Federal Study of Police Violence
Kevin J. Mullen
For the last 2 ˝ years [from 1991] flickering images of the videotaped beating of Rodney King have supplied us with an immediately recognizable symbol of the treatment of black men by white police officers – indeed, with a frequently used metaphor for white-black relations generally. However, the arrest of an African American police officer in Oakland, accused last month of assaulting handcuffed arrestees after a high-speed chase, should give us reason to question that metaphor.
The most likely explanation for these cases lie somewhere in the dynamicx of the relationship between male police officers and other males in high-stress contact situations. However, it’s an article of faith in some quarters that Rodney King’s beating by four white officers was an act of racism, pure and simple. “This horrifying incident is no aberration,” exclaimed one editor at the time, “it’s just the latest misconduct of police against blacks.
Similar sentiments were expressed to justify the deadly riots which followed the not-guilty verdict in the state’s trial of the four accused officers. They are again heard in the rhetoric surrounding the trial of those accused of beating trucker Reginald Denny at the outbreak of the Los Angeles rioting. For a time, just after the beating of King, it seemed as though we might be able to get the measure of police violence. Several investigations were initiated in the highly charged post-beating atmosphere.
From a long-term perspective, the most hopeful sign was an investigation promised by the U.S. attorney general to “review all complaints of police brutality to the federal government from the entire nation,” for the preceding six years to discern “any geographic or systemic patterns of violence.” Beneath the surface are indications that such violence is not simply a case of white on black, at least in the anecdotal record.
In July 1991, not long after the King case, an African American police officer in Fort Worth, Texas, was suspended from duty and charged with assault with a deadly weapon. He had been videotaped striking a motorist 28 times with his nightstick. The victim was also African American. In a “48 Hours” segment on police brutality in 1992 CBS (its selection of cases no doubt dictated by an interest in journalistic balance) showed incidents on videotape that showed how the tendency toward violent conduct crosses racial lines.
When results of the Justice Department study were finally announced in mid-1992, but only after congressional pressure was applied, the reason for the foot-dragging was soon explained. The findings were effectively meaningless. The survey covered only 4,000 of the nation’s 15,000 police departments and included only formal complaints to the Justice Department. The best that could be shown was a partial, disjointed, geographical profile of where most of the complaints had come from. Los Angeles, where all the trouble supposedly started, was far down the list.
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., complained that, “The Justice Department did not attempt to find out what percentage of the victims of police brutality were black.” Neither was there any way to determine the race of the officers involved. Race was simply not on of the facts collected. We are left, then, with our own imperfect impressions and, yes, our various preconceptions, to explain what is going on. It is doubtful that the results of any official study would have changed events one whit. And in the current emotional climate, reason is unlikely to prevail over impassioned rhetoric filling the air; it suits the personal and political agendas of too many people to keep the caldron of racial conflict boiling.
But when again the dust settles, we should take another try at finding any “systemic patterns” in the violence that sometimes accompanies the arrests of young males. Only then will we find ways to attack the problem as it is. If reason is ever to prevail over violent unreasoning passion, our understanding must be grounded on the facts of the situation – all of them.
(SF Examiner September 2, 1993)