A Crisis of Trust

On May 25, 2020, the death of George Floyd ignited protests and civil unrest. The protests spanned across communities large and small and engaged a broad spectrum of people across racial and ethnic divides. Similar protests in cities and communities — large and small, urban and suburban, East and West — across the United States voiced mistrust and frustration regarding police interactions within communities of color as well as the growing tension, not just within those communities, but in all communities. Protests were amplified and tensions heightened as the issues became a part of the national political debate.

In August 2020, at the request of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners (LABOPC) — with funding provided by the Los Angeles Police Foundation — engaged the National Police Foundation (NPF) to conduct an independent after action review (AAR), assessment, and analysis of the actions of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in response to First Amendment assemblies and protests in the City of Los Angeles (LA) from May 27, through June 7, 2020.

The purpose of this AAR is to assist the LABOPC and the LAPD to improve the Department’s preparation and response to future similar events. Putting resources toward this type of review while only occasionally undertaken by Cities or city stakeholders demonstrates the willingness of the LABOPC and the LAPD to consider reimagining policing in the City of Los Angeles, to addressing challenges in community-police interactions, and to protecting First Amendment assemblies and protests.

It should be noted that this AAR is not part of or associated with any other investigation – criminal, civil, internal, or other. The sole purpose of this review is to provide an independent assessment of the LAPD response to the SAFE LA First Amendment assemblies and protests to promote LAPD’s study and improvement of the systems, processes, and strategies executed by their members.

In requesting this review, the LABOPC and the LAPD recognize that to advance and improve policing in the City of Los Angeles, they must engage in rigorous internal and external processes to identify areas of strength and areas for improvement in their response to First Amendment assemblies and protests. The LA community also deserves City and LAPD leadership who will commit to following through on necessary changes to improve future responses to First Amendment assemblies and protests, as well as the delivery of police services in LA.

The SAFE LA First Amendment assemblies and protests following the death of George Floyd began in Los Angeles on May 27, 2020, and continued for almost two weeks. Through interviews, focus groups, and listening sessions, the NPF assessment team identified three distinct phases of the time period from May 27 through June 7, 2020:

• Wednesday, May 27th through Friday, May 29th — This period was primarily characterized by various small groups of protesters outmaneuvering LAPD officers and causing destruction (mostly in the downtown area).

• Saturday, May 30th through Monday, June 1st — Large-scale gatherings devolved into destruction and violence resulting in increased tensions and clashes between LAPD and protesters.

• Tuesday, June 2nd through Sunday, June 7th — Protestors peacefully expressed their First Amendment right to assemble. The LAPD and the community came together.

From May 27th through June 7th, 2020, more than 100 businesses were vandalized and looted, city buses and property were sprayed with graffiti and lit on fire, and other destruction totaled millions of dollars, leading at least one business representative who attended an NPF assessment team community listening session to question whether downtown LA would ever truly recover. Documented damage was recorded for 142 police vehicles — at a total cost of approximately $836,589.00 for labor and parts — and additional damage to LAPD facilities brought the total cost to approximately one million dollars. LAPD arrested thousands of people and impounded hundreds of vehicles.

The maps below highlight the most significant protest locations in terms of size and impact. Please use the tools on the corners to zoom in and explore these areas.

The materials used in this analysis included open source data and data provided by the LAPD. LAPD provided:

• Directives, operational manuals, internal memoranda, and special orders and notices;
• Academy and in-service training curricula/expanded course outlines and lesson plans, guides, training records, and training bulletins;
• Incident Action Plans, Event Action Plans, and event chronology logs; 
• Incident Command System forms;
• Communications logs;
• Arrests, reported incidents, calls for service, bookings, property damage reports, vehicle impounds; and
• Officer wellness plans and injury data.

Additionally, LAPD provided the NPF assessment team with approximately two terabytes of multimedia materials including videos, images, and radio channel recordings. LAPD also provided access to 147,921 body-worn camera videos and images.

To provide a more comprehensive understanding of LAPD's response to the protest events, the NPF also collected data from business representatives and community members through interviews, focus groups, and social media postings.

With a myriad of data from different sources, the team used a variety of analytical techniques to understand the pattern of the protests and police activities. A spatio-temporal visualization of the datasets can be found in the dashboard below.

Social media data was used to understand community perception of the LAPD and response to the SAFE LA protest events. Analysis of Tweet text allowed exploration of several important questions: When did social media focus attention on LAPD and the protest? What were people saying about the protests and LAPD's actions? What was the most prominent rhetoric about LAPD?

The below visualization shows textual analyses of information in public Tweets. The most prevalent topic (Topic 1) talks about the protests in general. LAPD was identified as an important keyword in Topic 5, along with other keywords describing the police-protester interactions.

On April 28, 2015, the LA Board of Police Commissioners approved LAPD use of body-worn cameras (BWCs), in part, to promote accountability and provide additional information regarding certain contacts with members of the public. At the beginning of 2020, LAPD reiterated the importance of building community trust through transparency and made more cameras available to officers working uniformed, public-facing assignments.

LAPD provided the NPF team with 147,921 body-worn camera videos and images about the SAFE LA Protests. A summary of the analysis of video footage is provided below.

This chapter provides overviews of LAPD Provisions, Directives, and trainings relevant to responding to First Amendment assemblies and protests. It summarizes LAPD Provisions regarding use of force, less-lethal weapons, incident documentation, use of body-worn cameras, dispersal orders, and effecting mass arrests. Particular attention is focused on LAPD Provisions, Directives, and guidance about specific types of less-lethal weapons used by LAPD during the SAFE LA First Amendment assemblies and demonstrations—including batons, oleoresin capsaicin (OC) spray, and 37mm and 40mm target-specific projectile impact devices. Summaries of basic and in service training, and training specific to First Amendment assemblies and protests are also provided.

This chapter provides overviews of the City leadership and incident command structure and the LAPD incident command structure, in general, and during the response to the SAFE LA First Amendment assemblies and protests. The LAPD incident command, internal communication, staffing and resource allocation, and resource deployment and mobilization challenges are detailed individually and the overall LAPD command structure is compared to the National Incident Management System (NIMS)—recognized as a national best practice. Additionally, the chapter summarizes how city-wide planning, preparation, and training shortfalls related to First Amendment assemblies and protests contributed to the overall response.

This chapter highlights the significant roles played by traditional media and social media communication during critical incidents. A fundamental principle of crisis and civil disturbance management is that an effective response requires communication, collaboration, and partnerships. Social media was ubiquitous for the demonstrators, provided multiple strategic advantages, and afforded them the opportunity to firmly grasp the attention and the narrative of the news media and social media audience. Meanwhile, as is often the case in the response to dynamic events, LAPD was almost entirely silent until it was too late and consistent and coordinated communication from LAPD and the City of Los Angeles to the public was difficult and exacerbated some of the leadership and incident command challenges.

This chapter focuses on the challenges of policing First Amendment assemblies and protests, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic — which, in itself, is an ongoing pervasive stressor and traumatic event — and the impacts on LAPD officer wellness and morale. Outcomes of trauma, the impact of traumatized officers and their families, and the LAPD response to employee health and wellness are also outlined.

This chapter highlights the vibrancy and diversity of the Los Angeles community and the role this mix of cultures and people has on perspectives regarding public safety in communities of color, LAPD relationships with the community, and police-community relationships during the SAFE LA First Amendment assemblies and protests. Some community members detailed accounts of police aggression during the SAFE LA First Amendment assemblies and protests. Others, however, perceived that while the department is generally proactive in responding to crime and safety issues particularly in the downtown area, LAPD did not do enough to stop the looting and destruction of local businesses during some of the events–which may have suggested to some that a higher level of tolerance may exist and that violence and destruction of property would be tolerated. Other community members referenced positive interactions with the LAPD during the protests and reported that LAPD personnel responded and “did the best that they could” given chaotic and fluid situations.

• For more details of this project, please  click here to browse the LAPD review site .
• For the full-text report, please  click here to download .