New Level for LAPD Probe

The U.S. Justice Department has been examining the Los Angeles Police Department for the last four years. Agents and officials of the civil rights division have been seeking to determine whether incidents involving excessive force by LAPD officers fall into any recognizable pattern. It’s the scope and intensity of that work that now figure to change in light of the burgeoning probe of corruption in the LAPD. Certainly that’s the hope of those most interested in getting to the bottom of the city’s worst police scandal.

Bill Lann Lee, head of Justice’s civil rights division, arrived from Washington this week with a much longer list of goals. Those include getting an answer to the following questions:

Why has the LAPD failed to implement some of the major reforms called for by 1991’s Christopher Commission? How does the LAPD intend to improve its supervision of officers? How will the department implement key recommendations from the report of its own Board of Inquiry, particularly those that seem to strengthen the powers of Police Chief Bernard C. Parks without enhancing civilian oversight?

What the city needs is a sign that Lee’s visit signals more aggressive federal scrutiny.

In 1996 Willie L. Williams was still chief and Raymond Fisher headed the city’s Police Commission. Federal officials say now that they received prompt cooperation and information on excessive-force complaints and related matters involving LAPD officers. That seemed to change when Parks took over as chief and Edith Perez became the Police Commission president.

Under Williams and Fisher, “We got a quicker response to our first request,” one government official familiar with the federal civil rights investigation told Times reporters. It’s clear that improved and prompt cooperation between the Justice Department and the LAPD is crucial.

The Justice Department, if it becomes fully engaged, will bring new powers to the table. It carries the threat of federal lawsuits, which Justice has already applied in demanding better care for mentally ill inmates in the Los Angeles County jails. The department also has the power to force local police agencies to accept an outside monitor, implement reforms and turn over police records.

In a scandal that has already produced allegations of perjury, drug dealing, false arrests and unwarranted shootings by LAPD officers, Bill Lann Lee’s visit should signal the start of a full-scale independent civil rights probe. Local inquiries can proceed apace, but a federal probe has become an unavoidable necessity.