Policing Space: Territoriality and the Los Angeles Police Department

206 Pages·1997·8.69 MB·English

by  Steve Herbert

POLICING SPACE
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POLICING SPACE
Territoriality and the
Los Angeles Police Department
Steve Herbert
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
Copyright 1997 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290, Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Third Printing, 2000
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Herbert, Steven Kelly, 1959-
Policing space : territoriality and the Los Angeles Police
Department / Steve Herbert,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8166-2864-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 0-8166-2865-3 (pbk.)
1. Los Angeles (Calif.) Police Dept. 2. Police — California—Los
Angeles. 3. Police power—California—Los Angeles. 4. Human
territoriality—California—Los Angeles. I. Title.
HV8148.L55H47 1996
363.2'09794'94—dc20 96-20333
The University of Minnesota is an
equal-opportunity educator and employer.
CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgments vii vii
TerIntrIntrod5uction I
1. Introduction
1.Territorial and the Police 9
2,. The Setting and the Research 25
3. The Law and Police Territoriality 35
4. The Bureaucratic Ordering of Police Territoriality 59
5. Adventure/Machismo and the
Attempted Conquest of Space 79
6. Safety and Police Territoriality 99
7. Competence in Police Territoriality 123
8. The Morality of Police Territoriality 141
9. Making and Marking Space with the LAPD 161
Notes 177
Index 193
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PREFACE AND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
LIKE MILLIONS OF OTHERS, I was stunned by the video-
tape of the beating administered to Rodney King by a group
of Los Angeles Police Department officers in March 1991.
The continuing flurry of blows, King's hopeless attempts to
defend himself, and the impassivity of the many officers
who were watching all seemed incommensurate with any pre-
tense on the part of the LAPD to be a model police agency. It
seemed inconceivable that such a massive and unnecessary use
of force could be condoned by a large group of officers, that
their efforts to control space might regularly rely upon bru-
tality of this nature. Repeated viewings of the videotape have
failed to reduce my horror at what it depicts.
As much as the videotape sickened me, it also compelled
me with its questions. I wondered just how a social agency
entrusted with the power to administer lethal force could
overstretch its limits in such a profound and dramatic way.
VII
VIII PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Race immediately suggested itself as an important factor, but
a full explanation was probably more complex. The question
of why those officers chose to respond to King in that way
demanded investigation.
The King beating occurred while I was surveying literature
that draws connections between the exercise of power and
the control of space. I found this literature instructive but
was frustrated by its frequent lack of empirical substantia-
tion. There were too few discussions of how actual agencies
of power exercise their control over space, of exactly how
territorial control underlies social control. An up-close look
at the LAPD seemed an opportunity to measure these more
abstract considerations against the practices of an important
and politically charged social agency.
This book is the ultimate result of my effort to examine,
in a detailed fashion, a particular agency that daily exercises
its power by exercising control over space. As my analysis
illustrates, the processes by which police officers socially con-
struct and attempt to control the spaces they patrol lie at the
heart of contemporary policing; indeed, as I show, satisfying
each of the imperatives that impel police action requires the
officers to control space. But the processes by which officers
make and mark space are complex, and thus to explain the
spatial exercise of police power is to throw the motivations
of that power into particularly sharp relief. My investigation
not only sees policing in a new way, but also reveals the com-
plicated processes by which territorial control is manifested
in daily practice.
That I entered the world of the LAPD at all was due largely
to the efforts of Jack Greene, who kindly shepherded my re-
quest through the appropriate channels. Jack also helped by
providing insights into the LAPD that were useful in my ef-
forts to analyze what I witnessed. For giving final approval
for the fieldwork, I thank Chief Willie Williams; his willing-
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IX
ness to grant my request is but one symbol of the different
LAPD he is attempting to construct.
I was assisted by several others within the LAPD, most of
whom must remain anonymous. I can mention Dan Keonig,
Gerry Mears, J. I. Davis, John Mutz, Margaret York, and
Lymon Doster, all of whom helped open doors and answer
questions. The other LAPD personnel who did so much to
help me understand their world cannot be singled out, but I
owe them a tremendous debt for discussing their work with
me at a politically turbulent time. Much of what follows
was made possible only by their generosity with their time
and their willingness to answer my many questions.
In the world of academia, I was blessed with the assistance
of numerous people in the construction and execution of this
project. Allen Scott and Ed Soja encouraged me to improve
the theoretical rigor of the work, while Bob Emerson worked
to ensure a clear link between theory and data. Eric Monk-
konen's enthusiastic support meant much through the writ-
ing and rewriting process. Nick Entrikin helped make the
analysis cohesive and also provided important support at key
moments. And Gerry Hale worked tirelessly to improve all
aspects of the work.
Many others read all of the manuscript and provided sug-
gestions or encouragement or both; they include Craig Hoi-
nick, Michael Hooper, Peter Manning, Gary Marx, Robert
Sack, and two anonymous reviewers. Others—namely, Nick
Blomley, Ben Forest, Nick Fyfe, Peter Jackson, Steve Mas-
trofski, and Ralph Saunders—read part of the manuscript and
were similarly helpful. I know I have not satisfied all of them
with my revisions, but the work is clearly better as a result
of my efforts to attend to their suggestions.
Thanks also to everyone at the University of Minnesota
Press—namely, Janaki Bakhle, Mary Byers, Lisa Freeman,
Jeff Moen, and Carrie Mullen—whose efficiency, responsive-