Disability for 2 Policemen
Having read your editorial “Now Taxpayers Are Stressed: Long Beach grants stress-disability retirement to two cops in sting case” (Nov. 29), I am not surprised.
Since conducting and participating in the January, 1989, sting operation in Long Beach, my partners, Don Jackson and David Lynn, and I have investigated and consulted hundreds of police misconduct cases.
Most notably, the “39th and Dalton Street” raid by the Los Angeles Police Department (settlement of $3 million), Antelli vs. Hawthorne Police Department (settlement of $2 million), Lee vs. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (settlement of $1 million), and the current civil suit involving more than 80 plaintiffs versus the city of Lynwood and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies.
How much stress will the taxpayers accept while their tax dollars are paying the price for police officers’ misconduct?
In the above cases, only a very few officers were ever disciplined, much less had charges filed against them by the district attorney’s office.
Your editorial mentioned, at the very least, providing better police training. How can we better train our police when our police administrations condone the unlawful use of force, racism and internal investigative cover-ups?
JOSEPH ANTHONY TRAVERS
Marina del Rey
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