Police actions: Some blues are not colorblind

Police actions: Some blues are not colorblind

LAPD encounters marked with racism

"They knew damn well I did it … But there was nothing they
could do about it. Most of the guys worked 77th (Street Division)
together. We were tight. I mean, we could have murdered people. We
all knew what to say."

– police Detective Mark Fuhrman in regards to his participation
in a 1978 brutal beating of suspects by police.

By Ryan Masaaki Yokota

As a 20-something adult trying to make it in Los Angeles today,
I would say there are enough problems to be woeful about without
having to put up with harassment and blatant discrimination from
the police department. Yet time and again, the police have intruded
in my life with subtle and discriminating forms of harassment that
have shaken my faith in law enforcement’s expressed goals: "to
protect and to serve."

The most memorable incident occurred on my birthday in 1990. My
roommates and I jumped into my car to go to a club and celebrate my
birthday. Driving in Hollywood, we passed a squad car that was
giving someone a ticket. We didn’t think anything of it, and
continued to roll down the street, when suddenly, the police came
up behind us and flashed their lights. I was at a loss as to why
they had pulled us over, especially considering that I had broken
no traffic laws and no one in the car had done anything out of the
ordinary.

The police officer came up on my left side and asked for my car
registration and license. At one point, he asked me about a beach
parking sticker on my front windshield. This struck me as an odd
question, but I explained to him that I used to live near the beach
and that’s where the sticker was from. (In retrospect, I can see
the officer suspected I had stolen the car and was trying to verify
if I knew what the sticker was about.) After running a full check
on my records, he came back to inform me why he had pulled us
over.

"Okay, now," the officer said. "Why did you guys flick us
off?"

We sat in the car and looked at each other in amazement. No one
in the car had even paid the officers much interest in passing them
by, and we certainly hadn’t flicked them off.

"Come on now, which one of you did it?"

In response to his questions, we explained that we hadn’t done
anything of the sort, and that we were just driving to a club to
celebrate my birthday. He didn’t believe us, and got increasingly
angry as he tried to force a confession from of us. We continued to
explain that we hadn’t flicked him off and were innocent.

Eventually, having reached his fill of us, he let us go
(especially since we had violated no law), but before he left he
threw a little barb at us.

"Next time you flick someone off," he said, "make sure you have
the balls to admit you did it."

This from an "officer of the law." This from a police officer
who had nothing better to do on the mean streets of Los Angeles but
to pull over a bunch of teens and harass them on mere suspicion of
having "flicked" him off. It made me wish I had flicked him
off.

But this wasn’t the first time I would be pulled over and asked
ludicrous questions by a police officer. Incidents such as these
occurred time and again throughout my college years as I watched
people of color receive discriminatory treatment from "law
officials."

For instance, I remember a time when police broke up a Westwood
party I was at which happened to be full of people of color. In
response to that party, six squad cars were sent to the location,
where police officers harassed and pushed the people inside to
leave, and even arrested a youth.

Yet, not much more than a few weeks later, I passed by another
party in Westwood, composed predominantly of white people. This
party was huge and burst beyond the house, spilling into the
streets and blocking an intersection. In response to this party,
which was twice as large as the other party, the police sent
exactly one squad car. The squad car didn’t even try to break up
the party, despite the way it blocked traffic, and the police
officers that came stood outside their cars and smiled and laughed
with the party-goers. As I said, the biggest difference was that
this time the party-goers were all white.

Lately, I’ve noticed the increased presence of police cars
driving along city streets without license plates. Within the last
three weeks, for example, I’ve seen at least four police cars
driving around without plates, and it makes me wonder if they are
driving without plates so if they get out of line, no citizen will
be able to identify the squad car number.

Finally, the last noteworthy incident occurred just last Tuesday
as I drove down Santa Monica Boulevard to visit a friend of mine
late at night. I must admit that I had been going a bit fast, but
considering the weather, roadway and density of traffic, I was
driving at a pretty safe speed.

I pulled up to my friend’s house and a squad car came up right
behind me, flashing its lights. Two police officers came out of the
car. One came up on the right of the car and flashed a light so
that I could not see his face. The other came up on my left side
and got my license and registration. After I gave him those two
pieces of identification, he proceeded to interrogate me with
questions about where I was going and where I lived. I told him,
and he then asked if I had any warrants out on me. I responded that
I didn’t, and then he asked a question that really struck me:

"When was the last time you were arrested?" he asked me.

Notice this question and break it down. There was no "innocent
until proven guilty" in this comment, no respect for me as a
person. Not only was the question absolutely unrelated to the
reason he pulled me over, or to anything related to a warrant (all
of which can be valid questions), but revealed that he had already
made the assessment that I was probably some ex-con driving a hot
vehicle on my way to commit some crime, based on my race, color of
skin and clothes.

The key question to ask is whether a white kid who had been
pulled over would be asked the same kinds of questions. The answer
is probably no.

I’ve heard many more stories that are worse and more blatant
than these examples. Friends of mine have been pulled over and
shoved to the ground without adequate reason. One was picked up and
interrogated without cause. And as the Rodney King beating amply
demonstrated, people are getting beaten to a pulp today in
modern-day lynchings.

These stories are demonstrations that people like Los Angeles
Detective Fuhrman exist everywhere within the police department and
many practice varying degrees of discrimination and harassment,
from the subtle to the blatant. Yet they all fit under the same
rubric of discrimination and racism, with the police element in the
United States even attempting to systematize such racism by
developing mug shot books of Asian youths merely suspected of being
criminals.

Asian youths today, along with other youths of color, are
treated like criminals and gang-bangers regardless of whether they
are or aren’t. The saddest thing about this kind of treatment is
the way in which this contributes to low self-esteem and a sense of
"someone’s always out to get you" among the youths of today. If you
are always treated like a criminal, you often start believing it’s
true.

There exists today an increasing criminalization of being young
and of color, as can be seen in the racist connotations of the
"Three Strikes" initiative, Proposition 187, and the atmosphere of
fear produced and beamed into the rooms of every American today
through such shows as "COPS," "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol"
and "America’s Most Wanted."

Yet, in the midst of this growing government repression, there
has been no significant push by the California public to draw the
line in the sand, saying there has been enough racism and
discrimination by our elected "leaders." With approval given
through silence on the part of the California peoples, the law
enforcement branch of government has increased its encroachment on
our civil rights.

It seems rather clear: Now is the time to push for a critical
review of law enforcement agencies that control our streets.
Solutions such as civilian review boards and greater community
governance of police, combined with greater punitive measures
against those police officers convicted of violating an
individual’s civil rights, seem increasingly necessary in this time
of fear. It’s time to draw the line before the lessons of Fuhrman
become lost and before the tragedy of Rodney King is repeated
again.

Yokota is a 1995 UCLA alumnus.