Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck has written an editorial for the Los Angeles Times on the 25th anniversary of the Rodney King riots, saying the department will never “fail” the city again.
Beck wrote: “We truly believed that we were at war and that more arrests and tougher policing was the solution to the plague of violence sweeping through the city…
But after years of trying to arrest our way out of the problem, it became obvious that our efforts only contributed to the violence. Worse yet, they alienated the policed to the point that, in retrospect, the riot was inevitable.
We now believe that there is no true safety without public trust, that serving the Constitution by protecting the rights of individuals is the ultimate goal of policing, and that relationships and partnerships are essential to policing in our city.
The LAPD and I were forever changed by the 1992 riots. Sometimes change can occur only because of crisis. It is my promise to Los Angeles that we will never forget those lessons so dearly learned and that we will never fail you again.”
Read complete article at LATimes.com.
