Riordan Expected to Support Decree for LAPD Reform

Mayor Richard Riordan, who spent months fighting a proposed consent decree with the federal government to force reform of the Los Angeles Police Department and then bargained for last-minute changes, will announce today that he intends to sign it, clearing the last obstacle but one to ratification.

Riordan and his allies once likened the decree to a takeover of the Police Department and furiously lobbied to head it off. But the mayor faced the prospect of a protracted, expensive and--in the view of many experts--futile lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice if he refused to strike a deal.

Equally important, Riordan lacked political support to sustain a veto of the proposed decree: Eleven of 15 Los Angeles City Council members tentatively have indicated their support for the 114-page document, which mandates a sweeping overhaul of Police Department operations and oversight.

Although Riordan would not confirm his intentions late Wednesday, other sources said he intended to announce his support at a morning news conference. Still, he remains unenthusiastic.

“I don’t think [the decree] is the right thing to do,” Riordan said during his monthly “Ask the Mayor” show on KFWB-AM (980). “I feel badly about this. . . . I think local government can control what they’re doing and should be held accountable. By the same token, we owe it to the public that police officers follow the rule of the law and do not violate citizens’ rights.”

Riordan’s decision to back the decree follows detailed negotiations that included his chief of staff, Kelly Martin, and satisfied many of his worries about the agreement’s long-term effects. His support leaves just one significant impediment to the decree’s implementation.

Although the city’s political leadership now is solidly lined up in support of the proposed decree, the union that represents rank-and-file police officers continues to object. The union’s lawyers will appear in court this morning to ask a judge to block the city from entering into the agreement until officers’ concerns can be addressed.

Officials of the Los Angeles Police Protective League say they have serious concerns about some of the decree’s reforms, in particular provisions requiring the LAPD to collect data on the ethnicity and gender of people subjected to traffic and pedestrian stops. That information, which union officials say is too cumbersome to collect, would be used to assess whether police show bias in deciding whom to detain.

Union officials say they are also concerned about another key provision, which requires the city to build a computer system for tracking police officers. The system is intended to give police supervisors the ability to identify patterns of potential misconduct. League representatives are worried that the tracking would violate officers’ rights.

“The bottom line is, this decree will have a tremendous impact on the way police officers do their jobs,” said Hank Hernandez, the general counsel to the police union. “They simply cannot go through four months of secret negotiations and lay this huge document on us and expect us just to make our comments and go away.”

City officials say they will argue that the decree includes language establishing a meet-and-confer process for reforms that directly affect officers’ working conditions.

“The city intends to meet and confer in good faith,” said Chief Deputy City Atty. Tim McOsker.

Even if the judge issues the restraining order, city officials say, they are committed to filing an appeal.

Members of the Los Angeles City Council, which will take up the matter this afternoon unless the judge blocks them from doing so, said Wednesday that they hope the matter can be settled before it results in a lengthy legal battle.

“The last thing the LAPD officer on the beat needs right now is for the decree to be blocked and the [Department of Justice] to go to court, win and have a federal judge direct the activities of the department,” said Councilman Mike Feuer. “This reckless attempt to deep-six the consent decree represents horrible judgment by the leagues’ leadership. . . . It is time that we ratify the decree and move forward to the next phase--to begin implementing reforms.”

Key to that process is launching the search for a monitor.

Federal and city negotiators involved in drafting the proposed agreement said Wednesday that although both sides are eager to find a monitor they can agree on, officials are approaching that search from distinctly different positions. Some officials believe the city would be best served by tapping a local person with long experience in police issues, while others prefer an outsider.

In the decree itself, the two sides pledge that if they can settle on a monitor, they will jointly forward the name to the federal judge and that person will be named for the job.

In interviews Wednesday, officials said they hope that they can reach such an agreement. Every time the Justice Department has entered into a consent decree to reform police departments elsewhere in the United States, the monitor has been jointly selected.

If no agreement can be reached, however, the two sides have laid out a process for having the judge name the monitor. The city would submit two names and so would the Justice Department. People who had sued the LAPD or the Justice Department would be barred from serving--effectively eliminating many controversial local figures. Both sides also would be required to suggest people who did not demonstrate any bias or appearance of bias for or against the LAPD.

Some city officials interpret that language strictly, going so far as to suggest that it might prevent appointment of any of the many lawyers who served with the Christopher Commission in 1991. But others vehemently disagree, noting that the Justice Department could submit the name of former Christopher Commission members or lawyers, as long as it was prepared to demonstrate their lack of bias.

In any case, officials say, the monitor must be fair and objective but determined to make sure that the reforms are finally put in place.

“They have to be tough enough to deal with the subtle and not so subtle pressures,” said Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas. “And the monitor should be someone who is comfortable wearing his or her overcoat every day. I suspect it’s going to be very chilly at times.”