New System to Discipline Police Urged

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn is pushing to abolish the internal Police Department board that metes out punishment for police misconduct and replace it with a civilian review system, saying that the move would help mend morale among rank-and-file officers.

The change would strip Police Chief Bernard C. Parks of the authority to make the final decision about the fate of wayward officers, a significant move that would require a voter-approved charter amendment and probably irk Parks, who has resisted efforts to increase civilian participation on the board.

Hahn’s attempt to dramatically change the discipline system illuminates the shifting relationship between the mayor and the chief, who must decide in the next few months whether he wants to seek a renewal of his contract.

Though Hahn was considered Parks’ strongest ally among the six mayoral candidates last spring, since he has taken office the mayor has lobbied for several policies opposed by the chief, such as a flexible work schedule for police officers. Parks agreed to implement the shortened workweek, although he had criticized the concept as one that would take officers off the street.

The police chief did not have a comment Friday on the mayor’s latest proposal, other than to say that he would work with the Police Commission to study the issue. As of Friday afternoon, Hahn and Parks had not discussed it.

Hahn said it is essential to replace the current system because it is viewed as capricious and harsh by rank-and-file officers and distrusted by the public. Currently, officers accused of serious misconduct are ordered by their captain or the police chief to appear before a Board of Rights, which consists of two police command officers and one civilian.

The mayor said officers believe they are handed overly punitive sentences by commanders on the board trying to curry favor with Parks, who is known as a strict disciplinarian. Regardless of whether that is true, Hahn said, the fact that rank-and-file officers believe it has contributed to a serious morale problem.

“You’re not going to ever change that perception,” Hahn said in an interview Friday.

“My experience as being the city’s lawyer for 16 years and a prosecutor leads me to believe that the present system just isn’t working,” he added. “It doesn’t give the public the confidence in the department . . . and the officers think the deck is stacked against them.”

The mayor wants to replace the Board of Rights with a Civil Service-style process in which the police chief would have the first say on whether an officer should be disciplined or fired. The officer could appeal the case to a civilian hearing officer, whose decisions would be reviewed by a civilian appeal board.

Hahn, who advocated the change when he was city attorney, sent a letter to the Police Commission on Friday asking members to approve his recommendation and place the proposal on the November 2002 ballot. If it’s approved, the city will also have to modify the federal consent decree that mandates reforms of the Police Department and requires quarterly reports about Board of Rights decisions.

The move would make Los Angeles one of the few major U.S. metropolitan police departments to turn over discipline to a civilian board. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol have similar systems, as do the cities of Glendale and Redondo Beach. Other large cities such as San Francisco and New York have civilian boards that review complaints of police misconduct and make recommendations, but leave the final decision on discipline up to the department.

Hahn said the new system would give the chief more authority--at least on the front end.

Currently, the Board of Rights makes the first decision about disciplining officers, who can stay on the job until their hearing. The chief can decide to reduce the penalty recommended by the board, but not increase it.

Under the mayor’s proposal, the chief would have the first word, and would be able to immediately remove or suspend an officer, who could appeal the decision.

“This puts the chief as the real moving force in this,” Hahn said.

In addition, Hahn said creating a civilian system would free up commanders who spend a large portion of their time shuttling to board hearings.

USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who wrote an independent report about the Rampart corruption inquiry, said the discipline system must be changed to restore faith in the police.

“For both the officers and the community, it offers hope of changing the perception that there is not a fair process,” Chemerinsky said.

But Hahn’s idea is bound to be met with some resistance by Parks, he added.

“To do this, the mayor would have to take on the chief on something the chief cares a great deal about,” Chemerinsky said.

The change to the LAPD’s discipline system has been eagerly sought by the police union, which says the current system is not only arbitrary, but it is viewed with suspicion by the public, especially after the Rampart scandal.

“You’re always suspect when you are policing your own,” said Mitzi Grasso, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

But expanding civilian control of discipline has been rejected several times in the last decade by local panels that have studied the Police Department. Those commissions concluded that a civilian board could be manipulated and might not be held to strict professional standards.

And some studies, including one conducted in 1999 by the LAPD, have shown that civilians are often more lenient than police commanders in judging misconduct.

In fact, former Sheriff Sherman Block and the county Board of Supervisors attempted to reform the county Civil Service commission in 1996 because its rate of upholding discipline of sheriff’s deputies and other county employees was significantly lower than in other counties. Most of those efforts failed because they required negotiations with the unions.

Police Commission President Rick Caruso said he wants to study Hahn’s proposal before offering an opinion about it. But he said he is worried about the reports that civilians tend to go easier on police misconduct than other officers.

“If that really is the case, then I would have a real concern about it,” Caruso said. “I have zero tolerance for misconduct.”

But union officials said civilians are just more measured about what constitutes a serious problem.

“They’re only more lenient on minor infractions,” Grasso said. “When it comes to any type of major misconduct--domestic violence, police abuse--they do not cut cops any slack.”

In an interesting twist, the police union strongly resisted the idea of civilian review when it was proposed by the Christopher Commission in 1991, fearing that civilians would be too tough.

The commission, which studied the need for reform of the department after the beating of motorist Rodney G. King, ultimately decided against recommending a civil review panel, fearing that it could exacerbate an “us against them” attitude within the department. Instead, the commission suggested the inclusion of one civilian on the Board of Rights, which was approved by voters in 1995.

Subsequent panels, including the Elected Charter Reform Commission and the Rampart Independent Review Panel, also rejected the idea of creating a civilian review board.

Some advocates for public oversight of the police said Hahn’s proposal may actually not further that goal.

Sue Quinn, president of the National Assn. for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, said the proposed structure could instead create another layer of bureaucracy. A better solution might be to turn the job of discipline over to the five-member civilian Police Commission, she said.

“If there are multiple oversight processes that have been set up and the lines between them are confusing, that’s not going to help me as a citizen or help build trust,” Quinn said.