Dan Fritz | KPFK
Last week, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a new advisory committee for the Police Commission. The committee will be tasked with reviewing reform of the police department in order to restore public trust in the LAPD.
A coalition of community groups blasted Garcetti's effort Tuesday in a virtual news conference, accusing him of co-opting the movement to defund police and instituting thin reforms instead.
"What Mayor Eric Garcetti has down is appropriate our language, stand behind our words, and then use them for the opposite meaning," said Black Lives Matter Los Angeles co-found Melina Abdullah. "We often think of conservatives and fascists like Trump as doing those kinds of things... but we need to remember that liberal white supremacists often use the same tactics."
Abdullah called the new committee "appropriation." She said, "it is a message to Black Lives Matter that we don't matter to him. It's complete tone deafness. It's acting as if those who are in the street don't know what we're talking about."
Hamid Khan with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition urged the Mayor to focus on ending police violations of civil rights instead of commissioning another report.
"Garcetti has once again responded to the largest movement in U.S. history with similarly failed responses of the past," said Khan. "Ironically, this action exposes an acknowledgment on Mayor Garcetti's part that the L.A. Police Commission is a failed, rubber-stamp body, where the Mayor's political cronies are appointed to do the Mayor's biddings."
The police commission confirmed last week that the new committee will be comprised of legal experts and community leaders who will participate in a comprehensive review of Los Angeles Police Department policies.
In announcing the new committee, Garcetti echoed the activists (who are calling for defunding and abolishing police). Both Garcetti and the activists are calling for "reimagining public safety." But his critics accuse him of watering down the intention of the language.
Zack Sherwin with White People for Black Lives called Garcetti's efforts more of the same.
"History makes clear that none of this will result in actual change. From the McCone Commission, to the Christopher Commission, to the Consent Decree, we've seen time and again what increased oversight and reform of the LAPD looks like," said Sherwin. "None of it prevented the brutality faced in recent months and weeks by protesters of racist policing. None of it prevents the murders of Black and Brown people."
According to the commission, the work of the new advisory committee will be completed by the end of the year.
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