Few in LAPD Affected by Gun Curb

Fewer than 10 Los Angeles Police Department officers will have to relinquish their guns and be taken off patrol duties because of a new federal law that prohibits anyone with a domestic abuse conviction from carrying a firearm, according to a nearly completed review of all LAPD officers.

“The number is much less than I thought it would be,” Interim Police Chief Bayan Lewis said Friday. “The number is minuscule.”

With the exception of a few cases, Lewis said, the review of the department’s approximately 300 officers is complete. Lewis, who once predicted that as many as 40 LAPD officers might be affected by the law, said his staff is drafting letters to the officers to alert them that they face possible reassignments and will need to turn in their guns.

The department’s review was prompted by Congress’ passage last year of an amendment to the 1968 Gun Control Act that prohibits domestic abuse offenders from possessing guns.

“We think one is too many. Ten is 10 times too many,” said American Civil Liberties Union spokesman Allan Parachini. “It’s not that the number is too low. It’s way too high and is a significant problem.”

The issue of domestic violence has consumed the LAPD in recent months as department officials have struggled to explain the organization’s internal handling of cases in which its own officers are accused of domestic violence.

According to court documents that cover a five-year period ending in 1993, about 60 LAPD officers investigated by the department after having been accused of domestic abuse were never arrested. Additionally, a former assistant chief with the LAPD stated in a sworn court document that it was the department’s unwritten practice and policy to handle such cases internally and not turn them over for prosecution.

The Los Angeles Police Commission recently directed its inspector general to review the department’s handling of domestic violence issues.

Women’s advocacy groups and the critics of the department said the number of LAPD officers affected by the federal law is small because of the way the department has treated domestic abuse allegations against its officers in the past.

“The low numbers [of officers affected by the law] could very well be true,” said Katherine Spillar, national coordinator for the Feminist Majority. “The serious problem is the way the LAPD has approached theses cases and the fact that the vast majority of them are never referred for prosecution. . . . It’s very troubling.”

LAPD officials have said that for the past year, they have referred all such cases to the district attorney or city attorney for review for possible criminal charges.

Law enforcement agencies throughout the country are checking the backgrounds of their officers. Recently, three Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who had lost their right to carry firearms got it back by going to court and having their misdemeanor domestic violence convictions expunged.