THIS WORLD LAPD Tx Date: 3rd June 2004 This script was made from audio tape – any inaccuracies are due to voices being unclear or inaudible 10.00.00 This World Theme Music 10.00.06 Music 10.00.09 Clive Myrie Los Angeles; America’s second largest city. 10.00.11 Music/explosion 10.00.13 Clive Myrie But its murder capital. 10.00.14 Music 10.00.16 Clive Myrie Trust between citizens and their police, the LAPD, has been at rock bottom. 10.00.20 Music 10.00.22 Clive Myrie And in the city’s Southeast Division, it’s gangs who rule the streets. 10.00.26 Music 10.00.31 Clive Myrie Eighteen months ago an attempt began to change all that. 10.00.34 Music 10.00.39 Title Page LAPD 10.00.42 Chief William Bratton Los Angeles; murder capital of the United States. 10.00.45 Man This y’all hood, man, you know, shit, y’all the biggest gang in California. 10.00.49 Scottie Stevens At one point they were all kids but as far as I’m concerned when they joined the gang they gave up their childhood. 10.00.57 Clive Myrie In two thousand and two there were six hundred and fifty-eight murders in Los Angeles and rising violence was affecting a new generation of young people. 10.01.05 Music 10.01.07 Clive Myrie The LAPD’s motto is; ‘to protect and to serve’. A year and a half ago a new police chief was appointed to try to rebuild the relationship between the city’s people and their police. 10.01.18 Music 10.01.23 Clive Myrie Scottie and Tim are a team working among the gangs of Southeast LA and their victims. 10.01.29 Scottie Stevens Let’s see, who can we go play with? How about Friday Night Sentinels. 10.01.38 Scottie Stevens The Southeast is the epicentre of gangs throughout the country. It’s a community that’s caught in the middle of a battle between good and evil, gangs and police. 10.01.49 Tim Pearce Our job as a gang officer is to know everything we can about the gang we’re assigned to. 10.01.54 Tim Pearce What’s up people? 10.01.55 Tim Pearce And that is their names, their nicknames. 10.01.58 Tim Pearce What do they call you, bro? 10.01.59 Moreno Moreno 10.02.00 Tim Pearce What do they call you? 10.02.01 Big Silent Big Silent 10.02.02 Tim Pearce Big Silent. What did you say they called you? 10.02.04 Dawg Dawg. D A W G. 10.02.06 Tim Pearce Their descriptions, their cars, their tattoos. 10.02.09 Tim Pearce Let me see your tattoos? What tattoos you got? Is that a jail tattoo? 10.02.13 Tim Pearce Their girlfriends, their family, where they live, where they hang out, who they hang out with. 10.02.18 Tim Pearce Who’s your homey down here? You still from 18th Street? 10.02.21 Scottie Stevens And what’s his relation to you right here? 10.02.24 Tim Pearce So it’s a constant attempt to gain that information. 10.02.29 Clive Myrie Any vehicle Scottie and Tim think looks suspicious they stop and check. 10.02.34 Tim Pearce He’s thinking, he’s thinking. You see him hittin’ his brakes. 10.02.38 Clive Myrie They recognise the car and its owner. 10.02.42 Scottie Stevens Subtitle That’s Elloy. 10.02.44 Tim Pearce We’re looking for any kind of violation, a municipal code violation, littering, drinking in public, anything like that, give us a reason to stop and talk to them and when we talk to them it’s a step by step process. 10.02.55 Tim Pearce Step to the fence. Throw you hands on your head. 10.02.57 Elloy Sanchez Subtitle Yo, homey, why? What’s up? 10.02.59 Tim Pearce Throw your hands on your head. Don’t ask questions, step to the fence. Put your hands on your head, turn around, face the house. What are you thinking? 10.03.08 Elloy Sanchez Subtitle What you mean, ‘What I’m thinking?’ 10.03.09 Tim Pearce Put your hands on your head. On your head. Mothafucker, you wanna get sprayed? You wanna get sprayed? 10.03.21 Elloy Sanchez Subtitles What you mean, ‘I wanna get sprayed’ man? Come on, man, don’t talk to me like that. 10.03.25 Tim Pearce You follow my instructions. Spread your feet out. Spread your feet more. What are you thinking? Who do you think you are? 10.03.33 Elloy Sanchez Subtitle Nobody. 10.03.36 Tim Pearce You follow my instructions. That’s all I expect. 10.03.39 Elloy Sanchez Subtitle All right, sir. 10.03.40 Tim Pearce That’s it. You have any weapons on you? 10.03.43 Elloy Sanchez Subtitle No sir. 10.03.44 Tim on radio call 10.03.47 Clive Myrie As a known gang member Elloy Sanchez is used to being stopped by police. The signs he is making indicate his gang allegiance. 10.03.56 Scottie Stevens Pick your reason to stop them, a legitimate reason to stop them and stop them and talk to them and build it from there. 10.04.01 Elloy Sanchez Subtitle What’s up? 10.04.03 Tim Pearce What do you mean what’s up? You guys know what’s up, you know what happened. You guys aren’t giving up any information. 10.04.08 Elloy Sanchez Subtitle But we wasn’t even there… 10.04.10 Man Subtitle Yeah, I gotta go… 10.04.10 Tim Pearce What’d you hear, true? What’d you hear? You tell me what you heard. 10.04.13 Elloy Sanchez Subtitle I don’t know what I heard. 10.04.14 Tim Pearce But you’re connected here. You know what’s going on. 10.04.17 Elloy Sanchez Subtitle Not really man. 10.04.19 Tim Pearce You mean you’re nothing in this neighbourhood? 10.04.21 Elloy Sanchez Subtitle Not really, homey. 10.04.22 Tim Pearce Uh, you ain’t about nothing? 10.04.25 Elloy Sanchez Subtitles There you go. You know I can’t say nothing, homey. I - I’ll get killed, homey. You know what I mean? You know how shit is. You know how it is. 10.04.33 Tim Pearce I know. 10.04.34 Elloy Sanchez Subtitle So it’s…that’s your job, man. 10.04.37 Scottie Stevens At one point they were all kids but as far as I’m concerned when they joined a gang they gave up their childhood. 10.04.46 Clive Myrie Elloy wanted to know when this programme was on TV. But he didn’t live long enough to see it. Shot dead by someone in his own gang. This is what happens in the drug and gang turf wars of Southeast LA. 10.04.59 Music 10.05.00 Clive Myrie It’s men from fifteen to thirty-five who make up almost two thirds of all murders. There is no more dangerous place in America to be a young man. And there is no more dangerous place to be a police officer. 10.05.13 Music 10.05.23 Clive Myrie William J Bratton; the most famous policeman in the US. In October two thousand and two he became the fifty-fourth Police Chief of LA. 10.05.31 Chief William Bratton I William Bratton, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Chief of Police of the Los Angeles Police Department to the best of my ability. 10.05.41 Rick Caruso Congratulations! 10.05.42 Applause 10.05.47 Clive Myrie The City of Los Angeles hires Bratton to reduce murders and violence on its streets. 10.05.54 Rick Caruso It is an honour to present this badge and if I stab you it’s only a sign of things to come! 10.05.59 Laughter 10.06.04 Clive Myrie The legendary LAPD is in trouble, the City of LA is in trouble, a decade of scandal has tarnished the famous badge. Bratton offers a chance, a powerful opportunity to restore the LAPD’s honour. 10.06.17 Chief William Bratton The citizens of this city need you back on those streets. They don’t need you smiling and waving. They need you out of those cars, on those corners, in those parks, taking back those streets that unfortunately so many have been lost. You have the ability to do that. 10.06.36 Clive Myrie Bratton made his name in New York, where he’d been hired to revive the struggling police department, the NYPD. He was in the job for just over two years, major crimes dropped by a quarter and New York’s murder rate fell forty percent. 10.06.51 Aston WILLIAM J BRATTON Chief, Los Angeles Police Dept I wanted to come back into policing particularly in a large city to show that police do count. Secondly, however, was the missed opportunity of New York City, where we got crime down so dramatically that Mayor Giuliani as a political leader and myself as police leader, showed that with the right amount of police, policing in an appropriate fashion, you could not only reduce crime but you could improve relations particularly with the minority community at the same time and I desperately want to be able to prove that concept. We have been the flashpoint, we the police for most of the racial violence in the past century, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were in fact the catalyst for the healing and I think that if we do this right we can in fact achieve that. 10.07.31 Music 10.07.33 Clive Myrie Two of the worst riots in American history exploded out of the simmering hostility between the black community of South Los Angeles and the police. In nineteen sixty-five the Watts Riots. 10.07.43 Music 10.07.47 Clive Myrie In nineteen ninety-two, after Rodney King was beaten, the four police officers charged were acquitted and Los Angeles rioted and burned. 10.07.54 Music 10.08.02 Aston CONSTANCE RICE Civil Rights Lawyer When Rodney King happened it was very clear LAPD’s relationship with poor communities was one of an occupying army; we just come in, we extract and we occupy and we rule the streets. That’s the way LAPD police. 10.08.16 Music 10.08.17 Clive Myrie In the aftermath of Rodney King the OJ Simpson trial was tainted by distrust of the LAPD. 10.08.24 Clive Myrie The homicide detective in the case was accused of being a racist during the trial. And then in nineteen ninety-eight, the department’s biggest humiliation; a group of officers, including Rafael Perez in the Rampart area of Los Angeles, was found guilty of framing people, stealing drugs and money and shooting unarmed suspects. Six years later the Rampart scandal is still being investigated under the direction of civil rights lawyer, Connie Rice. 10.08.50 Constance Rice Rafael Perez said; we, the Crash Unit, policed like the gangs did. We planted evidence, we framed innocent people, we shot innocent people, they were all gang members but we followed not one single constitutional rule and we violated every single LAPD regulation. We’re talking about a systemic failure of the criminal justice system. When you have cops who routinely lie on the stand, plant evidence, even attempt to murder people and then cover it up, that is a complete breakdown. It rocked LAPD to its core. 10.09.23 Clive Myrie The courts were forced to overturn more than a hundred criminal convictions. As a result the anti- gang crash units were shut down and a new complaints and discipline policy to stop police corruption was taken up. 10.09.36 Clive Myrie This was the Police department that Bill Bratton took over. Morale was low and crime was high. 10.09.41 Constance Rice So when Bratton came in, he came in at a volatile poisonous, toxic time. He kind of comes in with this sweeping reputation of an aggressive change agent, someone who produces results, that’s why he was chosen. 10.09.56 Music 10.10.02 Radio show host I’d like to introduce you to LA Police Chief Bill Bratton. A man who came from New York to straighten out our Police Department. Chief Bratton, thank you so much for joining us. 10.10.13 Chief William Bratton Great to be here with you this morning. 10.10.14 Radio show host Oh, this is very exciting. 10.10.15 Chief William Bratton In this city last year, almost half of our murders, the six hundred and fifty-eight murders we had, were directly related to gangs. In Los Angeles unfortunately, some of these murders because they were occurring in the minority neighbourhoods, neighbourhoods where most of the whites in this city, most of the powerbrokers in this city, never find themselves, well we won’t worry about it. But what’s the headline about Los Angeles, whether you live in Brentwood or Bel Air? Los Angeles; murder capital of the United States. 10.10.39 Chief William Bratton Look, we have to care. The fact that a young black kid in South Central’s getting killed by another black kid – well who cares? We all need to care because the reality is that each one of these lives count and if we don’t start caring, it will spread. I’m going to totally change the way this department is reorganised, totally change the way it’s strategically and tactically positioned. Effectively I’m going to get the Los Angeles Police Department back into policing, something they haven’t been doing for many years. 10.11.06 Police radio 10.11.11 Clive Myrie Less than a month after taking the job, Bill Bratton faced his first challenging weekend. On Friday night, two men were killed, another was stabbed on Saturday. This is not unusual for Los Angeles. 10.11.23 Clive Myrie But on Sunday, a bouncer at a nightclub, John Henry Smith, was killed when he told man he couldn’t come in. Juan Valenzuela was gunned down in a drive-by shooting while standing with a group of friends. Eliseo Rodriguez was ambushed in front of his home. 10.11.38 Music 10.11.40 Clive Myrie By Monday night there were nine more bodies; fifteen murders in four days. Four other young men died in confrontations with the police. One weekend; nineteen dead. 10.11.51 Chief William Bratton Extraordinarily tough weekend in that it really knocked me back on my heels, it caused me to think what the hell have I gotten myself into. And what I found very surprising was how little attention was paid to this. How can you have thirteen or fourteen murders and the media doesn’t even bother reporting on it. 10.12.09 Music 10.12.10 Chief William Bratton This isn’t in Afghanistan, this isn’t in Lebanon. This is in the streets of the second largest city in this country. This has got to stop. And it’s got to stop now. 10.12.23 Music 10.12.26 Tim Pearce In Southeast Division, you have over sixty active gangs. As you drive around the division you go from block to block and the gangs change. Some are huge, you know, two thousand members. Some are just thirty, forty members on one or two blocks. 10.12.39 Tim Pearce There’s a little gang on this street and it’s trying to become something. They’re just kids, you know. 10.12.44 Scottie Stevens We keep slapping ‘em back down to size. 10.12.46 Tim Pearce They call themselves Killing Mob. We’ve gotten three of them with guns in the last couple of months but they’re just kids. 10.12.53 Scottie Stevens I’m thinking that Imperial Highway and Graham, I shouldn’t be seeing that tagging. 10.12.58 Tim Pearce That’s Bounty Hunter neighbourhood right here, which is an enormous gang. 10.13.01 Scottie Stevens They are always fighting. They are out there to sell drugs and make money. They’re out there to protect their turf, their neighbourhood. 10.13.09 Clive Myrie From the start, Chief Bratton transferred more officers to fight the gangs but even then there were just thirty like Scottie and Tim in Southeast, while the LAPD reckon there are over ten thousand gang members. 10.13.22 Tim Pearce With so much street crime, so many guns out there and so many people that’ll turn their guns on us, we have to come up with our guard at a hundred percent or we will die. 10.13.31 Tim Pearce See, doesn’t have any plates. 10.13.36 Tim Pearce I can chose to cite them for it or warn them for it but at minimum I get a contact and I get to learn what they’re up to. 10.13.43 Tim Pearce What’s up guys? 10.13.44 Young man Nothing. 10.13.45 Tim Pearce Do you guys have any weapons on you? 10.13.46 Young man Nothing. 10.13.47 Tim Pearce Nothing. Okay. Anybody on probation or parole? 10.13.49 Young man No. 10.13.50 Tim Pearce All right. Who’s car? 10.13.51 Clive Myrie Scottie and Tim make a stop. This time for driving without number plates. The driver doesn’t have a license either. 10.14.01 Tim Pearce No weapons, bro? Don’t go in your pockets for me. On your head, on your head, on your head. On your head… 10.14.09 Clive Myrie They see these stops as a chance to get information on the gangs. 10.14.13 Tim Pearce Slide on down here Too Tall, come on. Right there, right there. just your friend, there you go. 10.14.18 Clive Myrie They asked them which gang they belonged to. 10.14.21 Tim Pearce Who you claiming? 10.14.22 Young man 1 I’m from nine seven East Coast. 10.14.24 Tim Pearce East coast? 10.14.25 Young man 1 Yeah. 10.14.26 Tim Pearce You claiming East Coast too? 10.14.27 Young man 2 Yeah. 10.14.29 Tim Pearce What’d you get put in for? 10.14.30 Young man 1 Uh, murder. 10.14.33 Tim Pearce How many years you do for that? 10.14.34 Young man 1 Nine. 10.14.35 Tim Pearce Nine. How old were you when you did that? 10.14.38 Young man 1 Fourteen. 10.14.39 Tim Pearce Damn, what’d you do? 10.14.40 Young man 1 Murder. 10.14.41 Tim Pearce I mean how’d you do it? 10.14.43 Young man 1 In a negligent manner. They been running me all day today, man. Like this is the sixth time right now. An unmarked car, just like this one. 10.14.53 Scottie Stevens A blue one? 10.14.55 Clive Myrie Despite being stopped by the police six times that day he’s free to go. 10.14.59 Young man 1 …didn’t bust no moves or nothing, just stayed down like duh. 10.15.03 Tim Pearce Hey, we appreciate your co-operation. 10.15.04 Young man 1 Yeah man, that’s what we’re here for. This y’all hood, man, you know, shit y’all the biggest gang in California. 10.15.11 Constance Rice It’s so routine, it’s presumed to be valid, that it’s ok to stop anybody, with or without probable cause. There’s no such thing as probable cause in South LA because the entire neighbourhood is seen as gang territory. In Beverly Hills and in Baldwin Hills, upper middle class neighbourhoods, are they looking for the same kinds of violations, are they pulling everybody over, are they looking for seat belts not being buckled, are they pursuing the same types of violations across the board or are they just being used in this neighbourhood as a pretext for carrying out what is actually a sweeping policy of rounding people up? 10.15.51 Music 10.15.52 Clive Myrie There are eighteen divisions in the LAPD, Southeast is just one. A hundred and fifty thousand people live here. The gangs have such a strong hold on the area almost everyone knows someone with a connection. 10.16.05 Clive Myrie Chewy and Slim live in the neighbourhood; the police are in their lives all the time. 10.16.09 Music 10.16.10 Chewy Over the years the police has instilled fear in everything over here. 10.16.15 Music 10.16.17 Officer Fellas, how you doing? Hands out of your pockets gentlemen. 10.16.20 Aston Dr WILLIAM T WASHINGTON Pastor, Christian’s Comm Church The boys are afraid because they don’t know what the police going to do to them. The police has all the power, so when they are stopped, the police can say anything, they can write up anything. 10.16.30 Aston ROGER SCOTT They see an individual walking down the street and automatically will start casing that person, trying to find anything negative, something, something, you know because that’s what officers are trained to do. You know the routine, get right in that routine, whatever. Any drugs, dope on you? No sir, I’m coming from my mom’s house. 10.16.45 Aston SLIM We’re human beings though, we’re not pieces of cargo and pieces of flesh that you can just come over here and just get your practice on, swing your baton and all that. But this is what, this is what goes on around here. Me being a black man, six feet tall, I’m all type of target. 10.16.59 Music 10.17.02 Clive Myrie Fear is everywhere in this neighbourhood. Ordinary people are afraid of both the gangs and the police. 10.17.08 Music 10.17.10 Clive Myrie The gangs are afraid of the police and at times the police are afraid of the gangs and everything that happens here is tainted by the LAPD’s history. 10.17.21 Clive Myrie The police in Southeast are always looking for a reason to stop someone, perhaps for a broken tail light, they’re always seeing how far they can go. How is that good for race relations? 10.17.32 Aston WILLIAM J BRATTON Chief, Los Angeles Police Dept We know that works in the sense of dealing with crime in terms of getting those people that have the guns, getting those people who are wanted on the warrants. It’s a way of policing that has extraordinary benefits but also has extraordinary risks. It’s a matter of finding the balance. 10.17.50 Clive Myrie But why do you think Southeast is still the most dangerous neighbourhood in the City? 10.17.55 Chief William Bratton I think unfortunately because it’s where so many of the bad people live, that’s the reality. 10.18.03 LAPD officer in helicopter This is a dispersal. Everyone leave the area; go back to your residence. This is a dispersal. 10.18.10 Scottie Stevens Nobody’s going to leave. 10.18.11 LAPD officer They live here. 10.18.13 Chief William Bratton There are maybe some parallels to Baghdad that, and that’s some of the points I’m making that if you don’t begin to deal with this problem it’s going to get worse and sometimes you have to go into a lockdown. That’s, that’s the reality of it at this time in the City. 10.18.29 Clive Myrie Southeast is a neighbourhood full of Latino and black families, poor families. Here unemployment is three times the national average. 10.18.39 Slim Just waking up every day hurts, trying to wonder how you’re going to feed your family, you know what I’m saying, if you ain’t got none, you know what I’m saying, it hurts. I don’t know how, you know, other people grow up but right here it hurts. You know, just wondering how you’re going to, you know, solidify some type of income to feed your babies and all, it hurts. You know what I’m saying so, we live in a whole different world when you come over here, this is a whole different tip. 10.19.05 Roll call officer Twenty-one and Stevens, Cerone. Thirty-one Levant, Colson… 10.19.10 Clive Myrie It’s roll call; officers in Tim and Scottie’s team share intelligence. 10.19.15 Female officer I’m not sure if anybody recalls, back in about April there was a Eight Nine Family blood that got shot by a Butchdog. Anyhow, one of his homey’s, Sticks, I don’t know if anybody deals with Eight Nine family, umm… 10.19.28 Officer 1 I know ‘em. 10.19.28 Female officer Ok. 10.19.30 Officer 2 Craig Hunt, he sells for Rockbury, he was just shot on 112th and Antwerp by Robert …bleep… It was an AK47. He was hit in the thigh and basically the whole femur’s gone so he’s going to lose a leg. But retaliation, I don’t think, you know there’s an AK47 in there now. One of the wits said it was a classical stock, ‘cos when he was running away he was folding the gun up. 10.19.55 Clive Myrie Today’s objective is to find the AK47; a semi- automatic assault weapon. It’s not long before it’s used again. 10.20.04 Police radio Manny and I got flagged down by the victim of a robbery that was used an AK. 10.20.09 Tim Pearce They got flagged down by a male Hispanic who got robbed at gunpoint with a rifle. The Hispanic saw the guy run into this place here… 10.20.16 Officer This one right here? 10.20.17 Man Yeah, yeah, that one. The third one I think. 10.20.21 Tim Pearce They locked it down, you know, then called the guy out. And ended up recovering the gun and the weapon inside. 10.20.30 Aston SCOTT STEVENS Southeast Gang Unit They got the AK47 in custody, it was in the kitchen. A big Kevlar vest with steel plates on it, so it’s probably the same one that we were looking for from that incident yesterday. The gun matches the description of the shooting that happened right here. 10.20.44 Tim Pearce This thing goes through like ten houses, straight through. Whooo…it’ll go through solid walls, it’ll penetrate the engine block on a car. Good job guys. Beautiful. It was a good caper, did you see the gun? 10.20.58 Music 10.21.03 Clive Myrie After only a couple of months in the job, Chief Bratton is raising morale. Scottie and Tim were beginning to feel the difference. 10.21.11 Tim Pearce That was one of the impressive things that Bratton did right away was he sent people down and wanted to know exactly what the officers thought needed to happen, what equipment we needed, what changes in procedure we thought needed to happen. 10.21.30 Clive Myrie But Bratton wanted allies at the top too; to crack crime and build trust. He settled on two deputies; Hillmann and Paysinger. 10.21.38 Chief William Bratton Have a quiet weekend and enjoy the day off on Monday. 10.21.42 Aston EARL PAYSINGER Deputy Chief, South Bureau Now’s the time to raise our voice, now’s the time to get serious about this thing. Do you realise that since nineteen eight-five, I believe it is, we have lost in this city nearly ten thousand people. If that child was yours, how would you feel? This is our community. It belongs to us. And I know that if we work together, if we pull together, if we walk together I know we can take this thing back. I dare you to join me in this walk. 10.22.17 Woman at meeting I had six children and all I have is two living now. My first- born died of natural death, natural causes from sickness. But the others’ terrible deaths – murdered. You’ve gotta stop this killing because we’re not going to stand for it. 10.22.38 Deputy Chief Hillmann Things are on the right track but I equate it to drinking out of a fire hose. There’s a lot of things that have to be done and they have to be done very quickly and there’s no time to do it in. 10.22.47 Clive Myrie Hillmann has got a search and arrest warrant on a gang house the police believe is being used to sell drugs. 10.22.53 Deputy Chief Hillmann Right now we’re en route to serve search and arrest warrants on two different locations for some known gang members that we’ve been looking at for the last two months here. 10.23.02 Swat raid 10.23.15 Deputy Chief Hillmann The individuals that are involved are known gangsters that have used violence in the past. Surveillance of the location has indicated that it’s a heavily fortified location which is not unusual for us to have to use our special weapons and tactics unit. 10.23.28 Clive Myrie Hillmann’s swat team find a family at home. But also gang members wanted for arrest. 10.23.35 Clive Myrie The community of Southeast is divided between those in the gangs and law abiding citizens and sometimes they live under the same roof. 10.23.47 Deputy Chief Hillmann At our location we came up with a shotgun, we came up with two of the main players for the gang, some narcotics in the backhouse. So, all in all, a pretty good day’s work. 10.23.58 Music 10.24.02 Aston 23rd March Number of murders in South East 18 10.24.06 Clive Myrie By Oscars’ time in March, Chief Bratton has established himself as one of the most popular characters in the city. 10.24.12 Music 10.24.23 Clive Myrie And he was also earning respect from the other side of the city. 10.24.28 Aston SHARON JACKSON From the little that I know about Chief Bratton, he’s the man that takes his job very seriously. He’s already shown the people of Los Angeles that he’s taking it seriously by putting the gang units back on the streets. Our local government need to come up with some plan to get all these troubled teenagers off the streets and get the gang members off. 10.24.53 Music 10.24.54 Man on megaphone We better say to our young people, that you cannot continue to kill and take lives. That the killing is going to stop here. 10.25.02 Clive Myrie But there are barriers to working with the police. In Tim and Scottie’s area there’s been a call; young men are waving a gun. 10.25.10 Scott Stevens Shorty, you got ID? No. How old are you? 10.25.13 Boy Fourteen. 10.25.14 Scott Stevens Fourteen. 10.25.20 Scott Stevens He looks like a pretty soft spoken kid, he doesn’t look like he’s, he’s a bad kid so but since they said it was over on this side, ok and these guys were hanging out in front of the house. Once it’s determined and everything and we get the lady back on line, ‘cos she doesn’t want to talk to us in public, we can get her back on the phone and she’s, she can tell us who’s involved, it should only be a couple more minutes. 10.25.41 Screams/music 10.25.50 Woman Subtitles My momma got cut, my momma got cut! 10.25.55 Clive Myrie But before Scottie and Tim leave the scene, someone attacks the neighbours suspected of making the call to the police. 10.26.00 Music/shouting 10.26.01 Woman Subtitle Punk-ass coward-ass bitches! 10.26.04 Clive Myrie A man and a woman are both stabbed. 10.26.06 Music 10.26.07 Woman Subtitle I’m bleeding too, I’m bleeding too! 10.26.11 Young woman Subtitle That girl stabbed her. Woman Subtitles I’m bleeding too! Bitches cut my Momma! Punk-ass coward-ass bitches! 10.26.19 Scottie Stevens Why don’t you tell me who did it? 10.26.21 Woman Subtitle These bitches down here. 10.26.28 Scottie Stevens They’re coming. They’re coming. We called them; they’re coming. Why don’t somebody tell me who did it? They coming. 10.26.34 Woman Subtitles That bitch stabbed her! That bitch stabbed her! 10.26.37 Scottie Stevens They’re not telling me anything. 10.26.42 Woman Subtitles We don’t deserve this! We don’t deserve it! Young woman Subtitle I know, I know. 10.26.46 Woman Subtitle We never did nothing to nobody! 10.26.57 Scottie Stevens Hey ma’am, you’re going to have to let him go. You have to let him go so they can look at him, all right. 10.27.04 Scottie Stevens What’s your name honey? All I need is your name. 10.27.07 Woman Subtitles Ya, I need to get to the hospital right now, man. 10.27.10 Scottie Stevens Yeah, they want to take you all right. Now why don’t you tell me what happened? 10.27.13 Woman Subtitle I can’t talk right now. 10.27.15 Scottie Stevens All right. And try to talk to mom and find out what the hell happened. 10.27.21 Woman Subtitles …and they were saying, “Bitches, why y’all call the police on our cousins?”. We was telling them we didn’t call, and she say, “Ya, ya’ll some snitches”. One girl turned to me, “Ya, ya’ll some snitches”… and so her and my niece go off, and she socked my niece. And then her and my niece go off fighting… and that’s when one girl… they was in the street right here… and the girl came and she stabbed her. Oh I couldn’t even… 10.27.39 Scottie Stevens Do you know the girl’s name? 10.27.40 Woman Subtitle No, ‘cause we don’t… 10.27.41 Scottie Stevens What was she wearing? 10.27.42 Woman Subtitles I know she had a blue, a light blue hairscarf around, around her hair… and she had braids. That’s all I know. 10.27.48 Officer Subtitles And they mentioned something about you guys calling the police earlier? So basically, you guys were telling them… 10.27.51 Woman Subtitles We didn’t have nothing to do with it. We didn’t. 10.27.56 Aston TIM PEARCE Southeast Gang Unit Almost eight years on the job and till this day, I’m still amazed at the amount of violence that’s out there. And I’m also amazed at how little people know about how much violence is out there. 10.28.13 Scottie Stevens Hey, honey, I got to tell you, you’re probably going to run into more stuff tonight, so I would keep everybody in the house. They’re gonna, they’re gonna get upset and go do something and they’re gonna end up in jail, you know what I’m saying? So do your best to control them tonight. 10.28.23 Woman I will. Thank you. 10.28.24 Scottie Stevens We’ll be around all night. All right? 10.28.25 Music 10.28.27 Clive Myrie Local people feel trapped. Call the police and you risk the wrath of the gang members. 10.28.32 Music 10.28.37 William T Washington We want to get rid of these violent people who are terrorising our communities, killing our kids. We want to see them gotten rid of, so we’re not protecting them. But what we’re saying is that you don’t know how to do that without brutalising us all. 10.28.56 Clive Myrie William Bratton decides that to really reduce crime he needs reinforcements. Too few officers are chasing too many criminals. 10.29.05 Chief William Bratton And we all know that we need more of you. It’s a disgrace that this city has so few of you, it increases your danger, you know it. There are so few of you out there, back up is so far away. Thank God, you’re as well trained and as safety and tactically conscious as you are because that really is the only thing that keeps so many more of you from being injured. So we will fight like crazy for more cops. Every speech I give to every group, I’m not going to engage in the politically correct; well we’ll do with what we have. We will do with what we have and you’re doing a lot more. 10.29.40 Music 10.29.41 Clive Myrie Consider these figures. Los Angeles has nine thousand police officers. New York City has almost forty thousand. 10.29.48 Music 10.29.54 Aston CONSTANCE RICE Civil Rights Lawyer If you don’t have enough boots on the ground you act like a porcupine, you puff yourself up, you amplify your power, you make yourself look scarier than you are. And you have to project a power you don’t have. And how do you do that? You basically do it through terror. 10.30.11 Deputy Chief Paysinger I have seen in years past where we have absolutely demanded members of this organisation to do more with less. But you have to be careful if you ask for too many tickets, if you ask for too many arrests, all of which or some of which you know they can’t do because there aren’t enough of them. Because if you ask too much they’ll deliver for you but you won’t want to know how they got the result. 10.30.35 Music 10.30.35 Aston 16th May Number of murders in South East 27 10.30.38 Clive Myrie Chief Bratton keeps telling the city’s leaders he needs more police officers to make LA safer and improve the image of his department. He asked the City Council for a three percent increase. 10.30.49 Music 10.30.50 Chief William Bratton The city last year had the unenviable title of ‘murder capital of America’ based on the largest number of murders of any major city. We have made great inroads over these last number of months in beginning to change that. We have a reorganisation proposal, we have set internally within the department new goals; a twenty-five percent reduction in homicide for this year, a ten percent reduction in crime for this year with the sense that the department has that capability and capacity if it’s reorganisation moves forward and with the anticipated increase in officers. 10.31.22 Music 10.31.24 Clive Myrie The City Council says no. 10.31.26 Music 10.31.30 Chief William Bratton This city desperately needs more police officers. These police officers desperately need more like them out on the streets. What are they thinking about over there? Don’t criticise me on Monday and then on Wednesday deny me the ability to manage this police department to address the criticisms. We think we can get murders down twenty five percent, we think we can get serious crime down ten percent, we think we can get the reputation of this department back and if we think we can do a damn good job of preventing acts of terrorism in this city but give us that chance. If this city cannot afford four million dollars to protect three and a half million people, we are in certainly desperate trouble. 10.32.07 Aston SCOTT STEVENS Southeast Gang Unit We expected him to get shot down because not a whole lot of things that we request form the City Council ever gets approved. For as much work as we’ve done with so little for so long, it was good to finally see somebody confront the issue. 10.32.20 Clive Myrie The stark reality is people don’t want to pay for extra police to work in someone else’s back yard. 10.32.25 Music 10.32.26 Clive Myrie And in the back yard that Tim and Scottie patrol, the killings just continue. 10.32.30 Music 10.32.49 Aston SAL LABARBERA Southeast Homicide Detective There are no perks working homicide. You work in murders because you’re here to, you know, you’ll hear these people are the ones that will answer for the victim that can’t, you know, answer for themselves. That’s it; that’s what keeps them going. It’s the love of the job. 10.33.04 Aston 22nd September Number of murders in South East 50 10.33.06 Sal Labarbera Witnesses; I mean we need people to talk to us, to come forward and tell us what happened. 10.33.11 Music 10.33.15 Sal Labarbera We’re faced with, if it’s a gang case and most of them are, is how much trust does the community have in the police, how much trust do they have and then we can help them. If they do come forward and talk to us, what can we do to assure their safety? 10.33.29 Music 10.33.31 Sal Labarbera In this case it’s obvious, gang on gang. There have been some shootings, you know, referencing both these gangs going back and forth so it does concern us. You know, could there be folks here that are unwilling to talk to us? Sure. When we got here there were already gone. 10.33.45 Music 10.33.47 Sal Labarbera You know, when we’re out at a crime scene, who’s there, who’s not there and usually if it’s quiet and there’s nobody out there, everyone knows what happened. And it’s tough for the community because the gangs really have a stronghold. The police aren’t always there, gang members are. 10.34.02 Music 10.34.05 Sal Labarbera Yesterday, within a six hour period, we had three homicides. We have eight homicide detectives that are now handling fifty-five murders and out of those fifty-five cases none of them are a mystery and those are cases that will all be solved. It’s just a matter of having the proper resources to put on the cases. 10.34.19 Sal Labarbera You haven’t slept in a while have you? 10.34.21 Detective Skaggs Nope. 10.34.22 Sal Labarbera Well don’t plan on it mister! 10.34.22 Detective Skaggs Not for a day and a half. 10.34.23 Sal Labarbera All right? Not until you close these cases out. 10.34.27 Detective Skaggs Thanks boss. 10.34.28 Sal Labarbera You’re welcome. 10.34.30 Aston EARL PAYSINGER Deputy Chief, South Bureau At the beginning of the conflict in the Middle East, as you recall, the President of the United States asked Congress for a seventy plus billion dollar appropriation to fuel the war effort. We have communities now that are in a position of compromise and strife. And I can’t help but wonder why we can’t be more attentive to our communities when so many of them are crying for help, I just, it’s just difficult for me to strike that balance. 10.35.00 Music 10.35.06 Tim Pearce See the memorials they put up? 10.35.09 Scottie Stevens Look at the holes in the walls. Two guys got out, both with machine guns, one a Uzi and one a AK47 and just did a spray. 10.35.17 Music 10.35.19 Scottie Stevens There are more holes up here. Those are large guns. 10.35.22 Tim Pearce There were a whole bunch of people outside. But two of them got hit and I think the girl got hit in the head. 10.35.27 Scottie Stevens They said the bullets went through the front wall, through all the walls in the house then came out the back wall of the house. 10.35.32 Music 10.35.41 Tim Pearce But like I was telling you, it’s always one house on the block or maybe two houses on the block, ruins it for everybody. 10.35.48 Clive Myrie After being rejected by the Council, Chief Bratton was coming to terms with making do. 10.35.53 Chief William Bratton And what we have, the ninety-three hundred approximately, that’s it. I’m not expecting any more. You are it. Fortunately what we have is we’ve got an exceptional group of officers, arrests are up, crime is trending down, we’re hoping that the attitude that you’ve been showing, the work that you’ve been doing and the results that you’ve been achieving that we can keep moving that forward. 10.36.17 Clive Myrie Scottie and Tim are focussing on a gang called K Mob, short for Killing Mob. At the beginning of the year they were small but were now starting to make an impact in Southeast. 10.36.28 Scottie Stevens His name is Little Loco. He was one of those kids that we got right away. His hair was dead, just been shaved and he was one of those, ok this is your first one, right, you don’t even have a tattoo yet. Call it quits here. Just stop. He went to camp, got out and immediately went back to it. 10.36.46 Music 10.36.55 Scottie Stevens The most dangerous ones are the younger ones between the ages of fifteen and nineteen because that’s when they’re at their soldier stage. They’re the gun carriers, the dope warriors, the, the robbery crews. 10.37.05 Music 10.37.07 Scottie Stevens We had info he was dealing dope out of his front yard, possibly being involved or having knowledge about a couple of murders. Gun battles going on. 10.37.15 Music 10.37.16 Scottie Stevens How old are you again? Fifteen? 10.37.17 Boy Fifteen. 10.37.20 Scottie Stevens And his house seemed to be the centre point of the activity. 10.37.23 Music 10.37.24 Tim Pearce There’s nothing easy about growing up in that neighbourhood. But the odds are totally against them. 10.37.31 Clive Myrie Teenagers dealing drugs from their front gardens risk drive-by shootings from rival gangs. Tim appeals to the better side of one of K Mob. 10.37.39 Tim Pearce It’s only a matter of time before Grape Street rolls through here and dumps on you guys. True? But you know what? At your house, look at how many little kids are sitting in front of your house right now. Now they don’t have a clue what’s going on, right. Not a clue but you’re out here slinging, ok? Now here comes Grape Street. Here comes Grape Street down the, rolling down here, ready to do a drive-by on you guys. Bam, bam, bam. Who is going to get hit on that porch? 10.38.04 Scottie Stevens Not you because, because you’re going to have your eyes wide open, right, you’re going to see them coming so you’re going to start heading for the corner of the house. The little girls are still going to be standing there smiling and they’re the ones that are going to get popped right. Can’t you see that? But that’s going to be on you. 10.38.22 Scottie Stevens So far we haven’t found one that we could save, as hard as we’ve tried. 10.38.25 Music 10.38.29 Clive Myrie After almost a year on the job the Chief is getting good marks from many people and he’s pretty upbeat in public. Privately however, he’s frustrated. 10.38.39 Aston JOHN LINDER Consultant to Chief Bratton I think his success here has been substantial but I don’t think it has been as immensely quick as it was in other places and I think that relates to the realities that he then confronted. The realities of the size of the department, the reality of the size of the city and I think reality hit hard. 10.38.57 Chief William Bratton I think we’re kidding ourselves if we really think that we’re wining here. Particularly in the area of gang initiatives. I’m still very, very concerned and unsettled that, you know, we’ve got a long way to go. I think we’re kidding ourselves if we really think that we’re wining here. Particularly in the area of gang initiatives. I’m still very, very concerned and unsettled that, you know, we’ve got a long way to go. 10.39.11 Music 10.39.11 Chief William Bratton Just sitting on the porch on the weekend…Bastards. 10.39.18 Chief William Bratton We’re doing better but it’s still not good enough. 10.39.22 Chief William Bratton There was an all too typical homicide here; it’s almost as if it didn’t happen. You won’t read about it in any papers, you won’t hear about it in the news, you know there’s a life lost and it’s not even a blip in time. 10.39.34 Music 10.39.37 Deputy Chief Paysinger When a horrible crime occurs, when somebody’s victimised in a despicable way in another part of the community there’s an incredible political and social response. But yet when that same thing happens in a place called South Bureau it just passes us as if it were a tide. Why is that? Is it because there is such a saturation of those kinds of episodes? I don’t think so. I think it’s something that has much more depth to it that really does speak to the issue of, of race. 10.40.09 Chief William Bratton A woman, her three children in our Southeast area, they were subject to a drive-by shooting in front of their home. The six year old, DeAngelo Beck, was shot in the head last night and he is at this time on life support. 10.40.27 Scottie Stevens It made everybody in the unit mad, that and it made everybody in the division mad. 10.40.31 Scottie Stevens The dad is actually known to us. Me and Tim worked that house for a little while. There was a lot of strange activity going on that kind of led us to believe that everything there wasn’t completely legitimate. 10.40.44 Tim Pearce The suspect car rolls by and starts firing at them. The people in Suburban drove in reverse, take out this fence here and come back, right up and hit the house. The six year old boy was sitting inside the Suburban. He took one to the head. It went in the right side of his head and out the back. 10.40.58 Scottie Stevens It was a six year old kid that was born into a situation that they couldn’t control. They were born to a gangster dad and …, a drug dealing dad who had no second thoughts about having armed gang members in his front yard with his six year old child present. 10.41.15 Music 10.41.16 Sal Labarbera In the midst of this, a neighbour, a neighbour comes out of his house and he’s going to be a hero and he’s going to fire a round with them, a couple of rounds with the fleeing suspects with his assault rifle. 10.41.25 Scottie Stevens Inside the two-storey apartment building they found the M1 rifle, they found a three eighty, some ammo and some, actually a large quantity of cash and drugs. 10.41.33 Music 10.41.35 Aston 6th October Number of murders in South East 57 10.41.38 Scottie Stevens His father’s actions instigated his death. The chid died because his father was a gang member. The child died because his father was dealing dope out of that front yard and had gang members in his front yard. Without his father’s actions that kid would still be alive. The complete blame for that child dying, other than the person that pulled the trigger, is centred on that dad’s head. 10.42.00 Music 10.42.02 Clive Myrie The death of an innocent six year old hits everyone. 10.42.09 Clive Myrie Without extra officers, Chief Bratton has to use those he has more effectively. 10.42.16 Chief William Bratton We’re very confident that about ten percent of the criminal population in this city is probably committing about fifty percent of the crime, particularly violent crime. So we’re going to, with our very limited resources, attempt to focus on that ten percent for maximum impact on crime. 10.42.29 Aston 23rd October Number of murders in South East 61 10.42.37 Clive Myrie The gangs will be hit and hit hard. 10.42.42 Music 10.42.44 Deputy Chief Paysinger This stems from a shooting at 54th and Normandie. It’s not only because of those young people, it’s also because of a young man that was six years old who was shot and killed during a barrage of gunfire that had gang influence about it. 10.42.59 Deputy Chief Hillmann These guys are slinging dope. This is one of the locations here. We know the suspect is armed. 10.43.04 Deputy Chief Paysinger It’s also about a sixty-eight year old man that was shot and killed while he was walking down the street early one morning with a four year and a six year old, both of whom were his grandchildren. 10.43.14 Deputy Chief Hillmann The primary suspect that we’re dealing with in this case, we believe is involved in one of the homicides that we’ve had here. 10.43.20 Deputy Chief Paysinger Our job, in a deliberate and a professional way, is to send them a powerful message that they don’t get to wreak havoc in our communities. They just don’t get to do it. 10.43.30 Music 10.43.32 Clive Myrie In late October the police try to send the gangs a powerful message. 10.43.35 Police radio 10.43.40 Clive Myrie More than four hundred officers hit thirty-seven locations simultaneously. 10.43.44 Police radio/explosions 10.43.57 Clive Myrie The explosive devices are intended to divert attention while the SWAT teams make their entry. 10.44.03 Deputy Chief Hillmann We got about four people out of here. The main player suspect ended up trying to get away. The location here went very, very well. There were no injuries, several diversionary devices were used on the inside. 10.44.14 Aston MICHAEL HILLMANNN Deputy Chief, South Bureau Other than that we’ve got the suspects here, the detectives were doing the handoff and now we’re going to re-tool and re-fit and go out back and execute the next warrant. 10.44.22 Deputy Chief Paysinger And I have every strong expectation that by the end of the night we will have re-established ourselves in the minds of the community and sent them a message as well that we are there with them and for them and will never go away and give over our communities to gang members who have bad intentions in their hearts. 10.44.40 Clive Myrie By the end of the evening, twenty-nine arrests and the police seize thirteen guns. 10.44.45 Music 10.44.49 Clive Myrie The Los Angeles Police Department has been at war with the gangs in South LA for thirty years. And today there are more gangs than ever. Thousands of young gang members have been killed, tens of thousands have been arrested and they continue to grow. 10.45.03 Music 10.45.06 Slim When the kids come home from out of school, they come right into the streets. You go anywhere else, the kids might have somewhere to go like an after school centre or somewhere they can direct their energy to. Over here it’s, their energy is directed into negative energy. 10.45.21 Constance Rice Our day care system is a gang system. And it’s the failure of the political leadership in this city to provide the support systems for poor families. LA is a third world city. We are a third world city for much of what exists here. And if you don’t claim your children, the street and the gangs will raise them. 10.45.44 Music 10.45.45 Roger Scott The gang bangers are getting courted in younger and younger. So, if this is all you know around here and you don’t have the opportunity or the resources to get out and go find positive environments to be in, you’re going to adapt. If your friend is involved in this gang or whatever, he’s trying to survive, if he has no other option available; what can you help? If you’re a police officer and he’s a criminal, how can you help? Well I’m going to lock him up, I’m going to continue the problem. 10.46.09 Slim Bratton, that dude from New York? Think about it. He locked down New York. He put a lot of people in jail in New York. Small cases, you know, minor infractions. He’s coming over here to do the same thing. We don’t, you know what I’m saying? What, what is jail going to do? Jail is, is, is not to help you. Jail is, is only to continue the process of breaking you down. It, jail don’t work. 10.46.35 Clive Myrie But in parts of LA Chief Bratton’s blueprint from New York seemed to be working. 10.46.39 Chief William Bratton As of November fifteenth, year to date homicides in this city are down twenty-four percent. There’s a good possibility by the end of the year homicides will have declined in this city more than any other city in America. That’s quite a story because last year, as you know, we were number one. 10.46.56 Chief William Bratton In South Bureau, for example, the combined work of all of you, gang unit arrests, up two hundred twenty-three percent from two years ago. So quite obviously you’re back in those streets and you’re back in those streets in a big way. There was six day period last week in which there were no murders in this city. Six days in a city of three and a half million people in which there were no murders; that’s phenomenal. Phenomenal. 10.47.30 Clive Myrie But the picture in Tim and Scottie’s division wasn’t so optimistic. They were making more arrests but by early December the murders in Southeast were higher than all of the last year. And the police were becoming targets. 10.47.45 Sergeant When you start focussing more attention on the gang members you, you tend to irritate them a little bit and their response to that is to push back. And that’s how they do it. 10.47.56 William T Washington What do these boys have to lose in the end? They have nothing to lose and up to this, this thing just keep building and building and building. 10.48.06 Sergeant When someone shoots at the police that is their way of sending up a flag saying; I want more fucking attention. So basically, the next week or the next month, every time we see one of these guys, if they’re good to go for anything, citations, impounds, jaywalking, I don’t care what it is, they need to go. Okay? And that’s what we’re going to do tonight once we get out of here. 10.48.31 Aston 5th December Number of murders in South East 68 10.48.31 Scottie Stevens Right now, we’re going over to Nickerson Gardens. In the last two weeks we’ve had two ambushes on police officers where there were shots fired. We’ve kind of gathered information about who might even be involved in at least one of those. Our gang experts for that gang are over there now, they’re going to do what we call a perimeter check. They’re just going to scope the area, see if they see them. And if they do, we’ll all just rush in. 10.48.54 Music 10.48.56 Scottie Stevens If we can get them before he gets in a location, fine, if not we’ll lock it down and then go through the whole nine yards. 10.49.01 Sergeant There are people all over the place. Let’s start scoping them up. 10.49.03 Scottie Stevens All right. 10.49.04 Police radio 10.49.09 Officer If the information we’ve got is correct, nobody in there is going to help this guy out because they don’t want the heat. So with any luck in the next ten minutes or so we’ll have this guy in custody. 10.49.16 Music 10.49.31 Scottie Stevens That front door where they’re hanging out, we know from search warrants we’ve served prior that it’s a narco location. It’s a dope location. They’re known gangsters so let’s let them know whey we’re here and who we’re looking for. And if we don’t catch them we’ll let them solve them the problem. We’ll go back to making life miserable for all the other gangsters and let them eventually give him up. If we don’t come across him then we’re going to, we’re going to make it so hard on the rest of them. If, if you’re drinking, if you’ve got a bag of weed everybody goes. If you got that two hundred and fifty dollar misdemeanour warrant that we been letting you slide on for so long, this is why we let them slide. 10.50.08 Tim Pearce Today’s the day we cash it in. 10.50.10 Scottie Stevens And you’ll notice that here, probably within the next thirty minutes, you’ll see nobody on the street. 10.50.19 Tim Pearce What’s up fella’s, how you doing? Having a good time? All right, ready? Let’s talk. How’s that? Talk for a minute? 10.50.28 Young man But I don’t gang bang. I ain’t never been in a gang before. 10.50.29 Tim Pearce The heat, but you gotta understand the heat’s coming down on you, ok, the heat is coming down on you and the heat is going to come down on last year’s warrants, ok. If you guys don’t put an end to this thing. Now you know who we’re looking for. 10.50.42 Young man No, I swear to God on my granny rest in peace, I don’t go over there, I ain’t even know they were shooting until I tried to go to… 10.50.49 Officer They’ve been shooting at officers, brother. 10.50.51 Young man I heard about it, you know you gonna hear about that but I ain’t, I ain’t got nothing against you. 10.50.56 Tim Pearce All right brother, square your ticket, square your warrant, all right? Get that stuff taken care of. Take your jacket and go. All right? Hey, I’m on the real, I’m not going to book you on that, ok, just take your jacket and go. 10.51.06 Young man Serious? 10.51.07 Tim Pearce Yeah. Have a nice day. Positive. Scottie, we’re done. 10.51.13 Scottie Stevens Got your group on the left. Three went inside. 10.51.16 Scottie Stevens I think they see the pressure now. They don’t like the pressure. We’re cutting their business off, their dope sales are down, money’s down, they’re under the false impression that they’re actually going to scare us away. Well it’s just the opposite, you shoot at us and there’s going to be ten times as many cops in the area as there was when the incident happened. 10.51.35 Music 10.51.35 Zamudio on police radio Subtitles Officer needs help – shots fired. 107 and Wilmington. Suspect, male, Hispanic. 10.51.40 Scottie Stevens Shots fired. 10.51.41 Music 10.51.44 Police radio Subtitles All units, officer needs help, 107 and Wilmington. Officer needs help, 107 and Wilmington. Shots fired. 10.51.49 Music 10.51.50 Zamudio on police radio Subtitles Perimeter, 107 and Anzac. Male Hispanic, blue sweatshirt, black knit cap. 10.52.01 Police radio Subtitles Requesting a perimeter, 107 and Anzac. Suspect is male Hispanic, blue sweatshirt. 10.52.06 Colson on police radio Subtitle George two-seven, I’ve been hit! 10.52.10 Police radio Subtitles Officer needs help, 107 and Wilmington. Officer down. 10.52.14 Colson on police radio Subtitle Get RA, we’ve been hit. 10.52.17 Police radio Subtitle Two officers are down. 10.52.18 Music 10.52.26 Scottie Stevens Get down on the ground! Stay down. 10.52.33 Tim Pearce Where’s Colson? 10.52.33 Music 10.52.39 Tim Pearce RA’s on its way. Ok sit down, relax, relax. Relax. 10.52.44 Sergeant Talk to me. Who’s involved? 10.52.45 Scottie Stevens Zamudio and Colson; they’re both hit. 10.52.47 Sergeant Both hit. 10.52.51 Scottie Stevens Shotgun casings. 10.52.52 Tim Pearce Two door, small, compact. 10.52.53 Music 10.52.56 Scottie Stevens Get the perimeter. Get the perimeter set up now. 10.52.58 Tim Pearce Hey, stop that car! That car! Stop that red car! Stop that red car! 10.53.06 Sergeant Where are you hit brother? 10.53.07 Zamudio In my fucking legs. 10.53.09 Sergeant Just relax, lay back, man, lay back. 10.53.11 Music 10.53.14 Tim Pearce George twenty-one, be advised the suspects are two male Hispanics armed with a shot gun. 10.53.18 Music 10.53.19 Officer on radio Subtitles Suspect ran soutbound Wilmington. There’s a blue tarp. He hit that fence. I think he lost his shotgun right there. 10.53.25 Sergeant Roger, we got the shot gun under the van. 10.53.27 Music 10.53.29 Zamudio We rolled up. There were two guys running. One guy had a shotgun and when we stopped he looked at us and said; ‘who’s that?’ And bam – he just shot at us. 10.53.39 Music 10.53.39 Officer on radio Subtitles He was with that group that we jammed earlier. That we already got the gun off of. He was with all those guys right there. 10.53.45 Scottie Stevens I had arrested him. I’d chased him. We could talk and we could get along and he didn’t come off as the type that’s going to pull a gun and shoot at a cop. I believe that he’s not the type that’s going to do that. 10.53.59 Music 10.54.01 Scottie Stevens Now, as far as I’m concerned, anyone of them could turn around and shoot at a cop at any given moment. If they’re willing to shoot at me they’re willing to shoot at anybody. So why give them the benefit of the doubt? 10.54.13 Clive Myrie The two officers who were shot were lucky. They were not critically injured. The gang member shot at the scene survived; he faces serious charges. A huge manhunt later that night led to the arrest of another man. 10.54.27 Chief William Bratton What gang are we dealing with over here? 10.54.29 Deputy Chief Paysinger K Mob. 10.54.30 Chief William Bratton K Mob. 10.54.30 Deputy Chief Paysinger Yeah, Killer Mob. A very small gang. 10.54.32 Chief William Bratton That’s a new one for me, I’ve never even heard of them. 10.54.34 Officer It’s a Hispanic gang. 10.54.36 Chief William Bratton We’re doing the right thing. If they are prepared to come at us with our badges and our guns and the power that we have, it’s only a matter of time till that violence ultimately will begin to spill out from those neighbourhoods that are most afflicted with them. 10.54.52 Officer Colson Yeah, it’s definitely going to get worse before it gets better. 10.54.54 Interviewer Why? 10.54.55 Officer Colson Umm, I think the harder we push the harder they’re going to push. 10.55.00 Clive Myrie Chief Bratton hadn’t quite reached his target of reducing the murder rate by twenty-five percent. The LAPD reports it was down twenty-three percent, a significant achievement. A hundred and fifty-three fewer people were killed in two thousand and three than the year before. LA is no longer the murder capital of America but Chief Bratton is still desperate for more police officers. 10.55.22 Chief William Bratton I’m trying to get that message out to the politicians, to the media, to the business community, to the communities, that we need help, we need more of you. But in the meantime, what few we have, you’re doing even more than we’ve ever done before with what few we have. 10.55.37 Clive Myrie But the picture in the Southeast Division is very different. It remains plagued by murder. December was a particularly bloody month; ten died. And by the end of two thousand and three the annual murder rate in Southeast LA increased by eighteen percent. 10.55.57 Aston JOHN LINDER Consultant to Chief Bratton We have only enough police officers here to make certain that the wealthier neighbourhoods stay safe. And I think that the question that the body politic, the community of Los Angeles, has to confront is that question; do we want to make the whole city safe? Because ultimately none of us is safe unless everybody is safe. 10.56.17 Interviewer Do other people in Los Angeles not care enough about what happens down here because it’s a Latino and Black neighbourhood? 10.56.25 Sergeant They really don’t want to know everything that occurs down here and they don’t put us in a position to win. We’re not here to win anything; we’re here to maintain control between civilisation and utter chaos. That’s all we’re here for. Until they’re willing to give us everything that we need to win and all the resources that go with it, they don’t want us to win. 10.56.49 Constance Rice He absolutely, abjectly rejects, refuses to accept, that violence in these underclass neighbourhoods is acceptable. He refuses to accept that as just a given, as just the way it is, which is how much of the political leadership in this region reacts, it’s just the way it is. He says it’s not the way it has to be and I won’t accept it. That I give him an A plus for. 10.57.18 Detective Sal Labarbera We’re here at the union seventy-six gas station and mini- market. According to a couple of witnesses, they see a dark coloured SUV pull up here. The folks that were in the SUV, the suspects, yell out some sort of gang slogan. A passenger in the SUV leans out the window with some type of assault weapon, fires at a group of people that are standing by the front door of the market. Two are fallen right here by the gunshots; they die instantly at the scene. 10.57.47 Music 10.57.49 Detective Sal Labarbera One of these victims here was just the squeegee guy, who will come up to your windows and wash your windows as you pump gas. The other victim here, he’s maybe associated with a gang from the area here. 10.58.01 Man This shit go on every day. Killings, double homicides, it’s never on the news. 10.58.07 Music 10.58.11 Clive Myrie By April two thousand and four the LAPD was reporting murders up by nearly five percent. 10.58.18 Music 10.58.28 Voice over Have your say on tonight’s show and explore a world of extra information, news stories and features by visiting our web site at: bbc.co.uk/thisworld Credits 10.58.24 Narrator CLIVE MYRIE Photography BEN McCOY Sound STEVE LEDERER Composer BEN DECTER Dubbing Mixer CLIFF JONES Colourist GERRY GEDGE VT Editors ROD HUTSON GARETH WILLIAMS Archival footage provided by ABC NEWS VideoSource Image Bank Film/Getty Images KABC-TV L.A. CityView Channel 35 Producers Library Service Archival stills provided by L.A. Daily News/CORBIS SYGMA Brian Vander Brug/Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Police Department Los Angeles Times Time Life Pictures/Getty Images The New York Times Production Team (USA) DANA REINHART TALLEAH E BRIDGES GABRIELLE TENENBAUM Production Manager for BBC JANE WILLEY Unit Manager for BBC SUSAN CRIGHTON Picture Editor GILLIAN McCARTHY Produced and Directed by RICHARD E ROBBINS Producer for BBC RICHARD BEE Executive Producer TOM YELLIN 10.58.52 PJ Productions For BBC 10.58.55 this world Editor KAREN O’CONNOR BBC © BBC MMIV 10.59.00 End BBC This World 1 1