One For the Books
Well, I got a rude present for Xmas, or an ominous one for New Year's--coverage of my town on the front page of the L.A. Times. The story detailed the awful truth about the violence and corruption of the Inglewood police force, which has developed a disturbing habit of fatally shooting and/or Tasering suspects, especially black male suspects, with insufficient provocation. This is nothing new, but the four-dead-suspects-in-four-months run this past year made people outside of Inglewood sit up and take notice (nothing like perfect-score, Vegas-like numbers to make an impression on the American public, like seven out of seven or a hole in one). As the Times piece made clear, Inglewood cops make those in nearby Hawthorne seem like community organizers, and even the historically notorious LAPD looks thoroughly reformed next to IPD's recent history of shootings, criminal behavior on the job and lax-to-nonexistent oversight of all and sundry by Inglewood city officials.
But as I said, this is nothing new. Unfortunately. Police abuse and black communities have been joined at the hip a long time--you almost never have one without the other, in Inglewood or anywhere else. So common is it, black residents as a whole tend not to comment on police misconduct at all. Sure, there's always a vocal handful, starting with the family of the deceased or abused and working up to some grassroots outfits and a (usually self-appointed) community spokesperson or two. But overall, the response is short-term and muted, for all kinds of reasons that never get any ink because those reasons are too vexing and complicated for anybody's front page. Reasons such as: after decades of protest, black people in general have no more outrage left; the middle class has bought the hype and side more with the errant cops than with the black male suspects who threaten their property values, among other things; of all the modern problems facing black neighborhoods in L.A., including shrinking populations and dwindling political representation, police abuse is simply not a high-priority problem. It's downright old-fashioned.
I'm not immune to the indifference. Yes, one of my first blogs for this site concerned the fourth fatal Inglewood police shooting back in August. But my indignation wasn't focused on the slain suspect, a homeless man touting a toy gun. It was focused on a dog, an innocent bystander who belonged to another homeless man; Topaz the mild-mannered pit bull wound up with a bullet wound that cost her a hind leg. I railed about this sad side story to the main story of police ineptitude that had cost yet another human life. The tale of Topaz did have great symbolism; what better way to illustrate the recalcitrance of the IPD than to describe the plight of an animal that had simply gotten in its way? But part of my attraction to the dog story (besides being a dog person myself) was the sense of futility in writing, yet again, the story of a suspect in a black and brown neighborhood cut down by police in murky circumstances. Trust me, there are no new angles there.
So Happy New Year. Here's to more humane policing, renewed outrage and sharper angles all around.
