in the
White House, the LAPD's "Glass House," the
corporate boardrooms or other criminal
enterprises. "True peace is not the absence of
conflict, but the presence of justice."
No Set Trippin'! Build a United Front that all
Sets will support! Increase the Peace!
Contact Information: Michael Zinzun,
323-733-2107, LA Area Urban Council for Peace &
Justice, 2824 S. Western, Los Angeles CA 90018-3032
We urge youth, young adults, families, prisoners
and OG-peacemakers who want to build peace and
justice in their 'hoods, to make use of and sign
on to this call, by faxing your endorsement to
323-733-2750 or e-mailing it to <travong@pacbell.net>
'GLOWING' BACKGROUND CHECK IGNORED TESTIMONY
Author(s): Thomas Palmer, Globe Staff Date: May
17, 1986 Page: 17 Section: METRO
A background check on William J. Bratton,
designated to become chief of the Metropolitan
Police, has been completed and yielded "nothing
but glowing reports from all concerned,"
according to MDC Commissioner William J. Geary.
But the routine background investigation,
conducted by the State Office of Investigations,
did not include an examination of Bratton's
testimony before a Suffolk County grand jury in a
criminal case in which Bratton has been subpoenaed as a witness.
Bratton has indicated he will not appear
voluntarily in the case, citing plans to be away
after he is married on May 24. The attorney for
the defense in the case said this week he would
ask the judge to compel Bratton to testify. The
case, scheduled for trial on May 27, involves
William J. Sweeney, 38, of Hanson, a former
Boston police officer who is accused of illegally
receiving pay for an outside job for three years
while he was on full-salaried injury leave from the department.
Bratton, formerly a superintendent in the Boston
Police Department, was questioned before a grand
jury late last year concerning a telephone
recommendation he allegedly gave -- and a written
one he allegedly arranged -- for Sweeney, who was
applying to Whitman-Hanson Community Regional School District.
Sweeney, who spent 15 years as a Boston policeman
before being injured in a scuffle at Columbia
Point while on duty, was hired and is now
safety-security coordinator at the high school.
Bratton is scheduled to be sworn in for the MDC
job on July 1. Sweeney's attorney, Robert L.
Jubinville Jr. of Milton, said Bratton told him
he would be honeymooning in Hawaii.
Bratton was subpoenaed late last month.
Jubinville said he told Bratton "that I would
have to go to court and get an order or attempt
to get an order to have him there . . .. He said,
'Do what you have to do,' which I have to take to mean, 'Forget it.' "
Asked by the Globe this week whether he would
testify in the case, Bratton said, "I don't know.
I don't know if it would be as much use."
Jubinville seeks Bratton's testimony because he
believes it will show Sweeney had official,
high-level approval from the department to apply for the school security post.
However, Bratton's testimony about the
circumstances surrounding his apparent
recommendation of Sweeney is much less precise
than is the testimony of others who were involved.
Paul F. Evans, Boston Police deputy
superintendent, testified before the grand jury
that Bratton in January 1982 had asked him to
write a recommendation for Sweeney and that he
had done so. The letter, on his personal
stationery, recommended Sweeney "wholeheartedly and without reservation."
And Luis Perullo, Whitman-Hanson schools
superintendent, testified Bratton recommended Sweeney in a telephone call.
Bratton did not recall either action specifically. He was asked:
Q. Do you recall ever having given a recommendation in that regard, sir?
A. I do not.
And later:
Q. Sir, do you have any memory of asking
then-Deputy Superintendent Paul Evans of the
Boston Police Department to write a letter of
recommendation for William Sweeney?
A. No, I do not recall that.
The most perplexing answer in the inquiry -- at
least to Sweeney -- came early in the session.
Q. And would you tell us how you came to know Mr. Sweeney, sir?
A. I first met Mr. Sweeney, he was a member of
the same recruit class back in October of 1970.
In fact, Sweeney and Bratton had been classmates
at Boston Technical High School, graduating
together in 1965, and at Grover Cleveland Junior
High School, graduating in 1962. According to
Sweeney, they were both on the safety patrol.
Asked this week about his under-oath testimony,
Bratton said: "I went to school with him in the
sense that he was one of 100 others." To say he
knew Sweeney there "would be really stretching it," Bratton said.
"I'm not even aware I went to Grover Cleveland
High School with him," he added. "My first
recollection of Bill Sweeney is 1970 as one of
157 officers coming into the Boston Police
Department. I couldn't tell you two people I went
to school with at Grover Cleveland."
Grover Cleveland had a 1962 graduating class of
304; there were 322 in the class of 1965 at Boston Technical High School.
Geary acknowledged this week that Bratton's
testimony "was not something that arose in the
course of that background check."
Asked why it was not reviewed, Geary's spokesman,
Stephen P. Burgay, said, "My guess is because
there's no allegation that there's anything wrong
here. . . . There was no red flag to be seen by the state investigators."
Geary said a thorough investigation was made of
Bratton's background, including calls Geary made
personally to law-enforcement officials.
"Then," he added, "we began to cope with the
dime-droppers, the merchants of venom."
Geary was referring to renewed complaints, mostly
or all anonymous, about rumors concerning
Bratton's friendships with Jason Kravitz, owner
of Jason's Restaurant & Nightclub, and Charles F.
Sarkis, owner of Wonderland Race Track and several restaurants.
Any close relationship with them could have been
considered troublesome because of Kravitz'
acquaintanceship with Jason Angiulo, who is on
trial in federal district court in Boston on
racketeering charges, and because of Sarkis'
father's convictions on gaming and tax-evasion charges.
Any problem in the Bratton appointment would come
at a particularly bad time for the administration
of Gov. Dukakis. Present and former MDC police
officers have been recently convicted or
implicated in a number of crimes and
investigations, including the 1980 Medford
Depositors Trust bank burglary and the pending
civil-service examinations scandal.
"I chased down all the rumors . . .," Geary said
of Bratton. "I don't know that the fact that he
goes into those restaurants incriminates him,"
Geary said. ". . . I didn't see anything unseemly about those relationships."
Bratton acknowledged both relationships and said
neither was close. "I see no embarrassment
whatsoever," he said, "and I'll state that
categorically. I see nothing at all of an
embarrassing nature or potential embarrassment.
It's not new news. It's all been previously
reported in the Globe, in all three instances."
One Bratton matter that has never been written
about concerns the Easter Sunday 1982 murder of
an assistant manager at Jason's, which the
then-Boston Police superintendent was reported to have helped investigate.
"My involvement in that was strictly as a
referral to the homicide unit," Bratton said. "I
had a call from Jason Kravitz that he had
information about it. I in turn gave that
information to the homicide unit." He said he
interviewed no witnesses in the case.
SLAYINGS OF YOUNG CLIMB IN BOSTON
Published on August 13, 1993. Author(s): John Ellement, Globe Staff
Boston has lost 61 victims to homicide so far
this year, a 60 percent rise from the same period
last year, as a new baby boom of teen-agers
accustomed to bloodshed on television, at home
and on the streets settles its disputes
violently. In a city where many teen-agers now
routinely carry guns and some use them to resolve
minor disputes, the percentage of homicide
victims 17 and under has shot up alarmingly, from
just 9 percent of victims four years ago to
almost a quarter of all victims this year.
'
26 BOSTON OFFICERS EARNED $100,000-PLUS IN 1993
NUMBER IS MORE THAN 6 TIMES THAT FOR PREVIOUS YEAR; AREA COMMANDER TOPS LIST
SIDEBAR: BOSTON POLICE PAY
Published on March 9, 1994. Author(s): Indira
A.R. Lakshmanan, Globe Staff and David Armstrong, Contributing Reporter
Twenty-six Boston police officers earned more
than $100,000 last year, more than six times the
number who drew that much the year before,
according to Police Department records released
yesterday. In 1992 and 1991, only four officers
earned more than $100,000 each year, department
records show. In 1990, 12 officers earned more
than $100,000, and 13 did in 1989.
The department's top earner, Capt. Charles
Cellucci, the commander of Area D-4, which
includes the South End, the Back Bay,
BRATTON, IN BOSTON, SAYS CRIME IS DOWN BUT FEAR IS ON THE RISE
Published on January 25, 1995. Author(s): Zachary R. Dowdy, Globe Staff
William J. Bratton, the former Boston police
commissioner who left to take the job of New York
police commissioner in January 1994, told a group
of business executives in Boston yesterday that,
while crime in major cities is declining, fear of
crime is still on the increase. ''Fear far
surpasses the reality of crime,'' said Bratton,
who noted a 12 percent dip in overall crime last
year in New York, including a lower homicide rate.
Dissonance
Bill, We Hardly Know You
Cut Chief Bratton some slack for a good start
by Marc Cooper
[photo] Bratton
LA Weekly Nov. 14-21
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/52/dissonance-cooper.php
[Note from MN: What follows is Cooper's LA Weekly pontifications on why <
people are unnecessarily upset about LA's new police chief, interpolated <
with my comments citing chapter and verse about why Cooper is a horse's <
ass. With "alternative" "journalism" -- each word in separate quotes <
-- like this, who needs mainstream journalism?--MN]<
CALM DOWN, EVERYONE. CALM DOWN. THE LAPD'S new chief, Bill Bratton, has
barely been in office two weeks and already a chorus of Cassandras out
there prophesy that instead of promised police reform, Bratton's about to
unleash a wave of blind repression. These early critics suggest we are only
days, maybe only minutes, away from the dark ages of Daryl Gates: Operation
Hammer crackdowns on the hood, thousands of black and Latino kinds [sic, I
hope, unless Cooper is simply betraying his
racism about the "others."--MN]
being jacked up and proned out by out-of-control cops from rogue special
units.
[Note from MN: Cooper managed to pen this crap to appear on the Thursday
night before the LAPD went on a shooting spree, with 5 officer-involved
shootings in two days, 4 fatalities. Talk about prophesying!--MN]
Bratton has to take some responsibility for these hellish predictions.
Since winning his post from Mayor Hahn, most of the new chief's public
pronouncements have been repeated vows to lower the crime rate by <
relentlessly stamping out "quality of
life" transgressions, including a
promised war against graffiti. Hence the fears that police reform will
languish while legions of kids with paint on their fingers are dumped into
our already overcrowded jails.
[Note from MN: Pity the foolish Cassandras, taking Bratton at his word,
based only on the evidence of his performance in Boston and New York, and
his decision to scrap the LAPD's computer system, replacing it with the
system he installed in NY to make sure every cop and commander was cracking
down hard enough on fare-beaters and taggers.--MN]
I have a one-word response to these nightmarish predictions. Please.
Do you really think the mayor and the new chief are that stupid? That they
have learned nothing from the last two decades of the LAPD's sordid
history? That neither man realizes the urgent need for reform and that
neither knows this is the most propitious moment in recent history to carry
it out? Have we become so demoralized that we can longer even imagine
reform taking place? Can we no longer distinguish between expedient
political rhetoric and actual policy?
[Note from MN: I have a one-word response to this fatuous aggrandizing of
the mayor and chief and attribution of demoralization to those who still
retain their moral compass. Bullshit! Have we learned nothing from every
police chief and mayor for the past 50+ years in Los Angeles, who have
blown every opportunity for ending police abuse of power, aided and abetted
by craven 'liberal' apologists who counsel concession to the prevailing
political rhetoric of support for the police? Do we really believe that
absent an aroused, organized resistance movement of outrage and community
self-defense, that any police chief or mayor will do anything other than
further strengthen and enlarge one of the most militarized police forces in
the US? Can we no longer distinguish between rhetorical promises of
"reform" and real increases in repressive power and police impunity,
designed to terrorize and subdue any resistance to the extraction of wealth
from poor people of color to maintain the lifestyles of the super-rich?]
"What did some of my friends expect the new police chief to say?"t; asks a
frustrated civil rights attorney, a longtime fighter for police reform.
"That he was going to come in and hold Kumbaya sessions? Any new police
chief has to come in like gangbusters, talking tough. But I'm much more
interested in what Bratton does, rather than what he says. And so far I
like what I see." So do I.
[Note from MN: Holy Toledo. Is the crescendo of crying Cassandras so
powerful, so dominant, so politically correct, that this frustrated civil
rights attorney fears to speak for attribution? Or is this a Marc Cooper
fabrication? Perish the thought! The fact that this convenient attorney
expresses the same views as Cooper himself must be sheer coincidence. Right
down to the racialized reference to 'Kumbaya' sessions! What does Cooper
NOT expect a new chief to say -- that he would hold officers accountable
for abuse? that he would use his position to lobby for elected civilian
community control of the police? that he would seek the establishment of a
special prosecutor, so the DA was not responsible for bringing charges
against the cops he was beholden to for making all his other cases? that he
would seek the abolition of state laws which deny the public the same
access to the records of cops that we have to doctors and lawyers?]
Bratton has swiftly moved on the first prerequisite of real reform,
radically reshaping the department's command structure. Within his first
two weeks he has staged a literal coup d'état at Parker Center, appointing
a trio of the most reform-friendly commanders as his top staff,
simultaneously pushing aside a boatload of crustaceans who have inhabited
the high floors of the Glass House for way too long.
[Note from MN: Oh, so the mark of real reform is that a new chief brings in
his own people, indebted to him for their elevation, in order to replace
the people who owed their allegiance to the old chief? How naive and
sycophantic is Cooper?]
Bratton has appointed the respected Jim McDonnell, head of the department's
community policing unit, as his second-in-command. He's also promoted
commanders Sharon Papa and George Gascon to the ranking positions of deputy
chiefs. All three are 40-something members of a new generation of LAPD,
untainted by the reign of Daryl Gates and all distinguished as independent,
innovative thinkers during the just-concluded administration of Bernie
"Captain Queeg" Parks. Attentive
readers will remember the Weekly's recent
profile of Gascon, [Note from MN: A flack piece in a snow-job special issue
edited by Cooper himself previously dissected by yours truly. Email if you
want the long version.--MN] a man who has actually introduced ethics-based
training into the LAPD academy and who promotes in-depth classes on why the
Rampart scandal was not an isolated case. "Any one of these three
appointees is who we would have preferred as the actual chief," says the
reform-minded attorney. "But look at it this way: With Bratton in, we got
all three now up at the top. Not bad."
Even more importantly, Bratton seems to be taking the counsel of his new
advisers seriously. On their recommendation he moved this week to dismantle
the department's notoriously inefficient and incomplete FASTRAC
computerized crime-fighting system. It was an open secret that the system,
which started three years ago with good intentions, just didn't work. LAPD
software specialists are now rushing to install Bratton's preferred
CompStat system.
[Note from MN: Wait, Bratton is taking his advisers' counsel seriously when
he accepts their recommendation that he replace the LAPD computer system
with HIS computer system from NY? Oh, those daring advisers, willing to
face their new boss's wrath by bringing him the bad news he doesn't want to
hear! This certainly bodes well for continued reform within the department.]
And in this case, we should listen very carefully to Bratton's rhetoric.
He claims the old system didn't provide enough scrutiny over department
managers and that the new program will allow him to hold division captains
responsible for their performance and effectiveness.
[Note from MN: Is Bratton doing anything to track problem officers,
complaints of police abuse and disrespect, or use of force? Is he doing
anything to make such records public? The LAPD is operating under a consent
decree which requires it to implement promised reforms that would enable
the department to clean out the alleged "bad apples" rather than letting
them rot and fester in the barrel, setting the standard for the whole
department. Such reforms were promised ELEVEN YEARS, three mayors and FOUR
--count 'em -- police chiefs ago, and have yet to be implemented! But not
on Bratton's radar. He wants to make sure captains are riding their
officers to write more tickets and make more arrests.]
Not only is this necessary. It's also very smart. Blame the handiwork of
former Chief Parks for the vastly demoralized rank-and-file Bratton
inherits. Early reviews suggest that the new chief is on the verge of a
minor miracle: pulling the department toward reform while actually raising
the morale of a very grumpy and recalcitrant rank and file. He's doing so
precisely by reversing the dynamic of the Parks era. Instead of an
unswerving defense of the brass and a scapegoating of the field troops,
Bratton is shaking up and replacing the brass, promising to hold managers
and commanders accountable before blaming regular officers.
[Note from MN: The question Cooper assiduously avoids is, blaming whom for
what? Hahn and Bratton are not just rhetorically but practically reshaping
the LAPD -- including a proposed 33% increase in the number of officers,
unmentioned by Cooper in this article -- to deliver the goods to businesses
and homeowners who want a crackdown on and reduction in crime during a
worsening economic situation, rising unemployment, near-genocidal cutbacks
in safety-net social services such as health care, and a generalized
draconian increase in police state powers. They want to incorporate the LAX
police into the LAPD when LAX is one of the flashpoints of the Bush
administration's anti-immigrant crackdown. They want to increase
incarceration rates in a city and state that already have some of the
highest in the world. All of Bratton's administrative and computer-tracking
reforms are aimed at making the LAPD a more well-oiled repressive machine.
Any niche carved out for so-called
"community policing" (the police reform
philosophy always supposedly opposite to Bratton's "broken windows" tough <
on quality of life crimes crack-down approach will only further illustrate
and expose that so-called community policing is a form of psychological
operations and a part of the militarization of the police. Nobody is being
blamed for police killings, and never has been -- not the cops, not the
brass. Through many mayors and chiefs, LAPD has shot about a person a week
and killed about a person a month. The powers-that-be consider this not
merely acceptable, but desirable, and are willing to shell out millions of
dollars annually as a 'cost of doing business' to settle with the victims
and families of victims. If Bratton and Hahn change this, it will only be
to increase the shootings and killings by the same 33% they want to
increase the force. And what programs and services will be scrapped to
finance such a massive increase in the number of cops?]
Sometime soon we will see just how Bratton carries out his promised crime
crackdowns. And it will be immediately obvious if we are witnessing
something new and inspiring or just the same old same old. In the meantime,
the only hammering Bratton has unleashed so far has been right on target:
starting to smash up the old LAPD.
[Note from MN: Hopeless to think that Bratton's hammer might bang-bang some
sense into Cooper's head. None are so blind as those who will not see. Of
course what will see is not the same-old same-old, but some new and
"inspiring" transformations of the LAPD as a 21st Century force of
repression and social control. This will include real-time tracking of
stops, busts, and "crime reduction," but little attention to police
criminality, immigrants rights or racial profiling. Unless we get up and do
something about it, of course, but that is an outcome Cooper continues to
do his best to derail.--MN]
