Memos Detail Police Response to Drug Raid : Suit: Two confidential LAPD documents show mid-level officers underplayed their mistakes while others tried to circumvent an internal investigation.

As the questionable police conduct in the drug raid at 39th Street and Dalton Avenue began to dawn on the Los Angeles Police Department’s hierarchy, various supervisors went to great pains to blame each other, a key lieutenant was advised to “keep a lid” on the case, and not a single police division “was willing to claim responsibility” for the incident.

That chain of events is detailed in two confidential management memos that analyzed why police officers got out of hand, leaving two apartment buildings a shambles in the August, 1988, drug raid.

The memos, including one to Chief Daryl F. Gates from Assistant Chief Robert Vernon, provide insight into how some mid-level police officials initially underplayed their mistakes in the raid in southwest Los Angeles, and how others attempted to circumvent an internal police investigation by blaming gangs for trashing the apartments.

“It is clear that the desire for aggressive law enforcement, tempered by respect for the law and basic human rights, was not properly instilled in a balanced manner in the police officers,” Vernon advised Gates.

“The officers’ improper conduct and supervisors’ failure to take corrective action is inexcusable,” he wrote. “However, management must acknowledge its fair share of the blame. The personnel problems and chain of command confusion were well known by area command staff, yet they were allowed to continue.”

The memos surfaced publicly earlier this month as exhibits in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, where owners of some of the apartment buildings are suing the city of Los Angeles, the Police Department, individual officers and top city officials.

The apartment owners’ attorney, Stephen Yagman, obtained the documents only after securing a court order, despite the city’s contention that the memos were privileged because their public dissemination would violate the rights of some of the police officers involved in the raid.

City officials also had refused to release the memos because a protective order banning their release remains in effect in Los Angeles Municipal Court, where four of the officers are standing trial on criminal charges.

In a sometimes heated, sometimes comical hearing Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Joseph Reichmann, Yagman argued that dozens of police officers are either refusing to attend or walking out of hearings where they were summoned to give sworn depositions.

For instance, Yagman said that out of 30 to 40 depositions scheduled for this week, “only three or four officers have shown up.”

He alleged that even top police managers, including Vernon, Deputy Chief William Rathburn and Cmdr. Ernest Curtsinger, evaded his depositions that had been set for that afternoon.

On Thursday morning, the lawyer said, “I was advised that Curtsinger was in Florida, Rathburn was on a 10-day vacation, and Vernon either was on vacation or couldn’t be there.”

He also contended that other officers are refusing to answer questions about the twomanagement memos, as well as allegations that some officers were encouraged by a captain to “kick ass” in fighting gangs and that officers later ordered dozens of people detained at the site to march out of the apartments “whistling the tune to ‘The Andy Griffith Show.’ ”

“This is a police department out of control and these hidden documents are basically evidence of that,” Yagman told the magistrate. He referred to the top police administrators as “Nazis” and said their conduct in trying to shield the memos was both “cynical and reprehensible.”

Visibly irritated, Deputy City Atty. David Hotchkiss, who is representing the police brass in the civil lawsuit, angrily replied that he resented Yagman’s characterizations. “I’ll be damned if I’ll be labeled like Mr. Yagman suggests as being fraudulent,” he said.

Hotchkiss said police officers have attempted to comply with deposition notices, but that Yagman has been extremely difficult to deal with and has acted in a rude and unprofessional manner. He described an incident Wednesday at Yagman’s law office in Venice, where he said the attorney “slammed the door of his office in my face.”

James Wilson, an attorney for Capt. Thomas D. Elfmont, the highest ranking of four officers being criminally prosecuted in state court for the raid, told the magistrate he objected to Yagman’s description of police officers as “Nazis.” Wilson quipped that there are more Democrats and Republicans in the Police Department than Nazis.

In a rejoinder that drew loud laughter in the courtroom, Yagman fired back: “I was always under the impression that Republicans and Nazis were one in the same.”

At the close of the hearing, Reichmann directed the two sides to clear up their difficulties and resume the deposition process.

About 80 police officers took part in the raid in two apartment buildings near the intersection of 39th Street and Dalton Avenue. Apartment residents later complained that police, armed with a battering ram, tore apart the apartment units, destroyed appliances and other property, and spray-painted “LAPD Rules” on the walls.

Gates conceded in June, 1989, that three dozen officers were being disciplined for their roles in the raid, an acknowledgment the chief made two months after receiving Assistant Chief Vernon’s “executive summary and management analysis” of the incident.

In that memo, Vernon implied that some officers attempted to cover up their misconduct, noting that Capt. Terrence Dyment of the department’s Internal Affairs Division, which investigates police wrongdoing, was not told of the incident for several days.

“Capt. Dyment was initially led to believe that gang members were responsible for much of the damage and IAD assistance would not be needed,” the memo said.

Vernon also advised Gates that “repeated failures to follow the chain of command and fix responsibility at all levels . . . caused confusion and frustration during both the planning and execution” of the raid.

“Each level of supervision and command within OSB (the department’s South Bureau Operations division) realized, or should have realized, that the chain of command was routinely violated and responsibility was not clear,” the assistant chief wrote.

Instead, he wrote that because the raid was conducted by officers from various patrols and units, there was initial confusion and finger pointing as to who was most responsible and which commands should shoulder the blame. Vernon also strongly chastised Elfmont, noting that he had been repeatedly warned not to incite his officers to go too far during drug raids.

A second memo written in March, 1989, by two administrative sergeants and sent to Cmdr. George Morrison, the Police Department’s chief of staff, detailed how some commanding officers claimed they did not know of the raid until hearing it from the news media, and that “one to three weeks” went by before they realized some of their subordinates were involved.

In fact, the report said, Capt. Robert McVey, acting commanding officer of the South Bureau Operations division, “stated that he did not receive any notification about the Dalton Street incident prior to, during, or after the search warrant was served.”

The report also describes a conversation between Elfmont and then-Lt. Enrique Hernandez, acting commanding officer of the Southwest patrol division. “Lt. Hernandez stated that Capt. Elfmont told him to initiate an investigation but to ‘keep a lid’ on the incident,” the report said.