Police Reform Is Moving Along

The Los Angeles Police Department reforms recommended by the Christopher Commission got their first full hearing last week before the City Council. And the process of reshaping the policies and management of the LAPD, although far from over, is at least off to a promising start.

The majority of the council endorsed some key recommendations of the commission, created in the tumultuous wake of the Rodney King beating in March. Several recommendations of the citizens panel call for changes in the City Charter; thus the council had to first approve the placing of Charter changes on the ballot.

The council did depart from a significant recommendation--one that would have made Police Commission decisions exempt from council veto. Not surprisingly, the council refused to strip itself of one of its powers.

But more significant than what the council didn’t do last week was what it did accomplish. One of the key findings of the Christopher Commission was that structural constraints within the Charter weaken the city’s ability to hold the chief and the department accountable to the public. Most of the measures approved by the council last week advance greater accountability while creating a better system of checks and balances.

The measures approved by the council for public ballot would drop extreme civil service protections for the police chief that amount to a lifetime-job guarantee; give the mayor authority to appoint police chiefs from lists of three candidates selected by the Police Commission; allow the elected council, as well as the appointed commission, to initiate a move to fire a police chief; limit the tenure of a police chief to two five-year terms. All of these need and deserve final approval from voters when they are placed on the ballot next year.

Although the council did not give the beleaguered Police Commission the full support it needs, the council did approve the establishment of a Police Commission executive officer to recruit and hire additional staff. That’s crucial if the commission is to be at all effective in its oversight of the department. There’s still much to do in advancing policies that promote community policing and eliminate biased behavior in the department. But it was a productive week.