No More Wiggle Room

Rudderless though it may be, the so-called leadership of Los Angeles certainly knows how to follow the political winds. Now that the U.S. Justice Department has put a pistol to the head of the city, telling it to either reform the Police Department or feel the full weight of a federal lawsuit, everyone agrees that this time Los Angeles has to get serious about stopping cops who abuse the power of the badge.

City Hall, you have a credibility problem here.

The City Council, city attorney and others have fallen all over themselves to agree to talks with the feds as a means of doing the job they, the mayor and various chiefs of police should have done years ago. The mayor flew off to Washington after he heard the news and as of Tuesday had not spoken a public word to his city about the threatened lawsuit. Even the Justice Department’s cavalry rode in late; the agency began its “pattern and practice” investigation into LAPD misconduct four years ago but started pushing hard for reform only after more recent revelations of perjury, falsified evidence, doctored crime scenes and questionable shootings.

There are local precedents for where the federal pressure might lead and lessons on what city officials can expect when they start real negotiations with the federal government within the next few days.

In 1996 and 1997, the Justice Department retained its own medical experts to examine the atrocious treatment that mentally ill inmates were receiving in the Los Angeles County jail system. They found a modern Bedlam, “constitutionally inadequate,” with inmates cramped into tiny cells without exercise and regular access to showers, treatment or medication. The threat of a federal lawsuit and the possible loss of some authority was enough to get then-Sheriff Sherman Block’s immediate attention. Inmates were moved into better surroundings. The county came up with additional funding to nearly double the mental health staff in the jails. Medication delivery was improved, as was training for jail personnel.

The LAPD itself settled a federal lawsuit in 1981 by agreeing to hire more minority members and women. The path of that settlement was rocky in its first years, when newly hired women and minorities reported harassment and discriminatory treatment. But today the force is closer to reflecting the community it serves.

Of course, there is another local example that is more cautionary--the consent decree that was supposed to settle the Los Angeles bus riders’ federal civil rights lawsuit against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. That one has been an endless battle, in and out of court, over what exactly was agreed to. Lesson to be learned: Any agreement regarding the LAPD should be very specific about goals and how they are to be defined.

For their part, city and police officials will have little choice but to comply with federal demands, and quickly. There are indications now that the liability costs that Los Angeles faces for those who were falsely imprisoned on trumped-up charges will greatly exceed current expectations. The last thing that the city and its taxpayers need is the burden of fighting a federal lawsuit.

What the Justice Department needs to see immediately is improved cooperation between LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks and Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, as well as more gumption by the city’s Police Commission in gathering a team of legal pit bulls to examine all aspects of the Police Department. If that local work can continue in some fashion under the federal government, so much the better.

Many will have to bend under the federal pressure, first and foremost Mayor Richard Riordan and Chief Parks, who are to meet in Washington today with Bill Lann Lee, head of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. Parks sat with arms crossed against chest during a meeting Monday with Justice officials. It’s past time for the chief to uncross those arms and embrace the fact that outside monitoring of the LAPD is coming. It’s a damning indictment of the people who claim to run this city that the federal government had to come in and threaten the LAPD as it once did small-town Southern sheriffs. This, as Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas put it candidly, spells failure.