LAPD anti-terror unit gets generally positive evaluation

The LAPD’s Anti-Terrorist Intelligence Section received generally high marks in an audit by the city’s Police Commission but was faulted for not providing proper documentation to justify some of its investigations, according to the report, released Monday.

The audit, performed by Commissioner Alan Skobin and Inspector General Andre Birotte Jr., is set to be taken up today by the full commission as part of its job of making sure detectives do not improperly target people for nonviolent political or religious activity.

A lack of staffing was blamed for the fact that the commission had not done an annual audit, as required by a court settlement, for at least eight years.

Overall, the audit found, the section is doing a good job of adhering to rules set after the Los Angeles Police Department was sued in the 1980s by a coalition of community groups.

The coalition had alleged that the LAPD’s former Public Disorder and Intelligence Division had infiltrated organizations and spied on their political activities.

“While the audit identified a few areas where changes are needed, focused oversight should properly address these concerns,” the audit states.

In particular, the audit faulted the department for briefly discontinuing the practice of requiring officers assigned to the anti-terrorist unit to take lie detector tests, but noted that the practice was restored after the issue was raised.

The audit also found that in checking into initial leads, some required forms did not verify the reliability of sources or contain signatures from supervisors.

The audit found the “reasonable suspicion” information used to justify preliminary investigations in two cases was “questionable,” and that the reasonable suspicion for three other cases had not been documented.

Skobin said that two investigations should be closed because of the lack of any recent additional evidence, and that documents in five files, including photographs, did not contain information such as date stamps, required to demonstrate that they were material to an investigation.

In one case, a file noted that a suspect bought a racist and violent game, but the file did not document how the information was obtained. In another investigation, the file indicated that while serving a search warrant, officers found a document listing ingredients for explosives, but the file did not contain information on who saw the document.

“These concerns were discussed with the commanding officer ... and he agreed that there should be more articulation as to how the information was obtained,” the audit states.

In a cover letter, officials wrote that the audit originally referred to some groups being investigated as “anti-establishment” but admitted that the term carried negative and potentially inaccurate connotations, so the reference was changed to label them “radical groups.”

In an interview, Birotte said the findings of the audit may involve seemingly routine issues, but he said they are important to address to prevent any future abuses.

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com