Police Panel Concerned Over Officers Moonlighting as PIs

Los Angeles Police Commission members on Tuesday questioned whether LAPD officers should continue to be allowed to work off-hours as private investigators, with commission President John W. Mack expressing “serious reservations” about a practice he said “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. LAPD Cmdr. Kenneth O. Garner told the commission it would take about a month to study the extent of officers working as or for private detectives and whether it would be legal to bar the practice. The commission asked Garner to return in a month with the department’s findings.

Many police departments forbid their employees from working as private investigators, fearing such work could lead to the leaking of confidential information, such as records from law enforcement databases or details of investigations.

Garner said eight officers have reported their private detective work to the department, but added that those who might be “doing something shady are not going to ask for a work permit.”

Garner said the department is improving its record-keeping and oversight of off-duty work. “In our computer, you can’t call up who is working for private investigation companies or other entities,” Garner said.

Commissioner Anthony Pacheco asked if the department conducts an inquiry of an officer’s off-duty work when an officer applies for a permit to moonlight as a private investigator.

“I can almost guarantee that is not done,” Garner said.

Pacheco mentioned former LAPD Sgt. Mark Arneson, who while on the force worked as a private investigator and has been charged with illegally collecting information on people from confidential police databases and conspiring with private detective Anthony Pellicano to wiretap people.

“I do not know how an officer can serve two masters,” Pacheco said.

Pacheco said allowing outside employment as private investigators can “put an officer in a horrible situation. If an officer with a private investigator license asks a fellow officer to run searches or database inquiries,” Pacheco said, an officer would not know “if he is asking me for law enforcement purposes or as a private investigator.”

Garner told the commission an LAPD survey of 38 police departments in California found at least 55% prohibit private investigator work.