Can the LAPD Reform Itself?
The City Council has agreed to a consent decree, and Parks says he'll implement reforms. But the department's paramilitary culture stands in the way.
Mayor Richard Riordan and the police chief he hired, Bernard C.
Parks, have finally accepted the inevitable and agreed to reforms that
aim to rid the Los Angeles Police Department of corruption and
lawlessness. To accomplish that, the City Council last week voted, 10-2,
to enter into a consent degree with the U.S. Justice Department that
spells out the changes the LAPD will have to make. Big questions remain,
however. Will the consent decree, for example, be strong enough to
overthrow the department's paramilitary culture--the source of so many of
its problems? Will the council add language to encourage community
policing? Perhaps the biggest question of all is the resolve of Parks and
his department to implement reform. After bitterly opposing any deal with
the Justice Department, he declared last week that he will "diligently
implement" the reforms called for in the consent decree. He even claimed
that "roughly 60%" of them are already being put into practice.
But there is plenty of room for skepticism, beginning with Parks' past
performance and attitude toward reforms mandated from "outside." His
treatment of the department's first two inspector generals, his record of
implementing key Christopher Commission reforms, the self-described
"mediocrity" of the department's middle management and a recent public
exchange between Parks, the current inspector general and the president
of the Police Commission all suggest that reform will not come easily.
Among the Christopher Commission reforms the chief failed to
implement, for example, were two that were intended to provide warnings
of trouble. The first was the development of a computerized system to
track use of force, complaints,performance evaluations, disciplinary
actions and other data on officers. Such a system would have enabled the
civilian inspector general, who oversees the LAPD for the Police
Commission, to assess the department's efforts to deal with problem
officers. It would also have cracked the monopoly on "inside" information
the chief's office has closely guarded for decades.
One consequence of the lack of a computer tracking system was highly
embarrassing to the department. Katherine Mader, the first inspector
general, found that LAPD Internal Affairs was investigating only 10% of
use-of-force complaints, while the rest were left to its divisions, where
they were easier to cover up.
The second unimplemented Christopher reform also involved the
inspector general's office. As the commission's representative, the
inspector general was supposed to have complete access to all records and
information she needed to carry out investigations. But when Mader tried
to do just that, she found Parks to be an insurmountable stumbling block.
She eventually was forced to resign when the Police Commission refused to
back her demands for unrestricted access.
Evidence that the chief is still the zealous gatekeeper surfaced at a
recent conference on the Rampart scandal at Loyola Law School. Among
those on one panel were Parks, Jeffrey C. Eglash, the current inspector
general, and Gerald L. Chaleff, president of the Police Commission. Their
exchange indicated how difficult the job might be for the independent
monitor of the consent decree.
"Time and again," said Eglash, "we'll get a shooting report or a
complaint of misconduct, and we'll want to go to the source, whether it's
an Internal Affairs file or a report of an officer-involved shooting
that's been investigated by Robbery-Homicide Division. We want to take a
look . . . so we can perform our responsibilities, advise the commission
and . . . see if there are problems. And the next thing I know, a reason
will be given why we cannot look at a file. . . . We'll be told that an
investigation is still ongoing and that we can only look at something
when it's done. . . .
"I know if I were to go to the Anti-Terrorist Division or the
Organized Crime and Vice Division and ask to look at informant
files--certainly a reasonable inquiry in light of some of the revelations
of the Rampart scandal--I would be told not only 'no,' but 'heck no,
you're crazy.' And I have a very strong belief that if Chaleff were to do
the same thing, he would be met with similar delays."
During the same panel discussion, Parks complained that he had been
waiting "for three years for the [Police] Commission to give us
guidelines as to the work performance and duties of the inspector
general, which has not come about. . . . " To which Chaleff replied: "In
January of 1998, we issued a resolution regarding the inspector general,
[saying] that the [inspector general] had complete access to all
information and what the rules relating to confidentiality were. They are
specifically stated out. I don't think there was any need to go further."
On the surface, there's a big difference between a federal monitor and
the city's inspector general, and between the Christopher Commission
reforms and those mandated by a federal consent decree. For one, a
consent decree is judicially enforceable. If Parks doesn't give the
monitor complete access to the information being sought, the Justice
Department can go to court and have a federal judge order Parks to turn
it over. If there is any obstruction by the department, a federal judge
can hold it in contempt of court. That's a tool--and a check--that no
reformer has ever possessed.
But the LAPD hierarchy in which Parks came of age has always been
among the most skillful of bureaucracies in getting as close to the edge
of noncompliance as possible without getting nailed. It is a master at
appearing to be in compliance without actually being in compliance. A
cultural sea change will have to occur for the LAPD bureaucracy to behave
otherwise.
The department may need an equal transformation in morale to ensure
reform. According to leaked sections of a study commissioned by a Police
Commission task force, officer morale is at rock bottom. The rank and
file generally regard Parks as an autocratic leader whose disciplinary
practices are disproportionate to the offense. Many cops and supervisors
on the street, moreover, have gotten accustomed to doing sloppy work. A
consent decree will require them to work much harder to make a good,
by-the-book case. That's unlikely to boost their spirits.
This assumes that the effects of the decree will even reach them,
since all reforms will have to pass through the LAPD hierarchy and its
"mediocre" middle management--the term the Board of Inquiry report used
when it sought to place blame for the police abuse in the department's
Rampart Division. Nothing even remotely as big as this project has made
its way through the LAPD's bureaucratic layers successfully. Certainly
not the department's response to the Rodney G. King beating verdicts and
the riots that followed them. Certainly not implementation of key
Christopher Commission reforms. Certainly not community policing.
Any changes that have taken place, whether under former Chief Willie
L. Williams or Parks, never settled down to the Rampart Division. Neither
chief knew what his anti-gang units were doing because what appeared to
be the facts on the street changed as they rose up the chain to the
chief. In many cases, there is no relationship between what the chief
actually saw and what really happened.
Whoever winds up monitoring the LAPD had better have superhuman
tenacity and strength of character. Even with Parks' full cooperation,
they'll have their work cut out for them.
For LAPD, a Year to Forget:
Sept. 8, 1999: Former LAPD Officer Rafael Perez pleads guilty to
cocaine theft and agrees to assist LAPD corruption probe.
Sept. 16, 1999: FBI launches civil-rights investigation of LAPD
anti-gang groups.
March 1, 2000: LAPD releases its Board of INquiry report into Rampart.
March 12, 2000: Justice DEpartment start civil-rights inquiry.
September 2000: Unreleased report for Police Commission finds low
morale in the LAPD.
Sept. 11, 2000: Study of LAPD culture commissioned by Police
Protective League criticizes the Board of Inquiry report.
Sept. 19, 2000: City Council votes 10-2 to accept consent decree
between LAPD and Justice Department.
Joe Domanick Is the Author of "To Protect and to Serve: Lapd's Century of War in the City of Dreams."