Auditor eyes Burbank Police Department’s handling of Tom Angel’s derogatory emails

An independent auditor is reviewing the Burbank Police Department’s response to the discovery two years ago of derogatory emails forwarded by a top Burbank police official mocking Muslims, Latinos, blacks and women, city officials said this week.

The Office of Independent Review Group — hired in 2012 to provide ongoing oversight to the Burbank agency, which was reeling from allegations of police brutality, racism and sexual harassment — will likely present its findings to the Burbank City Council this summer, according to the group’s chief attorney Mike Gennaco.

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Gennaco will also review and suggest ways to improve the agency’s employee email audits, which in recent years excluded supervisors, including sergeants, lieutenants, captains, the deputy chief and police chief.

An audit scheduled for this year is slated to include all ranks, with city officials eyeing Gennaco to review the emails of captains, the deputy chief and police chief.

“I need independence so that people believe it, because there’s a lot of mistrust at this point,” interim City Manager Ron Davis said Friday.

Tom Angel sent the emails in 2012 and 2013 when he was the No. 2 police official in Burbank, but they were first discovered in 2014 in response to records requests filed by a Los Angeles attorney on behalf of a client. After learning of the emails, the Leader obtained and published them last month.

One email included the subject line, “How dumb is dumb?” and listed 20 reasons “Muslim Terrorists are so quick to commit suicide,” including “Towels for hats,” “Constant wailing from some idiot in a tower” and “You can’t wash off the smell of donkey.” Another email ridiculed concerns about the racial profiling of Muslims as terrorism suspects.

Police Chief Scott LaChasse provided Angel with verbal counseling in April 2014, and decided with then City Manager Mark Scott that no further action was required, according to a May 2 police department memo to Davis.

When making his decision, LaChasse considered Angel’s “40-plus years of exceptional service,” his commitment to hiring and promoting diverse candidates, and his involvement in expanding community academies to include classes for Spanish and Armenian speakers, as well as the hearing impaired, the memo stated.

The response drew criticism from the Burbank Police Officers’ Assn. board of directors, which, in a letter to Davis, raised concerns that Angel’s emails weren’t properly investigated two years ago, as the offenses apparently were not reported to the management services director, nor to Gennaco.

That supervisors were exempt from email audits — including one in 2014 conducted after the discovery of Angel’s emails — “supports our concern the department and city policies do not apply to the administration,” the board wrote.

The city report maintains that LaChasse’s response to Angel’s emails was consistent with how he handled other email violations discovered during two separate email audits in 2012 and 2013 of civilians, officers and detectives. As a result of those two audits, nine employees — five sworn officers and four civilians — received verbal counseling. The contents of their emails were not available.

After the audits, agency employees received reminders not to forward inappropriate emails to others, including friends outside the department.

“It appears the former deputy chief ignored these annual notifications and continued to forward offensive, discriminatory emails,” the police union board wrote in the letter.

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The union’s letter also pointed to discipline — including multiple days off and a demotion — handed by Angel to employees in the communications center for “similar policy violations” around the time Angel sent the emails.

When asked if those employees planned to challenge the discipline, Burbank City Employees Assn. President Pete Bova said, “We are looking at our options and are in talks with our legal counsel in regards to the matter.”

Others are also seeking answers to lingering questions related to the emails. Under the city charter, the Burbank Police Commission can conduct hearings and investigations at the request of the Burbank City Council. At a meeting Wednesday, Commissioner David Diamond asked the council to invoke this power to allow the group to study the incident.

The request came after the commission voted to table a general discussion on the department’s email audit system in favor of a more thorough review later.

“This is an incident that calls for a specific review of something,” Diamond said. “The generalized does the public no good in this situation.”

In all but one case, the city redacted the names and addresses of Angel’s email correspondents, arguing that releasing private email addresses would amount to an invasion of privacy.

Diamond said that the city had no grounds for the redactions and announced his intention to submit a records request for the unredacted versions.

“I don’t think there’s any privacy issues,” Diamond said, though he wasn’t optimistic that he’d get the information. “This gives the department and the city attorney’s office time now to start preparing their ‘no’ to me.”

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Alene Tchekmedyian, alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

Twitter: @atchek

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