LAPD Failed to Turn Over Files Requested by Probers

Embarrassed Los Angeles Police Department officials admitted Tuesday that they apparently failed to give outside investigators nearly half of their internal files involving a controversial mechanism for disposing of some misconduct allegations--an admission that drew protests from the Police Commission and its special counsel as well as promises of a new investigation.

LAPD officials nonetheless defended the department’s use of so-called miscellaneous memos, which allow some internal investigations to be closed without being mentioned in an officer’s personnel record. A landmark report on police reform last week called for abolition of miscellaneous memos, but Police Department officials said they offer a valuable tool in dispensing with certain kinds of cases.

The department would not release its miscellaneous memo files, but a sampling of case summaries shared with The Times by sources familiar with the process shows that some cases seem to have been handled appropriately while others received questionable investigations and reached controversial conclusions.

Of greatest alarm to many officials Tuesday, however, was the discovery that Police Department officials apparently had failed to turn over their full files to Merrick Bobb, special counsel to the commission and the author of the reform report released last week.

In that report, the authors recommended abolishing the miscellaneous memo after Bobb and his associates reviewed 50 of what they believed was a total of 78 cases in the past two years; on Tuesday, however, the LAPD’s official spokesman, responding to a request made by The Times, said there actually were 148 cases in that period, suggesting that nearly half of the total recent cases have not been shared with Bobb or the Police Commission.

Police Commission members were surprised and infuriated by the revelation. Commissioner Edith Perez asked rhetorically: “What else doesn’t the commission know? Could there be other misinformation?”

Bobb, who also was surprised to learn that he may not have been given the files he requested, turned to the commission for help.

“Upon learning of this substantial disparity,” Bobb said Tuesday, “through the commission I have asked the department to produce all 148 files so that I can review them.”

LAPD officials unsuccessfully scrambled to explain why they would report one set of numbers to the commission and its special counsel and another set publicly. They said computer foul-ups might be to blame and stressed that they do not believe there was any effort to hide material. But they acknowledged that the slip-up had caused problems.

“There’s such a large disparity that it’s causing concern,” said Cmdr. Tim McBride, the department’s chief spokesman, who added that the LAPD launched an audit Tuesday afternoon and would turn over any new information to Bobb as soon as it became available.

It is not the first time that the LAPD has struggled to accurately report data on its operations; recently, it generated a host of conflicting statistics on arrests, and Bobb’s report sharply criticizes the department’s antiquated and unreliable record-keeping.

The embarrassing snafu regarding the number of miscellaneous memo cases at least temporarily overshadowed the already controversial issue of whether the department is misusing the procedure. In interviews, LAPD officials defended the system, which has been in place for years and which Police Chief Willie L. Williams has tried to limit.

“We’re reviewing it to make sure we are on solid ground,” McBride said. “We think we are.”

But a sampling of cases resolved by miscellaneous memos shows that a number of complaints were resolved in debatable fashion. In one case, a police officer accused another of making sexist and racist remarks; the misconduct charges were dropped after the complaining officer recanted his charges, but no action was taken against the original complainant for making a false statement.

Other charges in summaries of cases shared with The Times include police officers accused of leaking information to reporters, attempting to extort money, selling drugs, failing to conduct a diligent rape investigation and mistreating LAPD recruits. In some instances, sources said the internal LAPD probes seemed thorough and the accused officers were cleared of wrongdoing, but even some of those cases raise the question of why the complaints were resolved by miscellaneous memo.

Police Commission President Deirdre Hill declined to comment on specific cases, but said the process concerns her.

“The first issue is one of perception, of whether complaints are being adequately adjudicated or being put in a bottom drawer somewhere,” she said. “The integrity of the system is what we are concerned about.”

Although little known outside the LAPD, miscellaneous memos are used within the Police Department to dispense with certain types of personnel complaints, often those in which the alleged misconduct cannot be pinned on a particular officer or when the alleged offense does not constitute misconduct.

Despite declining to make its miscellaneous memo files public, the department responded to a request from The Times by producing statistics showing that the Police Department issued 87 memos last year, up from 61 the year before but down from 170 in 1993. That is just a fraction of the more than 1,600 personnel complaints filed annually. All miscellaneous memos are approved by Cmdr. J.I. Davis, the commanding officer of the LAPD’s Internal Affairs Division, who said the department is trying to limit the number of complaints handled that way.

“We have been using that option very sparingly,” Davis said. “We’ve taken another look and been more conservative in our use of them.”

Davis did not provide specifics, but other LAPD officials familiar with the process said many of the memos are issued when complaints are filed against unknown police officers and investigation fails to identify an officer as a suspect.

In one case several years ago, a citizen accused an unknown LAPD vice officer of soliciting free sex from prostitutes. The investigation revealed that the real culprit was an accountant posing as a police officer and handing out fake business cards that identified him as an LAPD member.

That suspect was arrested, and the Internal Affairs file was closed with a miscellaneous memo. That, observers say, is the system working correctly: disposing of an allegation by memo only when it was determined that the allegation did not involve a police officer.

But recent cases whose summaries were reviewed by The Times included a charge that a female sergeant was involved in a relationship with a subordinate, an allegation that a police officer’s car was spotted meeting up with a known drug dealer, and a contention that a police officer was selling drugs. Some cases also involved apparent grudges: One woman reported that her ex-husband, a police officer, may have been involved in a major crime.

In each of those examples, the allegations were found to be false or unresolved, but unlike most LAPD investigations, they were disposed of by memo rather than by a formal finding of exoneration. That saved the accused officers from having potentially embarrassing material appear in their personnel files. But it also risked eroding public confidence in Police Department investigations, some officials said.

The issuance of memos is most controversial when accused officers come from the LAPD’s upper echelons, as has occasionally occurred in recent years. In one instance, sources said one high-ranking officer was accused of striking up a romantic relationship with a woman he met on the job. The officer denied the allegation, and the woman refused to be interviewed, leaving investigators with little to go on and no clear indication that the relationship, even if it existed, would violate department policy.

In another case, a ranking official was investigated for an alleged sexual dalliance at a Southern California hotel that occurred as the 1992 riots were erupting. Investigators found that the officer had violated no rules, in part because he was off duty. Like the other allegation, that case also was resolved by miscellaneous memo.

Other officers of various ranks came under investigation as a result of the murder investigation of O.J. Simpson. Faced with criticism that so much information about the case appeared in the press, LAPD officials launched a wide-ranging leak investigation. No culprits were identified, and the matter was closed by miscellaneous memo.

Bobb, who spent more than six months interviewing LAPD officials and scouring department documents for his report on police reform, said that he believes that the problems created by the miscellaneous memo outweigh any possible benefits. Abolishing it, he said, would improve the LAPD’s disciplinary process and give it “credibility both inside and outside the department.”

On Tuesday, Williams said he and other department officials would respond to various recommendations contained in Bobb’s report. But he did not indicate whether the LAPD would support the suggestion that the miscellaneous memos be abolished.