Chief’s Balancing Act: Discipline and Morale : LAPD: Williams is under fire from officers for beefing up Internal Affairs. But critics say he needs to do more to win public trust.

When Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams recently announced that he was beefing up the department’s Internal Affairs Division, many rank-and-file officers saw it as another blow to their integrity: “Looks like the beatings will continue until morale improves,” one senior LAPD officer said.

Then, just two days after beginning his new Internal Affairs program, Williams took it from the other side. When he testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights last week, his appearance was bracketed by a host of critics who argued that the LAPD needs to toughen its internal discipline.

“Despite the positive efforts of the new police chief, there is still police brutality in Los Angeles,” said one witness, Stewart Kwoh, executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California.

As those reactions suggest, Williams has to perform a delicate balancing act as he tries to impose a new system of discipline on the sprawling and demoralized LAPD. If he tilts toward public concern about lax discipline, he risks offending an already embattled rank and file. If he favors his officers, he risks alienating the public, whose affection and support the chief has aggressively courted.

So far, Williams has seemed more willing to take on his officers than to offend the public. Under his plan that went into effect last week, up to 50 more Internal Affairs investigators will be hired to handle all citizen complaints. This would gradually replace the current system, under which only the most serious complaints are referred to Internal Affairs while the rest are handled by commanding officers in the department’s far-flung bureaus.

Williams’ move has stirred considerable dissent in the ranks. Critics say the department’s disciplinary system is already overbearing and removes scores of officers from their duties to face or staff disciplinary boards, depleting the ranks of on-duty police even in cases where the charges ultimately are not sustained.

What’s more, the punishments meted out by the department strike many officers as being arbitrary or out of proportion to the alleged offenses. An accused officer can be taken out of the running for a promotion during an investigation even if the charges are ultimately dismissed.

One result of the system, many officers say, is a growing reluctance on their part to confront suspects and make arrests, for fear that disciplinary charges could result. That fear is especially pronounced in situations that may call for officers to use their batons. In the wake of the state and federal prosecutions of the officers who beat Rodney G. King, the baton is now widely known in the ranks as “the indictment stick.”

Arrest figures for major crimes seem to bear out the contention that officers are holding back. Arrests for “Part 1” crimes, the most serious offenses, have plummeted during the last two years, reversing steady gains made in the late 1980s. Last year, LAPD officers made fewer than 64,000 arrests for those crimes, the fewest since 1988. Overall arrests are plunging even faster.

“We’re at a time when officers are afraid,” said Officer Eddie Camarillo, who represents colleagues at their disciplinary hearings. “What the department wants is active officers, but the more active you are, the more likely you are to get complaints.”

Another officer, who asked not to be identified, was even more blunt: “If this keeps up, we’ll be spending more time investigating each other than making arrests. That doesn’t help the public, and it doesn’t help officers.”

Internal Affairs officials counter that good officers should have nothing to fear from the disciplinary system. “We don’t want officers to be afraid to do their job,” said Capt. Eric Lillo, the officer in charge of Internal Affairs. “But it’s very important that officers understand that there are ways to do the job and ways not to.”

Lillo says the department under Chief Williams is determined to rein in excessive force, and he cites such changes as the dissemination of complaint forms and the creation of a 24-hour hot line for reporting misconduct. But some critics charge that there is little evidence that the disciplinary system is cracking down on police brutality.

Neither Internal Affairs officials nor police union leaders can cite any examples of an officer fired for excessive force since Timothy E. Wind, one of the four charged in connection with the King beating, was dismissed two years ago. Some attribute this to officers showing restraint. Others view it as a failure of the disciplinary system to confront officers accused of brutality.

For the most part, departmental discipline has centered on an array of less sensational charges--some of which have drawn fire from officers who consider the punishments far worse then the offenses. For instance:

* Metro Division Officer David Bergstrom recently chased and arrested a car thief without any harm to himself or the thief. Nevertheless, Bergstrom was disciplined because he had failed to obey a sergeant who ordered that the pursuit be called off moments before the suspect ran out of gas.

* Officer Musa Camara, who defends other officers in their disciplinary hearings, was investigated for seven months and removed from duty for two months because he failed to report for one of the hearings. When a Board of Rights reviewed the matter last month, it determined that, for all the department’s investigating, Camara deserved only a written reprimand. As a result, the department was forced to award Camara back pay for the time he was removed from duty.

* And, in a case that has raised eyebrows even among seasoned critics of the disciplinary system, an officer who allowed a police dog to breed with his neighbor’s German shepherd was charged with misuse of city property. He received a written reprimand.

At least in serious cases, responsibility for discipline in the LAPD’s justice system lies primarily with boards of rights. Selected from high-ranking officers--all panel members hold the rank of captain or higher--they are convened to hear charges against an officer and to decide whether punishment is warranted. An advocate from the Internal Affairs Division presents the evidence against the officer, who is defended by a colleague on the force known as a defense representative, and sometimes by an attorney as well.

If board members find the officer guilty, they decide the appropriate punishment, which the officer can appeal to the police chief.

The last two years have seen an explosion of trial boards--each of which demands that three high-ranking department officials leave their posts for the duration of the hearing. The hearings can last a few hours or many days. On average, however, they last two days.

In the 1980s, the department rarely held more than 50 hearings a year. Almost immediately after the King beating, however, the number began skyrocketing. Last year, 143 officers were tried by boards of rights.

Police experts acknowledge that Williams’ moves to beef up Internal Affairs and field more citizen complaints are unlikely to win him many friends among his officers. But many longtime critics of the LAPD believe that the department had become so abusive that stern measures are in order.

James Fyfe, a Temple University professor who has written extensively and critically about the LAPD under former Chief Daryl F. Gates, said Williams needs to move aggressively to show the public that the department is investigating citizen complaints. Some officers may complain, Fyfe said, but it is an essential ingredient to rebuilding public trust in the LAPD.

Former Newark Police Chief Hubert Williams, now director of the Washington-based Police Foundation, agrees.

“Even if morale is an issue, the question is what is in the best interests of the Police Department and the citizens it serves,” Williams said. “That’s what Chief Williams has to consider, and that’s what has to be the basis for his decision.”

William C. Violante, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, has a far different view of what is best. He says the department’s determination to beef up discipline is only making the problem worse. A better, more cost-effective solution would be to create a system of binding arbitration to devote additional resources to training, Violante said.

“By taking and putting more police officers in Internal Affairs, that’s not going to accomplish anything,” Violante said. “Where we need to pay more attention is training. That’s where you deal with the issues that later show up as disciplinary problems.”

In fact, even as Williams was moving to increase Internal Affairs staffing, he also announced plans to shift some officers to training recruits. Union leaders want far more in that regard, however, and they are pressing for large-scale retraining programs of the department’s 7,000-plus officers, not just its recruits.

Declining Arrests In the two years since the Rodney G. King beating, Los Angeles police officerssay they have become more reluctant to confront suspects, for fear they might face disciplinary charges. One result, according to officers, is that arrests have dropped off. Below, annual arrests for Part 1 crimes, the most serious offenses. Part 1 Arrests In thousands 1988: 60.8 1989: 68.8 1990: 70.6 1991: 67.1 1992: 63.7 Part 1 crimes include: homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, burglary / theft from automobiles, burglary / theft from persons and other thefts. Source: Los Angeles Police Department