🚀 go-pugleaf

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The NY Transfer News Collective sends:
:
: Reply to: ww@wwpublish.com
: ----------------------------------
: Via Workers World News Service
: Reprinted from the August 31, 1995, issue of Workers World
: newspaper
: ---------------------------------
: 
: SPOTLIGHT SHINES ON RACIST COPS IN LOS ANGELES
: 
: By Paul Ahuja
: Los Angeles
: 
: An organization of African American police officers filed a
: federal lawsuit against the Los Angeles police "union" on Aug.
: 15. The lawsuit accuses the union of being a "bastion of white
: supremacy" that regularly discriminates against Black officers.
: 
: The case couldn't come at a worse time for the Los Angeles Police
: Department, which is still reeling from the videotaped 1991
: beating of Rodney King--and from the 1992 rebellion by the Black
: and Latino communities after the cops who beat King nearly to
: death were let off the hook.
: 
: New outrages this summer included the killing of a 14-year-old
: Chicano in East Los Angeles by a cop the Police Department itself
: considered one of "Los Angeles' 44 dirtiest." And there is
: retired Detective Mark Fuhrman on tape at the O.J. Simpson trial,
: using racist slurs at least 33 times.
: 
: Michael Zinzun of the Coalition Against Police Abuse and a
: longtime community organizer in Los Angeles talked to Workers
: World about the Black officers' lawsuit. "When we look at the
: conflicts between the cops and the community, we know there is
: racism," Zinzun said.
: 
: "Everyone knows that the LAPD is racist toward the community. So
: it's not surprising that same racism will spill over into the
: ranks of the department itself."
: 
: The Black officers' group the Oscar Joel Bryant Association filed
: the lawsuit against the Police Protective League, which calls
: itself a union. The PPL is charged with routinely denying Black
: officers the same services that are regularly offered to white
: cops.
: 
: Leonard Ross of the African American group described the PPL as
: "the gatekeepers of oppression and racism."
: 
: Ross pointed to the millions of dollars spent to provide legal
: services for the officers who were charged with beating Rodney
: King. "The League rushes to champion causes for white officers
: who prey on the Black community," Ross aid, "while brazenly
: refusing to provide even minimal services to Black officers."
: 
: Ross said the League even gave a group of white officers $27,000
: to fund a legal challenge to the police department's
: affirmative-action program.
: 
: Meanwhile, the Fuhrman tapes have exposed the institutionalized
: racism of the Los Angeles Police Department for the whole country
: to see. In a city where it's increasingly hard for oppressed
: workers and their families to survive while the super-rich  live
: in luxury, popular anger is brewing. So Fuhrman's widely
: reported--and accurate--depiction of himself and his fellow
: officers as racist, sexist, anti-gay monsters has the police
: brass worried.
: 
: The tapes record conversations between Fuhrman and writer Laura
: Hart McKinny in 1985.
: 
: At one point, Fuhrman describes an incident in which he and other
: officers arrived at a scene where two other cops had been shot.
: First, he says, "We grabbed the girl--one of their girlfriends--
: by the hair, stuck a gun to her head, and used her as a
: barricade."
: 
: He continues: "We basically tortured them. We broke them. Their
: faces were just mush."
: 
: On the tape, McKinney asks Fuhrman if she can use this story in a
: screenplay she is writing. Fuhrman objects, saying the statute of
: limitations has not run out.
: 
: A survey of police reports shows many similarities with a 1978
: incident in Boyle Heights, where Fuhrman was then stationed.
: 
: "We are calling for community control of the police," said
: Zinzun. "The community has to have the right to hire and fire the
: police in our community.
: 
: "We have to have an independent civilian review board that can
: investigate, expose and prosecute racist cops and racist
: administrative policies with the LAPD."
: 
:                                -30-
: 
: (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
: if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World,
: 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. For
: subscription info send message to: ww-info@wwpublish.com.)
: 
: --
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