Private Investigator Hired in Long Beach Police Probe

A private investigator has been hired to check out allegations of misconduct in the Long Beach Police Department, city officials said Monday.

Long Beach Mayor Ernie Kell said the investigation involved employees “pretty high up” in the department, but he would not name them or say what actions are under review. The investigator, Leslie (Pete) Norregard of Irvine, will report directly to City Manager James C. Hankla, according to a Police Department memo.

One police officer who confirmed that he was interviewed by Norregard said he was asked whether Deputy Chief David Dusenbury was involved in any misconduct, including an incident three years ago in which Dusenbury allegedly hired as his secretary a woman with misdemeanor arrest record of prostitution and petty theft.

The officer, Jack O’Neil Jr., said he was asked similar questions in December by a deputy police chief who oversees the department’s internal affairs section.

Dusenbury, who once headed the department’s vice squad and had a reputation for being tough on prostitution, refused to comment. He referred questions to Police Chief Lawrence L. Binkley, who also said he could not to comment.

One former police official, retired Deputy Chief William Stovall, said Monday that he raised questions about Dusenbury’s choice of a secretary with then-Chief Charles B. Ussery. Dusenbury told him he knew of the woman’s criminal past and promised to fire her if she got in trouble again, Stovall said. But Stovall said he was worried because the woman had access to police computer records.

The secretary worked for the police force for only a month, Stovall said. He did not know why she left.

Before he retired in August, 1987, Stovall said, he also told the new Police Chief Binkley about the incident.

The current investigation was disclosed recently in a memorandum to the city’s 650 police officers. In it, Binkley asked that all department employees cooperate with Norregard in an inquiry that is “being conducted under and directly for” Hankla.

Kell said the hiring of a private detective was unusual but may become more commonplace to lend credibility to investigations of alleged police misconduct.

“It hasn’t worked too well having the police investigate the police,” the mayor said.

Three plans to create a police review board or have an independent investigator are being reviewed by the Long Beach City Council. The proposals are an outgrowth of the Jan. 14 confrontation between a white Long Beach police officer and Don Jackson, a black Hawthorne police sergeant who conducted a secretly videotaped “sting” in the city to demonstrate what he said was racism and brutality by police there.

Jackson was arrested after a traffic stop, but the case against him was dropped and the officer himself charged for allegedly using excessive force and filing a false police report.