Read Blue: The LAPD and the Battle to Redeem American Policing Online

Authors: Joe Domanick

Tags: #West (AK, #MT, #HI, #True Crime, #Law Enforcement, #General, #WY), #NV, #Corruption & Misconduct, #United States, #ID, #Criminology, #History, #Social Science, #State & Local, #CA, #UT, #CO, #Political Science

Blue: The LAPD and the Battle to Redeem American Policing (70 page)

December 2003 symposium entitled “The Gangs of L.A.”
: Rice,
Power Concedes Nothing
, 247; author observation.

“to go where the evidence led”
: Rice,
Power Concedes Nothing
, 248.

“after-action” report
: Ibid; Connie Rice interview.

he wanted her to lead the effort
: Rice,
Power Concedes Nothing
, 249.

“lessons learned” exercise
: Ibid.

Darren “Bo” Taylor
: Ibid., 193–94; Connie Rice interview.

Blair Taylor
: Connie Rice interview.

white cops . . . “weren’t fluent in the culture of black, underclass males”
: Ibid.

change the definition of what an LAPD cop did
: Ibid.

“battering ram”
: Ibid.

$2 billion . . . Los Angeles bus system
: “Both Sides of the Street,”
Sun
, April 2008; “Right Makes Right,”
Los Angeles Times Magazine
, January 2012.

helped win $1 billion for the construction of schools in poor neighborhoods
: Rice,
Power Concedes Nothing
, 224.

Connie Rice, July 2003, Advancement Project Offices, Los Angeles

Connie Rice phoned Charlie Beck
: Connie Rice interview.

blueprint of a veteran LAPD captain
: Ibid.

Martin Ludlow, Summer 2003, “The Jungle”

given up for adoption
: “Councilman’s Past Has Him Ready to Lead,”
LAT
, June 20, 2005.

Raised in Idaho
: Ibid.

political director of a powerful local union
: Ibid.

marry the daughter of one of L.A.’s most prominent black clergymen
: Ibid.

conspiracy to divert union employee funds
: “Judge Sentences Ex-Councilman to 3 Years’ Probation,”
LAT
, April 22, 2006.

“the Jungle”
: “Seeds of Change Are Sown,”
LAT
, September 1, 2003; “He Makes a Difference, Finds Redemption,”
LAT
, June 22, 2008.

Black P. Stones . . . twenty-eight murders . . . fifteen hundred aggravated assaults
: “L.A. Fights Back,”
LAT
, May 1, 2008.

“the Summer of Success”
: “Seeds of Change Are Sown”; Connie Rice interview.

violent crime had dropped 20 percent
: “Bratton, Baca Tout New Anti-Gang Program for LA,”
LADN
, April 16, 2009.

Connie Rice, July 2006, Rampart Division

“a few bad apples”
: Blue Ribbon Review Panel,
Rampart Reconsidered
, 8; “The Bum Blockade, Zoot Suit Riot and Bloody Christmas,”
LA Weekly
, September 4, 2002.

“There have been forty-plus years of debate”
: “Plan to Change LAPD Consent Decree Rejected,”
LAT
, March 22, 2006.

Charlie Beck, 2006, South Bureau Headquarters

sixteen hundred officers
: “Ex–LAPD Deputy Chief Named Burbank’s Interim Chief,”
LAT
, December 18, 2009; “Burbank Interim Police Chief,”
Burbank Leader
, December 17, 2009.

57.6-square-mile area of South Los Angeles
: “About South Bureau,” Los Angeles Police Department, accessed February 5, 2015,
http://www.lapdonline.org/south_bureau/content_basic_view/1938
.

the kind of kid who had to grab the plate ten times
: Charlie Beck interview.

Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government
: William Bratton interview.

“not . . . going to be the
[
South Bureau
]
chief that oversees the next riot”
: Charlie Beck interview.

640,000 residents of South Bureau
: “In City Numbed by Violence, the Death of a Young Boy Stirs Anguish,”
NYT
, October 15, 2004; “About South Bureau.”

eliminated the name “South Central”
: “Considering South-Central by Another Name,”
LAT
, April 10, 2003; “In Los Angeles, South-Central No More,”
NYT
, April 10, 2003.

sixteen-square-mile area . . . “South Los Angeles”
: “In Los Angeles, South-Central No More.”

Los Angeles’s population . . . almost four million
: “California’s Population Rises to 38.3 Million During 2013,”
LAT
, April 30, 2014.

0.5 percent jobs per worker
: Ong et al.,
The State of South L.A
., 12.

versus 1.1 jobs in the rest of the county
: Ibid.

30 percent poverty rate
: Ibid., 6.

by 2006 its black population . . . 31 percent
: Ibid., 5.

Mexican and Central American residents . . . 62 percent
: Ibid.

“this amazing melting pot”
: Charlie Beck interview.

“All of Watts was black”
: Ibid.

515 murders in 2006
: “L.A. Home Turf for Hundreds of Neighborhood Criminal Groups,”
LAT
, May 13, 2005.

290 were gang-related
: Ibid.

over eleven thousand gang-related homicides in Los Angeles County
: “Bratton: The Making of a Police Visionary.”

costing . . . L.A. County $2 billion a year
: The Advancement Project,
Citywide Gang Activity Reduction Strategy: Phase III Report
, 2007; “Gang Interventionists Distribute Food, Prayer—and a Sense of Change,”
LAT
, June 28, 2009.

gang-related killings countywide . . . 800 in 1995 to 464
: “Gang Homicides in Los Angeles County, 1980–2008.”

Pat Gannon and Bo Taylor, Autumn 2005, 77th Street Division, South Los Angeles

cruising down the freeway
: Patrick Gannon interview.

wounded in the ankle
: Ibid.

twenty—
twenty
—retaliatory shootings
: Ibid.

if there’s a problem, you own it
: Charlie Beck interview; Patrick Gannon interview.

“stopping tons of people”
: Patrick Gannon interview.

Bo Taylor . . . father of four
: “Former Crip Became Gang Mediator, Peacekeeper,”
LAT
, August 13, 2008.

U.S. Navy veteran
: Ibid.

“Dr. Phil–like”
: Ibid.

Unity One
: Ibid.

thirty mostly self-declared interventionists
: Patrick Gannon interview.

“we were actual
targets
of law enforcement”
: Ron Noblet interview.

Noblet . . . Eastern European studies
: Ibid.; Connie Rice interview.

During the first two meetings
: Patrick Gannon interview.

“I’m having serious trouble with the Rolling 60s”
: Ibid.

“That worked”
: Ibid.

at the end of a conveyer belt
: Charlie Beck interview.

Bratton . . . graffiti
: “Bill Bratton Has a Deep Personal Hatred of Graffiti,”
New York Post
, May 21, 2014; “The City’s Top Cop Knows Why There’s Crime—Criminals,”
NYDN
, May 21, 2014.

Malcolm Gladwell theorized . . . nineties crime drop under Bratton
: Gladwell,
The Tipping Point
, 140–46.

Charlie Beck, South Bureau, South Los Angeles, 2006

“like creatures in the zoo”
: Charlie Beck interview.

“people obey the law”
: “The Paradox of American Policing,”
Cops Office
, July 2010.

wearing a suit, rather than his uniform
: Charlie Beck interview.

“talked to them like they were regular people”
: Ibid.

“That there’s nothing to be afraid of”
: Ibid.

“building community cohesion”
: Ibid.

Beck organized a barbecue
: Ibid.

“We fed them and we talked”
: Ibid.

“We were really inclusive in that way”
: Ibid.

“we’d do the right thing”
: Ibid.

NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly, New York City; LAPD Chief Bill Bratton, Los Angeles; Stop-Question-Frisk

pedestrian stops . . . Los Angeles . . . 275,000 to the NYPD’s 660,000
: Peter Bibring interview; “Bratton: The Making of a Police Visionary.”

L.A.’s pedestrian stops . . . 35 to 40 percent
: Ibid.

black population . . . 10 percent
: Ibid.

New York—where 85 percent of the stops were of blacks and Latinos
: “Yes, Mayor Bloomberg, Stop-and-Frisk Is Really, Really Racist,”
Slate
, July 1, 2013.

LAPD . . . 700,000 vehicle stops a year
: Peter Bibring interview; “Bratton: The Making of a Police Visionary.”

blacks were ordered out of their vehicles 2.5 times more than were whites
: Peter Bibring interview.

Latinos 2.3 times more
: Ibid.

black motorists were twice as likely to get frisked as whites
: Ibid.

frisked African-Americans . . .
40 percent less
likely to have a weapon than whites
: Ibid.

“over 40 percent less likely to happen”
: Ibid.

late 2002, the LAPD . . . 585,000 . . . stops
: Stone et al.,
Policing Los Angeles Under a Consent Decree
, 22; “Bill Bratton Expanded Stop and Frisk When He Ran Los Angeles Police Department: Study,”
NYDN
, November 24, 2013.

Six years later . . . 875,000 total stops
: Peter Bibring interview; Stone et al.,
Policing Los Angeles Under a Consent Decree
, 22.

Between 2004 and June 2012 the NYPD would engage in 4.4 million pedestrian stop-and-frisks
: “Stop-and-Frisk Campaign: About the Issue,” New York Civil Liberties Union, accessed February 5, 2015,
http://www.nyclu.org/issues/racial-justice/stop-and-frisk-practices
; “NYPD Stop-and-Frisk Policy Yielded 4.4 Million Detentions but Few Results: Study,”
NYDN
, April 3, 2012; “12 Years of Mayor Bloomberg,”
NYT
, December 28, 2013.

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