Council Backs U.S. Demand to Reform Police

Presented with a Department of Justice letter that stingingly indicts the Los Angeles Police Department’s supervision at every level, Los Angeles City Council members said Tuesday that they will support negotiation of a consent decree to avoid a court battle over allegations of widespread misconduct and civil rights abuses.

Justice Department officials, who outlined their findings in a blunt, four-page letter to the city, said the federal authorities are continuing an investigation into whether the department “discriminates on the basis of race or national origin in its law enforcement activities.” The federal government’s investigation into the LAPD’s “pattern and practice” has been underway for four years.

“Serious deficiencies in city and LAPD policies and procedures for training, supervising and investigating and disciplining officers foster and perpetuate officer misconduct,” Bill Lann Lee, acting assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division, wrote in the letter addressed to City Atty. James K. Hahn.

The LAPD has “failed to supervise officers properly by failing to identify and respond to patterns of at-risk officer behavior,” according to the letter.

On a regular basis, officers use excessive force, make false arrests, conduct police stops not based on reasonable suspicion and engage in improper searches and seizures, federal investigators found.

The Justice Department further said that although other investigative bodies over the past nine years have identified similar abuses, the pattern or practices of police misconduct--and the LAPD’s failure to adequately address them--have been allowed to continue to the present day.

The letter also faults the city for failing to give the Police Commission and inspector general “adequate resources needed to conduct meaningful oversight of LAPD” and held out the possibility that Washington may demand “structural reforms” in the way civilian oversight of the LAPD is conducted.

A majority of council members said they were willing to hammer out an agreement on reforms in an effort to appease the federal officials, who presented their allegations to a dozen city officials in a closed-door meeting Monday. Negotiations could begin as early as next week. Under the City Charter, the council ultimately must approve any consent decree negotiated by other city officials.

“The Department of Justice has just given a very clear message to us that it is not comfortable with the laissez faire approach we have been taking,” Councilwoman Laura Chick told her colleagues. “They are saying good intentions are not good enough. They want to see real action.”

At the LAPD, officials were stunned by the letter’s stinging accusations. The department formally refused to comment, but some top leaders groused at the Justice Department’s approach to the case and at the City Council’s apparent willingness to give in to federal demands.

The city of Torrance resisted an attempt by the federal government to challenge its police practices, and that city ultimately prevailed. Two top LAPD officials Tuesday cited that example and suggested that Los Angeles should consider a similar course.

There seemed little if any political will to follow that route, however. Even before the Justice Department has spelled out what it might seek in a decree, a strong political consensus in Los Angeles was forming around a settlement.

“I believe that open confession is good for the soul,” Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas said. “We have to acknowledge that we have failed and push forward with an agenda of reform in this city. . . . We won’t get anywhere unless we admit that we didn’t take care of business.”

The Justice Department, which began its probe of the LAPD in 1996, is exercising its authority under a statute that was enacted after the 1991 police beating of motorist Rodney G. King.

According to city officials, a key element for Justice Department negotiators in any settlement agreement would be the appointment of an outside monitor responsible for overseeing implementation of the ongoing reforms.

Although a number of council members say they welcome the Justice Department’s involvement, Mayor Richard Riordan and Police Chief Bernard C. Parks have not made their positions public. Riordan, whose decision to skip the Monday meeting with federal authorities angered several of those who attended, was joined in Washington on Tuesday evening by Parks.

On Tuesday, Hahn, whose office would be charged with actually negotiating a deal with the federal government, spoke in support of a consent decree.

“I believe the city and the Justice Department share the same goals,” he told council members.

Hahn has an additional issue to consider: He’s a leading candidate for mayor, and thus has little political incentive to position himself as battling the Justice Department on behalf of the LAPD.

Moreover, Hahn already has endorsed the creation of an independent commission to study the LAPD, a move that telegraphed his unwillingness to let the city’s Police Commission handle that delicate task. As a result, it would be hard for him now to argue against the Justice Department’s contention that some agency outside the city government needs to oversee LAPD reform.

In his letter, the Justice Department’s Lee specifically commended the LAPD, Police Commission and inspector general for their efforts to identify problems at the department related to the ongoing Rampart corruption scandal. He also stressed that the time had come for them to give way to federal authorities.

“We believe . . . that federal action now is required to eliminate the pattern or practice of police misconduct in the LAPD,” Lee wrote.

Police Commission President Gerald L. Chaleff said it was too soon to say whether entering into an agreement with the federal government was the best way to advance reform of the LAPD, but he called the current debate “an opportunity for the department and the citizens of Los Angeles” to consider what type of police agency they wanted.

One area cited by the federal government as deficient at the LAPD is its disciplinary system--which is almost exclusively under the chief’s control.

On Tuesday, Chaleff agreed that examination of that system is in order.

“It’s time for us to take a serious look at whether the Police Commission should have more authority in the disciplinary process,” he said. “Right now, we have responsibility but not authority.”

Ted Hunt, president of LAPD officers’ union, the Police Protective League, said he met with Lee and other Justice Department officials Tuesday morning and came away cautiously optimistic about their intentions for the LAPD.

“I’m not telling you it was some kind of love fest. . . . I don’t want to be forced into some kind of contract,” Hunt said. “But what we agreed to is to do what’s best for the Los Angeles Police Department. We committed to them that we’re going to be part of the solution. We could really muck this up, but we’re not going to do that.”

According to Hunt, Lee focused his talk on management problems within the department, an issue Hunt and other union leaders have complained about for years.

“They made it really crystal clear that this is about management and systems within the department that allow certain things to transpire,” Hunt said. “This is what we’ve been saying from the very beginning.”

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Justice Department on the LAPD

The Los Angeles city attorney received a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice regarding its assessment of the Los Angeles Police Department. Below are excerpts:

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Times staff writer Scott Glover contributed to this story.