Police Not So Quick to Accept LAPD Report : Christopher Commission: Some say their small size and structure help them avoid many of the abuses linked to their big-city counterparts.

Less than a week after the Christopher Commission issued its stinging critique of the Los Angeles Police Department, a fresh copy of the thick document sat on Capt. Clarence Chapman’s desk in the West Hollywood Sheriff’s station.

Chapman received the report from his boss, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block, with a note urging him to “carefully scrutinize” the station’s operation.

The report, sent to high ranking officers throughout the sheriff’s office, has particular significance for West Hollywood, where department officials have struggled for years to overcome the perception that its deputies routinely harass gays in a city where nearly a third of the 38,000 residents are gay.

Indeed, many of the panel’s recommendations--especially those calling for police sensitivity training and an independent panel to review complaints of deputy misconduct--have been applied in recent years to the Sheriff’s Department in West Hollywood.

“We are at the cutting edge of community policing,” Chapman said. “A lot of things in what the Christopher Commission report recommends we are already doing.”

In other Westside communities, police were not so quick to embrace the report. Some refused to even discuss the subject. And those who agreed to speak said there are few similarities between their small municipal departments and the huge metropolitan police force. They said their size and structure help them avoid many of the abuses linked to their big-city counterparts.

Beverly Hills Police Chief Marvin Iannone, after agreeing to discuss the commission’s findings this week, canceled an interview Wednesday after he became ill. The leaders of the department’s influential police union all declined to comment on the report.

Detective Shane Talbot, chairman of the Santa Monica Police Officers Assn., the union for the 171-officer department, said many of the findings in the report could be applied to the overall profession of law enforcement. But Talbot said putting them in place in small departments, such as Santa Monica, may not be practical.

Culver City Police Chief Ted Cooke declined to respond to numerous requests for comment on the Christopher Commission report.

But municipal officials who monitor the activities of the police departments in Santa Monica, Culver City and Beverly Hills, say many of the Christopher Commission’s suggestions are already in place in the smaller cities.

For example, the report concluded that officers should be doing more “community policing,” through such things as added foot patrols. They have long been a staple of police work in those cities.

“You can hardly go down a street in Beverly Hills without seeing some police presence,” said Beverly Hills Mayor Vicki Reynolds. “This community feels protected. And the department has done a very good job with public relations.”

Still, the city’s recent struggles over the budget have raised questions about the department’s size and the deployment of its 133 officers, triggering City Council members to call for a management audit of the force. Reynolds said the city wants to see “an independent evaluation” before making any changes in the department. The mayor added that she would expect the audit team to consider the relevancy of some of the Christopher panel’s recommendations.

In Santa Monica, foot patrols can be seen in the Pico Neighborhood and along the Third Street Promenade.

“It’s the new way of law enforcement, getting them out of their cars,” said Chief James Keane. “It’s working for us.”

Lt. Bill Burck, spokesman for the Culver City department, said that police already have in place some of the reforms suggested by the panel. For example, he said that 70% of the department’s 117-person force is deployed in the field. Nearly a dozen officers patrol city parks and neighborhoods by bicycle, and the department has numerous outreach programs through which police visit schools to counsel youths on truancy and drug problems.

Some of the recommendations in the Christopher Commission report on reforms in the 8,300-officer Los Angeles police force are not applicable to the smaller cities. One recommendation that has been given a lot of notice is limiting the tenure of chief to two five-year terms. In the three smaller Westside cities, the chief serves at the discretion of a city administrator and council and can be fired for a number of reasons.

Santa Monica had its own Christopher Commission-type study into allegations of racism within the department. The December, 1987, report concluded that, although racially motivated problems exist, racism does not permeate the system. The study was prepared by Nat Trives, a former mayor and police sergeant in Santa Monica.

It recommended changes in the formula used to promote officers, and in 1989, the department removed a so-called “promotability” rating by supervisors that was considered too subjective.

In 1988, six black officers filed suit against the city alleging that the department had fired or failed to promote blacks and other minorities because of racial bias.

The case is still pending, according to City Atty. Robert M. Myers.

There are still no minorities above the rank of sergeant. However, since 1988 the number of minority sergeants has increased from one to six. Earlier this month, City Manager John Jalili announced the hiring of an African-American, James T. Butts, deputy chief of the Inglewood Police Department, to replace Keane, who is retiring in September after 13 years as head of the department.

The Sheriff’s Department, after receiving complaints about hiring procedures, eliminated questions about sexual orientation from its psychological tests. The department also was allowed to staff recruitment booths at West Hollywood’s annual gay pride parade in June.

And members of the gay and lesbian community were invited to participate in giving sensitivity training to new deputies.

As a result of the changes, the hot line number of the city’s Public Safety Commission, which was set up in part to take reports of deputy misconduct, did not receive one such complaint from gays last year, according to John Altschul, commission chairman.

Santa Monica and Beverly Hills also provide officers with cultural awareness training.

But some community activists, although applauding efforts that have been made, said more still needs to done.

“The problems experienced in Los Angeles don’t seem to be limited to Los Angeles,” said Norm Curry, president of the Santa Monica-Venice Chapter of the NAACP. “Reviewing (racial) complaints can be very frustrating, he said. “We seem to get the same results--that incidents are always justified.”

Beverly Hills City Councilman Robert Tanenbaum said any city that fails to grasp the underlying message of the commission’s report may be doomed to repeat many of the Los Angeles Police Department’s mistakes. He said Beverly Hills and other small cities should have a civilian commission to review cases of alleged police misconduct.

“Our justice system can’t function if the guardians can’t be trusted,” said Tanenbaum, who is running for Los Angeles county district attorney in next year’s election. “I believe you cannot have police investigating police. An independent police commission would remove a cloud, if any cloud exists.”

Citizen complaints against police in Culver City and Beverly Hills are handled internally without citizen review. Santa Monica has a form of civilian review for officers being disciplined. The punishment is decided by a group of police administrators, but officers can appeal the decision to the Personnel Board, which is composed of private citizens. The board has the authority to change the department’s decision.

In West Hollywood, complaints are investigated internally. The Public Safety Commission can hold its own investigation of complaints and make recommendations, but it has no authority to discipline deputies.

Although municipal officials in Culver City say there is little need to make reforms in their Police Department, the force has experienced its share of problems.

William Schaub, of West Los Angeles, was awarded $75,000 last April in an out-of-court settlement, which stemmed from a federal suit he filed against the city in 1989.

Schaub charged that Culver City police officers used excessive force when they arrested him. The police tried to pull Schaub over for expired registration tags, but Schaub sped away and didn’t stop until he crashed into a stop sign after an extensive chase, according to police reports.

Council members said the city would have fought the lawsuit had it not been for the timing of the scheduled jury trial. Because it was to begin near the height of the publicity surrounding the Rodney King beating, city officials felt any jury would be biased against the police, and instead settled out of court.

Another part of that lawsuit, which focuses on the department’s system of placing restrictions on the way citizens can file police misconduct complaints, was dropped during the settlement.

In May, a former West Hollywood sheriff’s deputy, who claimed he was fired because he is gay, filed a $90-million suit against the department. And in a separate case, a reserve deputy who pleaded no contest to criminal charges of assaulting a gay man after a routine traffic stop was placed on two years’ probation and ordered to pay damages. Department officials point to the case as an example of how vigorously they pursue complaints of deputy misconduct.

“In the city of West Hollywood . . . they really have done a much better job over the last couple of years than anything the gay and lesbian community has seen from law enforcement in Los Angeles,” said Roger Coggan, director of legal services at the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center and one of the people invited to testify before the Christopher Commission.

But, despite the improvement, some deputies feel that abuses still occur. One, who asked not to be identified, cited a recent case where a sergeant in the department allegedly showered a transvestite with verbal abuse.

“Sexual orientation jokes still happen,” the deputy said. “No matter how strong the gay movement is here, it’s not mainstream in America. And, if it’s not in the mainstream in America, it’s not mainstream in the department, because it follows behind the trends.”