Missing: Outrage Over LAPD Scandal

It’s like a bad dream from which we just can’t seem to wake up. I picked up The Times recently and read the front-page headline, “Rampart Settlements Could Hit $125 Million” from 120 cases. I ran into the street to see the angry crowd of protesters making their way to Parker Center. The streets were empty.

Well, it was only 6:15 a.m. I had breakfast, got dressed, dropped the kids off at school and headed downtown. As I descended the First Street hill toward police headquarters, I expected to have to detour to avoid the marchers. But all was eerily quiet. Had no one noticed we were in the midst of the most compelling police corruption scandal of our generation?

We can’t seem to get the drama of civic outrage going because Police Chief Bernard C. Parks keeps stepping on everyone’s lines, even his own. In December, Parks complained that the Coalition for Police Accountability and the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the coalition’s founders, “describe the LAPD as a police department rampant with corruption and abuse.” “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said indignantly in a press release, going on to chastise the ACLU’s Ramona Ripston for saying “that to complain to the LAPD, citizens need to go to the police to make a complaint.” Parks smugly counters that LAPD complaint forms are located in many governmental offices. (Oh, yeah?)

Yet later, the chief is quoted by The Times as stating that lax oversight and poor adherence to departmental policies helped “corruption to flourish” in the LAPD! Further, he recommends that 200 officers and civilian employees be added to the Internal Affairs Division. Why? Because when complaints were lodged against officers, too often they were investigated within the division where they occurred! Parks said, “Many of those complaints involved serious community complaints that should have been handled by [Internal Affairs] to ensure the most independent and thorough investigation possible.” Now I’m really confused. Isn’t that the point that Ripston et al were making in December when he so bitterly complained about them?

This marvelous public relations display by Chief Parks is like none we’ve seen from any previous police chief. In one moment he is indignant, and in the next he is contrite. And he is equally believable as both villain and hero. It has been masterful. Thus, to date no groundswell of civic outrage has been able to pick up any steam. What a difference a videotape makes.

If this disaster does not stir the hearts of the citizenry to righteous indignation, then the scene is set for future relapses. We cannot and should not invest the integrity and accountability of our police department in any one man. Not because he is unworthy, but because the LAPD belongs to all of us. It is up to all of us to hold those who serve us (with the power of life and death) to the standards that we set through an open and participatory process.

We must be fully committed to rooting out the corruption that has deeply stained our city. Full commitment requires full participation. The City Council recently held closed-session hearings on what is arguably the most important city business it will conduct for many years to come. While such sessions may at times be necessary, an open process must begin for the sake of the public acceptance of the outcome of this critical investigation.

This is not a challenge to the competence or honesty of Chief Parks. It is a challenge to his notion that he and his staff are sufficient to clean up their own mess. This mess belongs to all of us, affects all of us, threatens all of us and undoubtedly will dearly cost all of us.

Civilian oversight, a cornerstone of community policing, requires a broader and more engaging participation by the public than is currently offered by the chief’s “I’ll let you know when I know” approach. And it is the role of the Coalition for Police Accountability, the ACLU, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and any other civic-minded bodies to stimulate the public’s concern in these matters. For indeed, public confidence will only erode as more criminal cases are affected and more officers are involved and as the scandal reaches to higher ranks in the administration.

The chief is expected to propose that an ethics enforcement section be established that would “ continually conduct sting operations to find and root out corruption.” Because, as the chief himself said, “It is not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’ these deplorable circumstances would recur. These failures and their causes cannot be viewed as one-time events for which the department can ‘close the books.’ ”

Amen, brother. I couldn’t have said it better myself.