LAPD’s treatment of protesters is unacceptable

EDITORIAL BOARD Christine Byrd
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 Staff Representative

Brian O’Camb
 Staff Representative

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More than 2,500 people protested against police brutality at
Parker Center at the annual October 22 Rally. But when protesters
began blocking the street, police began firing rubber bullets,
leaving some in the peaceful crowd injured. Ironically, what should
have been a wake-up call to the LAPD turned into yet another
example of unnecessary police brutality.

UCLA student Xochitl Estrada was among those injured after
receiving a rubber bullet to the eye. Along with the National
Lawyer’s Guild and other protesters, Estrada plans to take
part in a civil rights lawsuit against the LAPD. Yet this is only
one of many examples of the LAPD’s strong-armed tactics to
deal with protesters exercising their First Amendment rights.

This summer, the LAPD mismanaged the protests associated with
the Democratic National Convention. Rather than protecting the
protesters and observers, the LAPD, fully clad in riot gear,
incited conflict by attempting to disburse non-violent crowds and
by restricting the areas where people could protest. The
LAPD’s hasty reaction to the crowd can be explained in part
by its desire to avoid having a situation similar to the unrest
that occurred when the Lakers won the NBA championship. Still, this
does not give the LAPD the right to trample on constitutional
rights.

The LAPD must learn to distinguish between cases of reckless
violence and cases of people exercising their right to free speech.
It’s unjust to give people permission to assemble and then to
limit their protest by using unnecessary force.

  BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Officers in riot
gear line the streets near the Santa Monica Pier during a riot in
August. To serve and protect the people of Los Angeles with minimal
conflict, the LAPD must stop employing violent tactics. This should
have been considered on Oct. 22, when the protesters took to the
streets to highlight such police abuses.

The LAPD can improve the way it handles these types of
situations by keeping in touch with the community and by
understanding its dynamics. The police must realize that a group of
protesters against police brutality are not equivalent to a chaotic
midnight shoot-out. This approach will help the LAPD adapt to
specific cases involving large crowds of peaceful
demonstrators.

Significant change, however, needs to start within the
department. Officers entering the LAPD become students of the
police system of brutality. What they need is a crash course in
constitutional law and people’s basic civil liberties.
Instead, experienced officers pass down brutal methods to new
officers, creating a vicious cycle. As a result, officers who
believe they are above the law.

The LAPD is now more inclined to use weapons to suppress
protests because the new equipment is “less harmful.”
Tell that to Estrada who may have permanent damage to her eye from
a rubber bullet.

Though Chief Bernard Parks said he desires to improve the
department, no serious changes have occurred. Parks either needs to
implement meaningful change or to consider stepping down.

Policing is understandably not the easiest field of work, but
the LAPD needs to stop using this as an excuse to justify its
violent and often unnecessary actions.

We encourage the people present at the police brutality protest
to come forward with their accounts of brutality by the LAPD. The
bottom line is that the police department’s actions during
the protest warrant a lawsuit. We can no longer continue to excuse
the LAPD’s careless disregard for people’s
constitutional rights.