Ban of Police as PIs Urged

A Los Angeles City Council member warned LAPD officials Thursday that they must ban officers from moonlighting as private investigators, or he will push the council to do so.

“We need to ban all outside work as private investigators. We need to ban officers working for private investigators,” Councilman Jack Weiss said at a meeting of the council’s Public Safety Committee.

Many police departments bar officers from working as private investigators, believing that it is a conflict of interest for them to serve both the public and paying clients.

The issue has surfaced at the LAPD amid the federal investigation of private detective Anthony Pellicano, who allegedly hired an LAPD sergeant to help him spy on foes in civil and criminal cases.

A department official said he and others knew that the sergeant worked for Pellicano.

Weiss also criticized the department for lax oversight of off-duty work.

“God knows how many are doing investigative or security work,” Weiss said. “The fact that you don’t know is a very disturbing fact.”

Department officials acknowledged that they have no idea how many officers work as private detectives.

But LAPD Assistant Chief Sharon Papa suggested that better recordkeeping still might not prevent illegal actions such as entering police databases for private business.

“Some of the most high-profile cases had nothing to do with work permits,” she said. “If somebody is doing things they should not be doing, that is probably not the kind of person that filled out a work permit.”

Weiss said officers who work as private investigators present an inherent conflict.

“The public policy concern is not just about a few officers committing crimes,” he said. “It’s about dozens, hundreds -- you tell me -- of officers doing investigative work.”

Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Police Commission also questioned whether LAPD officers should continue to be allowed to work off-hours as private investigators, with commission President John W. Mack saying that the practice “raises highly questionable ethical issues.”

The commission has asked the department and the Los Angeles city attorney to determine whether it can prohibit officers from working as private investigators and has asked LAPD Cmdr. Kenneth O. Garner to report back with the total number of officers doing such work.

Garner said he knows that some officers have worked as private investigators without required LAPD permits, including former Sgt. Mark Arneson, who has been charged with illegally obtaining police data for Pellicano.

“I knew from my personal experience, and others knew he was working for Pellicano,” Garner said.

Eight officers have reported to the department that they are licensed private investigators, Garner said. But he and other department officials believe that the number is higher.