Chief Scott Shares How a 'Front Row Seat to History' Has Guided His Work

San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Chief Bill Scott recently shared his insights via a video regarding his experiences growing up in Birmingham, AL during the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement and as a rookie cop amid the Los Angeles riots following Rodney King’s arrest and beating by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers 30 years ago last month.

In his video, which was originally recorded for Black History Month, Chief Scott underscored how his experiences with “a front row seat to history” have guided his career as an officer of the law.

“Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, I knew early that the arc of Black history went through my hometown, even before I was old enough to fully understand why,” said Chief Scott. A year after the chief’s birth, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his historic Letter from a Birmingham Jail to those who questioned why a man from Georgia was instigating trouble in Alabama. “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here,” said Dr. King at the time, as the chief relayed in his video.

A bombing at Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church a few months later killed four young Black girls, three of whom were students of Chief Scott’s now father-in-law, who served as a funeral pallbearer. It was a tragedy that resonated through the community and that the chief called “unimaginable.”

Chief Scott said such experiences were “what we grew up hearing about at the dinner table, images, and films we see today of Birmingham police in the 1960s spraying fire hoses, sticking dogs on protesters and worse. Many of those protesters were my family members, and my family's friends. It was real for us growing up.”

Later, as a rookie cop with the LAPD, Chief Scott said he “couldn't have guessed my path would again cross an arc of history” when officers from his own department arrested and “savagely beat” Black motorist Rodney King following a high speed chase March 3, 1991. The chief, who was close in age to King, said it was “a worldwide wake-up call about police brutality and racism. It was also a personal wake up call to me.”

However, the real wake-up call, per Chief Scott, came following the criminal trial of the officers involved, which found none of them guilty of using excessive force on April 29, 1992. He was on duty when the Los Angeles riots erupted and countless lives, buildings, businesses, livelihoods were destroyed; more than 63 people died and approximately 2,400 others were injured.

“At a formative moment in my career, I had a front row seat to history that I wouldn't wish on anyone,” said the chief in the video.

“I saw what happens when communities feel betrayed by their criminal justice system, when police lose the legitimacy of those they serve. And when justice too long delayed is justice denied,” added Chief Scott in the video. “As Dr. King wrote in that Letter from a Birmingham Jail, the lessons of history have guided me in my career ever since. And it's why doing justice in all its forms is my life's work.”