Wrong map, right move

In this space Tuesday, we expressed concerns about the Los Angeles Police Department’s plan to map Muslim communities in order to gauge their susceptibility to extremism. Department officials argued that the idea was intended somehow to bolster relations between the LAPD and Muslim communities, but few others saw it that way. Such a proposal, it seemed to us, raised befuddling questions of how to map people by their religious affiliation, even as it amounted to profiling of the worst sort and recalled the old LAPD, whose racial insensitivity and brutishness combined to undermine effective law enforcement -- not to mention social order -- in this city for generations.

We were not alone in condemning the proposal, and late Wednesday, the department announced that it was shelving the idea. That is heartening and suggests that today’s LAPD has learned something from the failings of its predecessors. It may, in fact, be learning to listen, not just to bark orders. If that’s the case -- and this week’s events suggest that it is -- then we are happy to applaud the department’s prudent response to an understandable public outcry.