Series of Meetings on LAPD Please Federal, City Officials

After a series of high-level meetings regarding the federal government’s inquiry into alleged civil rights abuses at the Los Angeles Police Department, city officials said Tuesday they still have questions about where the investigation will lead but believe that the sessions helped smooth relations between local and federal authorities.

According to city leaders who met with Assistant Atty. Gen. Deval L. Patrick and other Justice Department officials this week, the sessions were cordial and low-key, with federal authorities seeking information about the status of LAPD reforms and local leaders trying to gauge the potential scope of any federal inquiry. Those who attended said the sessions helped both sides achieve those goals.

Local officials requested the meetings but approached them guardedly, mindful that the Justice Department could someday bring a civil case against the city or the Police Department. With such an action considered unlikely but nevertheless possible, City Atty. James Hahn was asked to sit in on the meeting of the city’s police commissioners and Justice Department officials. He was accompanied by a top deputy, Senior Assistant City Atty. Fred Merkin, who oversees police and Fire Department issues.

Afterward, Patrick, who heads the Justice Department’s civil rights division, stressed that the session was informational and not an immediate precursor to legal action of any kind. Commissioners also were pleased.

“It was constructive,” said Commissioner Raymond C. Fisher, one of four members of the civilian LAPD oversight group who attended the morning session with Patrick and other federal authorities. “I think they came away persuaded that we are committed to reform.”

The FBI and the local U.S. attorney’s office are already embarked on one aspect of their investigation--the criminal civil rights probe of former LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman, whose racist comments to witnesses, psychiatrists and an aspiring screenwriter sparked community outrage and a number of requests for a federal investigation. A subpoena for Fuhrman’s personnel records was served on the Police Department late last month, according to police sources.

Beyond the narrow Fuhrman probe is the question of whether the Justice Department will launch a broader inquiry, a civil investigation intended to determine whether there is a “pattern or practice” within the LAPD of violating civil rights of suspects or others. That prospect concerns some local officials, who requested the sessions with Justice Department leaders partly to learn more about the federal government’s intentions.

Afterward, city leaders said they had not emerged with a clear answer, in part because federal officials remain unsure about how they will proceed or where their inquiries will lead. But participants on both sides of the meetings said the sessions had helped assuage some fears about the pace and scope of the inquiry.

“The Police Commission is genuinely interested in providing information to the Department of Justice that will assist the department in any preliminary inquiry,” said U.S. Atty. Nora Manella, who participated in some of this week’s sessions. Federal officials, she added, were grateful to learn more about “changes, proposed reforms and plans for the future of the LAPD.”

After their session with Patrick, Police Commission President Deirdre Hill and Commissioner Fisher said that although they did not have a clear sense of how the federal government would proceed, they were confident that Justice Department officials were moving carefully and thoughtfully.

“We related our commitment to the reform process,” Hill said. “And we expressed our hope and expectation that whatever the federal government does, it does not derail the efforts that we have made.”

In addition to the commissioners and city attorney’s representatives, Police Chief Willie L. Williams and LAPD Chief of Staff Ronald L. Banks were among the local officials who attended Tuesday’s session with Patrick and his Justice Department colleagues.

While in Los Angeles, Patrick also met with former members of the Christopher Commission, the blue-ribbon panel that analyzed the LAPD in the aftermath of the Rodney G. King beating. And Patrick is expected to consult with Police Department critics as well, part of a broad effort to learn about the city and the role--if any--that the federal government might be able to play in changing the LAPD.

Sources close to Patrick said federal officials came away from the meetings with some concern about the pace of the department’s reform efforts--sentiment shared by police commissioners, who have pressed Williams for faster action in some areas, and by Williams himself, who has leaned on top staffers and complained that some of them have not given him full support.

For the federal government, however, frustration by the pace of LAPD reform is compounded by another problem: Practically speaking, how could that process be helped by the Justice Department initiating legal action against the LAPD?

The question overarches the current federal effort, and even as they welcome Washington’s interest, some local officials worry that a sweeping Justice Department probe could distract from the work of the commission and chief. Complicating the issue, some meeting participants said, is uncertainty about Williams’ management and ability to carry out his commitment to implement some Christopher Commission reforms.

“Even if we believe that Williams wants to reform the department,” said one participant, “there is the question of whether he can deliver.”

Although embattled on several fronts in recent months, Williams has strenuously pledged to continue leading the department and to seek a second five-year term when his current one expires in 1997. Williams has convened a meeting of his top deputies for next week in an effort to hammer out a common set of goals for the department.

“The commission and the chief are intent on reforming the department,” Williams said through a spokeswoman. In addition, the chief pledged that the department’s probe into Fuhrman’s activities would be thorough.

Beyond the investigation into Fuhrman, the chief has aggressively pledged to root out racism from LAPD ranks and has touted far-reaching reforms such as the development of a broader community-based policing program. Development of community policing was a central recommendation of the Christopher Commission reforms, but its progress has been halting and spotty, quick to take root in some parts of the city while slowly being embraced elsewhere.

After meeting with Manella on Monday and Patrick and other officials on Tuesday, Hill acknowledged that federal officials seemed concerned that the department has not moved more quickly to undertake more sweeping reforms.

But the commission president added that despite their apparent frustrations, federal officials were pleased by some recent developments. She cited the commission’s decision to create a task force to monitor and press for implementation of specific reforms.