Chief Parks Plans to Resume Drug Tests
LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks is planning to reinstitute random drug testing of police officers, a practice that was abandoned several years ago in part because of concerns over its constitutionality, officials said Tuesday.
A police union official said representatives would not oppose the plan, which would require Police Commission approval if the department abides by an agreement worked out in 1990 that gave tenured officers extra vacation days in exchange for submitting to the random testing.
Deputy Chief Robert Gil said details of the chief’s proposal have not been finalized.
The department had a mandatory random drug test program in the early 1990s, but the program was never fully implemented and was ultimately scrapped after funding concerns and a dispute between then-Mayor Tom Bradley and the department’s powerful police union.
Dave Hepburn, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said the union will be monitoring the proposal to make sure “the city sticks to its original agreement.”
The department currently can drug-test employees whose actions indicate possible drug use.
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