Civil Unrest and the Role of the Attorney General: a Comparison of Ramsey Clark to William Barr

• Publication year: 2021

Civil Unrest and the Role of the Attorney General: A Comparison of Ramsey Clark to William Barr

Lonnie T. Brown Jr.

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Civil Unrest and the Role of the Attorney General: A Comparison of Ramsey Clark to William Barr

by Lonnie T. Brown, Jr.^*

I. Introduction

On May 25, 2020, a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, a Black man suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill, by kneeling on his neck for a reported eight minutes and forty-six seconds, while two other officers assisted in pinning him down.¹ The entire shocking episode was captured on video and repeatedly telecast throughout the nation and world. The public's angry reaction was swift and powerful. Both in the United States and abroad, an unprecedented wave of protests ensued. The crowds were massive, diverse, and largely unified and peaceful. However, in urban areas throughout the country, there was significant violence, property destruction, and looting of businesses.²

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Rewind. On March 3, 1991, fourteen Los Angeles police officers pursued Rodney King, a Black man suspected of drunk driving, on a high-speed chase that culminated in several of the officers brutally beating King. While King was on the ground, the officers kicked him repeatedly and struck him at least fifty-six times with their nightsticks, resulting in skull fractures, broken bones and teeth, and permanent brain damage.³ Eighty-one seconds of the fifteen-minute attack was caught on a grainy video that was subsequently viewed by millions around the world.⁴ The public was outraged, but the streets did not erupt in protests or violence, at least not yet. That would happen a year later.

Two weeks after the incident, a Los Angeles County grand jury indicted four of the officers—Theodore Briseno, Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, and Timothy Wind—on charges of felony assault and other offenses.⁵ On April 29, 1992, they were found not guilty on all charges, and as word of that verdict spread, so did the disbelief and anger, setting off an almost immediate violent reaction in the streets of Los Angeles, the scale and severity of which expanded and intensified over the succeeding five days and nights. There was burning, looting, and property destruction, as well as attacks on police, firefighters, and hapless non-Black motorists who ventured into the South-Central section of the city.⁶

Rewind again. On August 11, 1965, a routine traffic stop of Marquette Frye, a Black citizen of the Watts area of Los Angeles, escalated into a combative encounter between the police, Frye, and two members of Frye's family. Efforts to subdue Frye ended with one officer reportedly jabbing him in the stomach with a nightstick before striking him on the brow.⁷ The Fryes were eventually forcibly handcuffed,

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arrested, and taken away.⁸ All of this unfolded before the watchful eyes of a throng of angry Black residents of Watts, who responded instantaneously. As police vehicles left the area following the arrests, the residents pelted them with rocks and bottles.⁹ This contemporaneous, instinctive reaction quickly spread throughout the community and spawned six days of unprecedented violence and mayhem around South Los Angeles. There was burning, looting, and property destruction. In addition, rioters attacked police officers, firefighters, and motorists who unwittingly drove into the chaos.¹⁰

Unfortunately, I could go on recounting similar instances of police excess directed at Black Americans followed by widespread protests and intense civil unrest, many in 2020 alone.¹¹ However, I selected these three examples, in part, because of their striking similarities, but more importantly, because of the two men who played significant roles in their aftermaths—William Barr and Ramsey Clark. William Barr was the U.S. Attorney General during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and he was the attorney general responsible for the federal response to the police killing of George Floyd and the powerful public reaction that it generated. Ramsey Clark was the U.S. Deputy Attorney General when the Watts riots occurred but would go on to serve as attorney general from 1967-1969, a period of widespread social upheaval that included numerous additional riots inspired by police aggression towards Black citizens, as well as the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. Clark's Watts experience informed the approach he would take in leading the federal response to these later outbreaks of civil rebellion.

Although the two men occupied some common ground in how they addressed the rioting of their respective times, overall, the tone, and tenor of, as well as the apparent motivation for their reactions seem to have differed dramatically. Ramsey Clark, a liberal champion of civil

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rights, took an empathetic approach to the unrest, factoring in the legitimate anger, frustration, and hopelessness that he believed were at the root of urban violence. While there was a definite need to control the situations and reduce the likelihood of physical harm and property damage, Clark was loath to authorize a draconian show of force to accomplish this. He was more concerned with potential excesses in law enforcement than with the people's rioting, looting, and property damage. He believed that the answer to the violence was not suppression, but rather, massive, collective effort directed towards solving the underlying problems that caused it—in his view, the principal motivating force was the continued disparate and unequal treatment of Black citizens, especially in terms of education, employment, and relations between police and the community.¹² Clark saw the so-called rioters as victims, not violent criminals who needed to be dominated and potentially prosecuted.

William Barr, on the other hand, was and is a staunch proponent of law and order. This stance guided his approach to the civil unrest he faced, both in 1992 and 2020. He acknowledged the wrongful nature of the police conduct in the Rodney King beating and the killing of George Floyd, but his primary concern in connection with both incidents was eliminating the unrest that the killing produced. In other words, Barr's tactic was to eradicate the symptom, not the problem, and his actions and words reflected a close alignment and identification with law enforcement and its efforts nationwide to maintain order in America's cities. For the most part, he condemned the actions of the "rioters," focusing on those he perceived as engaged in violent, destructive behavior. Barr characterized them as gang members in 1992,¹³ and in 2020, as far left extremists, radicals, outside agitators, and Antifa—an amalgamated assortment of anti-fascist organizations that he labeled as domestic terrorists.¹⁴ His assessment of the 2020 unrest was that peaceful protests were being hijacked by these fringe elements, and

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they had to be stopped.¹⁵ Hearkening back to his handling of the Los Angeles riots, Barr proclaimed that in 2020 "[t]he rule of law will prevail," as he believed it did in 1992.¹⁶

Clark and Barr's divergent responses to highly similar instances of social disorder raise critical questions about the role of the attorney general in such contexts. Where exactly does responding to domestic rebellion fit within the wide-ranging duties of the attorney general and what is the scope of that authority? Is this an area in which it is appropriate for the attorney general to yield to the will of the President, or is the exercise of independence essential? Answering these role-related questions is crucial to assessing the two men's respective approaches in handling civil unrest.

The job of attorney general is complex and far-reaching, ranging from administrative oversight of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to providing legal advice to the President and other executive officials, to participating in executive policy-making as a member of the President's cabinet.¹⁷ The attorney general even has his or her hand in foreign affairs through participation in National Security Council meetings.¹⁸ However, the most important function of the attorney general is to act as the nation's chief law enforcement official, the lead prosecutor for the United States.¹⁹ It is in this capacity, that the attorney general bears responsibility for investigating and addressing perceived abuses by the police and the resultant civil unrest that our society has repeatedly witnessed over the years.

Although allegiance to the President seems appropriate in carrying out some of the attorney general's duties and, in this regard, partisan interests may come into play, ideally, politics should play no role in responding to civil unrest. Of course, the attorney general's views and actions may coincide with what the chief executive believes and wants,

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but America's principal law enforcement official has an obligation to act independently and consistent with the rule of law, even if doing so will be contrary to the President's wishes.

In this article, I compare the respective manners in which Ramsey Clark and William Barr responded to instances of civil unrest during their tenures and assess each man's correspondent fidelity to the ideal of independence. Did they live up to their sworn responsibility? Or did they allow personal morality, public sentiment, or political pressure to influence their behavior?

Part II provides biographical background on the two men to gain an appreciation for what experiences may have shaped their approaches as attorney general, most specifically, with regard to addressing civil unrest. Part III then generally discusses the attorney general's role and, in particular, the necessity for independence in fulfilling aspects of that role. It also examines each attorney general's personal views on this important facet of their responsibilities. Part IV recounts how Attorneys General Clark and Barr responded to civil unrest—for Clark, the focus is on the Watts riots of...