LAPD Called Lax in Tracking Problem Police

The Los Angeles Police Department does not adequately monitor “potential high-risk officers” who have been disciplined for lying, stealing, using excessive force or other problems, according to a study by the department’s civilian watchdog.

The report by the Los Angeles Police Commission’s inspector general also concludes that the LAPD does not properly identify and track officers who have been sued in court for duty-related actions. The department lacks “some essential elements of a comprehensive risk-management system,” stated the study, a draft of which was obtained by The Times.

The failure to monitor such officers, the report suggests, has exposed the department and the city’s taxpayers to potentially costly civil court awards and settlements that in recent years have totaled in the millions of dollars.

Chief Bernard C. Parks declined to discuss the report Monday. Sources close to him said he agrees with some of the findings but considers others to paint an overly alarming picture of the situation within the LAPD. Parks plans to issue a formal response today when the report is officially released and discussed at a Police Commission meeting.

The study, prepared by Inspector General Katherine Mader and her staff, addresses many of the same concerns that were raised six years ago by the blue-ribbon Christopher Commission panel, which recommended a host of police reforms in the wake of the Rodney G. King beating in 1991. That panel also recommended that the LAPD closely monitor the actions of its officers.

Mader’s report found that the department:

* Has no comprehensive system of knowing which officers, or how many, are named as defendants in civil lawsuits stemming from on-duty actions. It is a problem that the report blames largely on a lack information provided by the city attorney’s office.

* Does not automatically reassign officers who have been recently disciplined for serious on- or off-duty “integrity-related” offenses to positions that would not require them to make arrests, write police reports and testify in court.

* Does not adequately track employees who are facing criminal charges or who are on criminal probation. Nor does the department have a process for notifying the criminal court if LAPD officials become aware that an officer has violated his probation.

* Lacks written policies and procedures to inform sergeants and lieutenants that “high-risk” officers are under their command.

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Mader noted in her report that the department has a new computerized system aimed at tracking some of the at-risk officers. Additionally, she said the department was not to be blamed for failing to track officers named as defendants in duty-related civil lawsuits because the city attorney’s office does not systematically provide such information to LAPD officials.

The city attorney’s office gives the LAPD information about officers facing civil claims, which are the precursors to lawsuits. But Mader’s report questions the adequacy of the department’s internal reviews of those claims.

“It is difficult to understand how the city can pay large settlements and awards for provable misconduct in instances wherein the department has not initiated a parallel personnel investigation,” the report states.

Mader also reviewed the records of 78 department employees since 1993 who were disciplined for committing integrity-related offenses on- and off-duty, such as theft, dishonesty, falsification of official reports, and making false and misleading statements during an official investigation. In many cases, the violations did not affect the officers’ subsequent work assignments.

In one 1994 case, an officer was suspended for 50 days for making a false insurance claim regarding the alleged theft of his personal vehicle. Despite his discipline record, the officer is now assigned to a traffic division as a collision investigator, where he investigates traffic collisions, writes citations, makes arrests for driving under the influence and testifies in court.

“This is particularly disturbing given his history of dishonesty related to an insurance company,” the report states.

Moreover, the report found that the department has no adequate policies for reassigning field training officers who have recent disciplinary histories. According to Mader’s study, a review of 423 field training officers’ discipline records showed that 3% of them allegedly had committed serious misconduct.

For example, one training officer was suspended this year for 129 days for driving under the influence, endangering his daughter and failing to cooperate with on-duty personnel conducting an official investigation. Two years earlier, he had been suspended for 22 days for making discourteous remarks to a civilian while off-duty and making an unjustified threat under “color of authority.”

He is also facing a pending investigation on another matter.

Although the number of training officers with troubling discipline records is small, the report states that the situation should be monitored by LAPD officials because such misconduct calls into question an officer’s ability to properly train other officers.

Although Mader recommends that the department find a better way to track at-risk officers in general, her reports calls for the elimination of a list of 44 problem officers identified by the Christopher Commission.

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Noting that the majority of officers on the list have not had a sustained force-related complaint in years, “in the interest of fairness . . . it should be publicly abandoned,” the report says.

According to sources close to the chief, Parks is concerned about some of the report’s findings and implications.

Parks contends that discipline records need to be viewed in the context of many factors, including when the alleged offense occurred and the nature of the officer’s assignment, according to sources. Furthermore, they said, the chief believes that it may be unfair to hold an officer’s record against him for his entire career because discipline is intended to punish as well as rehabilitate an officer.

Parks disagrees with Mader’s recommendations that officers found guilty of integrity-related violations be automatically reassigned. In some cases, sources said, Parks believes that the emphasis should be on retraining and closely monitoring the employee since all LAPD jobs, even desk jobs out of sight of the public, demand top-notch behavior.

Nonetheless, sources said, Parks believes some of Mader’s findings have merit and will be addressed.

Commission President Edith Perez declined to discuss the report until it becomes public today. Last week, however, Perez said at a community meeting that the department is taking steps to better track problem officers, saying that the LAPD recently received a federal grant to create a computerized monitoring system.