-
1. Competing Stories about Community and Policing
- University of Michigan Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Chapter 1 Competing Stories about Community and Policing The beating of Rodney King by several officers from the Los Angeles Police Department drew national attention to the urban crime control problem. In an election year response, President George Bush offered the Justice Department's Weed and Seed Program. The mayor of Seattle saw this as an opportunity to be more responsive to community concerns . Seattle applied for and received a Weed and Seed grant to target gang activity in the Central District, a primarily lower income, black neighborhood. The grant provided more than $1 million in the first year, with the potential for much more in subsequent years, for law enforcement agencies to lead an effort to weed out undesirable elements in the target community and seed for community revitalization to keep them out.1 On June 6, 1992, in a small storefront chapel in Seattle's Central District, the Coalition to Stop Weed and Seed met to share information. Speakers told the 50-plus attendees that Weed and Seed would tum their communities into concentration camps, subject only their children to stricter federal sentencing requirements, suspend their civil rights, seize their property, and cut off their welfare benefits. The basic message was "Weed and Seed does not meet our needs." Citing an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report, speakers argued that Weed and Seed would lead to a more powerful, but less accountable, federal policing presence in their communities. "Operation Weed and Seed substitutes federal law enforcement and sentencing for local law. And federal drug sentencing laws are draconian. Under federal law, an offender can be imprisoned for up to three times as long as a similar offender sentenced under Washington state law. Under 'Weed and Seed' Seattle's white neighborhoods would be governed by state law and our black neighborhoods would suffer under harsher federallaw."2 2 THE POLITICS OF COMMUNITY POLICING The coalition of groups opposed to Weed and Seed had been concerned about crime control long before Weed and Seed appeared on the political agenda, and the tactics they discussed reflected their desire to do more than just criticize. They discussed various measures to mobilize the community: forming new community councils; informing property owners about potential seizures; and organizing demonstrations , phone trees, a clergy coalition, and a legal defense fund. They discussed two electoral strategies: one ballot initiative to abolish the atlarge election of city council members and return to a city council elected by district, and another to recall Norm Rice, Seattle's first African American mayor. They also heard from a committee planning alternative arrangements for the provision of public safety, including the creation of a community-based civilian review board) The Weed and Seed controversy highlights the difficulties inherent in government attempts to be responsive to community needs. Agreement on the importance of public safety did not mean agreement on the best way to achieve it. An editorial columnist for the Seattle Times argued that, while state law enforcement agencies viewed Weed and Seed as a responsive solution to the problems of drug use and gang activity in high-crime neighborhoods, many residents of the target neighborhoods saw such programs as part of the problem.4 Mayor Rice tried to calm community fears about accountability by pointing out that Weed and Seed would expand Seattle's popular community policing program, but this did not calm the fears expressed by the coalition. The communities most victimized by crime in Seattle remained concerned not only about crime but also about the way crime control was provided. Since 1993, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has been a poster child for community policing. Like the Weed and Seed controversy in Seattle, the New York case highlights the competing messages, the fears of crime and official misconduct, constitutive of community policing. The brutal beating of Abner Louima by officers of the NYPD sent a powerful message, a message one officer involved explained as constitutive of a new style of policing, a political message that we are now living in "Giuliani time." According to Andrew Karman, Some officers have gotten the message that they were unleashed, that their handcuffs were taken off. In the Louima case, when the [35.175.212.5] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 13:57 GMT) COMPETING STORIES ABOUT COMMUNITY AND POLICING 3 officer said, "It is Giuliani time," he was saying the rules of the game have changed. He was saying he felt that, "Mr. Louima, you don't have any protectors...