COLUMN LEFT/ JORGE R. MANCILLAS : Police Have Some ‘Weeds’ of Their Own : Reforms in law enforcement must precede ‘Weed and Seed’ efforts to rebuild L.A.

Without much public fanfare, the Bush Administration is launching an ambitious $19-million program to revitalize areas of our city hit hard by the civil disturbances. With an allocation of $500 million, the 20-city Weed and Seed program is the centerpiece of the Administration’s response to America’s urban ills. The seed component consists of funding for social programs in enterprise zones, to be preceded by a “weeding out” of undesirable elements through a tough law-enforcement effort.

What is missing in this program is the understanding that, at least in the public’s perception, many of the weeds are in the law-enforcement institutions. That perception has been given substance lately by the Kolts Report on the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the Christopher Commission report on the Los Angeles Police Department and the book by Mike Rothmiller, “L.A.’s Secret Police: Inside the Elite Spy Network.”

Even if the roots of the disturbances were the social and economic ills that federal officials claim to address with the “seed” part of the program, have they forgotten that the trigger was the abusive use of police force that came into public view in the Rodney King case? When the city had to spend $67.5 million to settle police brutality cases between 1980 and 1991, and the county $32 million since 1988, didn’t that indicate a serious problem?

This is not to say that all police officers abuse their power. In Weed and Seed, the assumption is made that most residents of the target communities are law-abiding, but among them are negative elements, “weeds,” that must be eradicated if the “seed” is to flourish.

Many officers explain their aggressive attitude toward African-American or Latino youths by saying that they cannot know beforehand what kind of element they will be dealing with. Why then is it so difficult to understand the fears of law-abiding members of those communities? Residents of minority or economically deprived communities are not born with negative feelings toward police, nor are they foolish enough to think that all officers are alike. Their fears stem from years of negative experience with the “weeds” in law-enforcement agencies. When they see a patrol car approaching, many tremble, for they cannot know which kind of officer they will be facing. Even if the probability is low that it will be a negative encounter, they are highly aware of the consequences if it is.

To begin this program with a tough law- enforcement effort before implementing police reform measures, which almost 70% of the voters demanded in June, reinforces the “us versus them” attitude, the feeling of alienation that was clearly evident during the civil disturbances.

To launch a program in which the first step is to send law-enforcement agencies containing many “weeds” into communities that perceive themselves as receiving more persecution and harassment than police service can only fan the fires of disaffection. These communities have vivid memories of the police being visibly absent when a crowd vented its anger on innocent passersby hour after hour at Florence and Normandie, and when arsonists torched their neighborhoods through the night. Many also have vivid memories of when the police presence was overwhelming for small infractions and often punitive and abusive. Starting a “weed” campaign without reconciling police-community relations makes no sense.

The “seed” component of the program is no better. Throwing a few crumbs into neglected communities, pretending that they will germinate into God knows what, amounts to a poor version of the social programs that the Bush Administration tried to blame for the disturbances. What is needed is to “seed” political and economic institutions with representatives of those communities suffering the consequences of current urban policy. The vision and the drive to solve the problems afflicting the marginalized sectors of our society, which in the last 12 years have grown to include the majority of the population, will come only from those who are part of those communities. For their problems to be addressed, they need to gain access to the instruments of political and economic power, where they can influence public policy.

The first step toward healing our city, then, must be to remove the “weeds” from law-enforcement and to inject governmental institutions with the “seeds” of change by making them truly representative of all ethnic and economic sectors.