LAPD Maps Strategy to Implement Change

After sorting through nine reports and hundreds of reform recommendations stretching back seven years, Los Angeles police officials have mapped out a strategy to implement about 115 proposals aimed at improving police operations.

The effort by Chief Bernard C. Parks is intended to put to rest issues raised by the 1991 blue-ribbon Christopher Commission and other studies of the Los Angeles Police Department.

According to a 26-page document obtained by The Times, top LAPD officials have been assigned specific tasks and told to accomplish them in two years or less. The recommendations Parks is seeking to implement within the LAPD range from improving opportunities for women and minorities in “coveted” assignments, such as SWAT, to establishing salary bonuses to keep officers physically fit.

The chief’s report, however, is silent on hundreds of recommendations contained in the various reports that LAPD officials have rejected as unworkable or already consider accomplished. Nor does the report explain how the proposals will be implemented or monitored.

“Attention is now focused on finishing these tasks so we can begin developing a new strategic plan for the year 2000 and beyond,” Parks wrote in a memo to the Police Commission.

LAPD officials said more comprehensive reports on each of the nine studies are being drafted and will address the status of all recommendations that have been proposed over the years. In addition to the Christopher Commission document, LAPD officials analyzed the findings in a report by Inspector General Katherine Mader issued six months after she took office, a report by police consultants Merrick J. Bobb and Mark H. Epstein examining the status of reforms five years after the Christopher Commission report, a report investigating the brutality claims of former Det. Mark Fuhrman, and several other studies on LAPD facilities, support systems and technologies.

Those studies address nearly every aspect of the LAPD, offering suggestions on how to improve training, enhance accountability within the ranks, eliminate hostile working conditions and overhaul the agency’s aging infrastructure.

The proposals Parks wants completed include:

* Developing a computer Web page to improve communication between the public and the LAPD.

* Enhancing computer programs used by detectives and patrol officers, as well as programs to keep better track of internal personnel and management issues.

* Creating a nonemergency 311 system to ease the city’s overburdened 911 lines.

* Developing a “bar code” system, similar to those used in grocery stores, to account for department equipment.

* Securing funding for video units in patrol cars.

* Reviewing and clarifying the department’s policy on moonlighting, addressing the issue of supervisors working off-duty jobs with or for subordinates.

* Providing tuition reimbursement and financial incentives for job-related educational programs.

* Submitting bond proposals to pay for new police stations, jails and a property room.

Parks and his top commanders embarked on the massive review of LAPD studies in February during a three-day retreat at a resort in Ojai.

“We recognized that each of these reports resulted from a substantial investment of city resources and the recommendations flowing from them received careful consideration,” Parks wrote in his letter to the commission. “We also recognized that it was imperative to complete the work begun on these recommendations as soon as possible.”

Since the 1991 beating of motorist Rodney G. King--which prompted the Christopher Commission report--the LAPD has been criticized for its slow-paced efforts at implementing reforms. Critics have repeatedly accused the department of failing to act on proposals to track problem officers, reduce excessive force and addressissues of sexual and racial harassment.

Last year, former Chief Willie L. Williams was ousted from office, in part because police commissioners said he did not implement reforms quickly enough. Lately, however, police commissioners--particularly Commission President Edith Perez--have praised the LAPD’s progress on reforms. Several weeks ago, Perez declared that 98 out of 103 Christopher Commission recommendations have been accomplished.

According to Parks’ report, nearly 20 Christopher Commission recommendations are still being addressed.

Capt. Dan Koenig, who is spearheading the chief’s analysis of the studies, has said Parks is eager to resolve the issues raised in all of the reports so that the LAPD can focus on the future and get beyond past criticisms. Reform advocates, however, say they are worried that the chief is treating the recommendations as some sort of checklist instead of embracing the ideas in the context of a general police philosophy.

LAPD critics said they are awaiting better explanations from the department about which recommendations are considered completed or have been rejected.

Police officials said many of the recommendations in the nine reports overlap and in some cases conflict with each other. Moreover, a number of proposals are out of the LAPD’s hands, either because of limitations in the City Charter or financial constraints.