KTLA News: "Police harassment of gay people" (1978)

I think that what's happened is that when police chief Davis um two years ago or so said quite open ly that he did not want any gays in the police department when he made known his own bias against gays then I think the average police officer the man on the street the woman on the street felt Freer to uh let their own particular prejudices come out if they had any and we don't charge that every officer in the LAPD has a prejudice against gay people but we do know there are many that do and I think that Chief Davis's attitude has given the green light to a more open harassment uh they feel that it will not be you know disapproved and after all the head of a department does um in his his own views of life um uh do infiltrate through the entire dep Department what are you calling for today what we've begun is a project to determine whether what we think is true is really true we have every good reason to believe we believe it because of the number of calls we get in this office because the number of people we hear from who are saying that they are abused by the LAPD because of their sexual orientation that if they frequent a gay bar often when they leave they find that the the police will follow them for a few blocks we'll often give them tickets for jaywalking we'll uh ask them to identify themselves will sometimes even Frisk them they've done nothing except perhaps if they've jaywalked but we believe that what is happening is they are being harassed because of their sexual orientation so we'd like to document this we feel there's a practice and a pattern going on so forms distributed by our gay rights chapter are being distributed in gay bars in gay businesses or businesses which cater to gay people and um those forms are going to be turned into our gay rights chapter they will be uh computed they will be looked over they will be investigated to be certain that they're legitimate and then when um we do document it if we're right we will make a presentation to the police commission do you believe this is a change in the way police are acting or is this something that's been going on for quite some time's resignation today well as you know we have been very uh openly critical of police chief Davis we believe that um he has used his office to try to determine what the law shall be he's was a very outspoken critic of um any efforts to end the death penalty he believes in the death penalty he was extremely critical of the new determinate sentencing law he tried to use all of his influence to prevent any uh more uh liberal marijuana laws he has over and over again um used his influence to determine what the law shall be we don't believe that the enforcers of the law in America should make the law we believe that their job is to to enforce the law we've been very critical of the things that he has done we don't like the way he treats gays we don't like the fact that in this office we receive so many complaints from Minority persons about how they are treated by police officers so of course under those circumstances um we're glad he's resigned um and we hope that he doesn't run for governor do you think a change of the chief will make a difference in the way that police uh handle their their functions I think that his stamp is going to be there for a long time and a lot of the attitudes that he has his own personal sense of morality has filtered down through the department and I think that it's going to take a while to bring about changes and it will take an intensive effort on someone's part to bring about changes but hopefully after period of time um then um you know we will see changes and perhaps some sensitivity training uh and other kinds of trainings which a enlightened police chief you know could undertake will finally make a difference