Blue: The LAPD and the Battle to Redeem American Policing (57 page)

Frederick’s of Hollywood
:
Los Angeles Times
,
Understanding the Riots
, 90; Hazen, ed.,
Inside the L.A. Riots
, 98.

“the crush of looters”
:
Los Angeles Times
,
Understanding the Riots
, 69.

Michael Yamaki, Thursday, April 30, 1992, Koreatown

Korean-owned mom-and-pop convenience stores
: Hazen, ed.,
Inside the L.A. Riots
, 99–100 and 109;
Los Angeles Times
,
Understanding the Riots
, 59, 72, 74, 77, and 106;
LAT
, photographs by Hyungwon Kang.

“We trusted them”
: “Big Mike” Cummings interview.

Latasha Harlins
: Author’s observations and interviews, April 30, 1992;
Los Angeles Times
,
Understanding the Riots
, 38, 40–41, 68, 72, and 77; Hazen, ed.,
Inside the L.A. Riots
, 99;
“
Uprising: Hip Hop & the LA Riots.”

An eighteen-year-old Korean man was killed
:
Los Angeles Times
,
Understanding the Riots
, 88.

spotted the very same eyeball
: Michael Yamaki interview.

“We can’t give anyone protection”
: Ibid.

Michael Yamaki, Thursday, April 30, 1992, Watts

Watts Labor Community Action Committee
: “From Watts Riot Ashes: Bright Hopes, Heartaches,”
LAT
, May 10, 1992; “Watts Organizer Feels Weight of Riots, and History,”
NYT
, June 24, 1992;
Los Angeles Times
,
Understanding the Riots
, 81.

“helped pay for a homeless shelter, job training center”
: “Born from the Ashes of Watts, Center Dies in Flames of Riot,”
LAT
, May 2, 1992.

“We
[
the LAPD
]
didn’t have anything ready”
: Michael Yamaki interview.

address the troops
: Ibid.

“The cops, they’d waited just too long to respond”
: Andre Christian interview.

“If someone looked out of place”
: Gates,
Chief
, 34.

“pounding the fear of God into people”
: David Dotson interview.

“super-aggressive twenty-two-year-olds”
: “Los Angeles Times Interview: Joseph Wambaugh: What LAPD Needs Is Women to Combat Testosterone Level,”
LAT
, July 14, 1991.

“He is facing, daily and nightly”
: Baldwin,
Nobody Knows My Name
, 62.

“aggressively identify”
: Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department,
Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department
, 99.

“blunt-force military tactics and assaults”
: Charlie Beck interview.

“no shooting policy”
: Jack White interview.

LAPD ranked number one in killing or wounding
: Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department,
Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department
, 170.

virtually nothing had changed
: Los Angeles Urban League, American Jewish Committee, and the National Conference of Christians and Jews, “Joint Task Force on South Central Los Angeles—Fifteen Years Later.”

“hard-charging street army”
: “Why Chief Willie Williams Deserves Five More Years,”
LAT
, December 22, 1996.

Bell Jet Ranger
: “Sky Patrol: Arm of the Law Goes to New Heights Through Helicopter Units in LAPD’s Air Support Division,”
LAT
, April 3, 1988.

“roust anything strange”
: Gates,
Chief
, 112–14.

Karen Toshima’s murder
: “The Legacy of a Slaying: Westwood Gang Shooting Alters Public Attitudes, Police Tactics,”
LAT
, September 11, 1989;
Los Angeles Times
,
Understanding the Riots
, 31.

“Operation Hammer”
: “1,000 Officers Stage Assault Against Violent Youth Gangs,”
LAT
, April 9, 1988; “237 Held in Sweep; Violence Continues,”
LAT
, August 20, 1989; “LAPD Nails 352 in Operation Hammer,”
LAT
, August 21, 1989; “Police Arrest 1,092 in Weekend Sweeps; Gang Killings Continue,”
LAT
, October 2, 1989; “700 Seized in Gang Sweep, 2 More Die in Shootings,”
LAT
, September 19, 1988; “The Bum Blockade, Zoot Suit Riot and Bloody Christmas,”
LA Weekly
, September 4, 2002; “Behind the Bunker Mentality,”
LAT
, June 11, 2000; Hazen, ed.,
Inside the L.A. Riots
, 15 and 98;
Los Angeles Times
,
Understanding the Riots
, 31.

twenty-five thousand overwhelmingly black men of all ages
: “Behind the Bunker Mentality.”

“Pick ’em up for anything and everything”
: “1,000 Officers Stage Assault Against Violent Youth Gangs”; “The Bum Blockade, Zoot Suit Riot and Bloody Christmas.”

motorcycle and patrol officers multiplied their justification
: Steve Fisk interview; David Dotson interview.

the DA filed just 103 cases
: “NAACP Raps Police over Gang Sweeps,”
LAT
, April 15, 1988.

“What the LAPD was missing”
: Charlie Beck interview.

California . . . annual corrections budget top $11 billion
: “Gov. Brown Tries to Justify Unconstitutional Prison Overcrowding, Backslides on Corrections Budget,”
San Francisco Bay View
, January 11, 2013; “Inside Criminal Justice,”
Crime Report
, January 10, 2011.

More than one in three young black men
: Alexander,
The New Jim Crow
, 9.

Special Investigation Section, or the SIS
: “Experts Elsewhere Criticize SIS Record of Few Arrests, Frequently Deadly Shootings,”
LAT
, September 25, 1988; “Special Police Unit Is Under Review,”
LAT
, November 11, 2003.

One in three people involved in armed robberies got hurt
: “The Risk Is Too Great,”
LAT
, September 27, 1988; Reaves,
Using NIBRS Data to Analyze Violent Crime,
16.

SIS would shoot and kill twenty-three people
: “Experts Elsewhere Criticize SIS Record of Few Arrests, Frequently Deadly Shootings.”

“SIS detectives over the years had shot 13 unarmed people”
: Ibid.

excessive-force lawsuit settlements
: “$11.3 Million Paid in 1990 to Resolve Police Abuse Cases,”
LAT
, March 29, 1991.

Rodney King was awarded $3.8 million in a civil suit
: “Rodney King Is Awarded $3.8 Million,”
NYT
, April 20, 1994; “King Gets Award of $3.8 Million,”
LAT
, April 20, 1994.

Joe Morgan won $540,000 in another federal lawsuit
: “Morgan Awarded $540,000 by Jurors,”
LAT
, February 15, 1991; “Morgan Wins Judgment,” AP, February 16, 1991.

“large third degree burns”
: Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department,
Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department
, 58.

“lost two teeth and suffered multiple concussions”
: Ibid.

“Received seven
[
more
]
complaints”
: Ibid., 59.

“the sweetest, gentlest things”
: “A Biting Controversy,”
Los Angeles Times Magazine
, February 9, 1992.

“only bite if attacked”
: David Dotson interview.

eight thousand unsolved murders
: “Old, but Never Totally Cold,”
LAT
, May 23, 2005; “An LAPD Critic Comes in from the Cold,”
Crime Report
, January 18, 2012.; “A Few Warm Bodies Can Solve a Lot of Cold Cases,”
Houston Chronicle
, May 31, 2005.

Charlie Beck, Late Eighties to Early Nineties, Watts

“wild and chaotic”
: Charlie Beck interview.

Once Beck was on a robbery stakeout in Watts
: Ibid.

“the Vietnam vets”
: Ibid.

“use each occasion”
: “Throwing the Book: Reiner Will Seek Maximum Jail Sentence for Gang Members,”
LAT
, September 20, 1989.

over seventy thousand . . . gang members
: “New Anti-Terrorism Law Used Against L.A. Gangs,”
LAT
, April 21, 1989.

“Well under five percent
[
of gang members
] 
. . . engaged in serious criminal violence”
: “If Police Call It Gang Crime That Doesn’t Make It True,”
LAT
, September 28, 1989.

Curtis Woodle, Thursday, April 30, 1992, Los Angeles Police Academy, Elysian Park

Early Thursday morning
: Curtis Woodle interview.

“Watch any episode of . . .
Cops
”
: David Dotson interview.

“to find a reason . . . to kick your ass”
: Curtis Woodle interview.

Rodney King . . . “had just led officers on a high-speed chase”
: Ibid.

“choke him out”
: Ibid.

LAPD choke hold banned
: “Los Angeles Police Reconsider Using Choke Hold,”
LAT
, September 3, 1991; “Chokehold Ban Cited as Reason King Was Beaten,”
LAT
, March 25, 1992; “Final Suit over LAPD’s Use of Chokehold Settled,”
LAT
, September 29, 1993; “Finding a Safe Way to Subdue Violent Suspects,”
LAT
, June 14, 1994.

Departments . . . one choke hold death each
: “The Bum Blockade, Zoot Suit Riot and Bloody Christmas.”

from 1975 to 1982 . . . LAPD . . . fifteen such deaths
: “Eric Garner’s Killing and Why the Police Chokehold Is So Racially Charged,”
Washington Post
, December 4, 2014; Hazen, ed.,
Inside the L.A. Riots
, 22.