Council Defers Own Rampart Inquiry

A sharply divided Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday signaled that it is not ready to embrace the idea of an independent outside investigation into the worst police scandal in city history.

With most members voicing support for the civilian Police Commission, the council voted 8 to 6 to hold off on creating an independent panel to probe the scandal growing out of misconduct in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division. They decided instead to forward the proposal--introduced by Councilman Joel Wachs--to the council’s Public Safety Committee for further study.

“No matter how you cut it, if you are going to restore the confidence of this city in its Police Department, you are going to have to have an outside independent inquiry,” Wachs warned his colleagues.

“A complete internal investigation alone will not be convincing to people. People have to know it’s objective,” Wachs said.

But other council members said they wanted to give the Police Commission a chance to conduct its own investigation into the problems at Rampart before deciding to seek another probe. Last week, the city lawmakers voted to give the citizens oversight committee whatever resources it needs to conduct a thorough review of the LAPD’s corruption problems.

“I’m asking everyone to wait for the Board of Inquiry report,” said Councilman Nick Pacheco, a former prosecutor. “I am skeptical, but I’m not going to breach the practice I was taught--not to prejudge things.”

As many as 20 officers have been relieved of duty and 40 criminal convictions have been overturned as a result of the scandal in which anti-gang officers at the Rampart station allegedly framed and shot innocent people, perjured themselves, beat suspects and allegedly engaged in other misconduct.

The department’s Board of Inquiry report into the scandal is expected to be released March 1 and contains more than 100 recommendations aimed at improving the department’s administrative and managerial operations, as well as other structural and personnel issues.

Mapping out their strategy, members of the Police Commission said Tuesday that they plan to hire law enforcement and criminal justice experts to help them evaluate the department’s report.

The commission’s review of the LAPD document will be headed by Inspector General Jeffrey C. Eglash. Commissioners said they want to go beyond the LAPD’s report and look at their own failings as a commission, which allowed the Rampart scandal to go on for years undetected.

The commission is particularly interested in the review and investigation of officer-involved shootings, supervision issues, hiring and training practices, and disciplinary matters. Its members also plan to hold public hearings on the department’s report and recommendations.

“We envision that each working group would include commission staff and one or more people from outside the department, such as attorneys, academicians, retired judges, or active/retired law enforcement officials with substantial experience in police management, police operations and criminal justice matters,” Eglash and Commission Executive Director Joe Gunn wrote in a letter to members of the citizen oversight panel.

Expressing confidence in the Police Commission, Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski asked her colleagues to vote to send Wachs’ proposal to the Public Safety Committee, which she heads.

If the council finds that the Police Commission’s probe has fallen short, they can then opt to form an outside commission to look into the matter, she argued.

“Our very commission is doing what we are asking,” Miscikowski said. “We should give that process a chance to work.”

However, council members Laura Chick, Jackie Goldberg, Mark Ridley-Thomas, Rudy Svorinich Jr. and Rita Walters sided with Wachs.

“My concern is whether the commission and the inspector general are up to the task,” Ridley-Thomas said. “There is a lot at stake here.”

At a City Hall news conference earlier in the day, Ramona Ripston of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and police union President Ted Hunt joined Wachs in calling for an outside investigation.

Hunt also disclosed that the union has retained a legal scholar and civil rights activist to conduct an independent review of the department’s Board of Inquiry report.

In an unlikely alliance, Hunt said he has asked USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky to form a panel of experts to review the LAPD report on the Rampart situation. He said he has confidence in the department’s investigation, but an independent review is needed to persuade the public.

“This is not a trick,” Hunt said. “We are very sincere and earnest about this. This is something we have to resolve . . . We need to raise this all the way up so people have total and complete confidence in this Police Department.”

Chemerinsky, an ACLU board member and a professor of constitutional law, said he will review the Board of Inquiry report--due out next week--to ensure that it adequately addresses the problems at Rampart and sets forth a course of action to make sure the abuses do not happen again.

“I’m not doing an investigation of Rampart,” Chemerinsky said. “My focus will be an independent analysis of the policy recommendations in the report.”

Meanwhile, at the county’s Hall of Administration, the politics of the Rampart scandal and looming election for district attorney spilled into the Board of Supervisors meeting. Supervisor Mike Antonovich unsuccessfully tried to get his colleagues to urge incumbent Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti to prosecute officers who violated the law.

Antonovich, who is backing challenger Steve Cooley in the election next month, accused Garcetti’s office of “foot-dragging.”

“It is imperative that we move forward and make sure these individuals are prosecuted,” Antonovich said, citing a 1998 case in which the district attorney’s office has declined to prosecute a Rampart officer who was fired from the department. Police Chief Bernard C. Parks has publicly urged Garcetti to prosecute Officer Brian Hewitt for his alleged role in the beating of an unarmed suspect.

But the rest of the supervisors, who back Garcetti, were cool to Antonovich’s motion, and it died for lack of a second.

“There is a very fine line as far as the board is concerned about telling the D.A. what to prosecute and who to prosecute,” Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said.

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Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this story.