KTLA News: "Assemblywoman Maxine Waters speaks out against police violence..." (1980)

The Los Angeles citizens in my community in South Central Los Angeles would like very much to cooperate and work with the police. Certainly, we need police protection. We need the police working for us. They need to be about the business of protecting the citizens, but that does not give them a license to kill and to maim and to mow people down and to use any excuse to fire reign of bullets at innocent people who have no history of criminal record whatsoever. So there's not uh a contradiction in wanting to work and cooperate with the police, but being insulted and angered by senseless killings. year ago today on January 3rd, 1979, two members of the Los Angeles Police Department shot and killed Ula Love at her home in a dispute over $229 utility bill. Mrs. Love was cut down in a hell of 12 bullets fired in rapid secession, eight of which found their mark. She died on her front lawn before the eyes of her own children. Mrs. Love was not guilty of breaking any law. She had no prior arrest record nor any involvement with the law enforcement agency. She did not lead any protest march. She had not given any insightful speech. She was only trying to get by in stressful times. But now she is dead. Mrs. Love death is just one in a series of unnecessary killings by the Los Angeles Police Department. Since January 1979, some 30 citizens have been killed in circumstances that at best can be called questionable. We are appalled at the deaths of Carlos Washington, Bob Travis, and Ray Galante. And now we see that the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department has chosen to mark the first anniversary of the killing of Ula Love by the Los Angeles Police Department with one of their own Macob acts, the killing of William Gavin Jr. under very questionable circumstances. The killing of William Gavin is the killing of Ula Love Revisited. Once again, we have a claim of an attack on a law enforcement officer, a claim which is disputed by eyewitnesses. Once again, we have a barrage of bullets being used to bring down one individual. Once again, we have a law enforcement agency not exhausting all possible means of subduing a citizen before a life is taken. Once again, we have a member of the black community dead under circumstances that are highly questionable at best. Why is it that these officers who claim to be the best in the nation can apprehend one person with a knife? If the office is through three track, this pattern holds not across the United States. A recent article by the New York Times cites that in 10 years, some 6,000 deaths have taken place at the hands of the police departments in this country and 40% of the 6,000 have been black. It is clear that a major issue for black people in the 1980s is police killings. I am therefore today calling on President Jimmy Carter to appoint a Black Ribbon Commission of Distinguished Americans to serve the same function in these police killings that the McCone Commission served in the Los Angeles revolt of 1965 to fully and impartially investigate the circumstances of the epidemic of violence. to report fully and completely to the American public on the reasons for these deaths and to recommend to all appropriate bodies, including the Los Angeles Police Department and the County Sheriff's Department and the California State Legislature, the appropriate action to take to prevent these killings from continuing. This body should have the same power to subpoena witnesses, look into police files, review coroner's reports, carry out its own investigations, etc. that the Mcome Commission had. It should present its report in a reasonable time as a first step to stemming the tide of wanting killings in the United States and across the nation. By what do you uh you requesting president will report? >> I am hopeful that this will spur the president number one to first of all take a look at this problem not as an isolated problem here in California but a problem that is occurring across this nation. I think this gives him an opportunity to find people who have been raising concerns about this issue and who are concerned enough about it to want to serve on a commission that can begin to look into the police departments across this country to see how they're doing business to find out what it is they're putting into their files and the kind of police training that they're involved in and see if we can't determine why the police department um is basically killing so many people in this country. >> Mrs. Does this mean that you feel community in particular where there seems to be a disproportionate number of killings that we should look closely at our leaders at our elected officials at our police department and Sheriff Peter Pitches has not done any more than defend the actions of the sheriff's departments and that should be reflected at the ballot box in South Central Los Angeles and in Los Angeles County where people have continually reelected him to office. So that is my response to that. >> In terms of voices, you're seated here alone. >> You mentioned a lot of the problems facing us in the 80s. What would you say to the person in the community and a very large number that they're worried about people breaking into their houses. They're worried about crime on the streets. They're worrying about violence and murder and they consider that the main issue of the 80s. Well, I know that the people of Los Angeles in South Central in particular and Watts, one of the areas that I represent, generally respect the work that is done by the Los Angeles Police Department. We have block clubs that have existed and neighborhood watch programs that have existed for a long time. The people in my area in particular are lawabiding citizens who wish to cooperate with the police. They are increasingly becoming suspicious of the Los Angeles Police Department and not feeling as comfortable with the Los Angeles Police Department as they would like to because they know that these killings are senseless. Many of these people who are being killed are citizens that are loved and respected in the community. As in the case with Ula Love, people knew that she had problems, that she had a recent death. Her husband had died recently, that she had financial problems. In the case in Nickerson Gardens, even with the man who had the shotgun that was referred to as breakdown, everybody knew him and they knew that he was basically harmless. Mr. Gavin had a a a history of mental problems. The community informed the police when they were on the scene who he was and what he was all about. So what I'm saying to you is