Professionals, Not Clones in Blue : Police: LAPD officers hold similar values because uniformity saves lives. It’s not a question of insensitivity.

A recent survey of Los Angeles police officers’ attitudes, values and experiences has drawn criticism that reveals only the ignorance of the critics.

The survey, conducted by Claremont Graduate School, was aimed at assessing the impact of the 1980 consent decrees demanding the hiring of minorities and women. It concluded that even the department’s newly diverse officers share similar opinions about their jobs and ideals, and that their personal values mirror the department’s.

This is unremarkable. Los Angeles Police Department values are in no way political or controversial. They concern respecting the law, respecting the citizenry and respecting the power and responsibility given us by that citizenry. The department’s values are ideals, aimed at by all but fully attained by none. Sometimes we overreact. Sometimes we don’t react adequately. Los Angeles police, like everyone else, are not perfect.

The department’s critics bemoan the uniformity that still exists despite the hiring of unprecedented numbers of women and minorities, implying that standardization is synonymous with insensitivity. The NAACP accuses the department of forcing an “LAPD view of the world” on its officers. The ACLU’s opinion is that the “tactics of the police are just as brutal” as ever. A criminal-justice professor summarily dismisses police officers, saying “they’re all clones.”

These critics reveal a poor understanding of police officers, naivete about street reality and a shallow knowledge of management principles--especially with regard to police work. Standardization and unity of purpose will be found in any successful corporation or small business. The fact that they exist in the Los Angeles Police Department is therefore a mark of success in dealing with radical changes in personnel.

Over the past decade, the LAPD has exceeded the hiring recommendations of the consent decrees. The department’s remarkable integration of these women and minorities into the organization is indicated by the study’s finding that all officers experience similar successes (in terms of commendations) and failures (in terms of complaints). Commendations and complaints are, for the most part, generated by citizens. The department could not possibly have engineered these results.

Street reality is unpredictable and respects no sexual or ethnic difference. Responding to an emergency, I must be certain of my role in containing the crisis. I must know how my partner will react because often there is no time to discuss plans. I must predict how my fellow officers will deploy. My faith in the officer supervising the scene has to be both blind and assured. We can never know what the suspect will do. We must know what we will do. Acting as an individual on the streets will likely result in an officer’s or an innocent citizen’s death.

To ensure that we act as a unit, training is standardized. But six months in the academy is barely sufficient to cover the essentials of law, report writing, physical training, Spanish language, firearms instruction, tactics and cultural awareness. Officers are then dispatched to 18 different divisions, where there is scarcely enough time to handle the calls for service. There is no omnipotent administration with either the power or the opportunity to brainwash officers.

Lack of sensitivity is simply not a logical conclusion to be drawn from the questions Claremont asked in its study. If sensitivity is to be measured, then ask about our families. Ask about our hobbies. Ask what books we read, what movies we watch. Ask what churches we attend--or don’t attend. Ask how we feel when seeing an innocent 12-year-old victim of a drive-by shooting, crumpled lifeless in the street. Ask what we think when we must tell a mother her son was senselessly slain. There will be 8,100 different answers to these questions. There is a wide range of emotional responses to the situations that we see daily. That they are acted upon with unity marks professionalism, not vacuous insensitivity.

Regrettably, there may always be officers who react without restraint or compassion. But to accuse the department of maintaining brutality ignores the dangerous reality of our job. Often and increasingly, our actions are a necessary response to horrific situations. To confuse this with institutionalized brutality foisted upon impressionable officers is ridiculous.

If the Los Angeles Police Department were smart enough to clone its officers, it would be smart enough to clone perfect ones.