Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

copter. Of these, ten Los Angeles Police Department officers were present onthe ground during the beating, including four field training officers, who superviserookies. Four cops-Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, andTheodore Briseno-were indicted for their role in the beating. Wind was a newemployee, still in his probationary period, and was fired. The two CaliforniaHighway Patrol officers were disciplined for not reporting the use of force, andtheir supervisor was suspended for ten days. But none of the other officerspresent were disciplined in any way, though they had done nothing to preventthe beating or to report it afterward.I3The four indicted cops were acquitted. Social scientists have arguedthat the verdict was "predictable," given the location of the trial. As Oliver,Johnson, and Farrel write:Simi Valley, the site of the trial, and Ventura County more generally, isa predominantly white community known for its strong stance on lawand order, as evidenced by the fact that a significant number of LAPDofficers live there. Thus, the four white police officers were truly judgedby a jury of their peers. Viewed in this context, the verdict should nothave been unanticipated.14Koon, Powell, Wind, and Briseno were acquitted. They were then almostimmediately charged with federal civil rights violations, but that was clearlytoo little, too late. L.A. was in flames.A SOCIAL CONFLAGRATIONThe people of Los Angeles offered a ready response to the acquittal. BetweenApril 30 and May 5, 1992, 600 fires were set. 15 Four thousand businesses weredestroyed,16 and property damage neared $1 billion.Ie Fifty-two people died,and 2,383 people were injured seriously enough to seek medical attention.1RSmaller disturbances also erupted around the country-in San Francisco,Atlanta, Las Vegas, New York, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington, D.C.19Despite the media's portrayal of the riot as an expression of Black rage,arrest statistics show it to have been a multicultural affair: 3,492 Latinos,2,832 Black people, and 640 White people were arrested, as were 2,492 otherpeople of unidentified races.20 Likewise, despite the media focus on violence(especially attacks on White people and Korean merchants), the data tell adifferent story. Only 10 percent of arrests were for violent crime. The mostcommon charge was curfew violation (42 percent), closely followed by propertycrimes (35 percent).21 Likewise, the actual death tolldefinitely attributable to the rioters was under twenty. The police killedat least half that many, and probably many more ... Moreover, althoughsome whites and Korean Americans were killed, the vast majority offatalities were African Americans and Hispanic Americans who died asbystanders or as rioters opposing civil authorities.22Depending on whom you ask, you will hear that the riots constituted "a Blackprotest," a ''bread riot," the "breakdown of civilized society," or "interethnic confliCt."23None of these accounts is sufficient on its own, but one thing is certain:the riots speak to conditions beyond any single incident5