Civil Rights Groups Join to Urge Police Reform

Denouncing the Los Angeles Police Commission as a failure, more than 25 civil rights and community groups Thursday said they have formed a Coalition for Police Accountability to seek improved public oversight of the Police Department.

In the wake of the unfolding corruption scandal within the department’s Rampart Division as well as the fatal shooting of a homeless woman brandishing a screwdriver in May, the coalition wants to “improve the policies and practice of the LAPD and to restore the legitimacy of the people’s faith and trust” in the Police Department.

The commission is a civilian oversight body that sets overall policy for the Police Department. It was given added teeth after the 1991 Christopher Commission recommended reforms after the beating of Rodney King by officers.

Coalition members contended Thursday that the commission is unable or unwilling to regulate the department.

In response, Chief Bernard C. Parks issued a statement accusing the coalition of “using [the Rampart] crisis for [their] own benefit rather than the benefit of the general community and Police Department.”

Some coalition leaders “state that there is no accountability in the LAPD and that we lack the integrity to police ourselves,” Parks said. “We would like to remind [the coalition] that the Rampart issue was discovered by the LAPD through an internal investigation.”

Joe Gunn, executive director of the Police Commission, agreed with Parks, countering that the new coalition is unnecessary, and that many of its complaints are based on fallacies.

“What power do they want us to have?” Gunn said. “We clearly represent the citizens of Los Angeles. We are in an oversight, policymaking position.”

He added that the commission is concerned about the scandal within the Rampart Division. The commission “is following developments and is awaiting the chief’s report, and we just think it would be premature to comment until the report comes in,” Gunn said.

But one after another, activists took to a podium in front of police headquarters Thursday and said the time has come to reform the department.

The Rev. J.M. Lawson of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference thundered that the Police Department is “too violent, too racist, too sexist,” and “is dragging the city down.”

“It is clear to me that the City Council, the mayor, the Police Commission and the police themselves cannot and will not reform the Police Department,” Lawson said. “This coalition is committed to . . . creating a solution.”

The new coalition, hastily banded together in less than two weeks, called for an independent prosecutor to investigate reports of police abuse and better handling of complaints against officers. Group members said they plan to organize public demonstrations over alleged police abuses to “force change.”

Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said she spearheaded the coalition in part because she has been dismayed at the lack of public outrage over the ongoing scandal in the Rampart Division.

“I watched [public response over] the police shootings in New York City,” she said. “Thousands of people turned out. What happened in Rampart is outrageous . . . worse than New York, and yet nobody is responding.”

The coalition will change that, she promised. Coalition participants include the ACLU of Southern California, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Lawyers Guild and the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.