Department Split Has Police Up in Arms

Time was, a small-town police chief not only enforced the laws, he might make a few of his own. And he certainly didn’t have to worry about his officers. They knew who was boss.

But in the small Eastern Sierra town of Bishop, tradition has taken a holiday and the police chief is fighting to keep his job.

The Bishop Police Department’s eight full-time officers have been in rebellion for nearly a year against what they say is the good-ol’-boy, seat-of-the-pants style of Police Chief Bruce Dishion.

Officers complain that Dishion is a mean-spirited, ineffectual manager who has failed to keep them properly trained. They went to the town’s administrator and City Council last August for help. But when little was done, the Inyo County Grand Jury began to investigate.

Now, the 11-member volunteer panel has upped the ante--launching legal proceedings that could force Chief Dishion, 51, and one of his sergeants, Larry Cox, 54, from office for alleged malfeasance.

Dishion, Cox and the town’s administrator, Rick Pucci, did not return several phone calls seeking comment. City Atty. Peter E. Tracy released a prepared statement that read, in part: “The city of Bishop is entirely supportive of Chief Dishion and Sgt. Cox and I will be an active participant in their legal defense. Ultimately, I am convinced that [the accusations will not] survive legal scrutiny.”

The contretemps in this normally serene town on California 395 stems from a split between the mostly older, home-grown officers who run the Police Department and younger officers who come from outside and bring more rigorous ideas about police procedures.

“The group dynamic of the patrol officers has changed a lot in the last 10 years,” said one officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We have guys from San Diego and Los Angeles with a lot more experience and a lot more progressive ideas about policing.”

The town of 3,600 residents has little crime, but its location on a major north-south artery increasingly exposes it to gangs, drugs and other big-city problems, the grand jury reported. Those dangers require that officers remain up to date in field tactics, firearms training and other disciplines.

Instead, Dishion, Cox and other veteran Bishop Police Department supervisors have provided little direction to their force, according to the grand jury.

“They are dinosaurs. They have been here too long and it’s time for them to move along,” said Domingo Parra Sr., the owner of a local automotive shop.

The controversy began Aug. 9, when all eight of the department’s sworn officers wrote a letter that accused Dishion and Cox of a variety of shortcomings. The grand jury might have just filed the information away, but panel members became convinced that city leaders were not doing enough to respond to the accusations.

As a result, the panel launched a review of its own, invoking an obscure section of the state Government Code that allows the removal of public officials who do not do their jobs. The 12-page accusation by the grand jury alleges that Dishion:

* Showed favoritism in disciplining officers.

* Failed to review or debrief officers after serious incidents, including a dangerous standoff with a suspect in which police positioned themselves in such a way that they might have shot one another.

* Failed to appoint officers to conduct training, oversee evidence and tend to other important functions.

* Carried a gun even though he had not qualified on the firing range to do so, and allowed other officers to do the same.

* Treated employees discourteously and caused morale to plummet.

Grand jurors became even more incensed when they heard Dishion’s response to their work. According to the panel’s report, the chief reportedly referred to them as “a bunch of yo-yos,” adding that a bunch of “shopkeepers and waitresses” didn’t know anything about police work.

The grand jury cited Cox--who began his career on the Bishop police force 27 years ago, within a month of Dishion--for many of the same deficiencies as the chief.

It also accused him of failing to back up fellow officers; using confidential Department of Motor Vehicles records for other than official purposes; and failing to properly investigate an alleged theft from Parra’s automotive repair shop.

The Inyo County district attorney has removed himself from the case because he has worked with Dishion for years. Instead, the allegations are being reviewed by the state attorney general’s office. The attorney general will decide whether Dishion and Cox must stand trial for their alleged transgressions. A judge or jury, sitting in a civil proceeding, would then have to decide whether to remove the officers from their posts.

The San Diego County Grand Jury recently filed a similar action against Mayor Susan Golding, related to the city’s attempt to build a downtown ballpark.

But the courts typically have been loath to remove public officials through civil proceedings. A state appellate court in 1996, for instance, blocked efforts by the Orange County district attorney to remove two members of the Board of Supervisors from office for failing to prevent the county’s bankruptcy.

In Bishop, officers and some residents are hoping that, at the very least, the accusations will force some reforms in the Police Department.

“There is a perceived good-old-boy system,” said one Bishop businessman, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “For years things have been done a certain way, with the chief handling things personally with favoritism, and it has become unbearable for the cops.”