Apartheid. USA 1988

January 2, 1987:

Larry Davis is regarded by New York blacks, if not as a folk hero for his violent actions and evading a massive manhunt by 150 policemen for 17 days, at least as an embodiment of their festering frustration with the police. Davis managed to wound six police officers in his shoot-out with the law. ‘The reason black people feel the police are the enemy is because of the service they get,’ said Detective Roger Abel, president of the Guardians Association, an organization of 2 000 black police officers in New York City. ‘You go to a place like 124th and Lennox or 118th and 8th, and you see prostitutes and junkies hanging around. You don't get that at Park Avenue or in Riverdale. And there's no way you can tell me the police can't get those people off the streets.’

The adulation of a violent criminal such as Mr Davis begins with the American national character, criminologists say, and is heightened by the subculture of the black ghetto. ‘In American history, there has always been a romanticism about the gunman, going down to Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Bonnie and Clyde,’ said Professor Marvin E Wolfgang, a professor of criminology and law at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. ‘There's something in-

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volved in the wishes, desires, fantasies that people can't express directly, but can vicariously through other people or fictional characters. ‘Many residents of American black ghettos,’ Professor Wolfgang said, ‘share the national aspiration for status and material comfort, but feel unable to reach them through conventional routes because of discrimination and diminished opportunities. Violent behavior is an attempt to get the goods through other means, means that can become the subculture norms,’ he said.^15.

15. The New York Times, from a report by Samuel G Freedman