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Race was a persistent subtext of the controversy. "We don't know how much racism was involved," says Jerome H. Skolnick, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, "but I believe that racist police are more likely to be brutal and brutal police are more likely to be racist." When black people see a police car in Los Angeles, says state assemblyman Curtis Tucker, "they don't know whether justice will be meted out or whether judge, jury and executioner is pulling up."
Though nonwhites account for 60% of Los Angeles' polyglot population, white officers make up 61% of the L.A.P.D. Similar imbalances exist in many heavily ethnic communities around the U.S. and, says sociologist James Marquart of Sam Houston State University, this pattern can encourage police violence. "White police officers don't understand a lot of things that go on in these areas," says Marquart. "One way to deal with that is to use force. It goes across all cultural boundaries."
Last week's federal action was prompted largely by the concerns of national civil rights leaders. Attorney General Thornburgh's decision to review claims of police brutality came after a meeting with Democratic Congressmen John Conyers Jr. of Michigan and Edolphus Towns of New York, members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Said Benjamin Hooks, head of the N.A.A.C.P. : "Police brutality is one of the recurring, persistent questions that has never died down because it exists all over the nation."
Statistics do indicate a rise in police-brutality cases in many urban areas. In the Metro Miami area, 111 excessive-force complaints were filed last year, up from 67 in 1985. During the same years, the number of Washington's complaints jumped from 299 to 415, while Chicago's went from 2,084 to 2,476. Yet experts seem divided over whether instances of police brutality are actually rising nationwide or whether the number of complaints has increased because of greater public awareness.
Neil Redlener, professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine, argues that police are more prone to use force these days because they are facing a more lethal environment. "There is better firepower and increased violence in the streets," he says. "A police uniform these days is as much a target as protection."
But Robert Trojanowicz, director of Michigan State University's School of Criminal Justice, points out that departments increasingly emphasize better screening of candidates to lower the incidence of police violence. "Generally, police officers as a group use remarkable restraint in highly charged, emotional situations," says Trojanowicz, who believes most lawmen are deeply embarrassed by the Los Angeles beating.