Praise, Blame and Hope

The Rampart Independent Review Panel Thursday parceled out responsibility for the deep ills of the Los Angeles Police Department but at the same time added to a growing prescription for a cure. The panel emphasized the need to build on reforms that were recommended by the 1991 Christopher Commission but failed to take root.

The 190 legal experts, investigators and community leaders echoed the calls for change contained in the federal government’s consent decree arrangement with the city and in the LAPD’s own analysis of its problems. But the review panel, appointed last spring by the city’s Police Commission, also went further, setting out a road map and a set of challenges for current and future city leaders, both appointed and elected. LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks, now past the midpoint of a five-year term, will be asked to demonstrate a new form of flexible leadership.

Parks came in for both praise and blame. The panel found that he had taken citizen complaints and discipline problems seriously but did so in an inflexible manner that bogged down the entire department. There is no triage, the panel found, which would allow more serious complaints to be handled first or more thoroughly than less serious ones.

The panel singled out the mayor’s office for undermining the authority of the Police Commission, the five-member panel the mayor appoints to oversee the LAPD. It called for a full-time commission president and vice president and an end to mundane duties, such as parceling out protest permits, that have nothing to do with overseeing the department. The Police Commission’s inspector general should also have a larger staff, said the report, along with “the ability to promise confidentiality to officers who report misconduct”--a very sore point between Parks and inspectors general.

Previous police reform has either failed or not gone nearly far enough. For instance, the Police Commission’s inspector general, a post established at the urging of the Christopher Commission, has been frustrated by a lack of authority and at-best-grudging cooperation from Chief Parks. That kind of failure helped create the conditions in which the Rampart scandal could occur.

Richard Drooyan, a member of the Christopher Commission and the general counsel of the Rampart panel, set the right tone Thursday. “The building blocks of reform are in place,” Drooyan said, referring to the federal consent decree, this week’s convictions of three suspended police officers on Rampart charges, his panel’s work and, not least, next year’s citywide elections. “Some will require charter reform, some will require City Council ordinances. Some work will come from the Police Commission. Now, it will be up to the elected and appointed officials to follow through.”

Armed with the review panel’s expanded assessment and a soon-to-be-named federal monitor who will keep tabs on the progress of reform, a revitalized, fairly administered and respected Police Department has never been more possible. It’s an opportunity that the city, the Police Commission and the LAPD’s leadership must seize.