4 Named to Negotiate on Police Reform

Gearing up for talks with the U.S. Department of Justice next week, Los Angeles City Council President John Ferraro has designated four city officials to negotiate an agreement on how best to reform the LAPD and forestall a federal civil rights lawsuit.

Acting as leader of the council, which ultimately must approve any agreement, Ferraro asked City Atty. James K. Hahn, Chief Legislative Analyst Ron Deaton, Police Commission President Gerald L. Chaleff and Kelly Martin, Mayor Richard Riordan’s chief of staff, to meet with Justice Department officials to thrash out a so-called consent decree.

Council members groused that they too wanted to be part of the negotiating process. Also notably missing is any member of the Los Angeles Police Department, although a spokesman for Ferraro’s office said the councilman was expecting Chaleff to designate an LAPD representative to advise him in the meetings.

Even so, some city officials said the decision not to formally name Police Chief Bernard C. Parks to the panel reflected a deeper issue--his diminished standing with the council. Leaving the choice of LAPD advisor up to Chaleff was also considered a slight, since his relationship with Parks and Parks’ supporters in the mayor’s office is distinctly cool.

“There are certain members of the council who are interested in keeping Parks in check, plain and simple,” one official said. “That might be what’s going on.”

Councilman Joel Wachs, meanwhile, said he will insist that the city open the negotiating sessions to the public.

“People don’t want to see the same few faces going behind closed doors to cut a deal,” Wachs said. “I hate that approach. If ever it was inappropriate, it’s now. This should be an open process with everyone’s involvement.”

City Hall insiders, however, said Ferraro was simply seeking to forge a small, collegial group of negotiators in an effort to keep the talks from becoming unwieldy.

“It’s very difficult when you have a lot of different people with a lot of different opinions trying to resolve the matter,” said Cecil Marr, who heads the city attorney’s police litigation unit. “That approach is more likely to impede a resolution.”

Ferraro’s staff said the council president assumed all along that the LAPD would be part of the negotiations. As for the council, Ferraro said he chose Deaton because he serves as the chief legislative advisor to the city lawmakers. “He represents all 15 council members,” a Ferraro spokeswoman said.

Martin, meanwhile, is known as a skilled negotiator who worked as an attorney specializing in corporate mergers before joining the mayor’s staff in 1998.

Officials say the talks could begin as early as Tuesday. Federal authorities, who are likely to insist that the agreement include creation of a special monitor to oversee implementation of the decree, reportedly want to wrap up the negotiations in about a month.

The Justice Department earlier this week issued an ultimatum to the city, telling officials to reform the LAPD or face a lawsuit alleging a pattern or practice of constitutional violations by its officers.

Officials were told in a closed door meeting with Bill Lann Lee, acting assistant attorney general for the department’s Civil Rights Division, that lax management allowed some LAPD officers to engage in a pattern of excessive force, false arrests and unreasonable searches and seizures.

Although Justice Department officials have been monitoring the LAPD for four years, they stepped up their investigation in recent weeks in the wake of the Rampart corruption scandal.

Presented with a scathing letter from Lee on Tuesday, City Council members said they would support the negotiation of a consent decree to avoid a court battle.

In his first formal statement since meeting with federal authorities, Riordan said Thursday that the city and the Justice Department can work together to address the issue of police reform. He did not indicate, however, whether he would support a consent decree.

“We know what the problems are,” Riordan said in a prepared statement. “We know what must be done to correct those problems.”

He added that many of the fixes are already under way.

“We have an inspector general and his Independent Review Panel that is investigating the department and returning with its own findings,” he said. “We have a police chief who has made it a priority to implement sound management, supervision, training and officer discipline.”

Riordan said he met Wednesday with Lee and that Lee “said he recognizes the willingness of our city’s leadership to implement reform. He also said the Justice Department wants to avoid a costly and damaging lawsuit as much as we do.”