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April 22, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
EPA
Ombudsman Resigns
in Protest
Dave Marsh
DeskScan: What's Playing
at My House This Week
Ron Jacobs
A20
in DC: Taking the
Message to the Beast's Belly
Kathy Kelly
An Open Letter to
Israeli Soldiers
Irit Katriel
Word
Games and Body Bags
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
We Come for Peace
Daniel
Bar-Tal
Is
There a Way Out?
Occupation, Terror
and Understanding
David Wilson
A Week of Coups, But Now
The Freedom Train Hits Town
Shaik
Ubaid
Today
I Was a Palestinian
April 21, 2002
Michelle Campos
Suckered Again in Israel
Mike Leon
200,000
in DC Protest Say:
"We Are All Palestinians Today"
C.G. Estabrook
Sex and Power in Catholicism
Kathy
Kelly
Gimme
Some Truth Now
A Walk Through Jenin
April 20, 2002
Philip Farruggio
Drowning in a Sea of Apathy
Kristen
Schurr
Leaving
Nablus
Bernard Weiner
Israel and the Intifada
for Dummies
Jean-Guy
Allard
A
Coup Signed by Otto Reich
Chris Floyd
The "Grandeur" That Was Rome:
A Letter from the Front
April 19, 2002
Eric Flint
Free
the Books!
David Krieger
A Peace Proposal:
Bring in the Children
Jeff Paterson
Advice
to Recruits from
a Gulf War Vet
Jeffrey St. Clair
From Sen. "Lunkhead" to
Bush Energy Czar: A Year in the Life of Spencer Abraham
April 18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Latin
America's Dilemma:
The Propaganda of Otto Reich
Sam Bahour
Bush is Playing Russian
Roulette with Palestinians
M. Shahid
Alam
A
Colonizing Project
Built on Lies
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The New Crusade:
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The Memphis Blues Again:
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The New Intifada:
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A Pocket Guide to
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April 23, 2002
Au Revoir, Bernard
Parks
A Farewell to My Chief
My Darling Chief Parks,
So this is good-bye. Au revoir, mon
chèr Chef! I wish you well. But I am not sorry to
see you go. I tip all of my many hats to the ladies and gentlemen
of the Los Angeles Police Commission and the LA City Council
for their refusal to grant you a second term as LA Chief of Police,
your Dream Job.
You were the Dream Chief. At least,
you looked the part. And here in Hollywood, if you've got the
look, you're a shoe-in to get the role. Tall, dark, svelte and
sexy, with deep soulful eyes, a sensuous but rugged mouth, that
distinguished silver tint to your hair, and, of course, that
always perfectly pressed uniform. You were a Police Chief from
Central Casting, an African-American Cowboy, a New Age Hero.
But alas, the perfect Police Chief "look"
couldn't conceal the fact that you were sitting on a pile of
putrid, poisonous LAPD customs and policies. Of course, that
pile started putrefying long before you were appointed Chief.
Your downfall was that you felt obliged to sit on it, shield
it, "protect and serve" it, and essentially keep it
so that nobody could clean it up.
O Chief Parks, why oh why, wouldn't you
let anybody clean up that shit? Were you so convinced of your
own and the LAPD's perfectly pressed perfection that you couldn't
bear to let (ugh) civilians help you to effect reform? Were
you afraid of incurring the wrath of the LAPD commanders that
run their precincts with the arrogance of Afghan warlords? Were
you afraid of what you might find? Or do you just deeply believe,
in your LAPD-bred bones, that might is right and civilians be
damned?
Whatever your reasons for sitting on
that pile of police corruption, duplicity and bone-shattering
brutality, with all due respect, my darling Chief Parks, your
ass was just too skinny to effectively cover it up. And so the
pile you've been sitting on, lo these five years, has taken to
stinking so bad that the whole world now holds their noses when
they hear the letters LAPD.
"The list of cities which have changed
is long--San Diego, Boston, San Jose, Pittsburgh," says
Sam Walker, a University of Nebraska expert on police accountability,
talking about police reform throughout America since the infamous
videotaped Rodney King beating at the hands of LAPD. "But
the LA police leadership simply continues to operate with an
in-your-face attitude ... that they know all the problems and
no one else can possible understand. Therein lies their problem."
Having personally had one of your "rogue"
officers hold a gun to my head, having felt the organized thuggery,
unboundaried deceit and blatant sexual profiling of your municipal
paramilitary forces when some 25 heavily armed LAPD officers
forcibly invaded my broadcast studio and art gallery, helicopters
buzzing overhead, then searched and occupied the entire space
for two and a half hours without a warrant or a (legal) reason,
rummaging through my tapes, my computers, the books in my library,
the art on my walls, the clothes in my wardrobe and even the
food in my refrigerator, intimidating the guests at my show,
bringing the operations of my Internet/TV studio to a halt an
hour before a live broadcast, threatening, laughing, and pointing
guns, I feel I have some understanding of the anguish of the
many other, far more viciously treated victims of LAPD style
and policies.
And yes, my darling Chief Parks, my lawsuit,
now under appeal to the 9th District Court, is against you personally,
for perpetuating customs and policies within the LAPD that foster
an abuse of power, a violation of the people's trust in their
peace officers that constantly threatens, intimidates,
hurts and sometimes destroys citizens like me just trying to
live our lives and do our work in peace.
It's been a rough five years (your forces
raided me twice, both times without charging me with anything).
But I do feel somewhat vindicated now that you are being shown
the door. The Block Curse works in mysterious ways. I'm proud
that my outcry over your unconscionable invasions was one of
many voices of outrage over your policies that shouted you out
of Parker Center.
When Republican Mayor Richard Riordan
appointed you Chief in August of 1997, you were an LAPD insider
with 34 years on the force, trained and groomed by LAPD Chief
Darryl Gates, the man who almost single-handedly brought us the
Rodney King Beating followed by the Rodney King Riots. Why Mayor
Dick thought that a guy who'd been practically raised by the
LAPD would be able to guide its reform is anybody's guess.
But you and Dick wound up spatting after
all. Just a couple of weeks after your forces invaded my broadcast
studio and art gallery, the Mayor said that you and the District
Attorney were "acting like children" because you refused
to cooperate (again, protecting the LAPD pile of poop). Six
months later, right in front of the LA Press Club at a gathering
at the Pantry (his restaurant), the Mayor apologized to me for
your unwarranted invasion of my studio/gallery. That was encouraging,
but where's your apology, Chief?
Mayor Dick wasn't too happy with you
for other reasons. He had promised Angelinos to reduce crime.
But despite, or more probably, because of your bully
tactics, crime in Los Angeles, especially murder (with a 34%
increase in the last two years), has pretty consistently gone
up under your watch.
Is there any wonder that violence begets
more violence, that police brutality is met with criminal aggression?
Police brutality doesn't necessarily lower the crime rate, but
it does teach our children that might is right, that force is
the answer, even if you don't know the question. We cannot create
a great city of diversity, culture, technology and commerce when
we have a police force that is shooting, lying, breaking laws,
violating civil rights and threatening all areas of the community.
And we cannot maintain a solvent city when so many honest citizens
feel they have to sue the police (and now I hear that you yourself
are going to sue the city over this humiliating boot out the
door).
Your legacy, my darling Chief Parks,
remains in the millions in court and prison costs from the hundreds
of innocent people who have been harassed (like me), arrested
and imprisoned. Maybe worst of all for a Man of the Force like
yourself, you succeeded in making a tough job even tougher for
the many good cops of the LAPD whose lives are in even more danger
because of your disregard for the needs of our community. "Morale"
is so low, that in an unprecedented poll sponsored by the LA
Police Protective League (not exactly a liberal organization),
LAPD officers themselves voted overwhelmingly to express their
lack of confidence in you.
Just this past January, you used the
9.11 attacks and subsequent "War on Terror" as an excuse
to make a grab for more police power, and let freedom of speech
be hanged. "We have suffered somewhat by being overly concerned
in the last two decades with the civil libertarian's point of
view and we should not have unnecessary hurdles if our role is
to protect the community," you said.
This is just the kind of attitude that
enabled your force to invade my studio. And it has got to change.
We will not have our civil rights trampled under the guise of
protecting people. We need meaningful police reform.
And apparently, there are enough brave
folks on the LA Police Commission and in the LA City Council,
as well as our new Mayor James Hahn, who agree with me here,
who believe that the answer just might lie in reform, in community
policing and even love, understanding and some variation of what
I call The Bonobo Way.
Of course, it won't be easy to find a
suitable replacement for you, someone open to strong civilian
oversight and broad community policing. We could EASILY get
somebody worse. Yikes! But I'm hopeful. Maybe we'll get someone
like Willie Williams. The worst thing he did was hang out in
Vegas for a few days. They kicked him out because he was an
outsider. But when your insides are sick and putrefying, help
from the outside may be just what you need.
Peace be with you,
Susan M. Block, Ph.D.
Dr. Susan Block is a sex educator, host of the Dr. Susan
Block radio show, and author of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure.
Visit her website at: http://www.drsusanblock.com/
She can be reached at: liberties@blockbooks.com
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