Policy on Narcotics Officers’ Holdings Sparks Lawsuit : Disclosure: New rule requires Huntington Beach drug investigators to reveal their financial positions to guard against graft and corruption.

Huntington Beach police officers have filed a lawsuit challenging a new department policy that requires narcotics investigators to disclose their personal financial holdings.

The policy was implemented July 1 to guard against graft and corruption among narcotics officers, who frequently encounter large quantities of drugs and money.

“It’s really a system to keep honest people honest,” said Huntington Beach Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg. “But it’s not an indication that we have any bad cops.”

Narcotics officers within the department, however, complained in a suit filed last month that the policy is an invasion of their privacy rights and violates their employment contracts.

The narcotics officers did not return telephone calls Monday and the president of the Huntington Beach Police Officers Assn., the only union official authorized to discuss the matter, was unavailable for comment throughout the day.

The issue of requiring financial disclosure forms from narcotics officers is being faced by several Orange County law enforcement agencies. Similar policies have been enacted by the Santa Ana and Irvine police departments and the sheriff’s Regional Narcotics Suppression Program.

But the Huntington Beach police officers association is apparently the first to file suit over the policy.

Such policies, law enforcement officials say, are linked, in part, to a 1989 corruption scandal that involved an entire team of narcotics officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The team was found to have stolen tens of thousands of dollars during drug investigations.

“Officers in that position are exposed to a ton of pressure from bribes to skimming,” said Westminster Police Chief James Cook, who is president of the the Orange County Chiefs of Police & Sheriff’s Assn. “It’s very, very sensitive work. We have to take steps to make sure that they don’t get into trouble.”

Cook said the association has been reviewing the issue of financial disclosures over the past year and probably will make a decision on whether or not to support a policy in the fall.

Under Huntington Beach’s policy, all new narcotics officers must fill out the form, listing their assets and debts, including the value of homes and cars, along with the amount owed on loans.

Lowenberg said the forms are strictly internal documents and not public information.

Officers who were members of the narcotics team before the July 1 start date of the new policy are not required to file disclosure forms.

Initially, the policy also required that financial disclosure forms also be filled out for an officer’s spouse. That requirement was later dropped from the policy, which was adopted in June but implemented this month, Lowenberg said.

The suit, filed by the Huntington Beach Police Officers Assn. on behalf of the officers, contends that the policy violates the association’s labor contract with the city. The suit also alleges that other department directives violated the contract on issues including overtime hours for communication employees and personal use of take-home department vehicles.

Lowenberg said the officers are not being asked “to do anything that management isn’t willing to do,” noting that he and other high-ranking officers in the department already fill out annual financial disclosure forms.

The reaction to Huntington Beach’s policy was mixed among law enforcement officials throughout the county.

Anaheim Police Chief Joseph T. Molloy said he thought the policy was mostly “symbolic in nature” and that corruption within police work is best prevented by strong supervision and the rotation of officer assignments.

“But if somebody’s going to be a thief, then they’re going to be a thief. Writing something down on a piece of paper is not going to do much,” Molloy said.

He added, however, that the policy might “serve as a reminder for the officers” by letting them know that their actions are constantly being reviewed.

Ralph Lochridge, a spokesman from the Drug Enforcement Administration in Los Angeles, said that he also believed that financial disclosure forms would not necessarily prevent corruption.

Lochridge said the topic of financial disclosures “is an emotional issue” within law enforcement and that such policies seem to “single out narcotics officers . . . (and) puts on a blanket of guilt where one doesn’t really exist.”

But if a policy is adopted, Lochridge said, it should be applied to all officers, not just those in drug enforcement. The DEA, he added, does not have a financial disclosure policy, but does require random drug testing of its agents.

Orange County Sheriff’s Capt. Tim Simon, who heads the regional narcotics unit, said that he has not encountered much opposition to the financial disclosure policy that has been imposed on the county’s premiere drug task force.

“I haven’t heard much grumbling, but that doesn’t mean that they might not be harboring some resentment,” Simon said. “It’s a very individual thing.”