For some, the “skinny blue line” flag is an expression of solidarity with cops who’ve misplaced their lives on the job.
To others, the black-and-white American flag with a single blue stripe is a potent image of the ties between right-wing extremism and American legislation enforcement.
The strain between these irreconcilable interpretations spilled over within the Los Angeles Police Division this month, when Chief Michel Moore ordered the flag, which was broadly displayed in station lobbies across the metropolis, to be faraway from public view.
Together with banning the flag from station lobbies, Moore mentioned his order consists of patches on uniforms and bumper stickers on police autos. Violators may face self-discipline, a division spokeswoman mentioned Thursday.
In a departmentwide e-mail, Moore mentioned the flag’s authentic which means of assist for police had been overshadowed when it started showing at rallies for the Proud Boys and different far-right extremist teams.
“It’s unlucky that extremist teams have hijacked using the ‘Skinny Blue Line Flag’ to represent their undemocratic, racist, and bigoted views. Flags function highly effective symbols with particular meanings,” he wrote, including that officers would nonetheless be allowed to show the flag of their private work areas, lockers and private autos.
Moore’s choice went viral in right-wing media circles as critics lambasted him for what they known as his kowtowing to progressive beliefs. Throughout certainly one of her common appearances on Fox Information, former actuality star and Olympic decathlete Caitlyn Jenner accused Moore of “going woke on us massive time” and predicted that the transfer would deal a blow to officer morale.
Sal LaBarbera, a former LAPD murder detective who has amassed a big following on Twitter, posted that the division was making nationwide headlines “for probably the most embarrassing motive.”
“Calling Chief Michael Moore weak for caving to the communist Mayor. Develop a backbone, assist the troops and legislation and order,” learn his tweet, which used the hashtag #BackTheBlue.
Moore’s decree additionally compelled a public fissure between him and the highly effective Los Angeles Police Protecting League, which represents rank-and-file officers. Whereas the union has not taken an official place on Moore’s on-going efforts to win one other five-year time period as chief, it has been supportive of his reappointment behind the scenes.
Jamie McBride, an outspoken union officer, posted a photograph of the flag hanging from the facet of a home on his Instagram account, with the caption “Disgrace on you Chief Moore! We bleed BLUE!”
Contained in the division, some mentioned they noticed Moore’s transfer because the chief taking sides in a conflict over policing that has ratcheted up lately following the police killings of George Floyd and different Black folks, in line with officers who spoke with The Occasions on the situation that their identities be saved secret in order that they may converse freely. Others felt the offended response to the ban was overblown.
However even those that didn’t really feel strongly concerning the flag mentioned it created the notion of kowtowing to progressive activists. They likened the ban to Moore’s choice to kneel alongside protesters at big protests following Floyd’s homicide. Some officers started circulating a years-old photograph of Moore holding the flag whereas marching beside former L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell.
The choice has additionally given rise to rumors in legislation enforcement circles that Mayor Karen Bass’ workplace was planning to take away tributes to fallen officers from all police stations, too. A spokesman for Bass mentioned Thursday that there was no fact to the rumors.
The time period “skinny blue line” got here into style within the Nineteen Fifties, when Los Angeles Police Chief Invoice Parker continuously referenced it in speeches. He developed a TV present of the identical identify that sought to advertise a optimistic picture of the division, which had lengthy confronted criticisms of brutality and cronyism; it portrayed police as a primary line of protection towards chaos in society.
The flag got here into prominence extra not too long ago, largely as a response to the Black Lives Matter motion, which arose after a collection of high-profile police killings.
Police say the flag is a memorial to officers who’ve died within the line of responsibility. However some say the picture is a instrument of white supremacist teams to represent their assist for police and opposition to racial justice.
The controversy in Los Angeles and others prefer it elsewhere have performed out as legislation enforcement throughout the U.S. have come underneath scrutiny for some officers’ involvement in extremist right-wing actions.
In August, the Brennan Heart for Justice, a nonpartisan coverage institute at New York College Legislation College, discovered proof that the Oath Keepers and a bunch generally known as the Three Percenters had infiltrated legislation enforcement, noting ties inside at the very least a dozen states together with California.
Moore introduced his ban as he and Mayor Karen Bass have grappled with three latest controversial deaths. They embody the killing of Takar Smith, a Black man with psychological sickness whom LAPD officers shot in an residence whereas he held a knife.
After the incident, somebody snapped an image of the flag hanging within the foyer of the close by Rampart police station and despatched it to anti-police violence activists, who raised the problem on the subsequent day’s Police Fee assembly, in line with Paula Minor, an organizer of Black Lives Matter L.A. Its presence sends the mistaken message, she mentioned.
“As we speak that flag, I believe, has been co-opted by extremists. these blue line flags had been flown on Jan. 6, when plenty of extremists flew these flags once they attacked the Capitol,” Minor mentioned. “That image shouldn’t be hung in a publicly funded establishment.”
Minor mentioned she respects “all people’s proper to imagine and specific their perception nevertheless they wish to privately.” However, she added, “in case you are in a publicly supported entity, you have to be held to totally different requirements.”
Though she felt the chief had made the appropriate transfer, Minor mentioned, she questioned the timing of his choice, given his fraught bid for reappointment. She likened the present debate to an identical controversy over the Accomplice flag, which some Southerners embrace but in addition stirs painful reminiscences of chattel slavery for generations of Black People.
Former LAPD Sgt. Jody Stiger, who as soon as was president of the affiliation that represents the division’s Black cops, mentioned that he texted Moore to say he agreed with the choice.
“The reason is not as a result of I believe it’s racist, however the racists have hijacked it. It’s been round for many years, and our which means of it’s to honor those that have fallen within the line of responsibility,” mentioned Stiger, who retired from the division final yr to take a place as director of neighborhood security for the College of California system. “That’s the place it got here from, and that’s the place it all the time represented for many legislation enforcement officers.”
Whereas on the LAPD, he mentioned he spoke up at any time when he noticed Trump memorabilia hanging round a police station. Such expressions had been inappropriate in such a divided local weather and should have violated a division ban on political exercise whereas on responsibility, he mentioned. His issues, he added, weren’t politically motivated. “I don’t care if it’s a Biden flag,” he mentioned.
In 2020, San Francisco Police Chief Invoice Scott discovered himself in equally uneven political waters after he barred officers from sporting masks with the “skinny blue line” brand.
And in early 2021, the College of Wisconsin-Madison Police Division banned the emblem, with its chief saying that it represented “hateful ideologies” that ran counter to the division’s core values.
In October, an L.A. County faculty district banned using the flag after its presence at a pre-game ceremony at Saugus Excessive College in Santa Clarita had made some really feel “uncomfortable and unwelcome,” the district superintendent informed KTLA-TV Channel 5.
In an interview Thursday, Scott mentioned he nonetheless thinks that he made the appropriate name. Whereas he understood that for a lot of officers the emblem is an expression of solidarity, he couldn’t overlook “the methods it was related to actually unlucky incidents in Charlottesville and people forms of issues,” referring to a 2017 white supremacist rally within the Virginia metropolis that resulted in chaos and violence.
He mentioned he acknowledged the strain that Moore should have been underneath to answer neighborhood complaints, with out alienating his officers.
“I do know him and I do know he’s very delicate to responding to the wants of the neighborhood and their suggestions,” he mentioned of Moore, including that legislation enforcement leaders throughout the nation have needed to adapt to altering occasions. “We had been within the state of actually hyper-vigilance in relation to a few of the racial points that had been related to the George Floyd tragedy, and policing was form of the thread that ran by all of that.”
