LAPD Slow to Enact Many Christopher Panel Reforms : Police: Money, bureaucratic snafus are main barriers. Oversight commission says commitment is still strong.

Dozens of Los Angeles Police Department reforms recommended more than two years ago by the Christopher Commission remain stalled by budget shortfalls, bureaucratic snafus, stalled labor negotiations and, in some cases, a lack of resolve, according to police officials and department documents.

But members of the city’s Police Commission and department insiders say that the push for reform has been reinvigorated in recent months, propelled by pressure from the commission and by a growing trust between department officials and the commissioners.

“There was some waffling in the beginning,” Police Commission President Gary Greenebaum said. “But we’ve made clear that we will not be sidestepped on these issues, and things are starting to pop.”

The 100-plus recommendations of the Christopher Commission--named for its co-chairman, Warren Christopher, who is now secretary of state--have become the guiding document of the city’s police reform advocates. They see it as the standard for judging the LAPD’s willingness to respond to the communities it serves. As a result, the halting progress of the reforms has alternately encouraged and angered department critics.

Among the reform proposals still not in place:

* A recommendation that the LAPD more carefully track officers’ complaint histories, which the department proposes to do using a computer system, has been stalled by budget hang-ups. Police commissioners say they intend to break the impasse by funding the system out of their budget.

* A proposal to add a civilian member to police disciplinary boards was approved by city voters, but it is opposed by many officers. Two years after voters backed the idea, it is still in the planning stages.

* A department order dealing with a controversial practice of forcing suspects to lie on the pavement while they are searched still has not been distributed to officers, even though the LAPD said in late 1992 that it was forthcoming.

“People like myself are very disappointed in the pace of reforms,” said Joe R. Hicks, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles. “We have a chief who certainly sends a better message from the top, but this is a culturally entrenched bureaucracy that moves very slowly, that is very resistant to change.”

The reasons for delays are varied. In most cases, money is the chief obstacle.

But recent analyses prepared by Police Commission staff also cite confusion about some proposals and the need to resolve personnel questions with the Police Protective League. In other instances, the holdups are the result of bungling: A much-heralded plan to install video cameras in some police cars was set back for almost six months even after cameras were donated because the Police Department did not have enough tapes.

Once the tapes were donated, officials could not work out the logistics for picking up the tapes and installing the equipment in police cars. The pilot project was finally launched about three weeks ago.

“It took a little while to get it going,” Police Chief Willie L. Williams conceded recently. “A few of us got gray hairs.”

Although that program is at last under way, other reform recommendations remain stalled. That concerns some department critics and some LAPD officials as well, and it has raised questions about whether the Police Department is prepared to move ahead on the central recommendation of the Christopher Commission, retooling the LAPD so that its officers practice a more community-oriented style of policing.

One telling example of the difficulties faced by reformers has been the struggle to build a computerized tracking system to monitor complaints against police officers. The Police Commission has repeatedly approved creation of the system--the Officer Behavioral Indicator Tracking System, known as OBITS--only to be turned away at City Hall or to encounter resistance from police officers who worry that OBITS will unfairly characterize their records.

From the start, money has been at the heart of the debate. According to department estimates, the system would cost about $39,000 to get started.

City officials, who oversee about 30,000 employees and an annual budget of nearly $4 billion, pleaded poverty. The LAPD, with 10,000 employees and a budget of more than $500 million, also said it was too strapped to pay for it. So despite protestations from department outsiders and the Police Commission, years went by without any progress toward implementing OBITS.

Now, in a gesture of frustration and determination, members of the commission--whose staff of 63 consumes about $3 million a year--say they are prepared to vote today to break the logjam by dipping into their own funds and paying for the system.

“That should send an important signal to this department about how important this is,” Greenebaum said. “We wanted to make this symbolic act.”

Although OBITS has, for some, become a symbol of the city’s unwillingness to fully embrace the reform efforts, other proposals have been implemented and have substantially changed the way certain aspects of the Police Department work.

Most notable are the procedures for hiring and firing the chief of police. In the closing days of Daryl F. Gates’ tenure as chief, he and the Police Commission engaged in a divisive power struggle over the commission’s attempts to oust him.

But when Los Angeles voters approved Charter Amendment F in 1992, they overhauled the system for hiring and firing the chief, as well as other basic aspects of department management. Unlike his predecessor, Williams was hired to serve a five-year term, renewable at the pleasure of the commission. And unlike Gates, Williams can be fired by the commission, with the concurrence of the mayor.

Other significant changes have occurred as well. Among other things, improved cultural awareness training is taught at the Police Academy, new procedures for background checks are being employed for LAPD applicants and supervisors are held to tough new standards when it comes to the behavior of subordinates. All of that has heartened reform proponents.

“I think the reforms are going as well as can be expected, given that we have no money,” Commissioner Art Mattox said. “There’s a real commitment to make these changes.”

But Mattox and other police officials acknowledge that much remains to be done. And most concede that the pace of reform slackened last year. The previous commission--led by several outspoken reform advocates--wound down its tenure over the summer, and some department officials waited to see in which direction the new commission headed.

That uncertainty was magnified by the mayoral race, as Richard Riordan was conspicuously silent on the issue of police reform during the campaign. His decision not to reappoint any of the five commissioners and his appointment of Police Protective League President William Violante--a well-known critic of Williams--redoubled the sense that Riordan had little commitment to reforming the department.

Once in office, however, Riordan and Violante took pains to emphasize the mayor’s devotion to the reforms. “The mayor is committed to implementing the Christopher Commission report,” Violante reiterated last week. “He’s absolutely committed.”

Similarly, the new police commissioners set out from the start to demonstrate their resolve on the issue. Greenebaum was a leader of the Charter Amendment F campaign, and the other commissioners quickly joined him in pressing the department for evidence of progress.

“Initially many people in the department did not know where we were coming from,” Commission Vice President Deirdre Hill said. “Now they understand.”

Deputy Chief Lawrence Fetters, whose candor has impressed commission members, acknowledged during a recent hearing that some critics blame the LAPD for dragging its feet. But he told the commissioners that he does not believe the department is resisting the changes.

“One could come away with the impression that the department has stonewalled these recommendations,” Fetters said. “Quite the contrary, I find that everyone is fully supportive.”

Over the past few months, commission members have received oral and written briefings on the progress of the reforms--a process that is scheduled to conclude this month. A review of those meetings and documents reveal that although more than one-third of the recommendations are fully implemented, dozens more are not in place or only partially implemented.

Take the area of training officers how and when to use force--one of the central questions surrounding the Rodney G. King incident and the one that has underlain three trials growing out of it. Three years after that infamous altercation, the LAPD still has not completed a manual to revisit the issues of what force police officers may use under what circumstances.

That angers many officers, some of whom express confusion over what kinds of force are authorized and what kinds could lead to punishment, even prosecution.

“There are not clear-cut guidelines for officers in this area,” said Danny L. Staggs, president of the protective league and a former training officer. “That’s created a lot of concern among the rank and file.”

Similarly, a Christopher Commission recommendation that the LAPD review its policy on “proning out” suspects--making them lie on the pavement during searches--was promised in late 1992.

“A year later, the order is still ‘in the review cycle,’ ” Police Commission staffers concluded. “This is a critical issue, and the order should be completed and disseminated immediately.”

Although commissioners say the order should be released soon, the delay has baffled people inside and outside the department.

In other areas, the explanations for inaction are all too obvious. Most times, it comes down to money. The Christopher Commission recommended pay incentives to encourage officers to work patrol; that would cost money, and no such bonuses have been offered. The commission recommended that probationary officers receive special instruction on verbal skills; the department claims it would take 22 sergeants and $2.3 million to fully carry out that recommendation, so it has languished.

Other reforms would cost relatively little, but have met with different kinds of resistance. A proposal to put a civilian member on police boards of rights--the department’s chief disciplinary bodies--concerns some police officers and remains the subject of negotiations with the police union.

And a recommendation to make easily understood, multilingual complaint forms available throughout the city has been only partially achieved. A recent commission audit found that the forms were available at only seven of the 29 sites and that Korean and Chinese versions were out of stock.

Reform advocates credit the department with some positive steps in the wake of the King beating, but they worry about how much remains to be done. Some question the LAPD’s resolve when it comes to carrying out the remaining tasks. And they are particularly concerned about the implementation of community-based policing, a law enforcement model that emphasizes crime prevention and community relations.

“What community-based policing is about is the cultural transformation of the LAPD,” said Constance L. Rice, western regional counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “That simply has not happened.”

Police Commission staffers have raised questions on that front as well. In their analysis of the LAPD’s reforms, commission staffers note: “The department’s definition of and plan for community-based policing seems vague. A clear understanding of what community-based policing is and how it will be implemented should be communicated to department members.”

In December, Williams distributed a special order that for the first time spells out the department’s vision of community-based policing. Even that is mostly a blueprint and is short on specifics, and commissioners say the idea is being taught mostly by the example of a few highly regarded department leaders.

Deputy Chief Mark Kroeker, the popular commanding officer of South Bureau, has aggressively pushed community policing, winning accolades from the commissioners. But they concede that more needs to be done to pass the message to the rank and file.

“Somebody like Mark Kroeker, it’s his nature,” Greenebaum said. “He’s the perfect guy to be doing this. But the ideas have to be written down, institutionalized and implemented.”

None of that will come quickly, Greenebaum and others agree. But few now question the determination of the Police Commission to lobby for reform, and most observers express optimism that in time, the vast majority of the Christopher Commission recommendations will be put in place.

“We will not be deterred,” Greenebaum said. “We consider this our primary public trust, and we intend to carry it out.”

Reforming the LAPD

In the wake of the 1991 beating of Rodney G. King, the Christopher Commission conducted an extensive review of the Los Angeles Police Department, focusing on issues that involved the use of force by police officers. The commission produced more than 120 recommendations for reform. Here is are some key recommendations and their status:

* Recommendation: The chief of police should serve a five-year term, renewable at the discretion of the Police Commission only once. The commission should have the authority to fire the chief, with the concurrence of the mayor and subject to an override by the City Council.

* Status: In place. Voters adopted the recommendations as part of Charter Amendment F. Chief Willie L. Williams was hired under those terms.

* Recommendation: The Police Commission staff should include an inspector general responsible for overseeing citizen complaints and monitoring internal affairs investigations, among other duties.

* Status: Commissioners have recently begun reviewing proposals for designing and filling such a position.

* Recommendation: The department should try to put video and audio equipment in police cars on an experimental basis.

* Status: In place. Last October, DARE America donated 36 video cameras to launch a pilot program. But the department at first could not buy enough tapes to make the system work, and then it struggled to install the equipment. The first ones were put in cars last month.

* Recommendation: The department should address problems created in minority communities by the unnecessary use of the “prone out” tactic, in which suspects are ordered to lie on the ground while officers search them.

* Status: Chief Williams says a special order on the tactic has been prepared and is being reviewed. In its December, 1992, update on the reforms, the department said the same thing, however, and no order has yet been disseminated.

* Recommendation: The LAPD should adopt the community-based policing model and implement it, albeit carefully, throughout the department.

* Status: In progress. Police Commission staff concluded that the LAPD “definition of and plan for community-based policing seems vague.”

* Recommendation: Officers should be retested psychologically during their careers.

* Status: Not in place. The department opposes this recommendation.

KEEPING SCORE

The Police Commission has monitored reform efforts. In its recent review the commission analyzed roughly 90 categories of recommendations--and found that another 30 or so proposals had been carried out. Of the 90:

* 28 are fully implemented.

* 38 are partially implemented or are in place and being expanded.

* 5 require negotiations with the police union before they can be implemented.

* 19 have not been implemented, some for budget reasons, others because the department opposes them, among other reasons.

Note: The above categories do not always reflect the department’s official view. In some cases, the commission staff and department disagree, and in some cases the department calls reforms “in progress” even though little if anything has been done to implement them.

Sources: Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners.