Police Under Investigation : Task Force Targets Officers in Probe of Possible Misconduct

In the wake of a nationally publicized incident of alleged police brutality, Long Beach police administrators are investigating six officers in connection with possible misconduct ranging from racial remarks to excessive force, officials said.

The six were among 15 officers targeted for investigation by Police Chief Lawrence L. Binkley after the January incident in which Officer Mark Dickey appeared to push black activist Don Jackson into a plate glass window.

Binkley said he is seeking to identify officers who have demonstrated a pattern of using excessive force so that they can be retrained.

“Like in any business, there are some people who get into more altercations than others. And if there’s a pattern developing, then it’s our job to help them,” Binkley said. “We do have some heavy-handed officers. But the vast majority are not.”

Arrest Reports Reviewed

Binkley set up an in-house task force, and asked bureau commanders to submit lists of officers to be investigated. The chief sent the names of 15 officers to the task force, which reviewed every arrest report filed by those officers during the past five years.

After reviewing about 10,000 arrests, the task force found 13 cases, handled by six officers, which involved questionable force and, in some cases, verbal abuse, according to Cmdr. Billy Thomas, who is in charge of the investigation.

Neither Binkley nor Thomas would identify any of the officers. Officials also refused to provide details of the incidents.

The president of the Police Officers Assn., Mike Tracy, described the investigation as a “political witch hunt” aimed at officers who have been active in the police union or who have challenged Binkley’s authority. Three of the 15 officers are on the union’s 10-member board of directors, Tracy said. The union is involved in contract negotiations

with the department.

Binkley said union representatives “are being paranoid.”

Tracy said the two officers involved in the Jackson incident, Dickey and Mark Ramsey, were on the chief’s list of 15 officers.

Union representatives called the task force investigation a “knee-jerk reaction” to the mid-January incident in which an NBC news crew secretly filmed Dickey and Ramsey arresting Jackson, a Hawthorne police sergeant who was on leave at the time. Jackson had set out to prove that Long Beach police are racist. During what began as a routine traffic stop, Dickey appears on the tape to smash Jackson’s head through a storefront window. The officers face misdemeanor charges of falsifying a police report. Dickey was also charged with assault. Their cases are pending.

Although officials would not reveal names on the list, two officers, Tim Uribe and Steven Prell, told The Times that they were under investigation for using force, such as a chokehold, to restrain suspects resisting arrest. Both said they followed proper department procedures in the cases under investigation.

Uribe said he was singled out because of his union activities. Prell said he believes he was placed on the list because he had challenged Binkley’s authority. They agreed to speak on their own time and as union members, rather than as police officers, to avoid further confrontations with the chief.

Uribe is a member of the union’s board of directors. He described the investigation as “a scare tactic.”

Prell said he believes that he was placed on the list because he successfully fought a two-day suspension ordered by Binkley after a reporter wrote a story describing how Prell struck a suspected drug dealer in the abdomen with a flashlight after the man resisted arrest.

Appealed Decision

Prell said the procedure “is authorized in training bulletins and administrative directives.” He appealed to the Civil Service Commission, which last year overturned the suspension.

“Now, they reviewed 870 of my arrests (during the last five years.) They read every one,” said Prell, who works the crime-ridden downtown area. “Out of those 870, they said that four of those appear to warrant further investigation because they seem to use excessive force.”

Both Prell and Uribe point out that the arrest reports now under review were not questioned at the time, and that no complaints were filed by the suspects.

Cmdr. Thomas acknowledged that most of the 13 incidents under investigation did not result in citizen complaints. He said he was told “these were officers we should take a closer look at.”

Thomas would say only that the number of internal affairs cases involving the officers and the number of complaints against them were considered in compiling the list. He would not be more specific.

Binkley said: “The criteria was (whether the officers) have a series of conflicts with the community.” The names submitted were of those “individuals whose names came up more often than others.”

“How were these guys picked?” Tracy asked. “These are police officers who have reputations of being tough. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Review of ’87 Arrest

Uribe, 44, a veteran of 24 years with the department, said he has never been disciplined for use of force. He said the task force is reviewing a 1987 arrest in which he punched a man in the mouth after the 6-foot, 2-inch, 220-pound suspect began kicking and fighting as he was booked on suspicion of public intoxication.

“I took my right fist and attempted to knock him in the chest to knock the wind out of him. But he ducked,” Uribe said. The suspect was cut on the lips, which required one or two stitches, according to Uribe. The officer said he suffered a deep cut when in his hand struck the man’s teeth, was hospitalized for a week, was off-duty for three months, and had some cartilage and bone removed.

Prell, 30, who has been a Long Beach police officer for about eight years, said the task force is investigating two arrests in which he used a modified chokehold to subdue suspects who were resisting arrest. Neither suspect passed out or was injured, he said. In the third incident, Prell struck a suspect with his baton, but the man required no treatment. The suspect had been arrested been several times by other officers, who also resorted to force in some of the arrests, Prell said. Two of the three arrests under investigation involved the same suspect. Prell also said the man had been arrested 12 times in six years, and other officers had to resort to force in four of those arrests.

He declined to discuss the fourth case, saying he had not formally discussed the February, 1988, incident with the task force.

Binkley acknowledged that the procedure of investigating a list of officers instead of responding to specific cases or complaints is unusual. He called it “good management.” If administrators waited to respond only when something happened, “we wouldn’t be pro-active,” Binkley said.

No Decisions Yet

Thomas said the task force does not plan to make recommendations. The department’s bureau chiefs will determine whether to recommend disciplinary action, and Binkley will determine whether to take disciplinary action. No decision has been reached in the cases, he said.

In hopes of spotting future patterns of excessive force or other misconduct, Binkley recently established what he calls an “an early-warning system,” that requires officers to file a new form every time they are involved in a fight. Previously, the officers included the incidents in their arrest reports, but did not file a separate form.