Police Brutality

Reports of police brutality have been phoned to various members of the press, probably by visitors to the area on July 4. This letter is to state as strongly as I know how that there was no "brutality" from the police in this area, 38th Street, which I understand was one of the hot spots. The police were very much under control. I'm sorry they are so restrained by law that they can't give as much as they take when on duty. I saw several take direct hits by thrown bottles. I swept up pounds of broken glass from the street just in front of my house, all a result of bottles pitched mostly at patrolmen.

In 1985, Los Angeles rapper Toddy Tee released what could be considered West Coast hip-hop's opening salvo against police brutality in black neighborhoods. The electro-grooved "Batterram," named for the battering ram that then-LAPD Chief Daryl F. Gates used to smash into homes of suspected drug dealers, was a hit on local radio station KDAY-AM. The track went on to become a protest anthem in minority neighborhoods around the city where the device was often deployed against homes that were later proved drug-free: "You're mistakin' my pad for a rockhouse / Well, I know to you we all look the same / But I'm not the one slingin' caine / I work nine to five and ain't a damn thing changed …" rapped Toddy Tee. The L.A. riots of 1992 arrived with its soundtrack in place.

In 1985, Los Angeles rapper Toddy Tee released what could be considered West Coast hip-hop's opening salvo against police brutality in black neighborhoods. The electro-grooved "Batterram," named for the battering ram that then-LAPD Chief Daryl F. Gates used to smash into homes of suspected drug dealers, was a hit on local radio station KDAY-AM. The track went on to become a protest anthem in minority neighborhoods around the city where the device was often deployed against homes that were later proved drug-free: "You're mistakin' my pad for a rockhouse / Well, I know to you we all look the same / But I'm not the one slingin' caine / I work nine to five and ain't a damn thing changed …" rapped Toddy Tee. The L.A. riots of 1992 arrived with its soundtrack in place.

In light of the terrible financial crisis at our California universities, I feel the need to rescue UC Davis, whose administrators are, according to The Times, negotiating a price with the Kroll security firm in New York for none other than former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton to fly West and tell us what went wrong on the day that students were pepper sprayed. I can save the university a hefty Kroll consulting fee by suggesting that the administrators carefully peruse a few of the newspaper articles of the past week and all will be revealed to them.

An El Monte police officer is seen on TV news footage kicking a car chase suspect in the head Wednesday after the suspect appears to surrender. Video from KTTV Channel 11 News and KNBC-TV Channel 4 News shows the incident at the end of a car chase that wound through the San Gabriel Valley, ending in a collision in Pico Rivera. The suspect, whom authorities later identified as 23-year-old Richard Rodriguez of El Monte, jumped out of his car and ran.

In light of the terrible financial crisis at our California universities, I feel the need to rescue UC Davis, whose administrators are, according to The Times, negotiating a price with the Kroll security firm in New York for none other than former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton to fly West and tell us what went wrong on the day that students were pepper sprayed. I can save the university a hefty Kroll consulting fee by suggesting that the administrators carefully peruse a few of the newspaper articles of the past week and all will be revealed to them.

Definition--police brutality: when thousands of honest, dedicated police officers are tarred with the same brush as the rotten apples. PATT RICHARDS Arcadia

Gathering at what has become a regular protest of the Fullerton police confrontation that left a homeless man dead, activist Frank Alonzo hoisted aloft a flag with a snake curled under the slogan "Don't Tread on Me. " He and others were in front of the Fullerton police station to demand action against the officers who they believe fatally beat Kelly Thomas. But for some there was an underlying political message that went well beyond police brutality. "Here's the problem: Those cops are symptoms of a disease, and the disease is big government — arrogant, self-serving big government.

Gathering at what has become a regular protest of the Fullerton police confrontation that left a homeless man dead, activist Frank Alonzo hoisted aloft a flag with a snake curled under the slogan "Don't Tread on Me. " He and others were in front of the Fullerton police station to demand action against the officers who they believe fatally beat Kelly Thomas. But for some there was an underlying political message that went well beyond police brutality. "Here's the problem: Those cops are symptoms of a disease, and the disease is big government — arrogant, self-serving big government.

Law enforcement and transit officials shut down four downtown San Francisco train stations and closed a swath of busy Market Street during the height of the evening commute Monday in response to a noisy protest. Market Street was choked with hundreds of pedestrians struggling to get home, stopping at each successive Bay Area Rapid Transit station entrance only to be turned away. Helicopters lumbered overhead and police in riot gear followed protesters east toward the San Francisco Bay. The stations were closed for about two hours during a demonstration against alleged BART police brutality and a decision by agency officials last week to cut underground cellphone service in an effort to quell an earlier protest.

When the congresswoman entered, the crowd rose up like a congregation on Sunday morning for one, two, then three standing ovations. Rep. Maxine Waters (D- Los Angeles) stood facing her cheering supporters. She wore a pencil skirt, pearls and a smile that looked curiously triumphant, considering the month she has had. Waters, 71, has been at the center of a political battle since the House Ethics Committee revealed that it was investigating whether she had used her influence to gain advantage for OneUnited, a Massachusetts-based bank in which her husband has a financial interest.

A former transit police officer deliberately shot and killed an unarmed passenger on an Oakland subway platform while helping another officer who was mistreating a group of men suspected of fighting on a train, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday. Johannes Mehserle, 28, is charged with murder in the New Year's Day 2009 shooting of Oscar J. Grant III, whose killing sparked outrage and violence in Oakland. The trial was moved to a downtown Los Angeles courtroom amid concern about the extensive media coverage of the killing in the Bay Area.

Neil Thomas Gunn Sr. wheeled his pickup truck to the curb in a quiet hillside neighborhood in Burbank, about a mile from the police department where he'd worked for 22 years. He got out toting a 12-gauge shotgun, walked to a grassy area and turned the weapon on himself. Knowing that officers from his department would be dispatched to the scene, Gunn had left two notes in the truck. One asked that the vehicle not be impounded, but instead released to his family. The other said "this is absolutely work related."

It was a stakeout gone bad, featuring jumpy police officers, human traffickers, a roughed-up federal agent, and a multimillion-dollar twist of an ending. Sergio Lopez, an undercover U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, was tracking smugglers in October 2006 when Chula Vista police officers pulled him over. These were dangerous times in the San Diego suburb. A Mexican gang had been kidnapping residents, sometimes by posing as law enforcement officers. "What . . . are you doing speeding through my city?"

According to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a prisoner who was slammed to a concrete floor and punched and kicked by a guard after asking for a grievance form -- but suffered neither serious nor permanent harm -- has no claim that his constitutional rights were violated. Thomas objected when the high court, in a little-noted recent opinion, said this unprovoked and malicious assault by a North Carolina prison guard amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The court's decision came a few days after Thomas' now-famous former law clerk John C. Yoo was charged with flawed reasoning, but not professional misconduct, as a Justice Department lawyer when he applied much the same view toward the treatment of Al Qaeda prisoners.

They come every day, the dead. Some die in accidents, others from natural causes, but the body washer knew something scary had happened when the sheet was lifted off Farouk Sayed. "I realized he was beaten to death once I saw him. I could see the marks on his wrists, chest and back," said Moetaz Abdel Aziz, who bathes and purifies the dead at a Cairo morgue as part of the Muslim burial rite. "While I was washing him, I kept saying, 'I protest to God, who is my best resort, against whoever did this to him.' " Sayed's wife, Takwa, thought her husband seemed so small in death, shrunken almost.