A senior policeman in Los Angeles has been demoted after giving an order to fire 140 rubber bullets into a crowd of demonstrators. The man's deputy officer and 60 other officers involved in the shooting were also reassigned. The May Day march was said to be peaceful until a few agitators threw bottles and rocks at police officers and other marchers. TV footage, however, proved to send a different message, when a police officer was seen shoving and forcibly moving people several hundred meters away from the demonstrations. Outrage in the city led to Los Angeles' mayor having to return from a trip overseas prematurely. Los Angeles' police chief, William Bratton, has stated that the marchers were ordered to disperse once the crowd was growing restless, however the orders were issued in English, to a largely Spanish speaking crowd. The policemen/women who were involved in the conflicts were all highly trained riot control officers, and the second-in-charge deputy was a veteran of the force for 40 years.
As soon as I read this story, the first thing that I thought of was obviously the Rodney King incident 16 years ago. While this incident isn't nearly as brutal as King's, it seems to immediately bring up thoughts of that controversy in my head. As someone who lived around Los Angeles for most of my life, I can say that demonstrations are frequent and almost always vary in terms of how violent they get. It seems like a very brash move on the part of the police in this case, to fire rubber bullets into the crowd. This is simply a case of poor decision making, no matter how restless the crowd became I fail to see why the LAPD would issue such orders. Bratton's statement of how the commands were issued in English but were understood have been the highlight of my day thus far. An absolutely massive portion of Los Angeles' population is Spanish speaking, could the LAPD riot control squad not have found someone to yell in Spanish? This is a terrible case of miscommunication, and to me it seems very much like the media is safeguarding this case, in order to protect LAPD's already delicate position. And although riots can spread like wildfire, especially in an area like the one the demonstration was located in, I feel like other decisions could have been made that were far more appropriate.
2 comments:
I would have to agree with your comments pertaining to the fact that the media is, in a way, covering up the story to make it appear as though the LAPD is not at fault. I am rather disgusted by the fact that a veteran officer would make such a spur-of-the-moment decision at a less appropriate time than this. A restless group of demonstrators in no way deserves to be pelted with 140 rubber bullets. In relation to your comments pertaining to the similarity this case has to the Rodney King incident, I would have to agree that the police officers actions in that instance were indeed brutal, but not as unlawfully so as you would be made to think by the media coverage the incident received. I was able to see the entire video of the Rodney King incident, and a clip of that video that the news media failed to include in their coverage of the story was the part where Mr. King was indeed resisting arrest and swinging at the officers. Due to the fact that the officers viewed this as a threat to their well-being, they acted more violently than they would have normally. Do not get me wrong, I do not condone the excessive measures of brutality that those officers used but their actions were not unprovoked.
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