Why Purging the LAPD of Bias Won’t Be Easy

Within the Los Angeles Police Department, there is gender-based bias and widespread sexual harassment. Many officers openly express anti-gay and anti-lesbian feelings. Racial prejudice, personal and institutional, is still a problem.

Anyone skeptical of the truth of these assertions need only attend the City Council Personnel Committee hearings currently in progress. The first-person horror stories, ranging from improper comments to rape, being told to council members are appalling, especially in light of the LAPD’s efforts to recruit more women. Even more appalling is the message implied by the reported responses of management to these complaints: We have more important things to do.

The history of the department’s leadership during the last 50 years--years of momentous changes in society--helps to explain why the LAPD has dragged its feet in dealing with hateful attitudes. It also provides an answer.

William H. Parker, who served as chief from 1950-66, was perhaps the nation’s foremost voice on how to prevent police corruption and promote professionalism. Under him, the LAPD became a model for big-city departments worldwide. Functional specialization and operational efficiency were its hallmarks.

But Parker’s view of society was rooted in the late 19th Century. Women officers, though they had demonstrated a capacity to assume broader responsibilities during World War II when their male counterparts were fighting overseas, were kept firmly tucked into secondary roles, with limited status and opportunity.

Edward M. Davis, chief during most of the 1970s, was also nationally known as an innovator in organizational and operational matters. Under him, a nascent community-based policing organization and philosophy took shape. Attention was paid to race relations, both inside and outside the department, resulting in some progress. But when women officers began pressing for equal status, Davis reportedly said that he would put women in radio cars when the Los Angeles Rams put them on their offensive line. When the city agreed to hire women as full-duty officers as part of a settlement of a lawsuit, Davis stopped hiring officers.

Daryl F. Gates, who succeeded Davis, had been Parker’s protege. As such, his organizational philosophy and approach to policing largely reflected the ideas of his mentor. This mind-set hurt efforts to improve race relations within and outside the department and threw up new hurdles for women officers.

Early in Gates’ tenure, he reluctantly agreed to a “unisex” hiring program to return the department’s force levels to those before Davis stopped hiring. His statements reflected his reservations about the capability of women to be full-duty officers. While his personal-staff selections suggested attention to matters of race and gender, Gates failed to hold his commanders accountable for the lack of diversity within their commands.

Given this history of leadership, coupled with a Police Commission unwilling to demand better, is it surprising that bias and discrimination and harassment still occur in the LAPD?

But just as leadership allowed these attitudes to fester, leadership can reform, even eliminate, them.

The City Council committee hearings have produced a consensus that those in charge should be held accountable for sexual harassment within the LAPD. Some council members have contended that authority for investigating harassment complaints and disposing of them should be removed from the chief of police. Without outside direction and assistance, one council member suggested, reform will be impossible.

The testimony of those who felt victimized twice--once by harassers, then by the department--makes clear the need for independent, high-level monitoring of the process. There is a clear need to not only ensure that management appropriately respond to complaints but that it also protect the complainant from retaliation, unwarranted invasions of privacy and ostracism.

But responsibility for elimination of the effects of bias and discrimination must remain with the chief. Denying Willie L. Williams full authority to address the issues denies the public and their representatives the opportunity to hold him accountable for doing so.

Williams has indicated his willingness to be held accountable. He has made it clear that sexual harassment is unacceptable. He has even backed up his words with action by correcting the inadequate responses of subordinates to such complaints. He has proposed the establishment of a unit composed of specially trained investigators, reporting directly to his office, to investigate allegations of discrimination and sexual harassment. He has vowed appropriate and swift action when the charges prove true.

Also, the legal machinery for holding Williams responsible is in place. In 1992, voters approved changes in the City Charter giving the chief greater latitude in holding his subordinates accountable. Williams should be encouraged to do so.

In keeping with the principle that those in charge should be accountable, the Police Commission must assume full oversight responsibility. At the very least, it should set up a mechanism that assures confidentially and keeps tabs on complaints as they move from investigation to judgment. Commission members should be available to hear complainants’ appeals or those of other parties. They should regularly review the performance of the chief and his department in correcting discrimination and harassment.

It is time the City Council and mayor work together to make available the resources needed to deal with misconduct in the LAPD. The relatively few dollars involved would be a pittance when compared with the harmful consequences of anything less.