Gates Told to Change Complaint Procedures : Police: The commission orders reforms in handling misconduct allegations, opposes civilian review board.

The Los Angeles Police Commission, saying the LAPD’s procedure for handling civilian complaints is “no longer adequate” and that the public has lost faith in the system, on Tuesday instructed Police Chief Daryl F. Gates to make sweeping changes in the way allegations of misconduct are accepted and investigated.

However, in a blow to civil rights activists, the commissioners decided against the establishment of a civilian review board that would look into complaints of police misconduct, saying such a board would unnecessarily politicize the process.

The board found that civilians are sometimes discouraged from lodging complaints against police officers, that commissioners are not involved enough in reviewing complaints of excessive force and that the public has little knowledge of how the system works. It also found that complaints of excessive force are sustained less frequently than other types of complaints.

In a 36-page report, the commission outlined changes that range from the creation of a “recidivist list” that will track officers who are the subject of repeated complaints, to the establishment of a “log-in system” that will enable the panel to monitor allegations of excessive force and racism by each police division.

In a policy shift that may cause consternation among the rank-and-file, the panel also instructed the department to assume that “all civilian witness statements are considered credible until proven otherwise.” Currently, in situations where there are no independent witnesses, the department generally takes the word of an officer over the word of a civilian.

“The complaint process is the pivotal contact between the citizens and the department,” said acting Commission President Melanie Lomax. “We have concluded that the process is, in fact, flawed because the system is inaccessible. . . . We want openness.”

Gates, meanwhile, said that he had no problem with the report, adding that he has made even more dramatic recommendations to the Christopher Commission, an independent panel that expects to conclude a three-month probe into the LAPD next week.

“It is far less than I have recommended to the Christopher Commission,” the chief told reporters. “It is clearly intended to deal with the perceptions people have about the complaint process and trying to improve that perception. . . . I find nothing in there that can’t be implemented.”

The report marks the first phase of the Police Commission’s investigation into the LAPD in the aftermath of the police beating of Rodney G. King. The final study, which will examine a wide range of other issues and may make additional recommendations regarding citizen complaints, will not be completed until after the Christopher Commission makes its findings public.

The Police Commission study, which examined civilian complaint procedures in four other cities, drew immediate praise from Mayor Tom Bradley, who ordered the probe shortly after the March 3 beating of King.

“The Police Commission’s evaluation of the citizen complaint process at our Police Department is a critical first step in our efforts to restore the public’s confidence in the department,” Bradley said Tuesday. He added that the report “addresses the pressing need to guarantee citizens that complaints are taken seriously.”

But the report drew criticism from Karol Heppe, executive director of the Police Misconduct Lawyers Referral Service and an ardent advocate of a civilian oversight board. Heppe complained that the commission simply instructed Gates to “strengthen the existing system”--a system that she said does not work.

“It definitely does not go far enough,” Heppe said. “They’re adding a couple of changes here and there but it’s not reform-oriented. It’s tucking in the corners a little bit and making things a little bit cleaner.”

However, the report made clear that the Police Commission, which consists of five civilians appointed by the mayor, believes in civilian oversight. In an interview, Lomax said she intends to press for more funding and staff for the commission so that the panel can take a more active role in reviewing misconduct cases.

While extra money to beef up the commission staff would inevitably have to be approved by the City Council, the commissioners said most of the recommendations contained in their report will not require any additional funding or changes in the law. They instructed Gates, who sat silently as the commissioners discussed the report, to come up with a plan for implementing the recommendations in 30 days.

The panel recommended 14 specific changes that it said are designed to make the process more open and efficient. Among them are:

* Requiring the department to make monthly reports to the commission on “all complaints of serious misconduct,” including all allegations of physical and verbal abuse and complaints which, if sustained, would result in at least a five-day suspension for an officer. The commission also wants to be notified of all lawsuits that stem from police misconduct complaints.

* Instructing department officials to assume that citizen complainants are telling the truth, and to look for additional evidence in cases that pit the word of an officer against the word of a citizen. The commission said too many of these one-on-one complaints are not sustained. Yet in an interview with The Times in May, Cmdr. Robert Gil, the LAPD’s chief spokesman, predicted that police work would “grind to a halt” if one-on-one complaints were sustained solely on the basis of what civilians say.

* Developing a complaint form that can be filled out by a civilian. In addition, the commission ordered that when a civilian asks an LAPD employee to fill out the form, “the citizen shall be given the option of having the process tape-recorded in its entirety,” and to evaluate the written complaint and correct it if necessary.

* Creating a log-in system that will record all citizen complaints and give each complaint a number so that it may be monitored as it moves through the investigation process. The commission cited public testimony “that complainants are being actively discouraged from making complaints” and said that there is “strong anecdotal evidence” to this effect.

* Conducting a “thorough and detailed audit” that would show whether police officers are discouraging residents who go into a station to file complaints. Lomax said the audit would include “test attempts,” in which commission staff members--acting under cover--file complaints and then follow them as they move through the system.

In the King case, for instance, King’s brother, Paul, attempted to file a misconduct complaint against the Foothill Division officers involved in the beating. However, a sergeant declined to initiate an investigation until a videotape of the beating was broadcast on local television.

In the following weeks, the Police Commission conducted a series of public hearings in which the commissioners invited residents to air their complaints about the department. Commissioners said they took that testimony into account in coming up with their recommendations.

“The board believes that the steps outlined--to expand the options for making complaints, to provide additional oversight and more effective monitoring of the system and to make information about the system more widely available--will assure the citizens of Los Angeles that their concerns are heard, understood and taken seriously, as well as enhance the integrity of the system,” the panel wrote.

The commissioners adopted the report at their Tuesday afternoon meeting by a 4-0 vote. Commissioner Anthony De Los Reyes, who attended his first meeting on Tuesday just hours after being confirmed by the City Council, abstained, saying he was not familiar enough with the issues to vote.

Commissioner Stanley Sheinbaum, meanwhile, said the changes “will go a long way” toward improving the process, as well as the image of the Police Department. While some of the recommendations are based on the experience of other cities, Sheinbaum said, others “are based purely on good sense.”

The commission’s report was prepared under the direction of Laurie Zelon, a Los Angeles lawyer who volunteered her time as a consultant to the commission. Working with a small staff of another lawyer and two researchers, Zelon examined civilian complaint procedures in New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, San Diego and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, as well as the LAPD’s system.

The complete report will focus on additional issues, including use of excessive force, lawsuits against the department and the LAPD command structure. While Lomax said commissioners wanted to address those matters after the Christopher Commission’s report comes out, she also said that she does not believe that the changes in the civilian complaint process will conflict with the Christopher Commission’s findings.

Lomax said that by focusing immediately on the civilian complaint process, commissioners believed they could quickly restore public confidence in the department.

“This is the way we can immediately impact the process,” she said. “We can address the issue of citizen confidence, and that is a major crippling impact of the King case.”

NEXT STEP

During the next 30 days, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates must come up with a plan for implementing the changes in the LAPD’s civilian complaint process ordered by the Police Commission on Tuesday. The commission, meanwhile, has indicated that it will probably return to the issue of citizen complaints when it releases its final study. In the preliminary report released Tuesday, the commission stated that it had deliberately limited its recommendations to changes that could be quickly put into place. “The board recognizes that more comprehensive changes may well be (necessary),” the report said.