Police Stress Pensions

As I read the article (Feb. 3), “Stress Pensions: LAPD Cases Grow,” I found myself becoming more and more stressed. At first, I felt anger at these young police officers who are obviously taking advantage of a society that respects and appreciates their work enough to provide them with extremely generous pensions based upon very generous salaries. What a shock to discover our largess is being turned against us in this way!

Reading further and digesting the article at a lower degree of outrage, I began to realize the real culprits in this mess are the Los Angeles Board of Pension Commissioners and the judges who rule on these “stress” cases. How dare they give tax-free pensions to officers who have broken the rules? In any other business, the rule-breakers would be fired--not rewarded with a tax-free pension for the rest of their lives.

It seems to me that if a police officer receives a tax-free lifelong pension because of job “stress,” he should be monitored and if he is able to be productive in some other occupation his pension should stop. Or he could be reinstated on the police force. The rest of us simply try to find another job if we discover the work we are doing is too stressful. And we certainly don’t get or expect to get pensioned off in our 30s!

Where is the moral fiber in a young man who can’t take a few gibes from fellow officers, (over an incident of his own doing), gets a “stress” pension and then proceeds to advise all policemen “when they get in a jam . . . go for a pension and leave the department . . . it’s not like you’re stealing anything.”

Well, I feel I’ve been robbed. We may soon be voting on a proposition to increase property taxes to fund additional police officers in Los Angeles. It seems to me what is needed first is a revision in the pension rules to outlaw “stress” as a legitimate reason for taking a tax-free pension before serving 20 years on the force. Then spend the millions thus saved on hiring police officers who want to work at that job.

HELEN SONGER

Van Nuys

Your three-part series on police pensions disturbed me. Now there will be an outcry for further investigation and restructuring of the pension system.

An overzealous reaction can only harm the hard-working police officer and not the malingerers.

Several officers come to mind who have been in severe stress situations and are still on the job. One officer was shot 14 years ago and is still on the force. Still another is suffering from cancer and manages to report for work daily. The stress on these men and their families is insurmountable, yet they continue in their jobs.

Let’s not jump for radical changes in the pension system that would damage their pensions when they are ready for retirement.

Perhaps we should go back to the beginning. Back to the academy. In recent years, training has been modified in several areas because it was “too stressful and demeaning.” If recruits aren’t able to take the stress in the academy, then they shouldn’t be certified for the streets.

MARIANA MANRIQUE

Alta Loma

While reading your report detailing the way Los Angeles taxpayers are being ripped off by bored policemen who retire with lifetime tax-free pensions, my head started to ache, my stomach became knotted, I felt nauseous and broke out in a sweat. I couldn’t face the thought of going to work where I would have to take orders from my nasty boss, so I called my lawyer and suggested I claim a stress pension. No luck. He said it doesn’t work unless you’re employed by the LAPD.

MARY HUGHES THOMPSON

Los Angeles

Your articles relating to police stress pensions, your “Golden Egg” editorial (Feb. 6) and Mayor Tom Bradley’s remark that police stress pensions were “unheard of” in his day, all fail to focus on a salient point in regard to stress claims.

I don’t condone fraudulent activity from the police or any other public service, but I can certainly see why police stress claims are increasing. In a city that expects too much of its police but has been stinting in hiring a sufficient number of officers for better protection; where crime is so rampant; where certain factions are so unsupportive of the police, and where controversial police actions are blown up all over the newspapers and air waves, what else would you expect? Lots of confrontation, plenty of litigation--not much appreciation. That seems to be the lot of police officers these days, especially in this area.

Of course the false claims should be weeded out, but don’t reduce those legitimate stress claims.

ELIZABETH P. DALEY

Long Beach

Stress pensions are a fraud and should be disallowed in the future and retroactively.

Psychiatrists, psychologists, and members of the legal profession who played a major role in institutionalizing this fraud should be eliminated from any future influence in our society.

V. KACHOUNI

Laguna Niguel

I appreciate seeing The Times giving the media coverage to the LAPD pension system so that the public can become aware of what has been developing over the past number of years.

I am a psychiatrist in Orange County who is occasionally requested to do a psychiatric evaluation for an LAPD pension applicant living in Orange County. I am in agreement with the comments quoted from Chief Daryl F. Gates and also feel that it is appalling, if not insane, that this situation is allowed to persist and grow. If someone is dissatisfied by the job he or she chose, then they are free to change to some other occupation.

The City and County of Los Angeles would be doing more than enough to pay for a reasonable period of vocational retraining, without having the taxpayers burdened with a pension for the lifetime of a dissatisfied police officer who is perfectly capable of earning a good income to support himself and his family in a different occupation.

The National Assn. of Disability Evaluating Physicians, of which I am a member, provides training to ensure a high level of competency and ethics in the field of disability evaluation. When I am requested to do a psychiatric examination, I evaluate impairment on the basis of objective findings to the extent that is possible.

I believe that any reasonable individuals would agree that some changes are needed in the system if, as described in the series of articles, pension awards are determined on the basis of threats and pressures rather than on the basis of merit.

HAROLD H. KATES

Newport Beach

After reading your article on the policemen who abuse the pension system I am so angry I could cry. For myself and two children I receive less than most of the persons cited and I guess it’s because my husband was simple enough to die of the stress brought on by working for LAPD.

He went to work many days at ungodly hours, took all the abuse, missed seeing his kids in school programs, and finally one day he died at the wheel of a police car; his heart stopped beating at age 42.

That was on Dec. 19, 1980. Now I ask myself, why didn’t we know anything about stress then? I now know ALL about it and must face it every day I live without my husband.

MRS. MICHAEL T. DICKS

Los Angeles