DARK
BLUE BOLDLY DEMONSTRATES WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE LAPD
Sometimes described as a paramilitary organization, the Los
Angeles Police Department has several geographic divisions
and often establishes special units in which officers are
given autonomous authority apart from other police, developing
their own headquarters, jargon, logos, radio frequencies,
rituals, and slogans, with no direct supervision. LAPD also
pioneered "scientific policing," in which officers
are evaluated by the number of arrests that they make. From
the 1980s, the densely populated Rampart Division, located
halfway between Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles, began
to bulge at the seams with recent immigrants from Central
America. Within the Rampart Division, which had the highest
crime rate in the city, the Community Resources Against Street
Hoodlums (CRASH) team was established to crack down on some
403 gangs of Hispanics selling drugs and collecting protection
money. Evidence of police misconduct was overlooked in light
of the gigantic task of fighting crime. Dark Blue, directed
by Ron Shelton, begins with the March 3, 1991, videotaped
beating of Rodney King, and the story ends April 29, 1992,
when the City of Angels is ablaze. There is yet another set
of bookends--an action plot in which Sergeant Eldon Perry
(played by Kurt Russell), a member of the film's so-called
Special Investigations Squad (a stand-in for CRASH), first
participates in and finally exposes the sleaze. How is the
LAPD screwed up, according to the fictional story, which
is a vast exposé based on fact? Arrests have been
made on flimsy or manufactured evidence just for the sake
of arrests, often because potential witnesses, living in
mortal fear, have refused to testify. Some presumed suspects
have been killed or severely beaten to get them to confess
or to divulge evidence. Evidence, in turn, has been tampered
with due to internal politics within LAPD. The intrigue and
power struggle within LAPD is the specific focus of Dark
Blue, a film with plenty of action and violence. As Sergeant
Perry drives to the Police Academy to accept his promotion
to Police Lieutenant, the LA riots break out. After fighting
through South-Central traffic, he takes the microphone to
denounce not only police misconduct but also the plot of
a police chief aspirant to kill him because he has evidence
of the latter's massive bribery and corruption. Perry, thus,
is a transparent stand-in for Rafael Perez, who copped a
plea in 1999 to expose others in CRASH. As a result, the
LA police chief (who gave no orders on what to do as the
riots broke out because he asked not to be bothered while
at a Brentwood gala reception) resigned, LAPD disbanded all
anti-gang units, fired five officers and disciplined thirty
others, and three were convicted of felonies. Victims, meanwhile,
brought civil suits for harassment, false convictions, and
wrongful death. More than 100 convictions of civilians have
been reversed, and LAPD has been sued for millions of dollars
in damages in more than 200 separate cases. Filmviewers graphically
see the interplay between ambition, corruption, and misconduct,
and they will easily infer LAPD's role as an underlying cause
of much behavior during the LA riots. The Political Film
Society has nominated Dark Blue for an award as best film
exposé of 2003. MH
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