Urban America Under Arrest

Too Many Sad Anniversaries

Figure 1. On Independence Day this year BLM protestors occupied — dramatically but peacefully — the Minnesota Capitol lawn during the evening. One sad subtheme was the many Americans of color (named on handmade cardboard headstones) who were killed but had the misfortune of not getting the act filmed whereby the law enforcement officers responsible could be held accountable. (Source: Photos by the author. July 4, 2021)

Part I

Counter Art’s readers may know that its edgy mission statement (i.e., the interrogative centerpiece) asks: “Who cares what the algorithm says?”

I have to respectfully disagree with its implied answer, at least in part. There is a place for — say — careful data gathering, ethical scrubbing, and (then) algorithm-driven analysis. But only if sufficient context and some history are properly laid down. In this research note, I do that first by way of my lens of anniversaries.

Anniversaries abound

For as long as I can remember Independence Day had been an upbeat anniversary. Now, not so much.

This year, in my home city of St. Paul, I have seen anniversaries that elicited very mixed emotions, far too many pertaining to traffic-related arrests of citizens of color.

As I started this essay a month ago — July 9, 2021 — I looked back to such sad anniversaries for drivers of color detained and/or arrested. Mr. Philando D. Castile (1983–2016, RIP) was never actually arrested after a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. Simply stated, he was killed first.

Figure 2. Sign unveiled on Larpenteur Avenue just west of Snelling Avenue in memory of Mr. Castile by his mother Valerie, along with Falcon Heights city leadership, clergy, friends, and admirers. I used to live a mile away. It felt good and so important to be present yet something of an oxymoron: troubling yet uplifting. (Source: Photos by the author. June 9, 2021)

July 9th was also the 30th anniversary of a then-famous Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department (a.k.a. the Christopher Commission Report). (See endnote 1.)

It was a 228-page analysis that took its authors one hundred days to complete and was written in response to the assault by Los Angeles police of Mr. Rodney G. King (1965–2012, RIP) in early March 1991. Mr. King was arrested after a traffic chase/stop but survived an infamous police beating — barely.

Three questions loom for me right now:

1. How many and what kinds of police reform recommendations surfaced that July 9th of three decades ago?

2. In hindsight, how many were eventually acted upon, and how well?

3. On this anniversary what can I analyze and make visible that might help end so much of urban America’s penchant for unconstitutional traffic stops and arrests of drivers of color?

Some short answers are: 1, “Many dozens,” 2, “Too few,” and 3, “I have some maps for that.” Next, always devilish, are the details.

Now, the long answers: 1, a current look-back to past recommendations

You can (as did I) download and review the Christopher Commission Report or read a concise and dramatic treatment of it in journalist Lou Cannon’s book Official Negligence. (2) The latter — 700-paged — was published in 1997 on another anniversary, five years after the police beating of Mr. King. Its chapter six tells it all. Neither tome is easy to complete, though in its entirety Official Negligence was actually a page-turner for me.

In it Mr. Cannon said of a key finding in the report (citing the testimony of then-Assistant Police Chief David Dotson), “the essence of the LAPD’s recurrent excessive-force problem was that the department remained ‘stuck … in a 1950s sort of world view.’ Officers were rewarded for ‘hard-nosed, proactive police work,’ which often meant arresting criminal suspects on suspicion and making a case after they were in custody.” (2, p. 134)

So what did the commission report recommend pertaining to this?

“The leaders of the LAPD can send, if they want to, an unequivocal message that the pride so often expressed and widely felt within the Department is deserved only if officers act within the law in the use of force and exercise restraint in the power entrusted to them. That message has not been sent. Without it, meaningful progress in reducing excessive force by the LAPD cannot be achieved.” (1, pp. 61–62)

That’s one of the most salient of recommendations. How many others were there? Cannon mentions that the report “made 130 recommendations designed to improve the practices and policies of the department.” (2, p. 142) When I reviewed the report I found 30. (Exact counts likely depend on how they are defined.)

Back in 1991 the Los Angeles Times paid very close attention to reforms argued for in the report, “…The newspaper’s focus was clearly on community based policing.” (3) Community policing had been a 12-paged chapter in the Commission Report.

An LAPD initiative appeared a year later by way of a Times article reporting on “….a pilot program in community-based policing, an experiment that calls for police to work cooperatively with residents to decide the best ways to fight crime.” (4)

In part just common sense beat-patrols, it wasn’t a new concept. On the day it started “Capt. David J. Gascon told [his] officers. ‘We’re going to spend more time cultivating relationships. We really want to form a partnership with the community we serve.’ ” A specific focus of “where” became part of the mission: “Five of the Police Department’s 18 divisions … began participating in the program–Northeast, Harbor, Pacific, Hollenbeck and Southeast. The Foothill Division undertook a similar program last year.” (4) LAPD districts (where community policing was first attempted in the early 1990s) were 4, 5, 11, 14, 16 and 18 as shown in the map at Figure 3 below. “Location-based implications” are subtle but important. More on that soon.

Figure 3. Area Boundaries of the Los Angeles Police Department. Source, Christopher Commission Report, p. 24

Underlying the momentum of reforms was one of the most important ballots brought in front of voters that decade: “On June [2, 1992], Los Angeles residents voted for Amendment F, ignited by the Christopher Commission Report ­[as] an important first step towards a community-oriented and fair police department.” (3, p. 187) The public clearly supported community policing that year.

This research note will continue with a response to my question #2, in hindsight, how many recommendations for LAPD reform that had surfaced back in July 1991 were eventually acted upon, and how well?

Endnotes

1. Christopher, Warren, et al. (1991). Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department.

2. Cannon, Lou. (1997.) Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD, New York: Random House.

3. Muschalik, Kathrin. (2016). “Race and Race Relations in Los Angeles During the 1990s: The L.A. Times’ News Coverage on the Rodney King Incident and the L.A. Riots,” Dissertation, Ruhr University Bochum. Online, https://d-nb.info/1125106530/34

4. Tobar, Hector. (1992). “Community-Based Policing Begins in 5 LAPD Divisions: Law enforcement officers are told to form partnership with citizens to decide best ways to fight crime,” Los Angeles Times, January 27.

All hyperlinks were last visited today.

This report’s narrative matter and maps are assigned Creative Commons cc 2021.

J. Kevin Byrne (MA/Minnesota, MFA/Cranbrook, MSc-Cert./Saint Mary’s) is Professor (now Emeritus) at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MN/USA). He has published in print and continues to do so online. Byrne’s current roles are those of an urban cartographer, designer, and spatial information analyst interested in mapping a hopeful future for civil rights.