Riordan Wary of Possible Consent Decree on LAPD

While saying he does not think reform of the Los Angeles Police Department requires a consent decree with the federal government, Mayor Richard Riordan said Tuesday that he is “not ruling it out” as the Justice Department continues negotiating with city officials.

“I’m against consent decrees taking over the operations of government,” the mayor said in an interview. “I’m not against a consent decree telling government to correct things that are wrong.”

Riordan said his discussions with Bill Lann Lee, acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, lead him to believe the federal government does not want to “come in and run the Police Department. What they want to do is oversee the Police Department itself correcting past mistakes.”

Lee served notice earlier this month that the Justice Department is prepared to sue the city to force reforms in the LAPD. A four-year federal investigation of the Police Department found what Washington alleges is a pattern and practice of civil rights violations involving excessive force, false arrests and unreasonable searches and seizures. Federal officials believe that lax management allowed this misconduct to occur.

Rather than engage in a long and costly court battle, Lee has told city officials the Justice Department will delay filing its lawsuit to give officials in Washington and Los Angeles a chance to negotiate a voluntary settlement.

But as a team of city representatives tries to work out an agreement with the federal government, the mayor’s attitude toward any consent decree is colored by his experience at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

When the transit agency reached agreement with bus rider advocates in September 1996 on a landmark consent decree to reduce overcrowding and improve bus service, Riordan was one of its most outspoken supporters.

Indeed, moments after the MTA board unanimously endorsed the agreement, Riordan joined members of the Bus Riders Union in hailing the pact as a breakthrough.

“What has happened today will be a giant leap forward. It’s an example of grass-roots action making government pay attention and do things,” Riordan said. “I congratulate the Bus Riders Union.”

Behind the scenes, Riordan had pushed for the agreement rather than risk losing a trial in federal court on a lawsuit that alleged the MTA had discriminated against poor and minority bus riders by allowing its bus system to deteriorate, while it pumped billions of dollars into construction of the subway and light rail lines.

“We’ve put way too many of the resources into fixed rail and at the same time ignoring buses,” Riordan said at the time.

But in less than three years, as a court-appointed special master found the MTA had not complied with the agreement and would have to buy hundreds of new buses to reduce overcrowding, Riordan had had enough.

The mayor said in June 1999 that he viewed the MTA agreement that he helped craft as a mistake. “Consent decrees are not invented on Mt. Sinai, and there are things in that consent decree that don’t make sense in hindsight,” he said. “I am deadly against government by consent decree.”

On Tuesday, Riordan said that was an overstatement. “I’m not an ideologue. I’m not against consent decrees per se.” But Riordan added: “You cannot have a consent decree take the place of elected officials in running a governmental agency.”

Riordan said the consent decree’s requirements to reduce overcrowding on MTA buses have tied the agency’s hands in addressing the transportation needs of Los Angeles. “The lesson of unintended results at the MTA is we have essentially allowed the consent decree to become a major part of our policies in running the MTA.”

Based on the MTA experience, Riordan said he is “against consent decrees without knowing where they lead.” He said the transit agency’s staff told board members the agency would have no trouble at all complying with the decree. “I believed them,” Riordan said.

Today, with Riordan’s support, the MTA board of directors is appealing a federal court order that directed the agency to buy 248 new buses to reduce overcrowding.

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, the lone vote against the appeal on the MTA board, said the agency’s “strategy is to overturn the consent decree. . . . They don’t want a federal court managing the agency.”

Yaroslavsky said Riordan wanted to avoid a trial in federal court. “He just wanted to make the deal. The terms of the deal were far less important.”

But, he added “the minute this consent decree meant something, everybody got cold feet.”

Riordan said that when the MTA agreement was reached the agency did not have strong management. “If you have strong management, I don’t think you need a consent decree,” the mayor said. In the case of the LAPD, Riordan said, “we have a strong chief of police and Police Commission. You don’t need outside help.”

Coincidentally, one lead negotiator of the 1996 agreement at MTA was none other than Bill Lann Lee, then a civil rights lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Six months after the agreement was reached, Riordan sent a letter endorsing President Clinton’s nomination of Lee to head the Civil Rights Division.

“Bill Lee is an astute lawyer who is superbly qualified to enforce our national civil rights laws,” the mayor said. “Mr. Lee first became known to me as opposing counsel in an important civil rights case concerning poor bus riders in Los Angeles. As mayor, I took a leading role in settling that case. The work of my opponents rarely evoke my praise, but the negotiations could not have concluded successfully without Mr. Lee’s practical leadership and expertise.”