Kicking Ass in California

*Patrick Andrew Mason, a 5-year-old, was shot dead in his home by a Stanton, Cal., officer--who was called by neighbors to check on the child's safety. The child was being left alone in the house for long periods of time (his mother worked evenings). An officer, who says he thought the call was a setup for an ambush, kicked in the door and shot the boy, who was holding a toy pistol. The officer got probation.

*Since 1975, the Los Angeles Police Department has killed 16 people using its famous chokehold. A suit asking that the deadly grip only be used under guidelines went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5 to 4 last May that the plaintiff. Adolph Lyons, who was nearly killed by the chokehold, had no right even asking for injunctions against the grip's use.

Lyons, said the venerable justices, "is no more entitled to an injunction than any other citizen of Los Angeles."

*In 1980, Johnny Roman, 25, was shot to death while in bed; the autopsy showed he was "in a fetal position with his legs drawn up," when two Richmond, Cal., policemen fired four bullets into him. The cops had come to arrest Roman on charges of harassing his family. The coroner's testimony contradicted the officer's statement that Roman had reached for a shotgun near his bed.

The same two Richmond police officers, part of a group assigned to the Black community and called "the cowboys," also "kicked ass" in 1982, when they killed 21-year-old Michael Guillory--while he was in bed. Three officers, responding to a call from family members complaining about Guillory, came to his home. While two of them were breaking down Guillory's door, the third--Samuel Dudkiewicz, who also killed Roman--shot Guillory through a window to the bedroom. Dudkiewicz claimed that Guillory had "a shiny object," which turned out not to be a weapon of any sort.

A jury awarded the families of the slain men $3 million. Two oficers, the Richmond police chief and one of his deputies were found guilty of violating civil rights and of maintaining a "custom and practice" of brutality (35 witnesses testified at the trial about other cases of brutality). The police chief, Leo Garfield, resigned last year, but Earnest Clements, the deputy chief also found guilty, has replaced him.

Kicking Ass in Alabama

*Bobby Joe Sales, 23, was killed in Montgomery last spring, when one officer shot the unarmed man in the back and another rammed his fallen body with a car. Officer Ralph Conner said he thought Sales was reaching for a gun. Conner's cousin, officer Edward Spivey, allegedly then hit Sales' body with his car. The police chief called the incident a "tragic mistake," and refused to suspend the officers involved.

*Last February, Montgomery plainclothes police who later said they were chasing a suspect invaded the home of a family that had just returned from a funeral. The 26 members of the Taylor family watched two unidentified white men kick down their door. Family members from out of town--Ohio and Michigan--beat up the officers, who have charged 11 of the Taylors with attempted murder. None of the 11 have criminal recordes. One of the cops was shot in the fracas, possibly by a fellow officer (no gun has been found).

One of the officers, Spivey, was later accused in a separate case of ramming his can into an unarmed man who had already been shot (see above). In the Taylor case, Spivey used a lock-blade knife, illegal under state law. He was promoted to investigator after the Taylor case. The trial is still going on.

Kicking Ass in South Carolina

*In August, a 29-year-old Florence, S.C. man named Larry Gurley was killed by four officers who suspected him stealing a lawn mower. The cops say they chased Gurley into a wooded area, wrestled him to the ground and handcuffed him, whereupon he suddenly died.

A coroner's jury, however, ruled the case a homicide after the county coroner found that Gurley had been strangled to death. The four officers have been assigned to administrative duty pending a grand jury investigation.

Kicking Ass in Texas