Officer to Be Suspended in Beating Case

A veteran policeman accused of striking a handcuffed undercover officer who was posing as an arrestee will be relieved of duty without pay and has been ordered to face a board of rights hearing, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman said Monday.

Patrolman Michael L. Sillers, 37, has been formally charged with violating departmental policy by allegedly hitting the undercover officer “unnecessarily” as the officer sat handcuffed to a bench in the Southeast Division station.

Cmdr. William Booth, department spokesman, said Sillers has been on “special assignment” and receiving pay since the Feb. 3 incident.

“These papers will be served on him,” Booth said, and Sillers’ salary will be discontinued pending the outcome of the hearing, which has not yet been scheduled.

According to sources, the undercover officer was one of two sent into the Southeast station to investigate a tip that jail personnel were involved in the theft of prisoners’ property--an allegation that department officials have subsequently denied.

The officers, posing as narcotics dealers who had been arrested, were handcuffed to a bench on the second floor of the station house when the off-duty Sillers walked by, sources said. One of the undercover officers asked Sillers for a cigarette. When Sillers declined the request, the officer, who was not identified, swore at him--a gesture apparently intended to make the officer’s portrayal as a criminal seem more convincing.

Sillers then struck him an undetermined number of times, sources said.

It was not clear whether the undercover officer required medical treatment.

Meanwhile, in a non-related but similar case, LAPD officials have decided not to press charges after investigating allegations that two uniformed officers roughed up an undercover vice officer.

In that case, Glen E. Younger, a Central Division vice officer, was patrolling near downtown Los Angeles in December when he was pulled over by two uniformed officers from neighboring Newton Division and struck despite his pleadings that he was an officer on duty.

Booth said the investigation into that incident found “no conduct was engaged in by any of the officers that warrants punitive discipline.” However, Booth noted that the investigation did “suggest the need for reinforced training pertaining to undercover officer identification procedures.”

That training, were it implemented, might provide “ways in which undercover officers can unmistakably communicate to other officers who don’t know them without telling the whole world,” Booth said.

He would not elaborate.