Lancaster Civil Rights Unit Sought

The Antelope Valley chapter of the NAACP has proposed creation of a Lancaster city commission with sweeping powers including investigation of alleged civil rights violations and evaluation of the personnel policies of businesses and law enforcement agencies.

The proposals were made in a letter to Lancaster Mayor Lynn Harrison and will be reviewed by the City Council on Monday.

But on Friday, several council members expressed serious doubts about the proposals, which came a week after discussions between the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and city officials about several recent shootings by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies. The Sheriff’s Department polices Lancaster and the rest of the Antelope Valley.

Councilmen George Theophanis and Els Groves said in separate telephone interviews that they felt some of the ideas in the NAACP letter to Mayor Lynn Harrison were extreme and inappropriate.

The letter calls for the city to set up a Civil Rights Commission and a Sheriff’s Community Relations Committee to be made up of NAACP members, ministers, representatives from the Latino community, and officials of the city, county and Sheriff’s Department.

The commission, as proposed by the NAACP, would have broad powers to “investigate and report findings” of all allegations of civil rights violations within the city of Lancaster. It would “review and evaluate any business, service and law enforcement entity’s affirmative action policy, hiring and promotion practices and grievance procedure.”

The NAACP also called for “allocation of resources . . . to support fundamental changes in law enforcement, with a focus on firearms procedure and shooting policy.” The city’s contract with the Sheriff’s Department should be changed to permit the commission to investigate deputies accused of civil rights violations and to permit release of sheriff’s reports and training policies, the letter states.

The City Council does not have such investigatory powers. Currently, the county district attorney’s office investigates deputy-involved shootings in conjunction with Sheriff’s Department’s homicide detectives.

“We can’t even vote to do that ourselves,” Theophanis said of the commission’s proposed investigatory powers. “The sheriff is elected. We couldn’t pass anything to control the Sheriff’s Department like that.”

Groves said: “I doubt very much if the Sheriff’s Department would be interested in continuing services under those conditions.”

Capt. Gary Vance of the Antelope Valley station directed queries to officials in Los Angeles, who were unavailable for comment.

Both councilmen said they saw no need for an agency to oversee hiring procedures in Lancaster, and Theophanis said racial relations in the Antelope Valley have been “positive.”

“I don’t think they’re serious,” Theophanis said.

Harrison, who met with the NAACP leaders and a federal mediator last week, said she would withhold judgment until the council studies the issue.

The NAACP proposals call for increased communication and cooperation between residents and the Sheriff’s Department in hopes of avoiding more incidents like the three fatal shootings in Lancaster by deputies in the past eight months. All three shootings involved suspects who appeared mentally deranged or out of control. The fatalities included a black woman with a butcher knife and an unarmed Asian student. NAACP members charge that deputies should not have shot them.

The district attorney’s office has cleared a deputy in one shooting and is continuing routine investigations of two more shootings.

Council members said reaction from constituents has included some criticism of the deputies, but that most comments supported the Sheriff’s Department.