LOS ANGELES — When rioters exploded into the streets here a quarter-century ago, angry that the police officers who had been caught on tape beating Rodney King might escape criminal punishment, this city became a national symbol for police violence run amok.
And now, as the district attorney, Jackie Lacey, considers whether to bring charges against an officer who shot a homeless man last year, the atmosphere in Los Angeles demonstrates the growing pressure that prosecutors now face to move aggressively against officers who kill civilians.
For the first time in his six-year tenure, the police chief, Charlie Beck, has called for the prosecution of an officer in a fatal on-duty shooting, urging Lacey to file criminal charges against Officer Clifford Proctor for shooting Brendon Glenn during an attempted arrest in Venice last May.
The police commission, which oversees the Los Angeles Police Department, also condemned the shooting as unjustified, and activists have also urged Lacey to indict Proctor. Murder charges have also been brought in the last year against police officers in Baltimore; North Charleston, S.C.; Cincinnati; and Chicago.
“If she does not file charges, especially in light of the chief’s recommendation, she’ll essentially commit political suicide,’’ Najee Ali, a civil rights activist and community organizer, said of Lacey.
The district attorney’s office said there was no timetable for a decision about Proctor, who continues to receive his salary from the city.
The shooting occurred amid a roiling national debate over police use of deadly force, particularly against minorities, that has led to mass protests in a number of cities since the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York City.
As in many of the other deaths, a video has played a crucial role, raising questions about the officer’s explanation of the shooting. Proctor told investigators that he saw Glenn grabbing for his partner’s holster as the two officers were trying to handcuff him outside a nightclub.
With Glenn on the ground but resisting, Proctor shot him twice in the back, according to a report from Beck on the shooting, which was released this week.
But a surveillance video showed that Glenn’s hand was never “on or near’’ the gun, the report said. And Beck concluded that the evidence did not support Proctor’s “perception that a deadly threat was present.’’
Criminal charges for on-duty police shootings remain rare, nowhere more so than in Los Angeles, where no officer has been charged with murder or manslaughter for an on-duty shooting for more than 15 years.
From 2005 until the end of 2014, nonfederal law enforcement officers across the country were charged with murder or manslaughter only 47 times, though officers kill around 1,000 people each year, according to Philip M. Stinson, a professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, who has tracked fatal police shootings.
But activists see evidence that public officials are increasingly sensitive to the national outrage over shootings of unarmed black people, which has grown since the death of Brown in Ferguson two years ago. Glenn was black and unarmed; Proctor is also black.
Last year, 18 officers were charged across the country, and four more have been charged this year, Stinson said.
“I do think people are paying more attention,’’ he said, though he added that the change was not yet statistically significant because of the small sample size. “No one cared to notice this stuff was going on across the country for a long time. Now the media is paying attention. Prosecutors know they’re being watched and they’re paying attention.’’
The union that represents rank-and-file Los Angeles police officers stressed the importance of evaluating each case on its own merit, regardless of the national uproar.
“We believe officers are entitled to an influence-free process that is based strictly on the facts and circumstances,’’ said Jerretta Sandoz, vice president of the union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League.
Connie Rice, a civil rights lawyer who has been involved with reforms within the Los Angeles Police Department, said Beck’s willingness to push for criminal charges in the case reflects substantial changes that began under the previous chief, William J. Bratton.
“This tells me the culture is moving in the right direction,’’ Rice said. “I’ve talked to many officers about different shootings, and they’re all upset about them. There’s a willingness to step back and say, ‘Was this reasonable?’ Twenty years ago, they weren’t even upset the person was dead.’’
Bratton, now the New York police commissioner, became police chief here in 2002, at a time when the department was reeling from a devastating scandal involving a band of corrupt officers who framed and shot suspects, stole evidence, and even organized a bank robbery, ultimately leading to a federal consent decree. He has been credited with rebuilding relationships with minorities and sharply reducing crime.
