The Uncritical Eye: Has the LAPD Really Changed? : Police: Civic leaders are ignoring some continuing problems with the LAPD.

April was a magic month for the Los Angeles Police Department. A jury lifted the curse of the Rodney G. King case. The blue knights slew a mythic dragon called the second riot. And Chief Willie L. Williams became more popular than Santa Claus.

The only sour note was the defeat of Proposition 1 on April 20. But if handful of voters, led by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., managed to rain on the police parade, both Michael Woo and Richard Riordan have promised sunnier skies and new police uniforms. “More police” is their common mantra.

This renaissance of the LAPD is the ironic product of the King-beating crisis. A year ago, nothing would have seemed less likely. Parker Center, accused of both brutality and cowardice, was besieged from all sides.

Now it enjoys unprecedented support from community leaders in every part of the city. Williams basks in the warm glow of the same editorial pages that roasted his predecessor. Mainstream demands for police reform are no longer heard.

But does the department deserve such uncritical adulation? Is this really a “kinder, gentler” LAPD, or is it just the same old paramilitary organization under new, more talented management?

Take the most obvious litmus test: The right to life of nonwhite males in encounters with LAPD patrol units.

Last November, an African-American tow-truck operator, John L. Daniels Jr., pulled into a service station on the corner of Florence and Normandie. While he was pumping gas, he was accosted by two white motorcycle officers. After an argument over his registration, Daniels became exasperated and attempted to leave. He was promptly shot dead by Douglas Iversen, a 15-year police veteran with a history of misconduct.

Residents of the area have described Daniels’ death as a public execution, and the city hastened to negotiate a $1.3-million settlement with his aggrieved family. Yet, Iversen remains on the force, subject only to “tactical retraining.” Williams and District Atty. Gilbert L. Garcetti have ignored demands for a criminal indictment.

More recently, the LAPD was also involved in the needless killing of Michael James Bryant, a popular Pasadena barber asphyxiated in the back seat of a police car after having been tasered, beaten, then hog-tied and laid on his stomach--in violation of official policy. The coroner ruled his death a homicide, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has urged a Justice Department investigation. Despite troubling evidence that Daniels and Bryant may be the “Rodney Kings” on Williams’ watch, the Police Commission has chosen to hide its head in the sand. It apparently prefers to “hear no evil, see no evil” rather than risk a confrontation that might embarrass Williams or expose the shortcomings of the Christopher Commission reforms.

Nor have the commissioners been any bolder in addressing persistent complaints of sexual harassment within the LAPD. Since 1988, at least six policewomen have charged colleagues with “acquaintance rape.” The details are lurid. One case involves alleged sodomy in the woman’s bathroom at the Police Academy; another, an alleged “sex pad” on the West Side.

In a case under investigation, a high-ranking officer is accused of assaulting a young, African-American patrolwoman. Her lawyer has protested to Williams about the “blame the victim” attitude adopted by heavy-handed Internal Affairs investigators. Quoting Plato, he wonders how we can expect “the police to rigorously and fairly police themselves?”

That remains the big question. It underlies the nearly 50-year struggle in Los Angeles, initiated by the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People at the end of World War II, for a civilian-review board. Progressive cities elsewhere have all opted for the independent investigation of police misconduct. Even New York City, with the Mollen Commission, is rapidly moving toward establishing an auditor general’s office to monitor police wrongdoing.

From this perspective, Williams’ proposals for “bold, community-based policing,” may be less of a panacea than a placebo. As matters now stand, the crucial “police community councils,” which will help the LAPD shape local policy, will be appointed, not elected, bodies. Like the current Neighborhood Watch groups, they will serve at the pleasure of division commanders, subject to censure or dismissal for the expression of politically incorrect ideas.

The police, in other words, will retain the freedom to define who represents the “community” as well as the parameters of its own accountability. This is more a strategy for building a political base than for genuinely sharing power. Police critics and civil libertarians will almost certainly be excluded.

Although Williams’ image radiates a comforting broad-mindedness, he continues to quarantine dialogue with controversial groups. He has, for example, rejected every opportunity to meet with organizers of the South-Central gang truce. He even snubbed the new NAACP president, Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., when the latter proposed to bring along some Watts gang members.

Perhaps, Los Angeles should be more cautious about embracing Williams as its civic messiah. In too many aspects, his new-model LAPD continues to smack of the ancient regime. Brutality and sexual-abuse cases routinely languish in the silent vaults of the Internal Affairs division. Community policing remains an unsatisfactory substitute for real accountability and community control.

Indeed, if we are not careful, the chief’s popularity could become the light that blinds us to police abuse. That halo over Parker Center may, after all, be just a giant doughnut.