Racial Disparities Seen in Complaints to LAPD : Law enforcement: Analysis by The Times reveals that accusations by Anglos are more likely to be upheld than those by blacks, except in excessive-force cases.

Blacks who filed excessive-force complaints against Los Angeles police officers were more likely--by a narrow margin--to have their complaints upheld by the department than Anglos or Latinos.

But when blacks complained about other forms of police misconduct--ranging from improper tactics to verbal abuse--their complaints were more likely to be turned down.

And African-American LAPD officers were more likely to be disciplined for misconduct than Anglo or Latino officers, though they were no more likely to be the targets of complaints.

These racial disparities emerged in a computer analysis by The Times of 4,400 misconduct complaints filed against Los Angeles officers from 1987 through mid-1990.

The study of LAPD records was undertaken after the police beating of black motorist Rodney G. King. While Chief Daryl F. Gates has said that the March 3 beating was an “aberration,” other public officials and civil rights leaders charged that it was symptomatic of widespread abuses of minority groups by the Los Angeles Police Department.

Statistics alone cannot explain why these disparities exist. Interviews with police officials, rank-and-file LAPD officers, civil rights activists and academicians about the findings produced a variety of possible explanations, ranging from alleged Police Department racism to happenstance.

Critics of the department suggested that the statistics confirmed their suspicions that the department’s citizen complaint process discriminates against minorities.

The department’s response is that the disciplinary system is fair and effective, but patrol officers interviewed were divided in their opinions.

What was most apparent in the study was that the Police Department sustained few complaints, regardless of race. Only 7% of all citizen complaints were upheld. Unless there was physical evidence or an independent witness to the alleged police abuse, the department took the word of accused officers over the word of civilian complainants.

Of all the kinds of complaints civilians filed, the department was least likely to find merit in complaints alleging excessive force. But this was the one area in which blacks were most likely to prevail. They had 3.5% of their complaints sustained compared to 2.7% for Latinos and 2.2% for Anglos.

Overall, complaints by black citizens stood a 5% chance of being upheld by the department, compared to 7% for complaints filed by Latinos and 9% for those filed by Anglos.

Accused black officers were twice as likely as Anglo officers to be found guilty of misconduct in department administrative proceedings.

Some civil rights activists said the findings create a disturbing picture of the department.

“I think it’s evidence of institutional racism,” said Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., a civil rights lawyer who served as the county’s third-ranking prosecutor from 1978 to 1981.

System Defended

The Police Department disagreed. Gates declined to be interviewed for this article, but his spokesman, Cmdr. Robert S. Gil, said the department does not believe it has a problem with racism.

“We’ve got a (disciplinary) system that we believe in quite a bit,” Gil said. “It’s served us very well. It’s served the city very well.”

Gil said he could not explain the racial differences The Times found without analyzing each case.

Terance Miethe, a sociologist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University who specializes in interpreting criminal justice statistics, served as a paid consultant for The Times study.

“In general,” Miethe said, “the complaint data suggests that complaints by black citizens are not taken as seriously by the LAPD as the complaints by other ethnic and racial groups. . . . There appears to be some devaluation of complaints by blacks.”

He said that the department does not appear to believe many citizens, regardless of race. “It’s rare for a citizen to complain formally to the police and it’s rarer yet to get some action on it,” he said.

James Fyfe, an American University criminologist, former New York City police officer and an expert on police brutality, was even more cautious.

“There are racial patterns,” Fyfe said. “But what might account for them is the question. I think you have to go back and look at the underlying documents” to see if factors other than race might explain the differences.

The data available to The Times did not allow such a detailed look. The Times drew its statistics from the department’s “Weekly Summary of Adjudicated Cases,” which internal affairs investigators routinely send to the Police Commission.

By state law, these summaries are confidential because they deal with personnel matters, unless released by a judge.

The summaries were given to The Times by lawyer Stephen Yagman, who said he obtained them under federal court orders for civil rights lawsuits against the Police Department.

Names of officers and complainants were blocked out by the police on the documents before they were given to Yagman. In most cases, the race or ethnic origin of the officer being complained about, and the race or ethnic origin of the complainant, could be discerned.

Policy Against Racism

According to the department, the summary reports to the Police Commission cover all complaints by the public alleging physical or verbal abuse as well as all complaints initiated by the department involving allegations of other “serious” misconduct, for which the potential penalty is a suspension of five days or longer.

Although The Times broke down the statistics by race, there were too few Asian-Americans to provide a valid sample.

The summaries made it clear that the department did not officially tolerate racism. The Times found several instances in which racist remarks made by police officers resulted in discipline.

But rank-and-file police officers interviewed by The Times split along racial lines on the question of whether the department had a double standard for blacks and Anglos.

Anglo officers said everyone is treated the same.

“Our department doesn’t care what their color is or where the complaint comes from,” said one field supervisor with more than 20 years on the force.

But some black officers said the Police Department has a double standard when dealing with black officers and black citizens.

‘Double Standard’?

Musa Camara, a veteran officer who has represented colleagues accused of wrongdoing in disciplinary hearings for more than five years, said there is “a double standard in this department in many instances when dealing with black officers and black citizens.”

He said that inside and outside the department, the word of African-Americans is not given as much weight.

The Times found some evidence to bear this out. Complaints with the worst chances of success--4%--were filed by African-American civilians against Anglo officers.

Complaints against black officers were almost twice as likely to be upheld as complaints against Anglo officers--29% to 15%. These complaints included a large number made by the Police Department, which were frequently sustained, as well as those made by citizens.

Among the civilians, blacks were more likely to file misconduct complaints than Anglos or Latinos.

Although blacks comprise only 13% of the city’s population, they filed 41% of the complaints. Anglos, who comprise 37% of the city’s population, filed 30% of the complaints. Latinos, who account for 40% of the city’s population, filed 28% of the complaints.

The summaries of complaints reviewed by The Times clearly did not show a complete picture of alleged police misconduct.

Cmdr. Rick Dinse, who is overseeing the department’s investigations into the King beating, acknowledged that complaints reflect only a portion of the misconduct allegations against police. Often, he said, individuals bypass the department’s complaint process and file a lawsuit against the department and city.

“We may not even be aware of the misconduct allegations until there is a lawsuit,” he said. “That’s not uncommon.”

Advocates for people aggrieved by officers say police sometimes discourage or intimidate those trying to file complaints or refuse to accept them.

Intimidation Charged

“They use every kind of intimidation tactic they can,” said Karol Heppe, executive director of the Police Misconduct Lawyer Referral Service. She said that officers sometimes threaten to run warrant checks on prospective complainants, contact immigration authorities or sue for defamation.

Police spokesmen denied that the department uses such ploys.

An Anglo field supervisor with more than 20 years on the force said: “You kiss off a complaint and you’re found out, it’s your ass.”

But a Latino sergeant, who also asked not to be named, said he believes lack of communication--and a lack of patience among some Anglo officers--explains why complaints of officer misconduct sometimes end up being rejected.

“You have somebody call up or come in and he speaks broken English, the white guy’s not going to take the time to listen,” the sergeant said. Latinos and blacks are different, he said, in that many have a higher “level of caring” when dealing with minorities.

Once a complaint is accepted, the department will not, as a matter of practice, accept the uncorroborated word of a citizen against an officer, according to police spokesman Gil.

“If you allowed for a one-on-one complaint . . . without any independent substantiation . . . I think (policing Los Angeles) would grind to a halt. . . . There wouldn’t be uniformed officers (willing to go) out there on the street.”

Officers seldom came to the aid of aggrieved citizens by confirming their accounts, The Times study showed. Although Gil denied that there was a “code of silence” within the Police Department, The Times found instances in which the department was unable to identify officers involved in beatings.

For example, police officers from the Rampart Division chased a car that failed to stop for a red light onto two freeways and then into a rail yard. One officer repeatedly rammed his car into the suspects’ vehicle and, when the chase ended, other officers beat the suspects. The department concluded that these officers were guilty of excessive force, but told the Police Commission they could not be identified.

Blacks filed 484 excessive-force complaints and had 17 upheld. Latinos filed 401 and had 11 upheld. Anglos filed 315 and had seven upheld.

Expert’s Theory

Fyfe, the Washington-based expert on police brutality, speculated that blacks may have had more of their excessive-force claims upheld because they were beaten more badly than Anglos and, therefore, there was an increased likelihood that there was medical evidence to back up their claims. He said there was no way to know this without examining the evidence in each case.

In other categories of alleged misconduct--improper tactics (less serious than excessive force), discourtesy, neglect of duty and unbecoming conduct--blacks fared worse than Anglos and Latinos.

In these categories, 50 complaints out of 910 filed by blacks were upheld, compared to 55 out of 553 filed by Latinos and 87 out of 716 made by Anglos.

Five and one-half percent of these other complaints by blacks were upheld, compared to 9.9% of complaints by Latinos and 12.2% of complaints by Anglos.

When the Police Department rejects citizens’ complaints, it classifies some as not sustained--meaning that the allegations could not be proven--and some as unfounded, meaning department investigators became convinced that the misconduct did not occur.

The department concluded that 37% of complaints by blacks were unfounded, compared to 34% of complaints by Latinos and 31% of those by Anglos.

One veteran Anglo field supervisor, who asked not to be identified by name, said it has been his experience that African-Americans commonly embellish their complaints against officers for fear that the truth will not be taken seriously by the department.

“When they complain of mistreatment, it’s never like, ‘(The officer) hit me without any reason,’ ” the supervisor said. “It’s always, ‘He hit me without any reason, then he stomped on my head, kicked me, called me a (racial slur), tore up my driver’s license and told me to get out of town.’ ”

John Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban League, said he was not surprised by The Times’ statistical findings that black complainants and police officers generally fared worse than Anglos.

“These statistics . . . confirm what we have felt to be the case right along, and that is that there is an unfair meting out of justice by the LAPD against African-Americans and other minorities,” Mack said.

“The fact that more complaints against black officers were sustained . . . points to internal problems with the LAPD,” he said.

According to The Times’ study, black officers were no more likely to be the targets of complaints than Latinos or Anglos. But the pattern of black officers faring worse than Anglo officers held for all the major categories of complaints.

Anglo officers interviewed by The Times said they could not explain this disparity.

But several black officers said The Times’ statistics confirmed their experiences.

Officer Tom Garvin, a black officer who has been in the department 22 years, said that during that time he has had three or four trial boards, and been off work because of suspensions 35 to 40 days. He said black officers are disciplined more than Anglos. “They don’t have the same backing as the white officers,” he said.

In its study, The Times found that in excessive-force cases, black officers fared worse than Anglo officers. Latino officers fared worst of all.

Some 5.4% of excessive-force complaints against Latino officers were upheld, compared to 3.9% of such complaints against black officers and 3.1% against Anglo officers.

Sgt. Emilio Perez, president of the Latin American Officers Assn., said Latino officers sometimes have been treated more harshly than Anglos. “The message to me . . . was that there was one standard for minorities and another for Anglos,” Perez said.

In the other complaint categories, black officers fared worst.

For improper tactics, 12% of complaints against black officers were upheld, compared to 10.9% against Latino officers and 7.9% against Anglo officers.

The Police Department considered it an improper tactic when an officer “inappropriately placed his hands around (the complainant’s) throat while assisting him to his feet.”

It was also deemed an improper tactic when an officer came up behind a man reading a newspaper in a park, grabbed him by the collar and hair, lifted him to a standing position, kicked his feet apart, told him to shut up or he would break his fingers, and told him not to hang around the park.

For discourtesy, 14.3% of complaints against black officers were upheld, compared to 10.5% against Latino officers and 6.7% against Anglo officers.

For unbecoming conduct or neglect of duty, 62% of complaints against black officers were upheld compared to 50% of complaints against Latino officers and 42% against Anglo officers.

Unbecoming conduct covered a wealth of sins--including an officer questioning a rape victim and asking her for a date and whether she had had an orgasm during the rape, a police officer committing perjury and an off-duty officer firing a gun five times through the rear window of another person’s car during a 3 a.m. traffic dispute. No one was hurt in the last incident.

Of the remaining complaints, 45% against black officers were upheld, compared to 36% against Latino officers and 29% against Anglo officers.

Also contributing to this report were Times staff writers David Freed and Charisse Jones and director of computer analysis Richard O’Reilly.

COMPLAINTS AGAINST OFFICERS THAT ARE UPHELD

The figures below show the rates at which complaints against officers were upheld in 1987-1990, expressed in racial/ethnic categories. If the complainant was Anglo, and the officer was... Anglo: 7% of the complaints were upheld Latino: 21% of the complaints were upheld Black: 14% of the complaints were upheld

If the complainant was Latino, and the officer was... Anglo: 5% of the complaints were upheld Latino: 8% of the complaints were upheld Black: 8% of the complaints were upheld

If the complainant was black, and the officer was... Anglo: 4% of the complaints were upheld Latino: 8% of the complaints were upheld Black: 10% of the complaints were upheld

Below is a sample of a portion of a report the Los Angeles Police Department files with the Police Commission to explain how the department deals with individual citizen complaints against police officers. Authorities obscured the names of complainants and of police officers in accordance with state law which makes police offficer personnel records, including investigations of complaints, confidential.

Source: Los Angeles Times computer analysis of Los Angeles Police Department misconduct complaint summaries furnished to Police Commission.

Complaints: The Story in Numbers The Complainants

The Times examined 2,208 confidential summaries prepared by the Los Angeles Police Department of serious misconduct complaints lodged by citizens. The Times was able to categorize the race or ethnicity of 3,443 persons for whom the type of complaint and its outcome could be determined. The findings: Overall citizen complaints: The racial/ethnic groups of those who file complaints. Anglo: 30% Latino: 28 Black: 41 Overall upheld: Anglo complaints were most likely to be upheld. Anglo: 9% Latino: 7 Black: 5 Excessive force: The racial/ethnic groups of those who file complaints. Anglo: 26% Latino: 33 Black: 40 Excessive force upheld: Black complaints were most likely to be upheld. Anglo: 2% Latino: 3 Black: 4 Improper tactics: The racial/ethnic groups of those who file complaints. Anglo: 29% Latino: 27 Black: 42 Improper tactics upheld: Anglo complaints were most likely to be upheld. Anglo: 6% Latino: 4 Black: 3 Discourtesy: The racial/ethnic groups of those who file complaints. Anglo: 33% Latino: 21 Black: 44 Discourtesy upheld: Latino complaints were most likely to be upheld. Anglo: 5% Latino: 9 Black: 4 Neglect of duty and unbecoming conduct: The racial/ethnic groups of those who file complaints. Anglo: 35% Latino: 26 Black: 38 Neglect of duty upheld: These complaints are the most likely to be upheld of all categories and especially so for Anglo complaints. Anglo: 31% Latino: 18 Black: 17 The Officers:

Complaints against police officers almost perfectly reflected the ethnic makeup of the police force. Anglo officers, who are 65% of the force, received 64% of the complaints; Latinos, 19% of the force, received 21%, and blacks, 13% of the force, received 13%. But complaints against black officers were nearly twice as likely to be upheld as those against Anglo officers.

The racial/ethnic group of officers against which complaints were filed. Anglo: 64% Latino: 21 Black: 13 The percentage of all complaints filed that were upheld, broken down by racial/ethnic group of officer. Anglo: 15% Latino: 19 Black: 29 Source: L.A. Times computer analysis of Los Angeles Police Department misconduct complaint summaries furnished to Police Commission, for 1987-90.