George F. Will characterized the Rodney King or the Foothill Incident as a "police riot". That verbiage was ripped from a report from the Kerner Commission ( National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder), eleven member Presidential Commission chaired by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, Jr. President Lyndon B. Johnson established the commission to investigate the causes of the 1967 race riots in the United States and to provide recommendations for the future.
"We have a war. We are going to be successful. Whatever it takes, we will do it. " - Police Chief Daryl Gates
One crime suppression technique used at the time was to saturate an area with police personnel for several days and make as many arrests as possible.
- Look for probable cause to stop them (i.e. traffic violation, jaywalking )
- Conduct a search of their person
- Run them for for warrants and see if you can come up with guns or contraband or something
- One problem with this overly-aggressive police work were concerns of false arrest (being set up, especially with the aid of snitches or confidential informant), take money from suspects
- One operation in particular, Operation Hammer, thousands of officers would go into gang-infested neighborhoods on a weekend arrest suspected gang members for mass-booking at an on-site mobile detention center.
- The phrase "Drop the Hammer" was derived from this operation
The "Swarm" was a technique developed at the Los Angeles Police Academy when the "chokehold" and the "PR-24" was considered to overly aggressive to immobilize a suspect. It is a technique where an officer focuses on an appendage (arm, leg, head) of a suspect to prevent the suspect from harming an officer.