LAPD shootings questioned by Times investigation. Why now? FWD
Tom Boland (wgcp@earthlink.net)
Mon, 8 Nov 1999 21:02:42 -0800 (PST)
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What interests might motivate the LA Times (at this time) to expose the
"blue wall of silence" on Los Angeles Police Department shootings? Isn't
such reporting taboo in corporate-owned media?
Can activists crack corporate consensus? If so, how?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991107/aponline172822_000.htm
FWD Associated Press - Sunday, Nov. 7, 1999; 5:28 p.m. EST
REPORT QUESTIONS LAPD TACTICS
LOS ANGELES -- Police have shot to death 25 people who appeared mentally
ill or deranged by drugs since 1994, and in at least a handful of cases
investigators appeared to ignore facts challenging the legitimacy of the
shootings, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.
The Times examined reports to the Police Commission on more than 320
officer-involved shootings. Of them, 37 - including 25 fatal shootings -
involved people who exhibited irrational behavior or symptoms of mental
disorders.
In a 1996 case, a man was shot to death in a hospital parking lot after
partially disemboweling himself with a knife. The city agreed last month to
pay $185,000 to settle a wrongful death lawsuit over the shooting.
In another case, eight witnesses disputed the police account that a father
of five charged at officers before he was shot, the Times said.
The Police Department has come under intense criticism since an officer
killed Margaret Mitchell on May 21. Police said the 5-foot-1, mentally ill
homeless woman lunged at officers with a screwdriver. Police Chief Bernard
C. Parks found that the officer used faulty tactics but the shooting was
within police guidelines.
Parks told the Times that all police shootings are thoroughly investigated.
Without commenting on specific cases, he said the LAPD must rely on
officers to judge the degree of threat in confrontations.
The Times said that in at least five cases it examined - four of them fatal
- detectives investigating the shooting failed to interview witnesses who
disputed officers' accounts; allowed officers to be alone, which could have
permitted them to coordinate their stories; misrepresented statements or
led witnesses to provide certain answers.
"In a long and difficult case, if you nit-pick you're liable to find
something you disagree with, but that doesn't invalidate the department's
overall finding," Deputy Chief Martin Pomeroy said.
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