Rights Group to Be ‘Tough’ on L.A. : Report: Amnesty International will begin three-day meeting with the release of what is expected to be heavy criticism of the police and the Sheriff’s Department.

Amnesty International, the worldwide human rights organization, begins a three-day meeting in Los Angeles today with the release of what is expected to be a highly critical report on the city’s Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The 67-page report is the culmination of an investigation of alleged police brutality conducted by a three-member Amnesty International team last fall. It deals with more than 40 cases of alleged torture, ill treatment or excessive force in both departments, according to Amnesty International officials.

“It is firm, tough and accurate,” said Jack Healey, executive director of Amnesty International USA, one of 55 member groups around the world. “It is going to be tough, like (Amnesty International) is on any government.”

Although the London-based group is keeping a tight lid on the report’s findings, one official said it describes the police beating of Rodney G. King as symptomatic of “a larger pattern of abuse” in Los Angeles law enforcement.

“This takes the shape of a report on something on South Africa or China,” said the official, who asked not to be identified. “We expect it is going to have international impact.”

The report includes a series of recommendations, including a call for a more active role by the federal government in monitoring complaints about excessive force in Los Angeles, the official said.

The findings will be released during the opening session of the U.S. chapter’s annual general meeting--the first such session to be held in Los Angeles--which will focus in large measure on human rights abuses in the United States.

In what Amnesty International officials describe as an unusual move, the opening address--and details of the police brutality investigation--will be delivered by Ian Martin, secretary general of the group’s international secretariat in London. Martin has addressed just one other U.S. general meeting, Healey said.

Martin is expected to attack the U.S. civil rights record in three main areas: police brutality, capital punishment and refugee policies. Healey said U.S. members view Martin’s attendance at the general meeting as an indication from the London headquarters of the seriousness of human rights problems in the United States.

“It has been a tough go for us here,” Healey said. “We have the government keeping the Haitians (refugees) out, we have the death penalty being practiced and we have police brutality problems.”

Amnesty officials said stepped-up scrutiny of the U.S. record is necessary because of a widespread perception around the world of the United States as a role model for the increasing number of emerging democracies after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.

“The United States has an appalling record in human rights abuses in some instances, and (Amnesty International) is concerned about what message that sends to the international community,” one official said.

The three-member team of investigators visited Los Angeles for a week last September in a highly publicized fact-finding mission. The investigators conducted about 20 meetings with politicians, police officials, prosecutors and civil rights groups. Investigators said at the time that they were looking not only at specific allegations of brutality but any evidence that excessive force is permitted, even unwittingly, by law enforcement officials.

Although the group’s visit received widespread attention because it came in the aftermath of the King beating, planning for the probe began months before that incident. Angela Wright, the organization’s principal researcher on the United States, first proposed the inquiry in 1990 after reading newspaper stories about questionable shootings by the Sheriff’s Department.

The focus on U.S. human rights issues has come as a surprise to many in Los Angeles, who, like many Americans, have long associated the renowned human rights organization with tedious probes and detailed reports on political repression and torture in Third World dictatorships.

But Amnesty International officials have gone to great lengths to cast the Los Angeles investigation in the broader context of their worldwide efforts. Officials said the report on Los Angeles will be based on the same international standards--such as U.N. conventions and resolutions--that are the basis of reports on repressive regimes.

Officials said it is not out of the ordinary for its researchers to study human rights abuses in Western democracies. Two years ago, Amnesty International reviewed court documents about alleged police brutality in Chicago, and recently issued statements about brutality claims in Greece and Great Britain.

“We report on everybody,” Healey said. “We look in the eye of the offender and tell the story.”

Despite expected attention on the police brutality report, officials said the main purpose of the three-day general meeting--to be held at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles--is to rejuvenate the 750 or so members who attend. Healey said the session, which includes a series of workshops and panel discussions, serves as a giant pep rally to inspire members “to kick the butts of people who are violating human rights.”

The organization considered moving the meeting from Los Angeles after the riots in April, Healey said, because some members feared unsettled times here might put a damper on the session. Some members also opposed Los Angeles--or any California location--because of the recent execution of Robert Alton Harris, he said.

In addition to Martin, the opening session, titled “Unity in a World of Diversity,” will include remarks by Mayor Tom Bradley and Angela Oh, president-elect of the Korean-American Bar Assn. An afternoon meeting today will honor Joan Baez and Ginetta Sagan, founders of the West Coast office of Amnesty International USA.