Long Beach Police Wives Speak Out : Law Enforcement: Spouses complain that a series of reprimands constitute an informal gag order on their husbands.

Sandra Miller--mother of two, a part-time city employee and wife of a Long Beach police officer--recently gave the Long Beach City Council an earful on matters affecting the Police Department. Why, Miller asked, should officers agree to give up two-man patrols and end their four-day workweek, both benefits they have enjoyed for years?

That same day, Patricia Teresi, also married to an officer, aired her views in support of the rank-and-file in a letter published in the pages of a Long Beach newspaper.

Miller, Teresi and others have been moved to speak out on issues that concern their spouses partly because their husbands believe that they themselves cannot in light of recent reprimands of Long Beach police officers.

“We’re so frustrated, and we show it at home,” said Teresi’s husband, Chad Teresi, a corporal in the Police Department. “It’s affecting our homes and our families so much. I think most of the ones who are writing (letters) now are writing because their spouses can’t.”

While the department has not issued a formal gag order to hush its officers, a spate of reprimands and probes of those who aired their views in forums ranging from the letters-to-the-editor page to parties has had a chilling effect.

Since January, at least eight officers have been investigated, threatened with investigation or reprimanded for publicly commenting in a negative light about the department or on sensitive issues. One officer was counseled by superiors after making a joke at a retirement party for another officer, police internal memos say.

Labor Negotiations

Tension is growing partly because of protracted labor contract negotiations that have continued since last spring.

The talks have stalled to the point where the City Council briefly considered declaring an impasse last week before deciding to wait for the police union to come forward with a new proposal.

Particularly prickly is the growing friction between the police chief and the rank-and-file. “The organization is under a great deal of stress right now,” Police Chief Lawrence Binkley acknowledged.

Police Officers Assn. President Mike Tracy contends that the investigations are Binkley’s way of keeping a lid on negative or sensitive comments during the negotiation process.

Binkley said he believes that officers should express their opinions and suggestions within the department, rather than making public comments.

“It’s not that there is a code of silence,” Binkley said. “But if you have a complaint, you go through the chain of command.

“If I represent myself as a Long Beach police officer and make criticism against the department, that’s inappropriate,” Binkley said. “If I was an IBM employee and I criticized IBM, what do you think would happen?”

Police administrators say officers can be disciplined for being disloyal or for violating various policies that, among other things, forbid them from publicly criticizing orders they receive. Some officers complain, however, that their constitutional rights to free speech are violated by the policies.

“I honestly believe they violated my rights under the First Amendment,” said one officer who was reprimanded after he was quoted in a newspaper story.

The trend has caused concern among several members of the city’s Public Safety Advisory Commission, which issues recommendations to the City Council on police and other public safety matters. The commission is scheduled to address the issue at a meeting later this month.

“If someone lives in the United States, they have freedom of speech,” commission member Larry Davis said.

All but one of the in-house investigations of officers occurred this year, although Binkley said he had been unaware of that. Veteran officers and the Police Officers Assn. said they do not recall such probes taking place before Binkley took office in 1987.

City Manager James C. Hankla said that officers in Long Beach “have a long history of attacking whomever sits in the chief’s office. . . . Maybe this chief of police has a different way of coping with it.”

Lt. Stephen Bonswor, who oversees the police internal affairs division, quoted the department’s manual as saying officers can be disciplined for insubordination if they “ridicule a superior officer or his orders” or if they “publicly criticize instruction or orders they have received.”

Officers Barred

An administrative directive issued in January also bars officers from releasing “information/reports regarding incidents of a sensitive nature,” Bonswor said. In addition, officers can be reprimanded for being disloyal or for disclosing information that could hinder an investigation or hurt a victim, Bonswor said.

Some officers also say Binkley clamped down on what they can say to the press after a highly publicized sting earlier this year when a Long Beach police officer appeared to shove activist Don Jackson through a window while a television crew taped it. Bonswor said Binkley issued an order barring officers from discussing the case with members of the press.

But the policies do not extend to officers’ spouses, who increasingly are becoming frustrated enough to take up the fight themselves.

Concerned for her husband’s safety, Laura Barger told the City Council last month that she opposes a plan to reduce the number of two-officer patrol units in the city and increase the number of one-officer cars.

Barger said in an interview that she is “not one to go out and get up in front of everybody. That’s really hard for me to do.”

But she said she felt so strongly about this issue she decided to address the council.

Teresi, whose spouse has been on the force for 16 years, said, “This is the first time I wrote a letter to the editor.”

Her husband is one of the few who have bucked the trend and decided to write a letter himself--published recently in the Long Beach Press-Telegram. The letter defended officers and suggested that the time has come for Binkley’s removal. When “a team is losing,” the letter said, “a new coach is brought in.”

Police Lt. Bart Day was one of those investigated, according to various sources and documents. In his case, the probe was sparked by his testimony before the Long Beach Civil Service Commission that “made the chief of police look bad,” according to a claim Day filed against the city.

The investigation was later dropped and city officials denied that it had anything to do with statements Day made against the police chief.

Another case surfaced when Police Sgt. Mike Stovall was taken aside and counseled for making a joke that was “at best, bad judgment and at worst disloyalty,” according to a July 18 memo from Deputy Chief David Dusenbury to Binkley.

During a retirement party, Stovall remarked about “the last of the good guys, if you know what I mean” as a photo of former Police Chief William Mooney, who was retiring as an investigator, flashed on the screen.

An attorney retained by several of the targeted officers, Gregory Petersen, said the fact that so many similar cases cropped up in such a short time span is unusual.

“It demonstrates a conscious disregard for the rights of the officers on an institutional level,” Petersen said.