With all of the violence and fear in Los Angeles during the riots, and the intense police brutality preceding it, I wanted to know if the city has changed for the better since then, and just how bad the LAPD is today. According to Black Lives Matter LA, over 500 black people have been killed in the past six years by officers on duty. The city has been ranked as one of the most dangerous places in accordance to the violence from police, and according to one analysis, police shoot one person every five days on average. One parallel case I found to the King case was with Ryan Twyman—an innocent man shot by 34 police rounds, and had a history of unjust abuses from the police. He was unarmed in a parked car. He was a 24 year old father of three hoping to be a veterinarian, and police profiling and quick judgements took that away from him. The police would repeatedly stop and arrest him before releasing him. In one instance Twyman had a seizure, and the police refused to help him because they said he was on drugs. The LAPD have drifted too far from the mentality of serve and protect, as they should have been doing when they saw Twyman in desperate need of help because of his medical condition. At 7:30 in the evening on June 6th, police sought out Twyman’s parked car and approached it, and shot him with 34 rounds as the car backed up slightly. The reasoning behind their actions was that he was under investigation for illegal weapons possession, but the police found nothing. The police have continued to inject themselves into the family, and even showed up at the funeral. The cops went uncharged and the department quickly gave excuses for the officers’ quick actions.After about 1,500 shootings, only one officer has been charged in the past 20 years. On that same day in LA, five other people were shot by police in different locations. Over and over again people are being killed by the police, and still no justice is served for these families.
So is it getting any better? There’s a 25% decrease in police shootings between this year and last, with 33 people and not 44 killed in 2019. Body cameras and new policies are being instated, as well as additional training. Videos of shootings are released 45 days after the event, now. The LAPD is trying to fix the divide between the black communities and officers, and only time will tell if these new policies will be successful.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/15/police-shootings-los-angeles-sheriffs-department-ryan-twymanhttps://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-lapd-fatal-shootings-20190416-story.htmlhttps://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/02/lapd-officers-who-shot-103-rounds-two-innocent-women-violated-policy/357728/
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ReplyDeleteI think it is horrible that nothing has changed since the riots. The fact that African Americans are being killed without cause is frightening. How much longer does this have to go on before change happens? Additionally I think something needs to change in our justice system. Cops are currently held to such a low standard of actions. I feel that they often get away with too much or when they are charged the sentence is very small. For instance Amber Guyger who killed a black man last year was just charged with murder but was only sentenced to ten years. Yet others who are not cops are always given much more sometimes life in prison. These discrepancies seem unfair to me and I think change needs to happen.
ReplyDeleteI did some research and found that the current chief of the LAPD was elected to eradicate racism and brutality within the LAPD. This looks like a step in the right direction. However, there are still areas in the South and in other areas of the countries that seem much worse in terms of racism and brutality. Moore claims that he wants to build trust with the colored communities in LA and hire officers from all kinds of backgrounds. Hopefully with Moore in charge, and a diverse group of officers, these senseless crimes can continue to fall. Considering the LAPD's brutal history, hopefully the LAPD can now get its act together and treat everyone equally.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-lapd-chief-moore-20180604-story.html
The LAPD has changed a lot over time. Some for better and for worse. their are still good cops who work under flawed departments. and its the departments job to correct the way police officers act.
ReplyDeleteI think LAPD will always be the same I don't really feel like they will ever do there job correctly due to the fact that we might still have some racist cops and we might still have those cops that are too violent for their job. I also don't believe that the comes are using there guns efficiently because all they seem to be doing is shooting black people. I think it is insane on how many cops have shot people and some comes have no reason on why they did that harmful thing they just assume something and they think its right for them to take out there gun and shot but they call it "protection" when really they should be protecting us instead of shooting us.
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