A New Name, and More Rigor

For the second time in four years, the Los Angeles Police Department has reorganized and renamed the unit that investigates officer-involved shootings.

LAPD officials said the new Force Investigation Division will have more detectives, more supervisors and a more rigorous approach.

Critics have long complained that the department, in investigating shootings, seeks to justify officers’ use of force rather than assemble an impartial account of what happened.

As part of a 2000 consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department, the LAPD agreed to improve shooting investigations.

The department created the Critical Incident Investigation Division and promised to give due weight to witness statements and physical evidence that conflicted with officers’ accounts.

But problems persisted. A year ago, Police Chief William J. Bratton, who took office in 2002, told subordinates to plan another overhaul.

Times reporters had sought comment from Bratton and his top aides on a string of cases in which LAPD shooting reports left out evidence suggesting that officers had fired at suspects without justification. In addition, a court-appointed monitor of the consent decree had documented deficiencies in shooting investigations.

Bratton entrusted the overhaul to Deputy Chief Michael Berkow, head of the Professional Standards Bureau (formerly Internal Affairs). Berkow said he devoured books and studies on police shootings and examined how other departments handled investigations.

In August, Bratton disbanded the Critical Incident Investigation Division and created the Force Investigation Division. The new unit reports to Berkow. Its predecessor was part of the detective bureau.

Although the unit inherited some holdovers, Berkow said he and Capt. Jim Voge, the commanding officer, brought in more than a dozen detectives from elsewhere in the department.

Reiterating earlier promises by LAPD officials, Berkow said shooting reports would highlight witness statements and physical evidence in conflict with officers’ accounts.

Berkow said detectives’ findings would be scrutinized by layers of supervisors and selectively picked apart in audits. Reports will be presented to Bratton, the LAPD inspector-general and the Police Commission in a computer format that will include photos and audiotapes.

It will become evident next year whether the changes have made a difference. That’s when the new unit’s first investigative reports will reach the Police Commission.

“I’m not going to sit here and say we’ve got a smooth, polished, finished product,” Berkow said. “We believe that we’ve identified the rocks and the shoals that you can run aground on. The trick is … to navigate among them.”