Parks Rejects Police Panel’s Discipline Policy

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks has declined to implement new departmental discipline guidelines approved by the civilian Police Commission nearly eight months ago because he believes they infringe on his authority.

In hopes of avoiding controversy over the issue, the commission--acting behind closed doors and without a formal vote--has agreed to let the chief draft his own disciplinary policies.

“We’re going to wait and see what the chief comes up with,” commission President Edith Perez said Friday. “If you talk to each commissioner, you would find that given the chief’s reputation as a strict disciplinarian, they have faith that [he] will come up with some very meaningful guidelines.”

Commissioners learned that the chief was not following the guidelines when he was asked about the matter during a recent closed session with the civilian oversight panel, sources say. Byron Boeckman, the deputy city attorney who advises the panel, informed the commissioners, sources say, that the City Charter does not give them authority to instruct Parks to enforce the guidelines. According to the sources, the commissioners felt the chief’s rejection of the guidelines placed them in an awkward position, and agreed to await his revision of the policies.

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The guidelines established by the commission in June set harsh punishments for officers who lie, use excessive force or demean women or minorities. They were designed to impose consistent penalties on officers of all ranks found guilty of similar misconduct.

The disciplinary guidelines were the result of more than a year of work by a Police Commission task force that included the panel’s Inspector General Katherine Mader. The task force concluded that four types of misconduct were the most egregious: dishonesty, excessive force, discourteous behavior and abuse of a firearm. Under the guidelines, punishments for such misconduct ranged from written reprimands to termination.

Mader declined to comment on the status of the discipline guidelines but praised the passage of the document last summer, saying that standardized discipline is critical because it creates a more credible system in the eyes of the public and the department.

Parks, department officials say, believes that the guidelines deprive supervisors of the flexibility to tailor punishment to each case’s circumstances. Moreover, he contends--correctly, according to the city attorney--that the City Charter gives him sole authority over discipline matters, and that the commission could not compel the chief to implement the guidelines.

“The chief wants to revisit the issue and incorporate his philosophy and ideas on discipline,” said Deputy Chief Greg Berg, who helped draft the document. “He thinks it locks us into a standard that he no longer agrees with.”

Specifically, department officials say, if supervisors deviated from the guidelines, Parks contends it could expose the department and the city to potential labor lawsuits.

Department officials say the chief will lay out his views on punishment, but will not lock supervisors into specified penalties.

When the civilian oversight commission approved the massive overhaul of the department’s discipline guidelines, commissioners, top department officials and police reform advocates declared it a historic moment for the LAPD.

Supporters of the document, including representatives from the police union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and then-Chief Bayan Lewis, said it addressed a key concern of the 1991 Christopher Commission, which recommended that the LAPD’s internal discipline better reflect the severity of an offense.

“It’s a major disappointment and a major step backward,” said Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California. “It’s a slap in the face to all of us who worked on it and I’m surprised that the commission is caving in so easily.”

Police union representatives also expressed disappointment over Parks’ rejection of the guidelines. “It’s a sign that he wants complete authority over everything,” said Dave Hepburn, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents more than 9,000 officers. “Why would the chief want to be against consistent punishment? . . . This is not because he wants to go easier on an officer.”

Perez denied that the chief and the commissioners are at loggerheads over the issue.

“I don’t think we can say it’s a slap in the face until we see what his guidelines are.”

Although the commission may lack authority to compel the chief to adopt particular guidelines, Perez said, it does formally evaluate the chief’s performance in administering discipline.

Three commissioners--Perez, Herbert F. Boeckmann and T. Warren Jackson--were on the panel at the time the guidelines were unanimously approved. Jackson, however, was absent during the vote.

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Former Commission President Raymond C. Fisher, who was chairman of the task force, said Friday that it was never the group’s intention to “usurp the authority of the chief.” He said the guidelines were developed as a cooperative effort with several top LAPD officials.

He said the guidelines’ purpose was to convey to the public and the department “the relative seriousness of misconduct” and establish “predictability” in punishments, so officers knew how misconduct would be treated.

Fisher, now associate U.S. attorney general, added that it might be Parks’ prerogative to change the guidelines, but that he hoped the new version would be a “cooperative effort between the chief and the police commission.”

Even before the creation of the guidelines, Mader issued a report suggesting that LAPD’s rank-and-file officers historically have been punished more severely than command officers.

The Protective League’s Hepburn said Parks’ objection to the guidelines are part of a larger campaign by the chief to deprive officers of their due process rights and benefits within the department. For example, Hepburn cited Parks’ recommendations to the city’s Charter Commission seeking to eliminate Civil Service protection for deputy chiefs and transfer the costs of employee representation from the city to the union.