My earliest memories of The Police

[noiretextatique]

I was about seven years old, and outside playing with some friends. I had no idea that the Watts Riots were raging a few miles from our neighborhood in Compton. I don't know exactly how information was communicated to the parents, but suddenly, all the kids on the street were rushed into their homes. And then...they came.

They were all white, and they rode down our streets with shotguns hanging out the windows of their cruisers. We peeked outside the windows to see them...a sight a I never forget. They were an occupying army sent to keep us in our place: cowering inside our houses. Those are the images that shaped my beliefs about The Police.

I don't remember how long the siege lasted, but I don't think we allowed out the house for a couple of days. After that, I, and every other kid in that neighborhood tried as hard as we could to stay away from them. They would come through the neighborhood and the younger kids would scatter, while the older kids yelled "Pigs" from a safe distance away. I never saw a single Black police officer until we moved away from Compton.

I learned early to not trust the police...and to fear them. There was no "Officer Friendly" living down the block in Compton...hell there were no white people at all in Compton, except The Police and the people who worked in the banks or the grocery and department stores.

A few year after that, Eula Mae Love was shot and killed by two LA policemen. She was a black woman of very small stature, and the police were called when a utility workman was trying to turn off her gas or lights. Apparently, she had hit him with a shovel, and/or brandished a butcher knife, so when the cops showed up, they shot her dead.
That must have been in the early 70's.

In the early 1980's, a friend form high school, Ronnie Settles, was found hanging in a Signal Hill jail cell. The cops tried to claim it was suicide, but he was severely beaten before he was hung in that cell.

Since then, I've had a few positive encounters with the police and I developed a more balanced view. But I've also had a few very negative, scary encounters, like many black americans.

I just wanted to share my history, because it most definitely has shaped how I think and who I am today.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

1. I wish this was in history book but it's not, it is current events

Racism is a problem only those with the power can resolve

[noiretextatique]

2. i will be 56 soon, and this happened in my lifetime

not some, long distant past. and i agree with you about solving racism. america long-ago threw up its hands and refused to take responsibility for the nightmare IT created. it became a "black" problem, which it never was...it was and is and american problem.

[kwassa]

3. I come at this from a totally different angle.

When I was a freshman in college, I heard stories from the resident adviser about what had happened in the previous year.

There were very bad relationships between the students on College Hill, and the city police. The previous year, it got so bad that some cops took some of the students out behind one of the dorms and beat the crap out of them. These were upper middle-class white kids, mostly, no minorities.

This made me realize that cops know exactly how powerful they are, how insulated from prosecution they are, and how close to criminals some of them are.

Particularly in a situation where cops are alone with a citizen, they can do anything they want to, and never lose in court. And, they know this.

[noiretextatique]

4. thanks for sharing your story

it doesn't surprise me in the least.

[kwassa]

5. I lived in Los Angeles for 17 years.

1979 - 1995.

I was there for the riots in 1992, which spread all over town. I lived near LaBrea and Wilshire. I was there for most of the Darryl Gates era of the LAPD, where they would take armored personal carriers with the cannons converted into battering rams and crash into crack houses. Except, sometimes they got the wrong address. The Gates militaristic approach to policing alienated almost everyone. Because of the structure of city government, Gates was not answerable to the mayor, former police detective Tom Bradley. This was also the era of Johnie Cochran, a former city prosecutor who jumped the fence and became rich through suing the stupid actions of the LAPD. He was a local superstar long before he defended OJ.

In the late 80s I had my first interracial relationship, with a black woman who lived in Inglewood. The area her mother lived in in Inglewood was a beautiful middle class neighborhood, all black that has a spectacular view of the South Bay. The downside was that it was in the flight path of LAX, with jets coming in to land all the time. Other parts of Inglewood varied from working class to very sketchy.

What this tuned me into is that there was whole separate social structure in Los Angeles for black people, and whites knew nothing about it. There were wealthy black areas like Baldwin Park, Ladiera Heights, and View Park, that most whites had never heard of. Most whites viewed anything south of the I-10 as a poor black area, when it was very multifaceted. I had trouble convincing my liberal white friends to come down to Inglewood for a Thanksgiving dinner that we threw.

I've been to Compton twice, once on a job as an insurance adjuster in the '80s, and the second time to visit a rental property belonging to my girlfriend's mother.

And Mr. Macho, Darryl Gates, yanked out his police at the first sign of trouble at Florence and Normandie. He had done the same thing as a police commander in the Watts riots in 1968, from what I've read. "Serve and Protect" indeed, but only if you are a white policeman. I blame him personally for the destruction of the riots, in the complete failure to do his job.

Excuse me for ranting.

[noiretextatique]

6. no excuse necessary

thanks for sharing again. i moved from long beach to oakland in 1990, just after the earthquake. i still have family there, so i was in and out during the 90's. of course i heard about gates' and his aggressive tactics, but thankfully i was living in oakland. i know the inglewood area very well. my sister lived @ 108th and Wilton Place for many years. i went to college in Claremont, so many of my black classmates were from Baldwin Hills and View Park. i was a scholarship kid from Carson, and it was the first time i became aware of class differences, most of the people i grew up with were working class to middle class, and the kids from the hills were much wealthier. in many ways, i feel very lucky to grow up in southern california when i did. i still have very fond memories of Compton...before all the imported drugs and resultant gangs and violence. another thing i experienced is white flight. once the black families who could leave Compton did, they moved to Carson and Lynwood, in particular. and the white families moved further east to Cerritos, eventually to place like Riverside. my parents moved to Riverside when i was in college, and visiting them was always somewhat unnerving because of the hostility of many of the white people there. not so much anymore, since the trend reversed, i hear more white people are moving back to areas like Adams, since many blacks and latinos more to Riverside and Moreno Valley because the housing was cheaper. anyway...gotta starting cooking. Happy Thanksgiving.

[kwassa]

7. I can't remember the exact location ..

but my girlfriend's mom lived off 104th. It was on a hillside that curved and faced the bay, as I said. She told me about how growing up there was a situation where everybody's parents would also look out for you, and you were responsible for behaving well with them.

One of my Compton experiences was to visit a house as an insurance adjuster. I don't remember the claim, but I do remember that I was welcomed by the family, given coffee and cookies, and was struck by how immaculate and well-kept this house and the houses around it. The people were very gracious, and it totally blew away my preconceptions about Compton.

Have a great thanksgiving.

[heaven05]

8. for many years

growing up, my next door neighbor was a policeman. He was kind, smart and tough. He died trying to save his 15 year old who got caught in a rip tide. They both died. Today's robo cops are nothing compared to the humanity I know he showed a lot of good and not so good people. He and my father drank beers, watched boxing and told stories relative to their chosen professions. My father was a professional soldier. I sat there and listened many nights till bed time. I grew up wanting to be a police officer or a soldier, one of my childhood dilemmas....

Today they are murderous idiots, psychopaths and many, like wilsonthepig, lack a conscience. Sad indeed. I liked my next door neighbor. And I wonder how he would fit in today.

[noiretextatique]

9. i was on a facebook thread yesterday

and several former police officers said they do not support the tactics police are using now. and they said Wilson is a liar. your neighbor sounds like one of the good ones.