Report from Los Angeles (Part 2 of 2)

High rate of unemployment dependents on welfare doles poverty and despair. These ingredients are present in the Negro ghetto sections of every major American city. But what set off the violence in ones and why was it on such a vast scale. One reason was repeated to us again and again while the major radio and TV stations in the Los Angeles area broadcast numerous salutes to the outstanding abilities of Los Angeles Police Chief William Parker. This is what we heard in the Negro community. I think you and your administration which anticipation is that if you are right and they start treating us like we're human beings if they stop me and give me a ticket I'll be glad to accept to take it if I did wrong. But I I but I don't want him coming to me telling me of calling me all kind of names get out of the car I randomly put my hands up like I've killed somebody or something like that because I ran a red light and make it humiliating the thing like that this is not what's happening. The big dry fire Chief Parker today not tomorrow not the next week or the week after. He is the police enforcement

authority which is the top authority in the Los Angeles area. All people in my neighborhood which is a closed area Negroes like they do in the south. I resent this. I'm a teacher in a Los Angeles City school system and I don't feel that my people should be insulted by the chief of police whose influence carries not only across the city of Los Angeles but across the country as a supposedly police and enforcement official who knows what he's talking about. I don't feel that the city taxpayer should continue to pay the salary of a public official who's going to insult and inflame the community. The minute he is out I would predict that 50 percent of the tension which is in this area this close area would disappear overnight if chief police chief of police Parker were fired not asked to resign but fired Imus. I'm Ali. And I know what you know. But

you've got nothing and I. Suspect. You're just a fabulous at it but it appears that if murder. Footage from the Other California migrant. Companies. Have money but. Oh yeah especially if they haven't. Read. Them. Yeah. Repetition being able to write well you used the term out there. Well I mean I know I'm an ex-policeman area for you the terminology here. I feel it it's like if a person has committed a crack at the other he keep going at it and he has no animosity toward me and. Are. Taking it. Now if the economy ballon is going to be good. Judy I think this partnership. That. Has been so many cases where. The bring it out or find one here is one of the best ways to get whole thing Rhianna. And taken care of

if we had a police department about a part. Only act when they're sent into exile. In the course of our investigation of the police situation in Los Angeles we interviewed Mike Hannan who until this past July 27 had spent seven years as a patrolman for the Los Angeles Police Department. Part of that time with the Newton Division which has the negro ghetto as its beat the interviewer is also bullets but I don't believe that the Los Angeles Police Department can pretend that they have not been adequately forewarned about impending violence in the legal areas of this city. The civil rights leaders in Los Angeles for years have been trying to tell the police department that the attitudes and practices of the police officers in those areas were building up the kind of hostility and restoration that was going to lead to really major violence by the police department as it continued to just insist that their or their policies are above reproach and that their practices reflect

reflect these policies. Now the department knows this isn't true and I know from my own personal experience that this isn't true. You know up until 1961 the police department in Los Angeles was rigidly segregated and integration happened on July the first part of July in 61. Prior to that time there were only certain geographical areas negroes could work and which were the predominantly negro areas. And there were only certain jobs they could hold and they. There was never an integrated radio car team. They had three negroes on a watch where they were running two man cars. They would put one car out with who need drugs and it would keep the other man in the station filing papers or something rather than put him out in the car with one officer. Now since the integration they have made officers have been working all over the city and and so there are much more thinly spread in the Negro areas than they were. However the department certainly isn't making any special effort to utilize a negro

officers in this situation except in such public positions as they have Public Information Division. During the during the trial of my case one of the issues involved an article that I wrote for Los Angeles correlators in which I referred to bigotry on the police department and the use of police facilities to promote right wing political causes. When the defense came came into the trial really well prepared to prove that everything I said in that article was true and we were however not allowed to put this evidence on. We presented for two days we tried to present witnesses to show what the actual practices of the Los Angeles Police Department were a negro neighborhoods not only civilian witnesses but police officers. We did put on the stand two negro police officers who were willing to testify to the kind of things that go on in Los Angeles. Well we weren't allowed to put

these this testimony directly before the the police judges. We did make offers of proof of exactly what these men were willing to testify to. So the department was aware of what we were going to put on. I can cite a couple of examples. We did one one negro Officer Norman Nadler came in there prepared to testify that while he worked at 77 station which is the station that controls the watch area where the rioting started a couple of years ago while he was working there. He saw a stone cold sober negro man come into the detective bureau and 77 straight to find out why his brother had been arrested and insisted on knowing after they told him told him to get out. And they booked him drunk and in the same week that he had Negro police officer tried to arrest a white bar owner who was a friend of the detectives and was unable to get him booked at 77 station. We had we brought him other witnesses another retired police officer who would have testified

to the particular harassment of racial racially mixed couples and cars containing whites and negroes in them by officers in the minority community. And I personally saying this to where I'll be writing in a police car and my partner says Look at that let's go shake that car why. Well look there's a nigger in there where that white woman or vice versa. My own experience in that in five years in Newton division was that while there are a lot of fine men in the police department. The prevailing attitude on the part of white police officers is a very definite feelings of white supremacy. Nicely structured by right wing ideologues like William Buckley who make all this garbage sound almost respectable but but nevertheless these these feelings are there they're very open. And I've also worked in White as a patrol officer and white areas of the city and it's like two different worlds. The way that policemen just react to the their ordinary contact with citizens

simple things like like how you act when you go in somebodies home. When I worked Highland Park divisional white area you know officers would take a seat that they were offered them. They take their hat off. They were courteous in their language more typical of Newton of Asian women in the Negro area officers who even if they were answering a call do I have to make a burglary report. I would stomp around the victim's home like members of the Gestapo looking for Jews hiding in the ghetto rudeness discourtesy I just. Just a generally well displayed and opened out attitude of complete contempt for the people they were working for. And this this this is so common and it's such a standard practice that the. The police department evidently thinks it's normal. Now the chief of police I've seen him on television these last few days trying to blame the whole thing on on agitators

Parker said. Well agitators have been going into that neighborhood for two years and telling those people they're deprived. And so naturally they're beginning to believe them. My god does he really believe these people are so stupid that they don't know they're deprived until agitators tell him so. This is the whole trouble is that the Los Angeles police department is run by a blind man. He's blind and deaf and he's willfully so. William Parker is the same man you know that was telling the. The Civil Rights Commission a few years ago about how his officers had to deal with people not far removed from the wild tribes of the hills of Mexico. This is. And he's no slouch at bad right wing activities either as recently as May of this year just before my trial. Parker transcribed a radio interview for the Manny in form. And yet this is the same ma'am. You know Manny and his on the National Council of the Birch Society on the editorial staff of their magazine American opinion the same Chief Parker is the man who insists over

and over to the press that he doesn't know anything about the Birchers on the police department. He says he doesn't consciously know a single member of the Birch Society. The man is just either a liar or willfully blind. What was your experience with two years in the police department. You know I do remember is very accurate as well John Rosello carsick claims a 2000 Birch Society members among peace officers in Los Angeles County and I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't a very accurate figure. I know several men at Newton station where I worked for quite a long time that admitted membership in the Birch Society. I know that Los Angeles Police Department does have a right wing front group called bifold the fire and police Research Association of Los Angeles. Which is very very active in promoting right wing causes that that five registered lobbyists in Sacramento. They put out a monthly smear sheet that has has attacked everything that even smells of

liberalism in the entire state of the nation. They've they've attacked Braden the Board of Education chairman They've attacked the union movement they've attacked. There was even an article entitled Sex Sukarno in the State Department were signed by a police officer where he accuses the American State Department of providing prostitutes for Sukarno. Do you feel that this would be grounds for not having him was a policeman or how would you know not to know. It isn't only my opinion that policemen are a right wing political Agee Parker and self characterizes police officers as naturally quote conservative ultra conservative or very right wing unquote. Now I don't believe that this should be should be grounds for expelling anybody from the police department I'm not not in favor of political loyalty tests under any circumstances. Now there are police officers of quite liberal persuasion there's one man who is very high in CDC circles that I know was a police officer. But today he's a

very very quiet about his about his political actions. Other officers even negroes who are involved with the civil rights movement have very very quiet about a police department and this is what I object to the fact that they can talk and those of us who are left of center or even mildly liberal are just not allowed to speak because any time I do you get in a controversy with a right winger. I'm causing more around problems and I'm a trouble maker. And it's the same with the others. With you going to bigotry you mention is being given my history is directly contributed to by your mood of the community. Or of course it was because the whole line of these that these right wing organizations that are appealing to lower middle class whites plays on their own their feelings of white supremacy and plays them up is that good decent hard working people who are supporting all these lazy no

good loafers living off of county aid and which of course completely ignores the factors that cause unemployment in this country that that create the situations where this aid and so forth is necessary so as not to confuse. I think we ought to mention that you have and I don't know where you began your career or became interested in socialism. The idea is to sort of yes I became a member of the Socialist Party in 1960 in January of 1963. This was a large base and also my membership and core was largely a result of some real basic questioning I did of my own assumptions and beliefs that grew out of my working as a white policeman in the Negro ghetto and the contradictions that this created in me about my role in what I was doing and what was your history as well as as a police officer working in a you know

white neighborhood or even when I was working action investigation division where I worked all over our role was it was simply to serve the public by protecting property and stopping disputes and keeping the peace. But the whole feeling was different working as a patrol officer in the in the Negro community there. It was a common joke among the policemen that we were the occupation army and we used to call it occupied Newton. The major problem it seems to me between the police department and the Negro community is a total lack of communication and a total lack of any attempt to comprehend or understand this the whole life of the people that they're dealing with in this community. And the police department in Los Angeles is fits into the general pattern of California criminal law enforcement. Like I'd like a handful of 19th century

gravel thrown into a 20th century machine. The. Records the phonology system the probation and parole departments all operate in terms of. Rehabilitating that person is that was committed anti-social latch so that his behavior patterns will be changed. The police department on the contrary works for a police chief who sets absolutely the line of the Police Department and Chief Parker's line is quote I believe that man is inherently corrupt and that his criminal tendencies must be constantly repressed. Mike what would be for you the way to you know have information there now how would you see the Los Angeles police to. I'm in the city of Los Angeles avoiding these kinds of things in the future we're kind of steps can be taken to the right situation. With specific reforms as far as the police department very concerned are too. For one thing the police department is going to make a real effort to educate its officers about the Negro

community that works them so that they don't believe that the civil rights movement for instance is nothing but a great big communist plot so that they have they have some understanding of the problems in the press tracings of the people they're dealing with and they know what the social dynamics of this community are. Secondly the police department is not under civilian control in this city. The police chief has civil service tenure on his job as police chief which he shouldn't have. You know in many cities a man has his civil service tenure at the highest rank he's made through the civil service process which is deputy chief or captain or inspector. And let those people take the exam for Chief and have tenure in their permanent rank but not an iron clad grip on their job at the top of this pyramid of authority like Chief Barker. But I would go further I think that policing is so important because it's the actual point of contact between the people and the machinery of the state

that the ordinary citizens ought to have some direct control over this this body of armed men with a monopoly on the use of force. Therefore what. What I personally advocate is the creation of a directly elected civilian police commission of full time civilians who will supervise the operation of the department directly. We close this report from Los Angeles with an insight on the violence there provided to us by Jerry Farber a professor of English at California State College and a volunteer worker for in fact the nonviolent action committee which has its office in the Negro community. Mr. Farber was in the Watts district during most of the violence there. Los Angeles papers tend to over and over again use the adjective grim ominous jeering and angry furious and so forth. And there's certainly a lot of hostility in this but there is there is one. One word they've left

out and that's happy. There's an enormous amount of joy in that community. And I think back to oh. Well Wednesday night after it really got going and the kids started throwing rocks at passing white cars. And then particularly Thursday night when I was down in the Watts area on Avalon and there was some very heavy looting going on. People were happy. This is important it may be hard for some persons to accept and I don't mean just the you know the kids were happy or just the gangs were happy. I heard an older woman say that for the first time in her life she was proud to be black. And a lot of persons who weren't even participating at down on Central knew it near the end back office. There are some people who have small businesses there are some negroes and they may not be participating but they're looking and they're smiling and they're digging it. And here's what one kid said just as I was leaving that area around 3:00 o'clock when they were doing a lot of rock throwing and the police were coming in and making some

arrests and the kids had kind of organized themselves well organized isn't the word they disorganized themselves into small roving bands of bottle and rock throwers with some other people I passed by one of these groups and the kid said he said man he said you know we've been taking it for a long time and now we're giving it. And I don't care what happens he said I'm ready to die he said. But but for once for once the tables have turned. And I think this is an important part of it. Also the people. Well the people throughout the whole community are aware that they've been getting screwed all their lives and so they see these. They see these businesses being looted and they don't exactly feel sad or guilty about it because there's a kind of a feeling that maybe they've got it coming. There's a lot of a lot of the people involved in this don't have the kind of identification with the society that a white man has it's not their society. And so for once maybe they're getting their own back and then there's something perhaps even deeper. A lot of the people

are they're saying with all of this with all of the looting and the burning and the rock throwing they're saying Damn it I exist here I am. And that's something because you know that whole that whole the whole ghetto has been invisible in the sense of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man that is there. Most of the people in Los Angeles they hardly know of its existence. They're people who lived here all their lives and never been in the Negro community. But it's not even in that sense that they've been invisible. They've been invisible as a part of the social structure as a part of the political structure they've been cut out. And so here their presence is being felt and they're there. Thrusting themselves in on the white society on their own terms. And there's a certain amount of just simply pride in asserting identity. A lot of people have been going around saying mostly white people. I think someone you already or Parker or someone said it as recently as two weeks ago that we have the best race relations of any city in the United States. Well we don't we don't we don't at all. And so people have to face up to

this. We've tried in this report from Los Angeles to provide our listeners with a more complete sense of the dramatic events in Los Angeles than has been readily obtainable from other news sources. We do not pretend that it is the whole story that will take weeks or months to emerge. The scene of battle was and remains confused. Only now is the smoke beginning to clear. As events develop we will continue our coverage with further reports from Los Angeles. This program was produced by the KPFA news department with the full cooperation and assistance of the KPFA staff in Los Angeles field recordings were made by Walter Thompson and Al Silva Wittes tape editorial work was by Scott to teach under a bridge technical production was by Bob Burke's dresser and James Dyleski production was supervised by Al sublets and your narrator has been stressing.