LAPD onlookers to King beating escape prosecution

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SOCIALIST ACTION JUNE 1991 15 LOS ANGELES-While four of the 21 police officers involved in the March 3 Rodney King beating case have been indicted by the Grand Jury, charges have been dismissed against the other 17 officers implicated.

The videotaped beating showed that all 21 officers were present, and that not one officer attempted to stop the brutal beating. Some eyewitnesses state that blows and kicks were delivered by several of the officers not indicted.

As we go to press, LA Police Department Board of Rights hearings are about to get underway on the status of the four indicted officers. Three of them have been suspended without pay pending these hearings. The fourth officer was fired, not because of his actions, but simply because he was a rookie who therefore had less rights under the contract that governs disciplinary actions agains police officers.

While the media focus has been on police chief Darryl F. Gates and the four LAPD officers implicated, to ignore the role of all of the police is a mistake. All 21 should be indicted and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And Gates, as head of a police department notorious for racism and brutality, should be removed.

The frequently used tactic of turning the victim into the criminal has reached new heights in the "City of the Angels." At a May 22 city council committee hearing on "improving" police training in relation to the King beating, police chief Gates endorsed the idea of a video program for the public on how to be taken into custody.

"There is a need for teaching people not so much how to prevent crime, but how policecitizen contacts can be made less frightening," Gates said.

Ironically, just a few blocks from the city council hearing, Latino groups were holding a rally to protest the death of 18-year-old Eduardo Hernandez, who had been shot by an off-duty agent of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. It is impossible to believe that if Hernandez had seen the video on "how to be arrested," he would be alive Support continues to grow for the removal of Chief Gates. One such effort is a recall measure to be put on the November ballot. For this, 6300 signatures are needed. Backers of this initiative include the National Association of Colored People (NAACP), the LA National Organization for Women (NOW), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the LA Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center, the National Lawyers Guild, the LA Student Coalition, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and the Mexican American Legal International Viewpoint

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