Soares Fem mtiorno indication what action, if any, will be taken "~ has given absolutely: ee cadedel feed Parks could recommend that the officer befired, and even prosecuted. °~The Mitchell killing raised the same troubling questions as the3 a Rampart T scandal does about LAPD policies and procedures in| questionable shootings of civilians. Two bike patrol officers claimed| that they stopped to question Mitchell about a stolen shopping cart.According to their account, when she lunged at them with a screw-driver one of thé officers lost balance and his gun discharged. Twoeyewitnesses disputed the police version. They insisted that police+ shot her as she walked away from them, and that at no point did theysee her threaten the officers with the screwdriver._ But even if she did hold a screwdriver, did a frail, older womanrepresent a life-endangering threat to the police? She was not a osuspect in a murder, armed robbery, or gang shoot-out, but a suspectin a case involving an alleged pilfered shopping cart! Couldn't theyhave subdued her with pepper spray, a baton, taser gun, rubberbullets, or some other device in their arsenal of non-lethal weapons?_ Beyond disputing whether the police killing of Mitchell was justified,another troubling question is why did it take six months for Parks to_| release his report on the case. It seems to be routine policy for policeOfficials to hold reports in questionable shootings until near infinity.| Police officials insist that this is necessary to track down witnesses,conduct interviews, collect statements, run tests, review and Ces thematerial collected, and assess whether the shooting is v ithingor videpartment guidelines on the use of excessive force. °°" SB"Many, however, charge that police officials deliberately stretchout the time it takes to release reports in controversial shootings.They claim the police play for time in the hope that passions andanger within the comma ae ee rh and a people will 7forget the shooting, Almossigertspolice officials and-theit critiesof these reports. When the LAPD released its gait hat the |Mitchell case did not violate LAPD policy, it caused little stir withinthe black community. TSimply too much time had passed. To theircredit, the inspector-general and the Police Commission disagreed,defied Parks, and ruled the shooting out of policy.The Mitchell slaying as no other excessive force case including theRampart scandal cases again brought into question police training,guidelines, and procedures on the use of deadly force. This shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later policy has gotten the LAPD into hot water timeand again over the years. Following the Rodney King beating and theL.A. riots this policy earned the LAPD the dubious honor of beingbranded the nation Ts poster police agency for police abuse. .In 1998 the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in a blistering reporton police practices in Los Angeles flatly said that the LAPD has notcleaned up its act. It called for the appointment of an independentprosecutor to investigate police abuse in the city. The CongressionalBlack Caucus and Amnesty International also held hearings in LosAngeles in 1999 on police abuse. They heard from a parade of localofficials, attorneys, Justice Department officials, victims of alleged' police abuse and relatives and friends of persons killed by the police.The sordid accusations by rogue LAPD cop, Rafael Perez, thatsome LAPD officers shoot, beat, plant evidence, and give perjuredtestimony against suspects, a threatened civil rights lawsuit by theJustice Department, and continued foot-dragging by Mayor RichardRiordan and a majority of the L.A. city council on implementing themajor Christopher Commission recommendations on LAPD reformhave done nothing to enhance the department Ts image and credibil-ity. It certainly does little to ease public suspicion that the police areloath to investigate let alone prosecute officers who use deadly forceagainst citizens, no matter what the circumstances.Beyond deeply flawed LAPD policies that fail to punish the overuseof deadly force by officers, the Mitchell slaying also raised troublingquestions about the care, treatment, and shelter of the homeless, andthose who suffer mental disorders. Many ask: Why was she on the streetin the first place? Where are the treatment centers for the thousands ofmen and women like her? Why haven Tt local dnd state officials doneeverything in their power to get more funds for the care of the Mitchells?When will state legislators reverse the disastrous policies of the Reaganyears that closed scores of treatment centers and denied mental healthcare to only those deemed violent? This policy dumped thousands of menand women such as Mitchell on the streets. What is the policy of theLAPD toward the homeless and those with mental disorders that roamcity streets?_. The sad fact is that despite the anguish over the plight of thehomeless in Los Angeles many persons still regard the homeless asAmerica Ts untouchables. They treat them with a disastrous mix ofcontempt, shame and embarrassment.These are the many troubling questions that the Mitchell slayingraised about failed LAPD policies and our own indifference towardthe disadvantaged. A year later those questions still scream foranswers.iJ| This so-called engebatia with-| Gov. Gray Davis does not include| mandatory data collection by the| police, which is an abandonment ofMurray's earlier commitment. The -hallmark of the new watered downversion is business cards and diver-sity training for police, which arevirtually meaningless without harddata. Murray forfeited the guts ofhis legislation in the deal with thegovernor, who remains adamantlyopposed to data collection.Murray Ts own statement, bestilluminates the contradiction be-tween his ocompromise ? and ear-lier commitment to data collectionas essential for curbing racial pro-filing: (In a compromise, each sidemakes concessions. If Gray Davisconceded anything, it must havebeen microscopic.)Murray has said, o...Statewide~ data collection in California wouldincrease accountability by the po-lice and begin to help heal strainedrelations between minority commu-nities and law enforcement offic-ers. ... The data bill is necessary tocompile the tangible information- bah. that explains why this is happening~-and how it can be solved so peoplecan regain trust in law enforcement... While the CHP is collecting datavoluntarily submitted by a numberof jurisdictions, there is no unifor-y to the data and it does includeumber T of larger metropolitanareas where there have been a num-ber of complaints. ?Murray Ts statements followingGray Davis Ts veto of the 1999 databill were: oThe decision is a devas-tating blow to communities of colorand all Californians statewide. Weneed comprehensive hard data todetermine if drivers are being pulledover on the basis of their race. ...People want hard facts to explainwhat is going on ... I feel it is a lostopportunity for Gov. Gray Davis toshow his leadership in building aEver get that sinking feelingyou're about to be pulled into anunwinnable situation, where everyother option seems to be discounted,and you have nowhere to turn?Many seem to think that is theposition for the 90 percentile ofAfrican Americans who vote demo-cratic and are chained to the leg ofthe sinking presidential candidacyof Al Gore. With four-fifths of blackclergy of every denomination in hiscap, there Ts still time of have thatalmighty, all night oPray-in ? thatAl Gore will appeal to more thanJust us and pull off a victory inNovember. But with George Bushnow giving death penalty reprieves,I think even the oBig Guy Upstairs ?is now in the oundecided ? category.Al Gore is sinking faster than acowboy in quicksand in a oB ?movie. You know it Ts just a matterof time before you Tre put out ofyour misery. Unfortunately, miseryfor black folks will continue with avictory for Republicans, who seembent on punishing blacks for theirwe So longer need. 5'dita shady toprove it. ?This curious reasoning missesthe point since neither defining noroutlawing racial profiling was everan issue. In fact, racial profiling hasbeen outlawed since passage of theFourth Amendment to the U.S. Con-stitution. The real challenge is work-ing to eliminate racial profiling byholding police officers accountablebased on evidence sufficient to curbillegal and abusive police behavior.What about Murray Ts claim that oa data study ? is no longer neededbecause the governor is willing tomake a specific declaration, (ac-knowledging racial profiling)? Thisrenders Murray's earlier commit-ment to data collection tenuous atbest. Actually; Gray Davis Ts decla-ration has no bearing at all on theneed for data SORE by law en-forcement.It seems that political consider- ,ations may have outweighed otherfactors in Murray Ts arriving at the ocompromise. ? SB66, his compro-mise bill, contains the following: Astatement that racial profiling is animportant problem; defines racialprofiling; outlaws racial profiling;provides for accountability of indi-viduals and departments; providesfor retraining for every officer inthe state, Specifically on the pat-terns, practices and protocols thatlead to racial profiling.Again, it should be noted that.the compromise bill without datacollection to assess racial profiling,is fundamentally deficient.The definition of racial profil-ing in the compromise bill may betoo narrow and could backfire byallowing officers to continue cur-rent practice. The bill Ts trainingprovisions omit last year Ts signifi-cantly expanded diversity training[BETWEEN THE LINESWithout Options for President, Can African TAmericans Alone Save a Sinking Al Gore |blind loyalty to Democrats. Every-body else is considering options.Everybody, I repeat, everybody;Asians, Latinos and Native Ameri-cans included, are split on every-thing from Republican to ReformParty. Even a few blacks are begin-ning to think about the Neateof Gore losing. But 90 percent ofblacks are still pushing a Gore boattaking on water. The Los AngelesSentinel "the largest black news-paper west of the Mississippi, evenendorsed a Republican, Alan Keyes,in the California primaries, an at-tempt to get blacks thinking aboutoptions. This, of course, came outof the feeling that both Democraticcandidates (Gore and Bradley)largely ignored the black commu-nity and the black press, save aselect few that they thought wouldbroker the influence of the masses..Bradley found out, as Gore isfinding out, that day is long gone.Gore will have to expand his base,even among blacks, to save his can-didacy. In the meantime, withoutU.S.-China Trade Agreement: AmericanWorkers Lose Another One to Big Money TBy STEPHEN P. YOKICH -President Clinton and Vice Presi-dent Gore hail the U.S.-China agree-ment on WTO accession oa hun-dred percent win ? for America thatwill increase U.S. exports to Chinaand create jobs for American work-ers. Nice words, but they made the- very same claims for NAFTA. They; were wrong then, and they are wrongvl now.We... this issue of critical i impor-_ tance to working people "one that_ could cost hundreds of thousandsof American workers their jobs "_ President Clinton and Vice Presi-_ dent Gore once again have sidedwith multinational corporationsagainst workers, here and abroad.fatten profits as the champions for amore free and open Chinese soci-ety. Meanwhile, the labormovement's insistence that the Chi-nese government demonstrateprogress on human and workers Trights before the U.S. Congress per-manently gives up its power of an-nual review is dismissed as selfish,myopic, and worse.We are deeply disappointed thatVice President Gore has failed tospeak out against these cynical at- passestacks on the labor movement and [aayour partners in this fight. Instead, ,he has tried to have it both wayshuman rights, workers T rigins, as angenv protections. :Bpadbny ome hay trade ay: re Presidentfor China. And, obviously, we cannot turn to Republican candidateGeorge W. Bush; his positions onissues of concern to working fami-lies are far worse.America Ts working familiesneed and deserve a president theycan count on to stand with them on: .their tough T issues, not just the easyones. That's why we have nochoice 'but to actively explore alternativesiticalIt Ts time to forget about party labelsand instead focus on supportingcandidates who will take a standbased on what is right, not what bigmoney dictates. Supporting thosewho support us is our politicalagenda, not just a slogan:(Stephen P. Yokich is presidentof the United Automobile, Aero- °space and Agricultural ImplementWorkers of America Internationa!Union UAW))tatuteeatnaeeal raterwith the. ROL: aving workedclosely with the organization inport of his easier eni-raciel profiling .legislation. So why the venom forACLU? Excerpts of Murray T sremarksprovide someclue; =. There are a few isolatedorganizations driven chiefly by theACLU, who naively and for theirown conflicted purposes continue- to demand legislation which haveno chance of being signed into lawby the governor. ? (Apart from thefact that the governor T $ Signature isonly one criterion for supportinglegislation, Murray apparentlymisses the fact that he is criticizingthe ACLU and others for support-ing the very legislation he stronglysupported until the ocompromise. ?)And, Murray asserts that theACLU Ts motive was oto providedata for lawsuits, not to actuallysolve the problem. ... The ACLUhas been fund-raising ... on the backsof minority communities that haveendured the pain and indignity ofracial profiling.. ? He adds, oItshould be noted that some of these funds go to support the ACLU Tsefforts to protect the rights of theKu Klux Klan and Nazi party tomarch through our neighborhoods. ?Would Murray, alawyer, no less,object to the ACLU (or NAACP)protecting the rights of AfricanAmericans or Latinos to demon-strate in any location? Unbeliev-able!The DWB/B compromise alsoraises questions concerning politi-cal leadership. The process forreaching the so-called compromisewas traditional, as was the strategyfor building support for the legisla-tion. Murray quickly cited politicaland community support, includingthe NAACP (the Los Angeles.NAACP does not support the com-ce Berets; J T only thoseise ? views. Of course, this Tepresents *griiony constitute :| who agree with his ;the traditional political paradigm:wherein rubber-stamping decisions: :sup-. of political leaders is not only ex::pected, but often required. ===:- Murray could have kept a data:collection bill and subsequently |proposed a new bill for diversity "training for police officers, thereby -remaining consistent and forthright.Instead, he compromised and jetti-soned data collection in SB66amended "which is still beingpitched to the community as a le-gitimate solution to racial profil-ing.Traditional political strategiesare especially inappropriate andineffective, given today Ts realities.Changing demographics, the vola-tile economic scene and the widen-ing schism between middle classand poorer blacks, to mention just afew factors, requires new thinking,new strategies and new behavior by.elected officials, others in leader-ship positions and the general com:munity as well.Murray T $ tactics around the com- .promise DWB/B legislation are in -some ways an insult to the AfricanAmerican community, which is ,quite capable of independent judg-ment. The ACLU ruse was neitherappropriate nor helpful.New leadership is needed nowmore than ever and hopefully, ,Murray will rethink his ocompro-mise ? and reintroduce new datacollection legislation involving abroader cross-section of the com- -munity in the process.The DWB/B legislative struggleembodies much of what is wrongwith politics in the African Ameri-can community. But it also por-tends what must be done to respond.to the needs of our communitywhich is under siege, in some re-gards like never before. Business as,usual is no longer acceptable.options, blacks are thinking abouthow to save their only option, AlGore. A scary proposition. Not totry to save Al Gore. It Ts scary thatwe would only consider Al Gore.Certainly, the. Republicans havebeen mean-spirited in rolling back theprogress of the civil rights agenda,and using a second post-reconstruc-tion period that has racism, and race-related crime as high as its been in the20th century. The social construct hasshifted right to protect the racial o peck-ipg order ? in the country. that facili-tates disparities in every area of socialinterface. That Ts real. But, in truth, .Republicans have no incentive tochange their politic or their level ofsensitivity to the social change agendabecause they receive little in return.The fastest growing party in theAmerican political system are the. oReformats. ? There are more regis-tered independents than there areregistered Democrats or Republi-cans. The appeal of the political ocenter ? (moderates) have all threeparties rushing to show their best omoderate ? face. Yet, blackshaven't given the reform party anyplay. Jesse Jackson is the best re-form party candidate out there, andyou can Tt even get him to say, ore-form ? in a political context (be-yond conversation). And he hasspent most of his adult life trying toreform American politics. The opolitics of inclusion ? is his term.Jackson, instead, would rathertry to save Al Gore, and hold aquickly shifting (to the moderatecenter) Democratic party to the leftas long as possible. The farthest lefta oNew Democrat ? will move isnow just left of center. CaliforniaGov, Gray Davis (whom I mistak-enly called former Republican Gov.. Pete Wilson last week because he isacting so much like Pete Wilson," you can hardly tell the difference)mis the prototype for the onew ?| Democrat. A new Democrat is amocrat who will consider repub-" of moder-ates. If ratic candidates andleadership are considering options10ld power, why shouldn Tt7 Politics is an options game. Idy play oone against 7"to sek, political adlican platform and policies to at-"tract the oswing votehaven no poe sévan- fage because they only play withone, the Democrats. And whenDemocrats are played out, we'replayed out. We've been there and:done that with the Reagan and Bushyears, as well as the Deukmejianand Wilson years in California. Butwe still haven Tt learned our lesson.Our communities have most of itseggs in the Gore basket.Saving Al Gore would meanconvincing those who rolled with.Bill Clinton in 92 and T96, to rollwith Gore in 2000. Right now, At:Gore is running behind Bush in mostall key demographics, white men,women, likely voters, new voters,and is splitting the oethnic ? voleamong Asians and Latinos. The only:one he has in his pocket, for sures :are blacks "and not in as great num : ;bers as Clinton. 3Gore is not odoing it ? for bawomen (the likely voters in our dre. :mographic) like Clinton did. If youtwatched the recent Al Gore fociggroups on C-SPAN, Gore is really:not doing well with any demg~: graphic. Some like him. But that*s,*:it "they just like him, they donit:: olove him ? or have a passion for his ?candidacy, |Part of the problem is Gore try-ing to reinvent himself every fewmonths. People don Tt know whathe ~stands for, or think he will stand forwhat is politically expedient. (Like -when he went against the president onthe Elian Gonzalezissue. Wrong 'call, particularly in the black com- |munity.) If you Tre not already madeof something when you step out for.president, you'll have a problem °,convincing someone you'll be madeof something solid when you get |.there. That's Al Gore problem rightnow. His lack of sincerity is sinkinghim. Fast. . :Between now and the conven-tion, some major choices will bemade, including a running mate, "that will either bring the public toAl Gore or make them run away .from him. In the meantime, I have -.one suggestion for the black com: 'munity. oGet a back-up option, be-cause Al Gore will need more thanusto win. And he may havetocutus pse to do it. : :Just look at Gray Davis for an:mple of what the onew ? Demo-t stands for. Everybody plays . otei options. = emia =~.