Some Disturbing Allegations at the LAPD
Men!
Worried about your social life in the ‘90s? Here’s a quiz to test your romance skills.
You’re on an out-of-town trip with a female colleague. You turn off the lights and then light candles to “be romantic,” but your colleague switches the lights back on and says you’re just friends. You:
A--Apologize for any misunderstanding and say it’ll never happen again.
B--Pretend it was a joke and laugh it off.
C--Complain to two companions that you brought your colleague “all the way to Canada and the bitch isn’t even putting out.”
In spite of her saying that you are just a friend, you decide to continue to woo her by:
A--Backing off and giving her some time and space.
B--Inviting her to a cultural event of her preference.
C--Climbing into her bed uninvited and rubbing your genitals against her.
When you finally conclude that she does not want a romantic relationship with you, you:
A--Say you understand, and ask whether she’d prefer that you transfer to another part of the office.
B--Send her a bouquet of flowers with a note saying you’re sorry it didn’t work out between you.
C--Call her “a whore, a slut, an alley cat” and leave a Pringle’s potato chip canister of urine in her suitcase.
If you answered A, you are a diplomat and a “catch.” If you answered B, you need to work on your sensitivity skills. If you answered C, you just might be Dennis Zine, Los Angeles police sergeant and a director of the Police Protective League, accused in a lawsuit of doing those seamy things to a female LAPD officer at a PPL event in Calgary, Canada.
You know, the place where they hold that other stampede.
*
It makes for very discouraging reading, this recent unpleasantness out of the LAPD.
There is, beyond the Zine matter, news of another LAPD officer, the GOP challenger for an important Assembly seat in Glendale, suspended without pay for 44 days last year for sexually harassing a female officer, and of a federal investigation into lying from the witness box by an LAPD officer whose alleged mendacities could reopen scores of cases.
Over at the Police Protective League, they are constrained from saying much about Zine: only that “this is not conduct that the league would condone if the allegations are true,” and that they “will investigate the facts involved and take appropriate action.”
A league spokesman earlier suggested that Zine’s pending departmental hearing on 13 misconduct counts in the matter, and his being relieved of duty by Chief Bernard C. Parks, raises the possibility of “retaliation”--Parks’ way of checkmating a critic who is also a member of the elected charter reform commission.
It’s worth considering. But not even President Clinton’s allies, who raise the specter of a right-wing plot to bring him down, have suggested that the plot included the planting of dark-haired Mata Haris in the president’s path.
*
As President Clinton may be his own worst enemy, at least from the waist down, so may Dennis Zine, according to some accounts I hear.
He’s a divorced man; his social life is his own. But where it overlaps with his dual roles as a police officer and a PPL director, it becomes others’ concern as well.
A couple of well-known LAPD veterans told me of a PPL trip to Washington two or three years ago. Zine had met a woman over the telephone and invited her to stay with him there. When he saw that she was perhaps 20 years his senior, one caller said, “his face dropped to the floor”--interesting in light of the 51-year-old Zine’s alleged remark to 36-year-old plaintiff Denise Ward that she was “no spring chicken.”
He ignored the older woman and her attempts at coquetry in a red negligee. Months later, Zine was still being razzed about her.
There were other romantic interludes, the callers told me, objectionable not for any R or X ratings but for their possible $ rating--that the tab may have been paid by the PPL, whose coffers are filled by officers’ dues.
Zine has reimbursed the PPL for Ward’s expenses in Canada.
But other issues remain:
“Now,” the caller predicted, “they’re gonna spend membership money to defend him . . . when they don’t defend officers who deserve it.”
If that happens, he said, it won’t just be about money any more: “It’s the reputation of the union.”
Patt Morrison, whose regular column runs on Wednesdays, fills in today for Shawn Hubler, who is on vacation. Morrison’s e-mail address is patt.morrison@latimes.com
