LAPD promised to curb violence on protesters for two decades, but has yet to deliver

After Los Angeles police officers stormed through a protest in MacArthur Park in 2007, beating protesters and journalists with batons and shooting them with tactical weapons, the department issued an unusual mea culpa as part of a report filled with reforms.

“Many may speculate that this report will be put on a shelf with the others that came before it, and that life in the Department will go on unchanged and unaffected, eventually leading to another similar incident,” LAPD officials wrote to the Police Commission. “The intention is the opposite. The Department acknowledges that identifying lessons learned is but the first step in bringing about change; what is key, is that the resulting changes be institutionalized.”