Major LAPD Changes Weighed, Hahn Says : Police: Christopher Commission will reportedly recommend new policy on complaints and discipline.

The Christopher Commission, entering the most crucial phase of its investigation of the Los Angeles Police Department, is considering sweeping changes in how the department handles citizens’ complaints and disciplines its officers, City Atty. James K. Hahn said Thursday after testifying before the panel.

Hahn said he told the panel that a “top-to-bottom” review of officers’ discipline is needed, including possible changes in the City Charter that could extend the time frame in which officers could be punished for acts of excessive force that result in multimillion-dollar judgments against the city.

“I think everything ought to be re-examined just to make sure there isn’t a better way of doing it than the way we have been doing it,” Hahn said, adding that the commissioners, through their questions, indicated they are “already thinking that way.”

Mayor Tom Bradley, Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner and Hahn each testified before the commission in private Thursday. The citizens panel was formed by the mayor and Police Chief Daryl F. Gates in the aftermath of the March 3 Rodney G. King police beating. Gates will testify June 14.

Today, the panel will begin debating what to write in its unprecedented review of the Police Department, making specific recommendations about policies that contribute to use of excessive force. Their report is due July 1.

During his 30-minute session at the commission’s downtown offices, Bradley asked the panel members to “stay on” after their report is finished, and help implement the recommendations. If the request is honored, he said, the report is less likely to “sit on some shelf or in somebody’s desk.”

Commission Chairman Warren Christopher, in a brief news conference, said it was possible that the panel would remain intact beyond July 1 or reconvene at a later date to monitor implementation of its recommendations. He said the report would probably be followed by additional documents, such as backup materials.

Christopher seemed to confirm Hahn’s impression of which way the panel is heading, hinting that its recommendations will include changes in the complaint system.

The commissioners, he said, are looking at a “whole range” of possible changes, including where the complaints are made, how they are processed and by whom.

“It has been clear that there is great dissatisfaction,” with the current system, Christopher said.

The mayor, Reiner and Hahn testified in a small, unadorned conference room in a suite of offices donated to the commission. Besides Christopher and eight of his colleagues--Commissioner Willie R. Barnes was out of town--about two dozen commission staff members were present at Thursday’s meeting. They sat in rows behind a square, makeshift conference table.

Each of the elected officials had to take an oath, swearing to tell the truth. Their testimony was recorded, but not transcribed.

Christopher, adhering to a strict timetable, allotted 30 minutes for Bradley to answer questions. Hahn and Reiner each spoke for an hour.

All three have been at the center of the King controversy in one way or another. The mayor has openly called for Gates to step down--a request the chief has rejected. Reiner, whose office is prosecuting the four police officers accused of assaulting King, has been criticized for rarely bringing criminal charges against officers in police abuse cases.

Commissioners did not question Reiner about his office’s record on prosecuting cases involving excessive force, but as in the case of Hahn, queried him in general terms about the law, a source familiar with the investigation said.

Hahn’s office defends the Police Department when citizens file lawsuits charging abuse. His office also opposed Bradley’s Police Commission when it tried to suspend Gates.

At the conclusion of his testimony, Hahn told reporters that he did not think the Police Department was “out of control.”

“The number of claims and the number of lawsuits against the Police Department have been dropping in the last five years,” Hahn said. “I don’t think that paints a picture of a department out of control.”

Hahn said much of his testimony focused on how the city disciplines employees and what could be done to improve the process.

In a telephone interview Thursday afternoon, Hahn said he told the commissioners that the City Charter only allows police officers to be disciplined within a year of the alleged offense. However, he said, several years can go by before a case is resolved in the courts and a jury determines if the officers were at fault.

Last year, the city paid $11.3 million in awards and settlements for 31 police-related suits alleging excessive force, false arrest, false imprisonment, violation of civil rights and wrongful deaths.

Hahn said the commissioners did not “grill” him, but asked “good questions.”

“It was obvious to me that (the) commission has heard a lot of testimony (and are) very much up to speed on the issues involved,” he said. “Nobody stuck to any scripts today.” It was a “free exchange of ideas.”

By contrast, Reiner ignored reporters as he arrived at the commission offices, and after an hour of testimony, slipped into a freight elevator and left the building unnoticed, according to commission staff members.

His office later said that neither he nor anyone else would be available to comment on his testimony because of the pending King trial.

Bradley was more open and praised the commission.

“I believe (the commission’s) work is critical to the future of this city,” Bradley said. “I will do everything in my power to ensure that the recommendations are taken seriously.”

In addition to hearing testimony from the three officials, the commissioners also held a closed-door session with Police Cmdr. Mike Bostic, who is coordinating the department’s investigation of its training program, also begun after the King beating.

Bostic said he was asked only “about training and what I was doing.”

He acknowledged to reporters that “some changes need to be made” in the department’s training procedures, but insisted nothing major is called for, only “some adjustments.”

Police Academy courses in such areas as tactics, use of force and human relations, now taught separately, may need to be combined, he said.

In other developments Thursday, the state Supreme Court refused to hear pleas by two of the officers charged in the King beating that they were wrongly denied a preliminary hearing after the county grand jury indicted them.

The justices, in a brief order, let stand a March ruling by Superior Court Judge Gary Klausner denying the hearing under newly enacted provisions of Proposition 115. Only Justice Stanley Mosk voted to grant a hearing on the issue--three short of the number required on the seven-member court.

Under a 1978 ruling by the high court, defendants indicted by grand juries were granted the right to a preliminary hearing--the same privilege given to defendants charged directly by prosecutors. But Proposition 115, passed by the voters in June, 1990, withdrew that right for indicted defendants.

In a petition for review, attorneys for Sgt. Stacey C. Koon and Officer Laurence M. Powell contended that it was unconstitutional to deny the right to a preliminary hearing to certain defendants but retain it for others.

Prosecutors, they said, should not be allowed to choose whether to bring a case through a grand jury indictment or through a preliminary hearing. Allowing such a procedure violates the constitutional right to due process and equal protection of the law, the attorneys said.

The lawyers noted that prosecutors enjoy an advantage by proceeding through the grand jury, where the prosecution controls the evidence that is presented to the panel. In contrast, in a preliminary hearing, a defendant is entitled to be represented by counsel, testify in person and confront accusers.

The case is the first to challenge Proposition 115 on these grounds, and attorney Patrick Thistle, who represents Powell, said he is considering appealing the decision through the federal courts as a violation of his client’s constitutional rights.

“This just stacks the cards on the side of the prosecution,” Thistle said. “Taking a case to the grand jury (without providing a post-indictment preliminary hearing) deprives the defendant of his fundamental right to confront his accusers before the trial, to present evidence, to have counsel and to see the prosecution’s case against him.

“The grand jury is nothing but a prosecutor’s tool. The defendant has no right to even be present.”

Koon’s lawyer, Darryl Mounger, could not be reached for comment.

Koon and Powell were charged in the indictment along with Officers Timothy E. Wind and Theodore J. Briseno.

Times staff writers Eric Malnic, Louis Sahagun and Lois Timnick contributed to this story.