: David,

: I know you spent quite a bit of time with some

: of the cops in and around L/A.

I did a tiny bit of actual ride-along-ing, but I did make one very good friend, who's now a homicide detective.  (Dennis Hopper based
the character that Sean Penn played in "Colors" on him) , and was able to see the other side of what I've always thought of as an
out of control police department.

I came to feel that the real problems with the LAPD were structural, geographic, and economic.  The urban mass that is LA is
inherently sprawling, covering an area probably ten times the size of Manhattan.

So by economic necessity the LAPD was designed less as a traditional police force (the bobby on the corner) than as a small, mobile paramilitary force, using their
advanced training and equipment to counter large numerical inferiority.  In other words, a small band of Special Forces-type operators as opposed to a larger, less-trained regular army.

So, overwhelmed and undermanned, theyre always in a state of panic, LA cops.  They become terrified, arrogant, stigmatized, clannish, often drunk, and tend to carry around
an extreme burden of rage, which expresses itself unpredictably.  They get mixed messages from the citizenry:  On one hand, theyre asked to protect us from gangs, etc... by any means necessary, and at the same time to not offend our higher sensitivities.  This creates an atmosphere of contempt for the "average citizen" and exacerbates the alienation that most of them seem to feel from those of us on the other side of their "thin blue line."  

I could go on and on, but....

yrs,

David


PS
And, yes, that's where "The Wildx, Wild West" came from.

db