Written by David Shaikh, L’26

Introduction

Excessive use of force and racial bias against people of color has plagued the Los Angeles Police Department for decades.^[1] The beating of Rodney King and subsequent LA riots prompted the U.S. Department of Justice to reform the LAPD.^[2] These reforms were partially effective at reducing the use of force and racial bias within the LAPD as they caused the use of force to decrease, especially amongst Black and Latino suspects, and were the likely cause of an improvement in residents’ opinion of the police.^[3] However, Black and Latino residents still had force used against them at disproportionate rates and had a greater tendency to hold negative opinions against the LAPD.^[4]

The Beating of Rodney King

On March 3, 1991, Rodney King led police officers on a car chase after being told to pull over, resulting in him speeding and running many red lights.^[5] Eventually, after a police officer instructed him over the loudspeaker to “pull over at the light or [he would] get hurt,” King pulled over.^[6] A witness stated that King was instructed to get out of the car and lay down on the ground, which he did; ^[7] as he was laying on the ground, an officer fired their taser gun at King before beating King with a nightstick.^[8] After about three minutes of being beaten, a nearby resident started recording the assault.^[9]The recording starts with three officers beating King with their nightsticks while he is hunched on his knees and is attempting to cover his face and head.^[10] Then, King lays back down on the ground and rolls around, seemingly in pain.^[11] He is still for several seconds, when an officer stomps his head with his foot and kicks him before other officers join in.^[12] An officer appears to intervene to stop the beating but is pushed away by other officers.^[13] King is then left on the ground until an ambulance arrives to take him to the hospital.

The public outcry from this incident  resulted in Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley appointing former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher to head an independent commission which later became known as the Christopher Commission.^[14] The Commission studied the occurrence of excessive force used by the LAPD, as well as determining factors that may contribute to the use of excessive force. The Commission found that “there [were] a significant number of officers in the LAPD who repetitively [used] excessive force against the public and persistently [ignored] the written guidelines of the Department regarding force.”^[15] Additionally, the Commission found that police officers often show awareness of their misconduct by brazenly and extensively referring to their actions.^[16] Further, it was also determined that the problem of excessive force “is aggravated by racism and bias,” and that the failure to control these officers was due to the culture and policies of the LAPD.^[17]

 Quoting the LAPD’s policy, the Commission described the nature of excessive force: “While the use of reasonable physical force may be necessary in situations which cannot be otherwise controlled, force may not be resorted to unless other reasonable alternatives have been exhausted or would clearly be ineffective under the particular circumstances.”^[18] Regarding officers heeding this policy, the Commission stated that a significant number of officers repetitively misused force and ignored the policies of the LAPD.^[19] Former Assistant Chief David Dotson testified to the Commission that the LAPD “have failed miserably” to hold supervisors accountable for excessive force used by officers under their command.^[20] To make matters worse, any complaint process that was in place proved futile as officers covered for each other’s actions, making it difficult to ascertain when an officer was actually engaging in misconduct.^[21]

The Commission also found that racist sentiments aggravated the use of excessive force by police officers.^[22]The Commission reported that approximately 25% of officers surveyed agreed that officers’ racial bias  against minority citizens existed and contributed to  negative interactions between police and the community.^[23] During the Commission’s investigation, numerous witnesses of color complained about verbal harassment by the police.^[24]Particularly striking, the Commission was told of numerous instances during traffic infractions where officers forced  Black or Latino males to leave their car and lay out on the ground.^[25] Several police officers confirmed  that this was a regular occurrence. ^[26] The report stated that this style of policing resulted in entire minority communities feeling that they were not allowed in certain areas and that being detained was the price to pay for traveling there.^[27]

When an all-white jury acquitted the police officers who beat Rodney King on all charges, the City of Los Angeles exploded in violence.^[28] Rioters’ fury was a result of a verdict which told them that what they thought was clearly officer misconduct was actually a reasonable expression of police control.^[29] Prior treatment of people of color by the LAPD likely contributed to the scale of the riots.^[30] Echoing the Christopher Commission’s report, civil rights activist Connie Rice stated the LAPD was “mean, cruel, racist, and abusive,” to communities of color as they would regularly fish for criminals by stopping people of color without probable cause.^[31] She pointed out how even prominent athletes, senators, and judges were stopped simply because they were black and driving nice cars.^[32] The culmination of these incidents resulted in people of color feeling like they were being policed by an occupying force.^[33] Shortly after the verdicts in the King case, residents started to set fires, rob stores and restaurants, and destroy property.^[34] During the next several days of rioting, more than fifty people died, several thousand businesses were destroyed, and approximately  one billion dollars of damage had been done.^[35] Reform of the LAPD was necessary to prevent future instances that could result in similar public outrage.

The Consent Decree

In May of 2000, the Department of Justice entered into a consent decree with the LAPD.^[36] Consent decrees allow the DOJ to force departments to implement a variety of policies to achieve reform.^[37] Some of the major policies included in  the consent decree were better tracking of police activities, a greater emphasis on community policing, and expediting the complaint process, which ended up being a key weakness of the decree.^[38] The Consent Decree coincided with increasingly favorable community opinions of the LAPD; the percentage of residents who believed that the LAPD provided “good” or “excellent” services increased from around 48% in 2005 to about 61% in 2009.^[39] The percentage of individuals who said that the LAPD treated them fairly “almost always” or “most of the time” increased from about 39% in 2005 to 51% in 2009.^[40] This improvement in community opinion was shared by  Latino, White, Black, and Asian residents.^[41].

A likely explanation for the above trend is that the consent decree resulted in a reduction in the rate of which force is used.^[42] From 2004 to 2008, the total number of categorical force incidents declined by almost 30%.^[43] Data before 2004 is not available as that is the first year for which the LAPD started to provide consistent information on all incidents of the use of force.^[44] The reduction in use of force as a result of the decree especially benefited people of color as the incidence of categorical force used against Blacks and Latinos decreased more than the use of force used against Whites.^[45] From 2004 to 2008, Black suspects who were subject to the use of force fell from thirty-five to twenty and for  Latino suspects these incidents decreased from forty-seven to thirty-seven.^[46] White suspects subject to the use of force fell from twelve to eleven.^[47] The tools provided by the consent decree caused fewer uses of force, less racial bias from officers, and improved community relations.^[48]

The  implementation of the officer tracking system, TEAMS II, also contributed to these improvements in the LAPD.^[49] TEAMS II  was a database that collected information such as officers’ uses of force, civilian complaints, training activity, and other indicators of officer performance.^[50] It would also alert supervisors when patterns of risky behavior arose.^[51] A benefit of this system was that supervisors could take action to prevent an officer from committing serious misconduct before it occurred. Supervisors then had the opportunity to counsel or discipline an officer that might use force or stop people of color at higher rates than other officers.^[52] The effectiveness of TEAMS II can be seen as uses of categorical force declined during the consent decree; ^[53] additionally, the data collected by the system likely contributed to a reduction in the racial bias contributing to force^[54]

During this time, the LAPD also showed an increase in the hiring of officers of color.^[55] In 2008, Latinos made up 42%of the LAPD, an increase from 33% in 1999.^[56] During this same period, the percentage of Caucasian officers decreased from 47% to 37% .^[57] The proportion of Black officers, however,  decreased from 14 to 12%.^[58] Despite this, there was an increase in the amount of Black officers with more than ten years of experience.^[59] Additionally, Black officers accounted for 20% of captains in the LAPD, even though they  accounted for only 12% of all officers, meaning that Black officers were remaining on the force for a longer period of time.^[60] Diversification of the LAPD likely played a part in the increasingly positive attitudes people of color had towards the Department.^[61] Having more officers of color may have also led to a  decrease in bias towards   citizens of color. ^[62]

Despite its successes, the consent decree had its shortcomings.^[63] A troubling pattern in the LAPD’s use of force was that Black suspects (and, to a lesser extent, Latino suspects) had force used against them at a rate that was disproportionate to the rate they were being stopped at.^[64] Black people made up 22% of stops conducted by the  LAPD from 2004 to 2008, but  made up 34% of people on whom force was used.^[65] The consent decree failing to eliminate this  disproportionate use of force is reflected in surveys of residents.^[66] In 2005 and 2009 Los Angeles residents were polled and asked  if they thought  “ that the police in [their] community treat all racial and ethnic groups fairly.” 23% of Black residents responded “almost never.”^[67] This response coming from Black residents  was far higher than the percentage of other groups who gave the same answer:  14% of Hispanics, 10%  of Whites, and 6%  of Asians).^[68] Black and Latino residents’ elevated levels of discontent with the police is likely a result of the consent decree’s inability to remove significant racial discrepancies in the use of force.^[69]

A major reason for Black and Latino suspects being more likely to have force used against them is an ineffective complaint system, which came about due to the Consent Decree.^[70] The Consent Decree did not prompt for thorough investigations into complaints against police officers. This resulted in only a small amount of complaints against officers being investigated.^[71] Between May and October of 2007 there were 320 allegations of racial profiling and none of them resulted in a sustained complaint, much less a disciplinary action.^[72] One member of the police commission (the body which governs the LAPD) stated that the LAPD’s investigation into racial profiling produced  a “big fat zero.” in terms of enforcing its policies against its officers. ^[73]

Conclusion

The effectiveness of the reforms regarding an officer’s reduction of racial bias and instances of the use of force is mixed. The use of force certainly decreased from 2004 to 2008, which  disproportionately benefited Black and Latino residents and improved opinions of the police across racial groups.^[74]  However, a key weakness of the Consent Decree was the lack of enforcement of its policies in cases of misconduct.^[75] While the Consent Decree did not properly enforce its policies, the Consent Decree’s other reforms did decrease  apparent racial biases and instances of officers’ use of force. the use of force by officers. ^[76]

—

^[1] Stephen Rushin, Structural Reform Litigation in American Police Departments, 99 Minn. L. Rev. 1343, 1345 (2015).

^[2] Canice Prendergast, “Drive and Wave”: The Response to LAPD Police Reforms After Rampart 1 (Uni. of Chi., Becker Friedman Inst. for Econ. Working Paper No. 2021-25, 2021), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3789061.

^[3] Christopher Stone et al., Harv. Kennedy Sch., Policing Los Angeles Under a Consent Decree: The Dynamics of Change at the LAPD 33 (2009), https://lapdonlinestrgeacc.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/lapdonlinemedia/2021/12/Harvard-LAPD-Study.pdf; Stephen Rushin, Structural Reform Litigation in American Police Departments, 99 Minn. L. Rev. 1343, 1361 (2015).

^[4] Stone, supra note 4, at 37,49.

^[5] Tobar & Colvin, Witnesses Depict Relentless Beating : Police: Accounts of Rodney Glen King’s Arrest Describe Repeated Striking and Kicking of the Suspect. LAPD Officers Said King’s Actions Justified the Treatment, L.A. Times, (Mar. 7, 1991), https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-07-me-3174-story.html..

^[6] Id.

^[7] Id.

^[8] Id.

^[9] Id.

^[10] Id.

^[11] Id.

^[12] Id.

^[13] Id.

^[14] Indep. Comm’n on the L.A. Police Dep’t, Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department iv (1991), https://ia800206.us.archive.org/20/items/ChristopherCommissionLAPD/Christopher%20Commission%20LAPD.pdf

^[15] Id. at 31.

^[16] Id. at iii.

^[17] Id. at iv, xcii.

^[18] Id. at 26.

^[19] Id. at 31.

^[20] Id. at 33.

^[21] Id.

^[22] Id. at xii.

^[23] Id. at 69.

^[24] Id. at 75.

^[25] Id. at 76.

^[26] Id.

^[27] Id. at 77.

^[28] Stone, supra note 4, at 3

^[29] Bates & Krbechek, When LA Erupted In Anger: A Look Back At The Rodney King Riots, NPR, (Apr. 26, 2017), https://www.npr.org/2017/04/26/524744989/when-la-erupted-in-anger-a-look-back-at-the-rodney-king-riots.

^[30] Id.

^[31] Id.

^[32] Id.

^[33] Id.

^[34] Id.

^[35] Id.

^[36]Stone, supra note 4, at 5.

^[37] Rushin, supra note 2, at 1347.

^[38] See id. at 15; Stone, supra note 4, at 5.

^[39] Rushin, supra note 2, at 1361.

^[40] Id.

^[41] Id. at 17.

^[42] Id. at 33.

^[43] Id.

^[44] Id.

^[45] Id. at 34.

^[46] Id.

^[47] Id.

^[48] See id. at ii.

^[49] Id. at 4.

^[50] Id. at 38.

^[51] Id.

^[52] See id.

^[53] Id. at 34.

^[54] Id. at 34, 38.

^[55] See id. at 11.

^[56] Id. at 16.

^[57] Id.

^[58] Id.

^[59] Id. at 17.

^[60] Id.

^[61] See Rushin, supra note 2, at 1361.

^[62] Stone, supra note 4, at 33.

^[63] See id.

^[64] Id. at 37.

^[65] Id.

^[66] See id. at 49.

^[67] Id.

^[68] Id.

^[69] See id. at 37.

^[70] See Id; See Prendergast, supra note 3, at 14-15.

^[71] See Stone, supra note 4, at 62.

^[72] Id. at 62.

^[73] Id.

^[74] Id. at 17, 33.

^[75] Prendergast, supra note 3, at 15.

^[76] See e.g., Rushin, supra note 2; Stone supra note 4.