Video cameras urged to monitor police

Alarmed by a number of incidents involving police abuse allegations, civil rights groups on Dec. 8 called for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) to install surveillance cameras in all police stations and to expedite putting the devices in all patrol cars. LAPD officials said they were taking steps to carry out that task. It was a video surveillance camera installed in the Central Division station that captured images of an officer assaulting a 16-year-old detainee while the youth was handcuffed, leading Police Chief William J. Bratton on Dec. 7 to announce the officer's arrest. The videotape shows the officer, Sean Joseph Meade, 41, locking the teenager's neck in a chokehold for several seconds, according to sources in the department who have viewed it. Moments later, Meade allegedly removed the boy's handcuffs and challenged him to a fight, said the sources, who spoke on condition that they not be named. The teenager, who is Latino, later told authorities that the officer also slammed him into a wall during the incident, which occurred on the morning of Dec. 5. The teenager was arrested on suspicion of a curfew violation in Chinatown, and Bratton said the attack on the teenager was "without any physical provocation." The teenager was treated at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center and was in good condition. But he remains in police custody because detectives cannot find any family members, leading police to believe that he might be homeless. The Los Angeles Police Department refused to release the videotape to the public, saying that the case remains under investigation. Bratton contacted the FBI, which has initiated an investigation. The video was the third to surface in recent weeks that shows LAPD officers involved in alleged misconduct. But Bratton said that unlike the incidents depicted in the other two videos, the teenager's beating was so egregious that he ordered the officer's immediate arrest. However, LAPD officials acknowledged that video surveillance systems have not been installed in several police stations and that the city is just beginning to test putting cameras in patrol cars. Without cameras in patrol cars, investigators have had to rely on bystanders' videotapes when looking into allegations of police abuse, including a case disclosed last month in which an LAPD officer in Hollywood was taped repeatedly punching a man in the face.