Police Misconduct Termed ‘Epidemic’

Citing their own statistics, several civil liberties groups have alleged that police misconduct in the city and county of Los Angeles has reached “epidemic proportions” and have called for formation of citizen review boards, appointment of special prosecutors and legislative hearings.

Members of a coalition of civil and human rights organizations made the charges at a press conference in front of Parker Center. The Los Angeles Police Department quickly responded by saying that there has been a 322% decrease in complaints of excessive force filed with the department over the last three years.

That includes 652 complaints filed in 1988 with the Police Misconduct Lawyer Referral Service, a private nonprofit organization that has staged “sting” operations aimed at exposing police misconduct. The civil liberties groups said there was a 198% increase of such complaints against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

But Lt. Fred Nixon, an LAPD spokesman, said there were 293 excessive force complaints filed last year, down from 356 in 1987. “If you compare those numbers, rather than a dramatic increase, you see an actual decrease of nearly 18%,” he said.