As if responding to Ann's post the other day on the alleged post-racialism of the NYPD, the LAPD released the results of its investigation into the 320 complaints accusing officers of racial profiling last year. They found that not a single complaint had merit. There was, according to the LAPD, no police racial misconduct at all in 2007. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Bupkis.
As if that weren't bad enough, this was the sixth year in a row that all complaints of racial profiling were dismissed by the department. Even Commissioner John Mack had a hard time buying the report: "In my mind, there is no such thing as a perfect institution .. I find it baffling that we have these zeros." The problem with the complaint process, according to Chief William Bratton, is that racial profiling is so difficult to recognize: "It goes to the officer's state of mind. How do you get inside someone's mind?" You don't. You give them the benefit of the doubt. 320 times.
The president of the union representing the department's rank-and-file was furious at the commissioner's comments: "I am really outraged. They are using a circular logic that just because someone makes an allegation, then the officer has to be found guilty. That's mid-century thinking." Projecting much?
--Jordan Michael Smith
