Outrage (47 page)

Time
magazine, in its December 25, 1995, edition, likewise failed to make the distinction. It said: “Jurors did not require too much coaching from Cochran to believe that Simpson may have been a victim of the Los Angeles Police Department; all they had to do was replay in their minds the videotape of the savage beating administered four years earlier to an unemployed black construction worker named Rodney King.”

In other words, according to
Time
, beating Rodney King and framing O. J. Simpson were no different. Again, if
Time
and
Darden
didn’t see the difference, how could the Simpson jurors, who needed help crossing the street on a green light, see it without any help from the prosecution?

It’s my view that because the Simpson jury could easily relate to police misconduct in the form of brutality, and lying to cover it up, they went on, without thinking and with no help from the prosecution, to buy the frame-up theory. As I indicated earlier, I cannot be positive that this is why they were so receptive to the police frame-up argument, but I am very confident it is the reason. One thing I
am
sure of. The framing of blacks by the police for crimes like robbery, burglary, rape, arson, and murder is not a part of the black experience in Los Angeles. There is no evidence to support that proposition. All the evidence is to the contrary. Talk to black people.
They
will tell you that being framed is not a part of their experience. But because the prosecutors failed to point this fact out, instead of the jury in the Simpson case thinking that it would be exceedingly rare, virtually unheard of, for the
LAPD
to have framed Simpson, their state of mind most probably was “This is the
LAPD
, and we all know they can’t be trusted.” There may be things about the
LAPD
that can’t be trusted by some in the black community, but this definitely was not one of them. Yet the prosecution, not seeing the issue, never made this obvious point to the jury.

Had I been the prosecutor in the case I would have told the jury the following to increase whatever rapport I had already established with them:

“You black folks on the jury know about police brutality. You’ve lived it, either personally or through those you know. But although I haven’t experienced it, I know it, too. In fact, just three years ago I wrote an article about how a certain strain of law enforcement officers here and around the country have been manhandling, brutalizing, and in general mistreating members of your community for years and getting by with it. And I publicly took a position calling for the prosecution and conviction of these officers to put an end to it.”

After then pointing out that being framed by the police is not a part of the black experience, the prosecutors should have made this type of remark (in abbreviated form) to the jury in the Simpson case:

“Let me give you ladies and gentlemen of the jury virtual proof that the police frame-up theory in this case is pure, unadulterated nonsense, the type that should be very insulting to your intelligence. The defense in this case, at one time or another, has suggested to you folks that just about everyone involved in the investigation of this case was a part of the conspiracy to frame Mr. Simpson. Not just the four detectives, but many of their colleagues, from officers Riske and Spangler to Commander Bushey, even the two police criminalists, Dennis Fung and his young rookie assistant, Andrea Mazzola, who told you that prior to this case she had never even heard of O. J. Simpson. Even, in fact, Thano Peratis, the male nurse who withdrew Simpson’s blood and is now at home recovering from major bypass surgery. Remember, they suggested that he changed his testimony to account for the supposedly missing 1.5 cc of Mr. Simpson’s blood. I mean, everyone was involved. I can just picture Phil Vannatter on the phone calling some of his colleagues on the force on the night of the murders: ‘Hey, Sam, we got a great conspiracy going on down here. We’re framing that black dude, O. J. Simpson.’ ‘For Christ’s sake, Phil, do you know what time it is? It’s three in the morning!’ ‘I know, I know. But how many times do you get an opportunity to nail someone like Simpson?’ ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right, ol’ buddy. Let me take a quick shower and I’ll be right down.’ ‘Well, you better get your rear end down here right quick. We’re not going to wait all night.’ ‘Okay, Phil, okay.’

“You know, it reminds me of the film
JFK
a few years back about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I don’t know if any of you saw it, but at one time or another in the film, the director, Oliver Stone, unbelievably had the
CIA
,
FBI
,
KGB
, organized crime, Secret Service, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, Dallas Police Department, Castro, anti-Castro Cuban Exiles, and the military-industrial complex all involved in the conspiracy. Where did all these people get together to hatch their elaborate conspiracy? Madison Square Garden? And was Lee Harvey Oswald’s wife, Marina, the hostess when they broke bread? I walked out of that ridiculous movie thinking that I was one of the few people not involved in the conspiracy. Apparently no one wanted poor President Kennedy to live. Even bitter enemies like the
CIA
and
KGB
got together on this plot.

“Anyway, getting back to this case, although everyone and his grandmother was apparently out to frame Mr. Simpson, according to the defense, the main conspirator, the head guy, the maharajah of this dirty, rotten plot to frame this defendant, was Mark Fuhrman, the supreme racist, the devil incarnate. You’ll recall that Kathleen Bell testified that when she met Fuhrman sometime between 1985 and 1986 at a Marine recruiting office he told her that when he sees a black man with a white woman driving in a car he pulls them over, and when she asked him, ‘Well, what if they didn’t do anything wrong?’ he told her that ‘he’d find something.’ And so Mr. Cochran argued to you: ‘This man will lie to set you up. That is what he is saying there. He would do anything to set you up because of the hatred he has in his heart.’

“Number one, Ms. Bell did not say in the letter she wrote to Mr. Cochran about the incident, nor did she testify at this trial, that Fuhrman said he’d frame the black man and his woman friend, did she? Only that he’d come up with some reason, valid or invalid, to pull them over. But since Mr. Cochran is alleging that Fuhrman and his colleagues framed Mr. Simpson for these murders because of their racism, let’s stop to think about this terrible, vile charge for a moment. Mark Fuhrman has been a Los Angeles police officer for close to twenty years. During that time he has undoubtedly arrested hundreds upon hundreds of black people. In fact, for several years, he even worked South-Central. Now, I think most of you will agree that if there’s one thing that’s even worse than excessive force by the police, it’s being framed for a serious crime you didn’t commit. A bloody nose, even a broken arm, can heal, but going to prison for five or ten years and being classified as a felon for the rest of your life is a lot worse, wouldn’t you agree?

“Now, don’t you think that if this fellow Fuhrman were the type who liked to frame black people for crimes they didn’t commit, there would have been a considerable number of black people framed by him through the years? And that all or at least most of these people would have immediately gotten on the phone and called Mr. Cochran or some other member of the defense team, and you would have heard them testify from that witness stand at this trial? There certainly cannot be even one of you who doubts this. You have to absolutely know this would’ve happened. Particularly in a big case like this where coming forward would make them a hero to many in the black community, and they’d be able to sell their stories for a lot of money. If Fuhrman had been the framing cop the defense wants you to believe, there would have been a virtual parade of black people he had framed throughout the years taking that witness stand at this trial.
Yet not one, not even one such black person came forward.

“After all his years on the force, the only black person the defense called to the witness stand to testify against Fuhrman was Roderick Hodge. He said Fuhrman had mistreated him and told him after his arrest, ‘I told you we’d get you, nigger.’ But he didn’t say anything about Fuhrman framing him. Not one word. As far as testimony coming from this witness stand that any black person has ever been framed by Mark Fuhrman or, for that matter, any of the other three detectives in this case, that witness stand was silent. As quiet as a small-town cemetery on a rainy Sunday afternoon. As quiet as a church mouse. As quiet as a painting on a wall. Why? Because it never happened. No framed black people came forward because they don’t exist. You folks should not only feel insulted that the defense attorneys have tried to deceive you like this, you should be angry at them. How dare they think so little of your intelligence that they try to sell you a preposterous argument like that?”

With a case that was in existence almost sixteen months before the final summations were given, couldn’t at least one of the two lead prosecutors have found enough time to work up an argument at least something like this?

Yes, I told you I’m angry about this case. I’m
outraged
every time I think of what happened, every time I see Simpson smiling and playing golf at some country club, or capitalizing on the murders from some book or video he is hawking.

A modest proposal on police brutality

Inasmuch as it is my firm belief that the not-guilty verdict in the Simpson case has historical origins, conscious or otherwise, in the maltreatment, mostly physical, of blacks by white police officers throughout the years, a brief discussion on how to ameliorate the situation follows.

In our society, we try to deter criminal conduct by the threat of punishment. This system is hardly peculiar to modern society. From the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians to the present, it has been the secular way to control the dark impulses of humankind. For the police, however, there is little threat of punishment, and hence no real deterrent. Police are human beings. If police were prosecuted, most would also be deterred by the threat of punishment. But this hasn’t happened. For years, the black community has been saying there is no equal justice. In the cruel poetry of their lives, the police can violate the law and get by with it, but they sure as hell can’t.

T
his is an excerpt from the article I wrote on police brutality in 1992 following the beating of Rodney King and the ensuing riot.

bq.

With approximately twenty thousand police officers in Los Angeles County, there are around two thousand complaints registered annually against police officers in the county. But the Special Investigations Division (
SID
) of the Los Angeles County DA’s Office prosecutes an average of just two of these cases per year, and then usually against police agencies in the county other than the
LAPD
or Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (
LASD
). In fact, to find a significant excessive-force prosecution against the
LAPD
prior to the King case, one has to go all the way back to the Bloody Christmas beating of seven prisoners on December 25, 1951. (Eight police officers were indicted for felonious assault and five were convicted.)

In officer-involved
shooting
cases, by agreement with the
LAPD
,
LASD
, and more than half of the eighty-seven incorporated cities in Los Angeles County, the DA’s office is immediately notified. At least one deputy DA and DA investigator “roll out” to the scene of the shooting, where they conduct an independent probe to determine if a crime was committed by the officer or officers involved. Each year the Special Investigations Division rolls out on approximately 150 such cases throughout the county.

The
Los Angeles Daily News
[in an impressive series of articles by reporters David Parrish and Beth Barrett in 1990 and 1991] found 387 officer-involved shooting cases—including 153 fatalities—at the
LAPD
between 1985 and mid-1991. In many cases the victims or their survivors received large civil judgments from juries. In none of them, however, did the DA file criminal charges.

Over at the sheriff’s department, the
Daily News
reviewed 202 officer-involved shootings between January 1, 1985, and August 27, 1990. It found fifty-six cases where people were shot under “seriously questionable circumstances”—victim unarmed, shot in the back, etc. In
none
of the 202 shootings did the DA’s office file criminal charges.

The situation gets scarier. When I spoke with one present and two past
SID
deputy DAs as well as with other people long connected with Los Angeles law enforcement (including a former prosecutor in the DA’s office with decades of experience), they could recall only one instance, in 1973, when an
LAPD
officer was tried for murder or even manslaughter in an on-duty shooting of a private citizen. And manslaughter can be committed where there’s only criminal negligence.

In fact, for at least the last decade, though there have been hundreds of officer-involved shootings by the
LAPD
, no one can remember a single case in which an
LAPD
officer was prosecuted for even an on-duty
nonfatal
shooting of a private citizen.

If we’re to believe the Los Angeles DA’s Office, there has been only one case, then, in several decades where an
LAPD
officer has unlawfully shot someone to death. And for at least the past ten years, no officer has even committed an unlawful
act
with his gun. To believe this gives logic a bad name. Even the
LAPD
doesn’t believe this. Between 1985 and mid-1991, Chief Daryl Gates himself found thirty-five cases in which he ruled that officers wounded or killed persons in avoidable or unnecessary circumstances.