Volunteer Panel Vows Tough Rampart Probe

Vowing to “let the chips fall where they may” in its probe of the Rampart scandal, a panel appointed by the Los Angeles Police Commission said Wednesday that it is sufficiently independent to get to the bottom of the worst police corruption case in city history.

“Our mission is not to become a fig leaf for anyone; our mission is not to give anyone political cover,” said Charles LaBella, a former interim U.S. attorney who headed the Justice Department’s investigation into the 1996 Clinton campaign financing.

LaBella and more than three dozen other attorneys, many of them former prosecutors, and other prominent figures joined Police Commission President Gerald L. Chaleff at a morning news conference designed to quell mounting public concern that the Rampart scandal needs to be investigated from outside Los Angeles government. In a recent Los Angeles Times poll, three-fourths of the respondents said an outside, independent group should investigate the allegations of rampant police misconduct and criminality.

“The [Police] Commission concluded that the situation facing the LAPD today required the formation of this panel--a body that can operate with complete freedom,” Chaleff said. The body has been dubbed the Rampart Independent Review Panel.

Still, advocates of an outside probe said the effort, while impressive, was not enough.

“It is inherently impossible for the Police Commission to appoint a commission that will be seen as truly independent,” said City Councilman and mayoral candidate Joel Wachs, who was among the first to call for an outside probe of Rampart.

The commission’s volunteer panel began forming last month after the City Council pledged to give the commission whatever resources it needed to review the burgeoning scandal. The review panel will have subpoena power through the commission and is charged with probing the whole of the department, not just the Rampart station.

It will look at the LAPD’s relationship with other law enforcement agencies whose actions have been questioned in the Rampart scandal but, said former Chief Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard Drooyan, “we’re not investigating the district attorney’s office; we’re not investigating the FBI; we’re not investigating the Immigration and Naturalization Service.”

Among its many members, the panel includes attorney Steve Mansfield, a former federal prosecutor who supervised the U.N. war crimes investigation in Rwanda; David Schindler, a former federal prosecutor who prosecuted Arizona Gov. Fife Symington; professor David Lopez-Lee of USC, who evaluated the response to the 1992 riots; and former City Council candidate and community activist Madison Shockley.

Drooyan, who was deputy counsel to the Christopher Commission, formed in response the Rodney G. King beating, acknowledged the repeated calls for an outside probe but said, “If you formed a blue ribbon panel, that panel would turn to a group of people like this to conduct the investigation.”

Although they praised the qualifications of the panelists, advocates of an independent investigation questioned whether it could win the public’s trust.

City Atty. James K. Hahn, another mayoral candidate who had called for former Secretary of State Warren Christopher or someone of comparable stature to convene an independent panel, also praised those who had joined the commission’s probe, but predicted that the public would not accept its legitimacy.

“We couldn’t have paid for the talent here,” Hahn said. But, he added, “I don’t think we should stop here. I still feel a truly independent group of individuals [must be] created in a way that leaves no doubt it is not answerable to City Hall.”

In a statement, Ramona Ripston, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said: “This falls far short of a truly independent commission.”

And a spokeswoman for Assembly Speaker and mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) said the panel would not be sufficient because it could not fully investigate the roles of federal agencies or the district attorney’s office.

The civilian Police Commission, appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council, has final authority over the Police Department and selects the chief of police. In prior years, the commission has been criticized for being too supportive of the department and Chief Bernard C. Parks, who is strongly supported by Mayor Richard Riordan.

In 1998 the commissioners stood with Parks at a news conference and declared that the majority of the Christopher Commission’s recommendations had been implemented. Now, among the tasks of the review panel is investigating whether those reforms were indeed implemented and examining the quality of the Police Commission’s oversight of the department.

Drooyan, who is general counsel to the new panel, says he expects it to pull no punches. “This group will disappear overnight” if anyone interferes with its probe, he said.

The panel, which is still growing, will split into eight working groups to examine topics ranging from use of force and officer discipline to the situation at the Rampart station. It will work under the direction of the Police Commission’s inspector general, Jeffrey Eglash, a former federal prosecutor who helped select panelists; Drooyan; and the Police Commission’s executive director, former LAPD Cmdr. Joe Gunn.

The panel’s members said they hope to have a final report ready by the fall, but warned that it is too early to set a hard deadline. The panel vowed to release its final report to the public at the same time it sends it to the Police Commission.

Officials acknowledged that the panel did not include representatives of the alleged victims of the Rampart scandal--residents of the blue-collar, mainly immigrant Pico-Union district--but said that their views would be sought and that they could be added to the group.

Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas said the lack of representation was a concern. “A commission that can’t get out of the starting blocks with a representative panel is a commission that causes me [to] pause as to what the end result will be.”

Times staff writer Matt Lait contributed to this story.