Los Angeles Police Department The City of Los Angeles Police Department, commonly referred to as Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,832 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the th ...

C.R.A.S.H. initiative that began in April 1987, Operation Hammer was a large scale attempt to crack down on gang violence in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. A year later, the LA Times reported a double-digit drop in gang violence in parts of the city. After a group of people at a birthday party were shot down on their front lawn in a

drive-by shooting A drive-by shooting is a type of assault that usually involves the perpetrator(s) firing a weapon from within a motor vehicle and then fleeing. Drive-by shootings allow the perpetrators to quickly strike their targets and flee the scene before l ...

, Chief of Police

Daryl F. Gates Daryl Francis Gates (born Darrel Francis Gates; August 30, 1926 – April 16, 2010) was an American police officer who served as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1978 to 1992. His length of tenure in this position was second only t ...

responded with a roundup of gang members. At the height of this operation in April 1988, 1,453 people were arrested by one thousand police officers in South Central Los Angeles (now

South Los Angeles South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of Downtown Los Angeles, downtown. It is de ...

) in a single weekend. The origin of Operation Hammer can be traced back to the

1984 Olympic Games The 1984 Olympics may refer to: *The 1984 Winter Olympics, which were held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia *The 1984 Summer Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and commonly known as Los Angeles 1984) were an i ...

held in Los Angeles. Under the supervision of Gates the LAPD expanded gang sweeps for the duration of the Olympics, which were implemented across wide areas of the city but especially South Central and East Los Angeles. After the games were over, old anti-syndicalist laws began to be revived to maintain the security policy instigated by the Olympic games, and mass arrests of black and Hispanic youth became more common, even though the overwhelming numbers of people arrested were never charged. Citizen complaints against

police brutality Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or Public order policing, a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, b ...

increased 33 percent in the period 1984 to 1989. Operation Hammer was also propelled by the

murder of Karen Toshima On January 30, 1988, 27-year-old graphic artist Karen Toshima was shot and later died in a hospital after she got caught in the crossfire between two rival gang members in Los Angeles, California. Toshima's death signified the spread of gang viol ...

in January 30, 1988, in Westwood, when she got caught in the crossfire of a gang firefight. According to the ''

LA Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper in the U.S. and the large ...

'', August 1, 1988, featured a large-scale raid by 88 LAPD officers on "two apartment buildings on the corner of 39th Street and Dalton Avenue ... It was an all-out search for drugs and a massive show of force designed to deliver a strong message to the gangs." Police caused massive property damage (including smashed furniture, holes punched in walls, and destruction of family photos) and sprayed

graffiti Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elabor ...

messages such as "LAPD Rules" and " Rollin' 30s Die." In addition, "Dozens of residents from the apartments and surrounding neighborhood were rounded up. Many were humiliated or beaten, but none was charged with a crime. The raid netted fewer than of

marijuana Cannabis (), commonly known as marijuana (), weed, pot, and ganja, List of slang names for cannabis, among other names, is a non-chemically uniform psychoactive drug from the ''Cannabis'' plant. Native to Central or South Asia, cannabis has ...

and less than an ounce [] of cocaine." In 2001, Officer Todd Parrick said in retrospect, "We weren't just searching for drugs. We were delivering a message that there was a price to pay for selling drugs and being a gang member." By 1990 over 50,000 people had been arrested in raids. During this period, the

LAPD The City of Los Angeles Police Department, commonly referred to as Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,832 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the th ...

arrested more young black men and women at any period of time since the

Watts riots The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion or Watts Uprising, took place in the Watts neighborhood and its surrounding areas of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965. The riots were motivated by anger at the racist and abus ...

of 1965. Despite the large number of arrests, in April 1988, there were only 60

felony A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "''félonie''") to describe an offense that r ...

arrests, and charges were only filed in 32 instances. Disputing that figure, Chief Gates claimed that charges were filed on 70% of the suspects arrested. Critics have alleged that the operation was

racist Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...

because it heavily employed

racial profiling Racial profiling or ethnic profiling is the offender profiling, selective enforcement or selective prosecution based on race or ethnicity, rather than individual suspicion or evidence. This practice involves discrimination against minority pop ...

, targeting

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

and

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

youths. The perception that police had targeted non-

Caucasian Caucasian may refer to: Common meanings *Anything from the Caucasus region or related to it ** Ethnic groups in the Caucasus ** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus re ...

citizens likely contributed to the anger which, after the assault of motorist

Rodney King Rodney Glen King (April 2, 1965June 17, 2012) was a Black American victim of police brutality. On March 3, 1991, he was severely beaten by Police officer, officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) during his arrest after a high spe ...

, would erupt into the

1992 Los Angeles riots The 1992 Los Angeles riots were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, United States, during April and May 1992. Unrest began in South Los Angeles, South Central Los Angeles on April 29, after ...

. Chief Gates was asked in a 2001

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

interview whether the local people in the minority areas expressed thanks to the police:

Sure. The good people did all the time. But the community activists? No. Absolutely not. We were out there 'oppressing' whatever the community had to be, whether it was blacks, or
Hispanics The term Hispanic () are people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an ethnic or meta-ethnic term. The term commonly appli ...
. We were 'oppressing' them. Nonsense. We're out there trying to save their communities, trying to upgrade the quality of life of people ...

References

{{Organized crime groups in Los Angeles Los Angeles Police Department History of Los Angeles Urban decay in the United States Organized crime in Los Angeles Hammer, Operation 1987 in Los Angeles

See also

References