Internal Discipline by Torrance Police Excellent, Witness Says in Crash Trial

A former deputy chief with the Riverside Police Department testified Wednesday that the Torrance Police Department conducts excellent internal affairs investigations and disciplines its officers appropriately.

Mervin Feinstein rebutted allegations by a San Pedro family in a civil trial in Los Angeles Superior Court that Torrance police condone and cover up misconduct, particularly incidents linked to excessive drinking.

“It just isn’t there,” Feinstein said of the plaintiffs’ case against the Torrance police. “There is no widespread cover-up or ratification of employees . . . who might not properly record their investigation or report what is going on. . . . They don’t sweep it under the carpet.”

Called to Testify

Feinstein retired from the Riverside department last year and is now a private consultant and administrator with the California Peace Officers Assn.

He was called to testify on behalf of the Torrance Police Department and nine officers named in a lawsuit filed in 1984 by John and Geraldine Rastello of San Pedro. The Rastellos claim that off-duty Torrance police Sgt. Rollo Green was driving drunk and caused the traffic collision that killed their 19-year-old son, Kelly. Their lawsuit also alleges that fellow officers covered up for Green as part of a pattern of concealing misdeeds by police.

Feinstein told the jury that his opinions were based on an impartial review of more than 500 internal affairs files from the Torrance Police Department. But, during cross-examination, one of the Rastellos’ lawyers, Brian Panish, attempted to paint Feinstein as a friend of the Torrance police who would never take a stand against a fellow officer.

Earlier in the week, Torrance’s own internal affairs investigators defended their work under Panish’s harsh cross-examination.

The defense is expected to rest its case today, five years and one day after Kelly Rastello died in the collision with Green. Final arguments in the 5-week-old trial are scheduled for Tuesday.

Feinstein opened his testimony by criticizing a former Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief who was called by the plaintiffs two weeks ago. Lou Reiter, the former LAPD official, told the jury that Torrance police received little or no punishment for alcohol-related misconduct, creating an atmosphere in which excessive drinking was condoned.

Reiter focused on 11 alcohol-related cases in which he said Torrance police only once sought criminal charges and only once took a blood-alcohol reading. But Feinstein called that information misleading, saying that in most cases the Torrance officers were not subject to chemical blood testing because they had not been driving. And in many of the cases, criminal charges were not filed because the victims did not want to go to court or because the incidents took place outside the city’s jurisdiction, Feinstein told the jury.

Rehabilitation Favored

The Torrance Police Department has a wise policy of trying to salvage officers involved with alcohol by offering them rehabilitation programs instead of suspensions, Feinstein said.

The policy was designed to prevent relapses, Feinstein told the jury.

But Panish countered that incidents involving Officer Donald Mason show that departmental policy is ineffective.

While questioning Feinstein, Panish said Mason was told that he could enter an alcohol treatment program after he brandished a gun in a bar in 1982. Two years later, Mason was reportedly drinking when he crashed into three parked cars as he was driving home, Panish said, recounting previous testimony.

Panish also asked Feinstein if he had been told that the Torrance Police Department did not adopt a program to assist alcoholics until 1986, a decade after most other police departments. Feinstein said he did not know that.

Crackdown on Drinking

The former Riverside official testified that he did not find an excessive number of alcohol-related complaints against Torrance police officers. After one 1979 incident, he said, the department cracked down on officers drinking in public after hours.

Torrance Sgt. Greg Fahnestockand five officers gathered in a parking lot after work to drink beer, a custom known in police circles as “choir practice,” Feinstein testified. He told the jury that the officers continued their drinking in the stairway of a public building. “They had an attack of dumb, as we say in the business,” Feinstein said.

Feinstein said that when Fahnestock received a three-day suspension, it “sent a very strong message to younger officers, saying that tenure or rank is not going to get you off the hook.” The other officers received written reprimands.

After the incident, the department approved a regulation outlawing choir practice, Feinstein said.

Showed Toughness

A thorough investigation in another case involving a ranking officer also showed the department’s toughness, Feinstein said. An internal report showed that Lt. Henry Pupkoff took an accident report himself, in violation of department policy, after he was involved in a minor collision in 1979.

Follow-up investigation by another officer showed that Pupkoff had not accurately recorded statements by witnesses to the crash, Feinstein told the jury.

The accident was minor enough that it could have been brushed aside, but the department chose to perform a full internal investigation, which led to Pupkoff being counseled against taking reports in incidents in which he had personal involvement, Feinstein said.

On cross-examination by Panish, Feinstein conceded that he cannot recall ever testifying against a police officer in a civil case.

Feinstein made another concession to the plaintiffs: He said he sees no objection to police departments that order officers to take blood-alcohol tests when they have been accused of misconduct while drinking. Torrance police officials have testified that a policy would violate officers’ rights and produce test results that would not be admissible in criminal cases.

Continued Testimony

Earlier, Torrance Deputy Police Chief Jim Popp resumed the stand Monday to continue testimony that began last Friday.

Popp said last week that the supervisor of a Police Department program for troubled teen-agers had been forced to resign after one of his former clients accused him of using drugs and keeping child pornography in his apartment.

Popp added Monday that the former client also accused Juvenile Deversion Program Coordinator Tom Heitmann of sexually molesting him.

When officers searched Heitmann’s apartment, they found three or four ounces of marijuana and a film of the teen-age boy masturbating, Popp told the jury.

Although Heitmann resigned immediately, Popp testified that criminal charges could not be filed on the alleged molestation because the three-year statute of limitations had expired. In an interview after his testimony, Popp said he does not know why criminal drug charges were not filed against Heitmann.

Heitmann did not return several telephone calls.

111 Complaints

On Monday, John Rastello’s lawyers produced a Police Department report that showed discipline was imposed only once as a result of 111 complaints made by the public in 1984 and 1985.

Popp conceded that claims against police officers are sustained much more often when they are made by fellow officers rather than by private citizens.

But Popp testified that the 1984-85 report is deceiving because it does not account for officers who were disciplined even before the public filed complaints against them.