Installing Linchpins of Reform : Ombudsman, review panel will oversee complaints against Sheriff’s Dept.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Sheriff’s Department are about to take another critical step toward police reform in Los Angeles, with their selection of an independent county ombudsman and five-member police review panel. Both positions are being created to handle citizen complaints against Sheriff’s Department personnel. Both positions will play a critical role in shaping future police-community relations in Los Angeles.

The ombudsman and the review panel, composed of retired judges, are important parts of the recommendations put forth in the report of the commission chaired by Judge James G. Kolts in 1992. That report followed an exhaustive seven-month investigation into a number of controversial shootings and found disturbing evidence of excessive force and lax discipline within the Sheriff’s Department.

Since then, Sheriff Sherman Block has started the reform process by upgrading departmental standards and training procedures--changes noted approvingly in the most recent six-month progress report, issued last October, by commission special counsel Merrick J. Bobb. Another report is due in April.

Before that report is issued, the next step--a system to handle citizen complaints thoroughly and expeditiously--should be in place. That includes the county ombudsman, with the power to make inquiries into the progress or result of a particular investigation and, if needed, ask for a review by the judges’ panel.

The four finalists for ombudsman include three Californians, two with law-enforcement backgrounds, and an out-of-stater with previous experience as an ombudsman. The candidates reflect the region’s diversity and include African American and Latino men and a woman.

The supervisors and the sheriff should keep in mind that whoever is chosen must be able to work comfortably with our highly diverse community. Both the ombudsman and the review panel should, if they have the authority they need, bolster the public’s faith in a Sheriff’s Department that needs to stay on the road to restored credibility.