New Investigative Unit May Cast Eye on Sheriff’s Department : Law enforcement: A U.S. Civil Rights commissioner tells minority leaders that he will alert his agency to allegations of brutality by deputies.

In an indication that one more investigative group may turn its attention to the embattled Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, a U.S. Civil Rights commissioner on Friday told a coalition of minority leaders that he would alert his agency to their allegations of brutality by deputies.

William B. Allen said he considered the recent accusations of police misconduct by the Sheriff’s Department to be a “question of urgency and sensitivity” for the commission, which is studying relations between police and the public around the country.

Although he could not promise the activists that his fellow commissioners in Washington would conduct an independent probe, Allen said he was confident they would be interested in reviewing any complaints of excessive force.

“I expect out of this dialogue I will be able to carry information of considerable utility back to the Commission on Civil Rights,” Allen said before the meeting, which was held at a nonprofit immigration agency in East Los Angeles. “I don’t doubt but that there will be some follow-up, which will be heard in due course.”

Allen, a professor of government at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont who was appointed to a six-year term in 1987 by then-President Ronald Reagan, acknowledged that he is not a political bedfellow of the activists, who included representatives of the ACLU, El Rescate, Legal Aid, United Teachers of Los Angeles and City Councilman Michael Woo.

However, Allen, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, said he called the meeting because “we are concerned about upholding American law. In that, we’re all the same.”

Gloria Romero, chairwoman of the coalition of about 20 civic and professional groups calling for an independent probe of the Sheriff’s Department, said she was pleasantly surprised by Allen’s interest.

“The Board of Supervisors and (Sheriff Sherman) Block are not listening to us,” Romero said. “Here’s one meeting we didn’t have to beg for.”

Woo, who is also calling for an independent investigation of the department, said, “If the Board of Supervisors won’t act, we’ll find somebody who will.”

A Sheriff’s Deparment spokesman had no comment on the meeting. The department has come under unprecedented scrutiny because of four controversial shootings by deputies between Aug. 3 and Sept. 2. The county grand jury is investigating, as well as the FBI and Amnesty International.

In the aftermath of the shootings, Block handpicked his own citizens advisory committee, headed by civil rights attorney Gloria Allred and former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Julian Nava. To enhance the gender balance of what is now a 25-member panel, Block on Friday announced the addition of four new female members:

Dolores R. Encinas, president of the Los Angeles County Alliance for the Mentally Ill; Tony Stewart, president of the Altadena NAACP; Sheila J. Kuehl, managing director of the California Women’s Law Center, and June V. Povesi, regional director of the Office of Samoan Affairs.

County Supervisor Ed Edelman issued a statement saying he was “very disappointed” that Block did not allow supervisors to make appointments to the committee and that no independent staff was added.

But gay and lesbian activists, who had expressed disappointment that no homosexuals were on the panel, praised Block for appointing Kuehl.

In another development applauded by gay activists, it was disclosed that Robert M. Coggan, legal director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center, and lawyer Carol Anderson of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, were added to the a citizens’ panel headed by Mickey Kantor that is overseeing implementation of Christopher Commission reforms to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Gay activists had lobbied hard for all three appointments, said David M. Smith, spokesman for the gay community center.

Times staff writer Richard Simon contributed to this story.