Ethical Cases Of The 1992 Los Angeles Riots

With the flawed response to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots there were many decisions that were made by the top brass of the police department and city. The first ethical issue that helped cause the riots in the first place, was the use of force that was excessive in nature. The decision of the sergeant at the scene of the Rodney King to not stop the excessive force used by the officers that day was an ethical violation within itself. The use of power and discretion in the event causing the riots was most certainly unethical in nature. That night the officers had a duty to arrest King, but the discretion that was used to repeatedly beat King was poor. The commanding officer at the scene had an ethical duty to stop what was occurring that night, but choose not to do so. The next ethical decision by leadership that was obvious was the lack of planning by the emergency operations organization. Chief Gates and Mayor Bradley were not prepared for the non-guilty verdicts of the officer’s trials. Thus, they did not prepare for what was about to happen to their city. The failure to not call one emergency operations organization meeting during the trial was a very poor ethical

Riots. They can also affect the organization in this case the L.A.P.D. for example. An unethical decision can weigh heavy on a department in the way citizens view the department. Unethical decisions can also hurt the moral of the department, as they are not seen trustworthy by the community. This is a common occurrence that is seen all across the nation in policing today. A department is judged by the one “rotten apple” (Pollock, 2016) an example of this is, if one cop is taking kickbacks, then the whole department is viewed as being corrupt. If the employees do not agree with the unethical decisions of their leaders then they can be addressed through a commission