Christopher Panel Staff Urges Action : LAPD: Members ask city to press on with reforms despite cost restraints.

Senior staff members from the panel that investigated the Los Angeles Police Department after the Rodney G. King beating on Tuesday urged the Los Angeles Police Commission to ride herd aggressively over the department and push for improvements in officer training.

The newly appointed police commissioners took office amid much public concern about Mayor Richard Riordan’s commitment to the implementation of reforms recommended by the Christopher Commission, the blue-ribbon panel that scrutinized the LAPD and issued a historic analysis of excessive force by officers.

On Tuesday, police commissioners and representatives of Riordan’s office were quick to endorse the reform package and pledge their commitment for carrying it out.

“The mayor is fully committed to this process,” said William C. Violante, Riordan’s deputy mayor for public safety. “It’s very important that the recommendations are implemented.”

Gary Greenebaum, president of the Police Commission, agreed. “We need to identify the most important things to move forward with quickly, and we need to take action,” said Greenebaum, who was instrumental in pushing for public approval of the ballot measure that implemented a number of the Christopher Commission reforms.

Although the Christopher Commission--nicknamed for its chairman, now Secretary of State Warren Christopher--issued the report on the LAPD and the use of force by police officers, it does not have any continuing role in monitoring the department. That job falls to the Board of Police Commissioners, five civilians appointed by Riordan to oversee the department and its chief, Willie L. Williams.

At the urging of Riordan’s staff and the Police Commission, senior staffers from the Christopher Commission spent two hours Tuesday reviewing the reform package that they helped craft. Gilbert T. Ray, the executive director of the Christopher Commission, acknowledged that some of the reform proposals are expensive, but he urged the commissioners to press ahead.

“In the short term, you’re going to have to patch and do what you can,” Ray said, adding that commissioners will need to lobby City Hall for the money to carry out longer-term reforms.

Louise A. LaMothe, a deputy counsel to the Christopher Commission, told members of the Police Commission that training will be the key to producing better officers.

“I would focus on field training very strongly,” LaMothe said in response to a question from Police Commission Vice President Deirdre Hill, who asked each of the Christopher Commission representatives for their advice on the department’s most pressing priorities. LaMothe said the Christopher Commission members found a woeful lack of cultural sensitivity training in the department and faulted the LAPD for entrusting field training to officers with inadequate skills or interest in that area.

Several members of the Christopher Commission staff highlighted the need for the Police Commission to have an inspector general, a person empowered to conduct investigations of the Police Department. That position has not been created because of budget obstacles.

Christopher Commission staffers also urged the police commissioners to put a civilian member on all police boards of rights, the panels that consider disciplinary charges against police officers. Williams said the department was negotiating that point with the union that represents police officers, but he added that both sides are nearly in agreement at this point.