Rivalries Cloud Investigations

Scandal and corruption test the mettle of any government. When the allegations are as serious as those facing the Los Angeles Police Department, the spotlight is trained on the mayor, the City Council, the police chief, the district attorney, the city attorney and the Police Commission. This is a list rife with rivalries, insecurities and competing interests, but all of these must be put aside to get to the heart of the problem and correct it. So far, however, the indicators point in the wrong direction.

The first hurdle is the May 1999 shooting death of Margaret Laverne Mitchell in a confrontation with two LAPD officers. Mitchell was carrying a screwdriver.

Times reporters have learned that LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks has declared that although the officers erred in the moments leading up to the violence, the Mitchell shooting was justified. The LAPD’s civilian watchdog, Police Commission Inspector General Jeffrey Eglash, has found that the officer who fired the shots bungled the situation so badly that he outright violated the LAPD’s policy on shootings.

That means Police Commission President Gerald Chaleff, Vice President T. Warren Jackson and Commissioners Herbert F. Boeckmann II, Raquelle de la Rocha and Dean Hansell will have to act decisively on this issue and persuasively defend their arguments. The Mitchell case will be rightfully cast as a test of the commission’s independence and as a sign of its ability to properly judge the quality of the LAPD’s report on the Rampart scandal.

There are too many troubling signals that other officials are pulling in opposite directions. Parks has clearly wanted to rein in the powers of the inspector general, Eglash. Other rivalries recently outlined by The Times also threaten to derail a full accounting of Rampart. Thinly veiled sniping between Parks and Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti has turned to open rancor, each side accusing the other of stalling, perhaps out of ulterior motives. This is when they should be in close cooperation in pursuing the truth.

There are also indications that Mayor Richard Riordan’s office might be pressuring the commission to back Parks on the Mitchell shooting to avoid undermining the chief in the Rampart investigation. Also, the City Council might feel compelled to take unilateral action in calling for an independent Rampart investigation, more out of its rivalry with the mayor than anything else.

The important issue in both the Mitchell shooting and the Rampart scandal is getting to the whole truth and taking steps to ensure that similar horrors don’t occur. Backroom-style political squabbles that might be overlooked in ordinary times are now a threat to the pursuit of justice in Los Angeles.