Lakers Riots Embarrass LAPD
You just know there's a problem with the police response when the ACLU approves of it.
“It could have been a lot worse.”
So said Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger of the downtown L.A. melee that followed the Lakers’ victory over the Orlando Magic last Sunday. If that’s the standard the LAPD is shooting for these days, the city is in big, big trouble. By the time the last of the Lakers’ “fans” were cleared from the streets that night, eight police officers had been injured, three businesses looted, and several cars and transit buses vandalized, all broadcast live from television news helicopters.
You just knew there was a problem with LAPD’s response when the ACLU approved of it. Attorney Carol Sobel, who represented plaintiffs who sued the LAPD after the 2007 May Day melee at L.A.’s MacArthur Park, told the Los Angeles Times that the LAPD had learned from its mistakes. “They didn’t come out in all their riot gear and I think that helped,” Sobel said. “You saw the line officers and it created a different dynamic. They were able to disperse people and do it in a less confrontational manner. They had a presence but they moved out people without the level of confrontation that existed in the past.”
Heavens, we wouldn’t want to be “confrontational” with anyone looting a store or vandalizing a bus, would we? Perish the thought!
Expressing a dissenting view was Richard Torres, 29. Torres owns a vintage shoe store a few blocks from the Staples Center, and when he saw on television that trouble was brewing after the game he headed downtown. When he arrived at his store he found it had been trashed and that nearly all of his $140,000 in inventory had been looted. Some of the shoes had been set on fire in the street in front of the store. One might speculate that Mr. Torres and the others who had their stores pillaged wish the police had been just a bit more confrontational.
But yes, it could indeed have been worse. As riots go, it was small potatoes. But that’s hardly cause to characterize as a triumph what was in reality an embarrassment for the LAPD. “In their Monday morning analysis,” said the Los Angeles Times, “police commanders declared the [non-confrontational] approach a success, limiting injuries and property damage, and showing the public that the department could restrain the use of force.”
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“Jack Dunphy” is the pseudonym of an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. The opinions expressed are his own and almost certainly do not reflect those of the LAPD management.
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32 Comments
1. David Thomson:Political correctness was mostly responsible for this mess. Everybody knows that any possible rioting will almost certainly be committed by racial and ethnic minorities. The police officials were worried about being charged with racial profiling. That’s all you need to know.
Jun 22, 2009 - 3:32 am 2. Meryl:Same mentality exists in the Portland Police Bureau (Oregon), assisted by the Mouthpiece of the Police Chief, The Oregonian (newspaper).
If you like what the libs have done with government and education, you’re gonna LOVE what they do to law enforcement.
(Of course, when they get done with it, it has almost nothing to do with enforcing laws, but let’s not quibble about details.)
Jun 22, 2009 - 4:06 am 3. Paul:Union security bureaucracy. What do you expect? You think with each year the LA Police Bureaucracy is going to move to ‘leadership, initiative, clear lines of authority and responsibility’ or is it going to move to more forms, rules, regulations, commands, counter commands, union filed grievances, layers and layers of staff/administration/’command’(snicker).
You’ve seen what’s happened to the schools, why shouldn’t the same late stage ossification happen to the Police? After all, most have been ‘educated’ informally by being immersed in bureaucratic, low quality, NO leadership, government school bureaucracies.
You think with California’s budget/tax/private economy train wreck things are going to get better?
The city can not afford people who will think on their own, take massive responsibility in a dynamic situation that can take people’s lives. And by and large, the LAPD does not want such people, they are troublesome to the nice, paper shuffling, medal and rank adorned sleepers that are counting the days to retirement, often from the first day on the job.
What you see as a fault, is the system that has self tuned its self to perfection.
Jun 22, 2009 - 4:07 am 4. David Thomson:I forgot to earlier mention Richard Torres, 29, the owner of the looted shoe store. The politically correct elites don’t give a damn about him. Mr. Torres is obviously a middle class individual and therefore not an “authentic Hispanic.” He is a traitor to his class and ethnic roots. Moreover, Torres might even be a Republican.
Jun 22, 2009 - 5:09 am 5. Anonymous:The problem is universal. The police chief position is a political position appointed by politicians either directly or indirectly. Since promotions are made from the top down only those who fit the poitical mold reach higher positions such as captians, commanders and assistant chiefs.
That is why when polls are taken that police management orginizations are so far removed from the rank and file in their opinions/positions.
Jun 22, 2009 - 5:26 am 6. Brian Richard Allen:Hey! Hey!
A riot in L A?
But a taste of what’s to come as the realization of having been shafted, again, (read: “still”) occurs among the totalitarians’ (read: “Democrat’s”) base.
That shower, comprised as it is of those having sub-67 IQs and/or who are criminal aliens and/or are felons, are the long long long dead and/or who “teach” (indoctrinate) and/or are fascists or crypto-fascists are, to-a-man, waiting to see their Goebbels-Media-made mock messiah pull the odd rabbit from his hat.
But their favorite sail-eared simpleton, ol’ Buraq Big Ears, is way too much on the Noddy to know how.
And the police are on what side, you said??
Good luck with all of that.
– Brian Richard Allen – L A – CA 90028
Jun 22, 2009 - 5:36 am 7. Ozzie:What Jack Dunphy describes is exactly what the majority of Californians want, and what they voted for over the last 30 years. Anyone left there at this point is there fully informed. Like a stubborn homeowner staying home during a forest fire, it’s sad, avoidable and their own damn fault. Everyone knows democrats attack civilian law enforcement and the military. Everyone knows democrats are weak on defense, and do not defend the weak. They only stand in defense of favored political allies. Karma.
Jun 22, 2009 - 5:50 am 8. Alex Bensky:For crying out loud, Dave Thomson, I’m tired of hearing the sort of thing you spout–how can you compare the right of Richard Torres to engage in a business with the rights of people to express their rights to self-expression, even if it means trashing his business? Yeah, it may have cost him his livelihood, perhaps had a distressing impact on his family, wasted years of trying to build up his business, but those are mere property rights and cannot be compared to the rights of people to express themselves freely.
And how do you know who the rioters were, especially since the news reports carefully offer no hint. For all you know, they could have come on down from Beverly Hills or Santa Monica. And even if you’re right about who was rioting, you display regrettable lack of cultural awareness. From what I gather from the media, rioting and destroying people’s businesses among some groups is an expression of their unique and valuable culture.
Jun 22, 2009 - 6:17 am 9. Delia:8. Alex Bensky,
LOL! You’re hilarious. Loved the sarc!
Sometimes you just gotta ask yourself..,”What would Jesus do…if he had a gun and a badge?”
Jun 22, 2009 - 6:55 am 10. hhh:As a Cop I am glad this happened but I feel for the injured 8 cops and victimized business owners. In today’s world any tough enforcement will lead to a brutality lawsuit, with youtube videos of you swinging your baton at the “poor rioters” And, you can forget about your department backing you. Its sad.
Jun 22, 2009 - 8:23 am 11. whataloadacrap08:My God people, the issue here isn’t how the LAPD might react to a riot, the issue is why was there a riot at all! Rioting because of sports teams performance is so ghetto. The problem isn’t with the cops, the problem is with the ignorant thugs who were rioting. I’ll bet the percentage of illegals among those arrested is quite high.
Jun 22, 2009 - 9:25 am 12. Don:Meanwhile, California’s higher education establishment is having a crap hemorrhage over the the citizen’s refusal to raise taxes and save them from draconian state budget cuts. Perhaps the citizen would be more sympathetic, if the graduates of higher education, such as San Francisco’s DA Camila Harris, wasn’t sending illegal aliens to public job training programs, for jobs they’re not legally entitled to, as a condition for pleading guilty for dope dealing in the Golden State? Perhaps if it wasn’t cheaper to imprison a killer for twenty-five to life rather than to execute the child killer in the first place after a speedy trial the public might be more sympathetic to the fiscal trials and tribulations of higher learning in academe? And after eight years of the educationally sophisticated complaining about American counter violence creating an incentive for recruiting new Islamic terrorists, I wonder what incentive message is sent when Mr. President releases terrorists to the warm gentle beaches of Bermuda? Don’t Bogart that joint, my friend, pass it over to me.
Jun 22, 2009 - 9:53 am 13. Arroyo:What happened to shooting looters? We are becoming a nanny state where we coddle lawbreakers. Peaceful demonstrations, yes; violent vandalism, no. Of course, somewhere out there are dozens of trial lawyers who would pad their annual income from any reaction from the police officers.
Jun 22, 2009 - 9:57 am 14. NahnCee:“And how do you know who the rioters were, especially since the news reports carefully offer no hint.”
Looking at the crowd at the “victory parade” a few days later might offer a hint. A colleague in my office was laughing that from Staples Center to the Coliseum, from Street This to Street That was all Hispanic, and then from Street TheOther to Street AndThe was all black. He followed up this observation with the comment, “That tells us what unemployment in Los Angeles is,” since the victory parade took place at noon on a work day.
Jun 22, 2009 - 10:02 am 15. robotech master:I think your looking at this thw wrong way… i think for the most part the police did do the right thing. The failing is on citizens and the government… ie lack of guns and lack of citizens shooting robbers, etc, etc.
This stuff wouldn’t happen if citizens were allowed to defend themselves and THEIR PROPERTY. The police are their to clean up the mess…. not to somehow play god.
Jun 22, 2009 - 10:28 am 16. Sonny:The LAPD have pretty much given the city over to the anarchists. La Raza plans on taking over California and the LAPD is ready to hand it to them. Is the ACLU happy about that too?
Jun 22, 2009 - 10:37 am 17. Bill Perron:L.A. used to be a pretty cool place to live until it became infected with the political correctness disease, now only homosexuals, and criminal minorities like it here, the rest of use are leaving in droves. I’m moving to Oregon, I know it is a lib state too, but marijuana is so prevalent that the socialist citizens are pretty much stoned all the time, so even if they are libs they are too wasted to cause riots and looting.
Jun 22, 2009 - 11:05 am 18. Blackwell:A year from now, the Los Angeles Times, will wonder “why won’t companies open stores in this area? ” The answers will be “rascism, greed, indifference,…” -everything but the obvious.
Jun 22, 2009 - 11:17 am 19. Easterner:Bottom line…. America is finished. Our country has been taken over by non Americans, from the president on down. Period.
Jun 22, 2009 - 12:28 pm 20. BSdetector:I wonder what would have happened if the Lakers had lost?
Jun 22, 2009 - 12:56 pm 21. Blackwell:19: I don’t agree at all: some irreponsible people rioted and as usual, solid people wind up paying for it now. The rioters ought to be tarred and feathered, since they damage neighborhoods that hardly need this push to oblivion.
Solid people will avoid the area even more. Unemployment there will stay high. Liberals will wring their hands wondering why businesses won’t locate there to have their stores burned while a placid LAPD watches.
But in other areas, people are working and going about their business. Including lots of “non-americans” who work a lot harder than people born here. You want to see american work ethic? Watch a dish washer in a restaraunt working long hours, bicycling home and working a second job.
Jun 22, 2009 - 2:42 pm 22. Class Clown:I think that if victimized and underpriveleged people need expensive vintage shoes, they should be able to take them. And if they need them so that they can burn them in a pile on the sidewalk, well, they have a right to do so with their own private property (which the shoes now are, once they have liberated them from the bourgeois shopkeeper).
Jun 22, 2009 - 3:35 pm 23. arhooley:In the spirit of #7 and #15:
>>Believe it or not, there are some in the highest ranks of the LAPD who would rather see stores looted and cars vandalized than see their own careers jeopardized by an incident that might in any way resemble what happened in MacArthur Park two years ago.
I’m more inclined to believe this than to believe the opposite, since effective cops and firefighters in L.A. are punished for high-profile effectiveness at crimestopping. Can’t remember the name of that clown firefighter who sued his own department about two years ago for a dog food prank. In a move that had “nothing whatsoever” to do with race, the fire chief, of a certain race, was canned and replaced by a chief of another certain race.
Jun 22, 2009 - 11:27 pm 24. I.M. Copper:It is more than fair and accurate to write there was a failure of the LAPD to properly plan, foresee, deploy, and react to yet another crowd control situation. It is not only unfortunate, but it should be viewed with disgust that a pre-planned event, such as a possible Laker’s victory to win the NBA Championship-especially because of what occurred in years past-was essentially left to one-hundred officers from the downtown area to handle. This error in judgment and poor planning, especially in a city and with a police department that has experienced failure after failure in crowd control situations has now become the norm.
The Los Angeles media, along with many LAPD staff officers care less than nothing about the eight officers injured. Nothing has been mentioned since that night in any medium. I argue that at least some of their injuries were primarily due to management’s faulty planning and purposeful under deployment. If asked, it is likely management would report that sometimes officers are injured doing their job and injuries are expected. The hundreds of officers working hundreds of thousands of dollars of overtime that night, the loss of equipment, the hasty reallocation of resources from throughout the city to take care of this mess, the blow to morale-again-and the terminal spin control of yet another failed mission of the LAPD is now common place. Where is the union that speaks for the officers of the Department? Aren’t they upset their members were injured?
It is necessary to understand that when the LAPD calls for hundreds of officers to a situation such as this, other portions of the city are left with minimal or dangerous amounts of patrol officers to respond to “their” calls. So, not only does it make for an embarrassment because the LAPD cannot take care of a minor uprising like this one, but the officers from the Harbor to the Valley, and the West Side are called in-away from their neighborhoods-to once again help restore order to a mini-riot should that never should have been allowed to occur.
I wrongfully believed the LAPD was better than that. When will I learn?
Jun 23, 2009 - 2:15 pm 25. wayne:My advice to everyone – study Portland. If you want to know fear for ALL of our futures go and research EVERYTHING you can find about what is happening in Portland.
Chicago and Freddoso’s book against Obama are a case study about the politics that is taking over but Portland and the Portland Plan are the harbinger of what the left REALLY plans to inflict on all of us – a more encompassing version of Eurotrashapean Eco-fascism..
It’s not just the political correctness run amok. That’s the least of it.
Portland has for a few years been the experimental model for the proper Green, Global Warming-defined, eco-dictatorship that is planned for the rest of the USA and all the West. Think Orwell as defined by Al Gore.
The city has basically bought up all the land anywhere near the city and banned the construction of single-family homes, mandated that all new development be large apartment units along mass transit lines, the elimination of freeways into the city and the increasing elimination of the car itself and reducing air traffic.
The city is working towards almost total control over every aspect of energy usage (the whole “remote control of residential thermostats” experiment is being implemented there). They are setting locations, sizes, and content of food service and grocery providers. All sorts of sensor technology is being worked up to monitor the citizenry to insure compliance with city mandates.
We are getting a lot of stuff fed back here in Wisconsin as our governor makes constant trips out there and brings back these crap ideas for implementation here. We have had all of these “ideas” used to create a plan that is being ironed out by our state fascists in Madison (THE PEOPLE”S REPUBLIC OF) that will turn Wisconsin into the test state for Eco-fascism and all of it is based on what they are learning in Portland.
Some of it would be funny like attempting to catch cow flatulence – except that they indicate they will try to setup dietary restrictions on us if they can’t reduce agricultural carbon. Mandates for Mercury-filled CFL bulbs. Mandates on the number and types of cars that can be sold. Banning the licensing of older cars. Construction and zoning mandates to favor apartments and mass transit and reducing single family home construction. Controls on aviation travel to move people to the “high speed” trains. It gets worse as they also have a plan to force people out of older, less energy efficient homes in a way that breaks the bank enough to put them into apartments forever.
Jun 23, 2009 - 3:03 pm 26. Sick of you East Coasters:David Thomson, you are a piece of c*** for the stupid comments you make towards hispanics. Last year in Boston after the Celtics won the NBA title, they looted, violence was in the streets and one person even died. Whats the difference? Color. Thats it. The punkasssses in Boston “Are passionate” while the Laker fans “Are thugs” Same crap different day. And for you to insult an entire race shows your stupidity. And Alex Bensky, very funny. You take 500 people out of a million and you right your little sarcastic remarks. Cowards and panic stricken punks..all of you. And If “Good White people are leaving in droves” then fine..go. It shows a lack of huevos and it also shows you dont have the same manifest destiny mentallity your ancestors had. Go to a Philadelphia Eagles game and get stomped on…Passionate. Go to A Raiders game…Thugs and gang Bangers. Hypocrites. That good ole american spirit still lives..just not as confrontational. Kepp writing.
Jun 23, 2009 - 5:39 pm 27. Sick of you East Coasters:By The Way, the looters were drunk stupid assessss and they dont represent anyone but themselves.
I meant write
Jun 23, 2009 - 5:40 pm 28. Ole Sarge:Sick of you East Coasters,
I agree with that, I was leaving down town dallas after a Texas OU game, some drunk white guy grabbed me as I was driving slowly through the crowd after it was over, hollering about his team, I gave a non commental remark, he hollered for his cronies to come deal with me, he failed to realize that when he was doing that I was reaching for my .45, fortunately they were to busy being drunk to care and so peace prevailed.
Made us both happy, he just was not smart enough to realize it.
Jun 23, 2009 - 7:38 pm 29. iowavette:Los Angeles reaps what it sows. No sympathy forthcoming from this quarter.
Another interesting comparison: Occasionally a few beer cans are thrown but this kind of public display never occurs at NASCAR functions. Big city metrosexuals could clearly learn something from the much-maligned redneck segment of the U. S. population.
Jun 24, 2009 - 1:05 pm 30. Paul -Indiana:They won … so they riot. There’s a 6 letter word for that.
Jun 24, 2009 - 1:30 pm 31. Andrew:Downtown Oakland on multiple nights in January 2009. Same program, different reason. But the same type of institutionally compelled response among the police command. Fear and passivity. Containment until forced to confront….but by then way too late.
Rinse and repeat. A darn shame.
Jun 24, 2009 - 7:08 pm 32. I.M. Copper:No. 31, Andrew is correct and helps make a valid point – fear and passivity prevailed in Oakland in January 2009, just like it did in Los Angeles. Tragically in Oakland two months later on March 21, 2009, an armed parolee-at-large, shot and killed four Oakland police officers! Is one related to the other? If laws were enforced properly in Oakland weeks earlier could those four officers be alive today, along with the suspect? Who knows? The point is it’s a slippery slope when liberal sanctuary cities politically pick and chose which laws to enforce due to fear, passivity, leadership paralysis and above all – political correctness. Laws are meant to be enforced and sworn members exist that have taken an oath to enforce those laws and the Constitution of the United States and the State of California. There is such a thing as discretion, but members of society, to include police officers and Chiefs, should be held accountable for their actions and in the above cases – inactions!
Granted, sometimes arresting demonstrators looks bad. Crowd control or arresting people that don’t want to be arrested usually does look awful on video. It is a difficult and politically risky business with no real upside for a police manager. Why an uprising police manager want to be in charge? Think about why an Area police captain was kept in charge of the Laker’s victory melee when there were at least four senior staff officers, that outranked the Area Captain at the scene that should have taken Incident Command? Easy answer: Why be in charge for a potential mess when our “Ollie North, Fall Guy” (Captain C. or Lieutenant Y) will remain in formal command and will certainly be made to take all the negative fallout, should/when it occurs. Political survival outweighs all-especially in the politically correct, new LAPD!
Jun 24, 2009 - 10:46 pm