Good Policing that Protects vs. Bad Policing that Destroys

I’m having flashbacks to being at the Los Ángeles Federal Building the night the police were acquitted for beating Rodney King.

It was a peaceful protest with maybe 400 to 1,000 people chanting, “No justice,no peace!”, when about a dozen LAPD officers showed up, getting the crowd even more riled up.

I tried negotiating with the police, asking them to leave as they were just. getting the crowd agitated. Since we were surrounded by acres of grass, and an almost empty 8-lane Wilshire Blvd, there was nothing for the crowd to damage.

I told the sergeant I’d do my best to keep the crowd in just one lane and peaceful. I just happened to have a bullhorn from my weekend tour guide job and which I’d been using to lead chants, so I wound up being a de facto leader.

Instead the sergeant threatened to arrest me for inciting to riot if I didn’t manage to get everyone off the street, and then tried grabbing me and my roommate Don Scott. We ducked back into the crowd, and quit our attempts to mediate as they were obviously futile.

The cops then formed a riot line in the middle of Wilshire, as if a dozen cops were somehow going to arrest a thousand people. A car drove by, and egged them. The crowd surged. The cops fled into Westwood. The crowd followed them. Stores were looted, etc. I went home and cried.

A peaceful protest transformed into a riot by the cops. And it seems like it’s happening all over again.

A few years later, I covered a protest in Santa Ana as a reporter and I saw something completely different. There the police mingled with the crowd, asked people for their cooperation, and offered their support to help the crowd express their first amendment rights.

That friendly approach eliminated the us vs. them, facilitated communication and kept what could have easily escalated into a confrontation and violence as the demonstrators marched down city streets and blocked traffic into a few hours of snarled traffic, and nothing else.

Instead of worse police relations, arrests, and potential violence, you had improved relations, no arrests and no violence. While the police had every legal right to try to stop the demonstrators from blocking the streets and arrest people, they chose not to, because the downsides are so predictable.

Camden and a smattering of other police departments, embraced the opportunity the protests presented to empathize and cooperate in the public displays of anger and grieving, thereby de-escalating otherwise potentially violent crises. And that’s the difference between being a peace officer and just law enforcement.

In addition, by joining the protesters and being part of the demonstrations, officers would have been in a position to work with the many demonstrators who were trying to prevent provocateurs and others from looting, instead of being on the sidelines, unable to assist.

The police don’t have an easy job, but the protests triggered by police brutality and then their frequent escalation into violence in reaction to police tactics, highlight the fact that the military model of police as an alien occupying force isn’t working. After all, if it didn’t work in Iraq, why should it work here?