LAPD Revamping Probes of Shootings by Officers : Reform: Chief seeks shorter inquiries, broader pool of investigators. Move could make police easier to prosecute.

Under pressure from prosecutors and police commissioners to reform the way it investigates officer-involved shootings, the Los Angeles Police Department has begun a series of changes that are intended to speed up investigations but also may make officers, in some cases, easier to prosecute.

Internal LAPD documents obtained by The Times reveal that Police Department officials are seeking to restructure the officer-involved shooting team, the unit that historically has investigated all shootings by Los Angeles police officers. Police Chief Willie L. Williams said last week that he expects the changes to be made soon, but stressed that he generally is satisfied that the department is doing a good job with its investigations.

“We’re doing all the right things, but you have to reach all over the organization for the chief and the commission to get the big picture,” Williams said. “We need more of our best people to assist in the investigation of a shooting.”

Some of the changes already have begun. As the restructuring plan moves through the bureaucracy, Williams has asked to be notified immediately after any questionable shooting, and says he has intervened in several investigations in which criminal charges against an officer seemed possible. For now, however, he has stopped short of endorsing a more radical procedural change advocated by Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti.

Garcetti and his prosecutors have complained that the LAPD’s system for conducting internal investigations--particularly its practice of ordering officers to give statements about a shooting incident--creates legal problems in cases in which criminal charges might be warranted. To remove such obstacles to prosecution, Garcetti would like the Police Department to end its practice of taking “compelled statements” from officers in shooting cases.

At the heart of the debate is a concern by some observers that the LAPD’s officer-involved shooting team is less of an aggressive investigative unit than a protective shield that buffers officers from prosecution and insulates the city from liability.

Yet the unit has strong defenders, and the debate over remaking it has divided police and prosecutors.

The changes and proposed changes initiated by Williams are partly in response to concerns raised by Garcetti, but have met resistance from some of the chief’s top deputies, most notably Bernard C. Parks, who was demoted from his assistant chief’s post Monday.

Parks, who has clashed with Williams on a number of issues, criticized the proposed changes in a candid memo to his boss May 2.

“Our current system works well for the department and the community we serve,” Parks wrote. “Although Mr. Garcetti doesn’t like the product we send his office, it is a far more complete package than he will receive if the recommendations in this report are implemented.”

Under Williams’ proposed restructuring--which will require Police Commission approval--police shootings would no longer be the exclusive purview of the 14 members of the officer-involved shooting team, but would be handled by detectives throughout the department’s robbery-homicide division. That would broaden the pool of investigators reviewing such shootings and would expand the unit’s supervision.

But Lt. Bill Hall, who heads the unit, said the reorganization would deprive the city of valuable expertise.

Williams said his shake-up of the unit has been in the works for more than a year. It grows out of an increasingly bitter disagreement between the LAPD and the district attorney’s office about how to best investigate the 100 or so incidents every year in which Los Angeles police shoot at suspects.

Although the shooting team often uncovers mistakes that are serious enough to warrant retraining or discipline, the vast majority of those cases do not result in criminal charges. In fact, only one or two police shootings a year raise serious questions of criminal conduct.

The prospect of the Police Department yielding to prosecutors has stirred concern at the police union, where officials worry that new investigative procedures could expose officers to protracted criminal investigations.

“We in the union can’t help but fear the worst for our people,” said Hank Hernandez, general counsel for the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file officers. “The changes he is proposing to make will expose officers to criminal sanctions and expose the city to additional civil liability.”

Despite the union’s reservations, others are pushing for change, and three key players have emerged in the complicated debate: Williams, Garcetti and Police Commission President Enrique Hernandez Jr.

Garcetti has one agenda--eliminating obstacles to possible police prosecutions--while Enrique Hernandez and Williams have another--speeding up the process and ensuring its integrity.

Williams, Garcetti and Hernandez are scheduled to hold a rare joint session on the reorganization today.

Although they bring different agendas to that meeting, one issue on which all sides agree is that shooting investigations take too long to complete and review. In some cases, those probes have taken more than a year, during which time officers must work under a cloud of possible administrative action or even prosecution.

“The major problem and headache that I had is that on average it took a year to get an officer-involved shooting down to the Police Commission, which I found to be intolerable,” Williams said. “One of the biggest complaints I heard from personnel on my first round of roll-call trainings was: ‘Chief, I haven’t heard (about) this shooting eight or nine months ago. I’m hearing it’s OK, but until you and the commission say it’s OK, I’m still on the hook.’ ”

To move the system faster, Williams has asked that all shooting reviews be completed within six months, and said he hopes the other proposed staffing changes will speed the process even further.

Hall has defended his unit’s work and argued that the delays in completing shooting investigations are the fault of higher-ups who control the review process, not the investigation itself.

“I think that the motivation to find a quicker resolution to these incidents is a good one,” Hall said. “But I see nothing in any of the proposals that will speed this up.”

The time needed to conduct police shooting investigations also troubles commission President Hernandez and Garcetti. The district attorney complained that delays make it difficult for his office to assess whether criminal charges are warranted in some cases.

But the primary disagreement between police and prosecutors arises out of LAPD officials’ longstanding practice of forcing officers to give interviews to Police Department investigators probing the events surrounding a shooting. Because those statements are given under threat of firing, they cannot be used in any subsequent criminal case--all defendants have a right against being forced to incriminate themselves, and courts have found that statements taken under threat of firing violate that right if they are used against the defendant in a criminal trial.

Under LAPD practice, officers are ordered to give an interview after first being promised that their statements will not be used against them in any criminal proceeding. That can create problems later, however, because the department circulates copies of the compelled statements to investigators and to other officers involved in a shooting who may be facing discipline.

That makes it extremely difficult for prosecutors to use those witnesses in any trial because courts may find that they have been “tainted” by their exposure to the compelled statements from others.

“The problem for a prosecutor is once the compelled statement is disseminated to other witnesses, the prosecutor has to show that they are not tainted,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven D. Clymer, one of the lead prosecutors in the Rodney G. King civil rights trial.

Faced with complications such as that, the district attorney has sought to have police officials discontinue the practice of forcing officers to give statements in shooting cases and in cases in which suspects die in custody. Abolishing that system would make it easier to bring charges against police officers but also would make it harder to investigate the cases internally, since officers could refuse to speak to Police Department investigators.

Parks, however, strongly recommended against any move that would not force officers to give statements to police investigators. Those statements, Parks argued, are essential to the department as it conducts its internal review of shootings and decides whether administrative action is warranted.

In the interview last week, Williams said he had decided not to abolish the taking of compelled statements but pledged to personally review any questionable shooting and decide for himself whether the officers ought to be questioned under threat of firing.

In some recent cases, Williams said, he has asked investigators not to take a statement from the officers immediately because prosecutors might be hampered by it.

Still, prosecutors have not been satisfied with that arrangement. Among other things, they are concerned that a prosecutor, not the police chief, should be the one to decide whether and under what circumstances officers are questioned. Predictably, that idea concerns union leaders and the rank-and-file officers they represent.

“We don’t want officers being treated like criminals,” said the union’s Hank Hernandez. “The investigation of a shooting involving a police officer is different from any other kind of investigation. They can’t be treated the same way.”

Faced with such strong feelings on all sides, Williams has delayed a final decision on the issue for months, wrestling with a number of options. Enrique Hernandez, the Police Commission president, said he has become increasingly eager to see the issue resolved, adding that he hopes the meeting today can at last settle the controversy.

“My hope is that we can reach a conclusion that is acceptable to all the parties,” he said. “It’s not good for this to be in a state of flux, which it has been for some time.”

* LAPD STAFF CHANGES: City officials back most of Williams’ shake-up plans. B1