First Inspector General Chosen to Police LAPD

Tapping an unflinching investigator to police the Police Department, the Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday appointed veteran attorney Katherine Mader to serve as the LAPD’s first-ever inspector general--a prickly job that will require tracking all citizen complaints against officers.

Even before Mader learned she had won the post, reformers already had stacked up ambitious goals for the new inspector general. They want her to discipline wayward officers more harshly, respond to community complaints more quickly and build a better relationship between the public and the police, wiping out the us-versus-them hostility that has eroded trust on both sides.

And if those mandates weren’t big enough, Mader added a fresh ambition for herself minutes after her appointment at a glowing news conference. She vowed to work on implementing all remaining recommendations in the 5-year-old Christopher Commission report, which in response to the beating of Rodney King urged a renewed effort to root out rogue cops and bolster public confidence in the force.

The creation of an inspector general post fulfilled one of the Christopher Commission’s key suggestions. Still, Mader said with a down-to-business grin, “I know there’s a lot more work to do.”

When she steps into the job July 1, Mader will bring a hard-driving working style and an easy familiarity with the department she is charged with reviewing. She has a reputation as a vigorous prosecutor--a reputation that has sparked some concern among rank-and-file officers who resent her for going after their own.

As a member of the district attorney’s Special Investigations Division for the past three years, Mader has prosecuted two LAPD officers for misconduct.

One case drew little controversy; she won a conviction on grand-theft charges against an officer who stole more than $2,700 from a corpse in Koreatown. But the other sparked a good deal more anger, both in the community and the Los Angeles Police Department.

Mader twice brought second-degree murder charges against former Officer Douglas J. Iversen, who killed an unarmed truck driver at a South-Central gas station in 1992. Iversen argued that he had shot the truck driver to keep him from running over pedestrians, but Mader railed against him as a murderer. Both trials ended with deadlocked juries. A judge last year dismissed all charges against Iversen.

“It seemed like she had a hard time distinguishing between what Iversen did and what a cold-blooded killer would do,” said Gary Fullerton, a director of the Police Protective League union. “Our department was very unhappy with her.”

Even so, Fullerton said he respects Mader--who worked with him on several homicide cases--for her intelligence, competence and tenacity.

Union leaders will bury their grudges and let her take office “with a clean slate,” Fullerton said, in the hope that she will listen to their gripes about the LAPD’s disciplinary process. Whereas the Christopher Commission described the discipline as too soft, the union believes it’s too rigid, and has called for improving the appeals process.

Balancing conflicting impressions of the appeals process is just one of the challenges Mader will face as inspector general. She also will have to weigh citizen calls to punish bad officers against the need for fair hearings. And she will need to deal with contentious local politics that pit her bosses on the Police Commission against the mayor, the City Council, the police chief and beat cops in uneasy, ever-shifting confrontations.

“I think she’ll be able to handle it,” defense attorney Gerry L. Chaleff said. “They made a great choice.”

Known around the district attorney’s office for what one colleague called “extraordinary stick-to-it-iveness,” Mader has forged a reputation for never giving up.

“She has, I think, an endless supply of energy,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Daniel Nixon, who has worked in Mader’s unit for a year and a half. “She’s tenacious, she’s creative and she’s very bright.”

Although she has spent more than a decade as a prosecutor, Mader launched her career as a criminal defense lawyer, first in the Sacramento County public defender’s office and later in private practice.

Her client list speaks of a diverse career: She defended Hillside Strangler Angelo Buono, sent nurse Maureen McDermott to death row for hiring a hit man to kill a roommate, and helped with the ongoing prosecution of former Los Angeles Councilman Art Snyder for alleged campaign fund-raising violations during his career as a lobbyist.

Fascinated by crime, Mader even spent hours of her own time poking through old court records and reading yellowed news clips--an obsession that turned into a book. “Fallen Angels: Chronicles of L.A. Crime and Mystery” takes the reader on a tour of 35 of the city’s most notorious crime sites, from where Bugsy Siegel was offed to where the Black Dahlia was chopped in half. Mader also co-authored “Rotten Apples: Chronicles of New York Crime and Mystery.”

Her backers consider Mader’s interest in all aspects of law enforcement a major plus.

In selecting her from 200 applicants, police commissioners took note of her year as director of the California Patient’s Rights Office, where she investigated shoddy patient care in state-run hospitals. That job, which required handling complaints and auditing a bureaucracy, carried responsibilities similar to the inspector general post.

“The bottom line is that Angelenos should have total confidence their voices will be heard,” Mayor Richard J. Riordan said. “And police officers should be confident they will receive independent, fair evaluations.”

But outside the congratulatory news conference, police critics weren’t so ready to pop the champagne. It has been five years since the Christopher Commission called for an inspector general, a year since city voters resoundingly approved the recommendation--and 31 years since outside analysts first urged the city to hire a Police Department watchdog. After all that waiting, some critics were not impressed with Mader’s appointment.

Calling her an “insider” too closely linked to Los Angeles’ “law enforcement clique,” civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman predicted that Mader would not be able to rein in violent officers.

Though she has prosecuted two officers for misconduct, Mader remains a product of the same district attorney’s office that “has never had any kind of tradition of dealing with police officers as common criminals,” said civil rights lawyer Antonio Rodriguez. “I don’t know if she’s tainted by association, but [her connections with the power structure] would definitely lead me to question her legitimacy.”

Yagman and Rodriguez, who specialize in suing law enforcement agencies for misconduct, both called for a strong independent investigator to muscle out the LAPD’s bad elements. “The Police Department is basically rotten, and they keep trying to put Band-Aids on it to make it look like it’s getting better,” Yagman said. “This appointment is hokey, toothless window dressing.”

Those who know Mader well said she is not the type to work toothless.

Shortly after joining the district attorney’s office, Mader pressed her bosses to keep better records on jailhouse informants so prosecutors could know which snitches to trust.

She knew her suggestion would not win her any friends: “As I was new in the office, I was somewhat wary of being perceived as a former defense attorney with an ‘ax to grind,’ ” Mader wrote in a memo to a supervisor. Still, she pursued the issue with vigor.

“She’s not one to agree for the sake of agreement or in order to avoid confrontation,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan Steinfeld, who worked with Mader in the special investigations unit. “If she feels another side needs to be brought up, she will do it.”

As inspector general, Mader will receive copies of every complaint filed against an LAPD officer. She also will track litigation, audit the internal disciplinary system and conduct independent investigations. Beyond that, “the job will be as defined by the Police Commission,” said commission Chairwoman Deidre Hill.

So far, the commission has not determined Mader’s salary. She will earn up to $90,000 a year, with the exact figure still to be negotiated.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Profile: Katherine Mader

Mader was named the first inspector general of the Los Angeles Police Department on Tuesday, five years after the Christopher Commission recommended creation of such a position. She will report directly to the five-member Police Commission.

* Residence: Los Angeles

* Education: Bachelor’s degree in political science from UCLA, 1969; law degree from UC Davis, 1972

* Career highlights: Sacramento County public defender, 1973-76; director of the Patient’s Rights Office, which investigates treatment of patients in state-run facilities, 1976-77; private criminal defense practice, 1977-1984; joined Los Angeles County district attorney’s office in 1985.

* Interests: Co-author of three books, including “Fallen Angels: Chronicles of L.A. Crime and Mystery.”

* Family: Married; three children

* Quote: “I think my background is relatively unique. . . . I have gained a balanced perspective and understand some of the concerns people have [about the Police Department] from every angle. I’m eager to get going.”