I witnessed the Rodney King LA riot, things got better. Pity it has to come to this before some will listen.
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Twenty-five years later, expert observers say the LAPD is a department transformed -- and that the change was made possible, in large part, by a consent decree, a police agreement with the federal government.
The future of similar agreements with 15 US cities -- including Ferguson, Missouri, Cleveland and Baltimore -- was thrown into question this month when Attorney General Jeff Sessions placed all pending consent decrees under review.
"We're in a place I could have never imagined the LAPD 25 years ago," said Connie Rice, a civil rights attorney who used to regularly sue the department over its practices in minority communities. Today, she works with the LAPD as a consultant.
But whatever its faults in 2017, longtime critics of the department say it's miles away from where it was in 1992.
"Are there still problems? Oh yeah," Rice said. "I can show you units that haven't gotten the memo, but now there real investigations. Now there is an inspector general. Now the police commission has some tools. It has some power. And the LAPD has accepted civilian rule."
"That's an entirely different scenario than the one we faced in the Rodney King days," Rice said. "This is not your grandfather's LAPD."
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Maybe if the whiny ignorant cry baby could learn to speak like Obama instead of a 4th grade David Duke folks would be able to calm down.
