Burbank Police Use Class to Do the Right Thing

Years ago, Burbank Police Sgt. Frank Reilman had wrapped up his investigation into the suicide of a man who shot himself when the family of the victim offered to give him the man’s gun as a token of their appreciation.

Accepting the gift wouldn’t be a crime or even against departmental policy, and Reilman could have taken it without a second thought.

Still he refused, recalling “I didn’t feel good about it.”

He thinks about that now because since 1997, Reilman and partner Sgt. Jon Murphy lecture to Burbank cops in a class solely devoted to exercising good judgment and making ethical decisions.

Or as some are fond of saying, doing the right thing when no one’s looking.

“We don’t tell them it’s wrong to steal drugs, murder people or rob banks, because they know that--everybody knows that,” Reilman said.

“We talk about situations in the gray area.”

Topics of the class--which includes lectures, films and discussion--range from the consequences of accepting a free lunch to the pitfalls of improper sexual relationships or confronting a colleague who used excessive force.

“For every two officers that die each year in the line of duty nationwide, 25 lose their jobs because of ethical transgressions,” according to Reilman.

And that doesn’t begin to include the number of officers whose dubious conduct negatively affects their careers.

To get officers thinking about their behavior on and off the job, the department is pushing all 165 sworn personnel--in groups of four or five--through the program.

Once those efforts are completed, the hope is to retrain officers every three years.

The Los Angeles Police Department does not have a separate ethics class, instead incorporating that area into other training courses through the course of an officer’s career, according to LAPD officials.

But Burbank, a far smaller department, has the luxury to separate its ethics training, which Reilman maintains “could get muddled” if too many issues are discussed at the same time.

Burbank’s classes offer cops a mental checklist to follow that includes asking whether their behavior is illegal or simply gives the appearance of impropriety.

They should consider, they are told, whether it is in the interest of the department, ask themselves whether they are rationalizing their actions because “others do it,” and ultimately, how it makes the individual officers feel about themselves.

That doesn’t mean the department is training them to be snitches. The program tries to teach principles and actions that individual officers can apply themselves if they see something troubling, officials maintain.

“We want the discussions to be free, and we also don’t want them [to commit] institutional suicide,” said Reilman. “We don’t want the officer to stand up and say, ‘I’m dating a 17-year-old.’ ”

The message the department is trying to convey is one of the individual’s career survival along with the image of the badge, officials say.

“You’re held to a higher standard and you should keep that in mind in your decision-making,” Reilman said.

“You have to look into yourself and ask, ‘Is it right and is it wrong?’ ”