Community Meetings and Studies
Community Meetings and Studies
In addition to conducting individual interviews with community leaders, law enforcement personnel, and elected officials, the Webster Commission organized a series of community meetings in several Los Angeles neighborhoods in order to solicit the opinions of a wider swath of community members. These meetings provided the average citizen an opportunity to express their concerns regarding the riots and the adequacy of law enforcement’s response. Included here is a summary of comments at one of these meetings, as well as surveys and questionnaires that captured the communities’ perceptions of police-community relations within Los Angeles.
Community Meeting No. 1
In September 1992, Foshay Junior High School in South L.A. was one of seven locations where a community meeting was held. The Webster Commission records include full transcripts of these meetings, and excerpts here capture the range of remarks shared by attendees, who offered their points of view about how the LAPD handled the response to the Rodney King verdict and called attention to the systemic issues within law enforcement, the legal system, and society that precipitated the community's response.
Community Attitude Study
Volunteers working for the Webster Commission also administered a community attitude study to one hundred individuals in South Los Angeles who were asked some fifty questions relating to the recent events in L.A. (1 below). The study aimed to solicit personal viewpoints based on individuals' experiences and backgrounds. Have you ever personally been helped by an LAPD officer? Do you trust people such as police officers, judges, and elected officials? Do you agree or disagree that the LAPD's relations with people in the city would improve if officers were more involved with the community? What do you think is the best way to prevent riots? In an emergency situation such as the L.A. riots, whom do you want to be in charge directing the response? A statistical analysis of the data gathered in this study was prepared, showing the breakdown of responses according to the race, education, sex, and age of the respondents (2 below).
