Memo to the Police Commission: Govern Now and Spin Later

The news that the Los Angeles Police Commission is searching for a public relations firm to buff its image as an independent body is cause for wonder. The commissioners, most of whom are relatively inexperienced in their roles, would be wiser to first address the substantive problems that have weakened past commissions.

The reformers who wrote the 1925 Los Angeles City Charter thought that a group of prominent citizens, appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council, should govern the Los Angeles Police Department. It was believed that the commissioners’ stature would promote independent judgment.

Despite some outstanding commissioners, past panels generally lacked clout. Too many have been either tools of the mayor or intimidated by the police chief or, during a remarkable stretch of Richard Riordan’s second term, both.

In 1991, the Christopher Commission, while noting the system’s obvious weaknesses, placed its faith in a strengthened Police Commission to provide civilian oversight. Both the elected and the appointed city charter commissions reached the same conclusion.

A new Police Commission has an early but often short-lived opportunity to hold the police chief accountable. The chief is appointed to a five-year term, renewable for a second term.

A new mayor inevitably faces a chief whom the mayor’s newly appointed Police Commission did not select. A commission that challenges a holdover chief may have some support from the mayor. Riordan, for example, backed his commissioners when they harshly criticized Chief Willie Williams. Mayor James Hahn has shown a willingness to promote policies that Chief Bernard Parks dislikes.

Things get more complicated after the commissioners (and by implication the mayor) make their own choice for chief. When Riordan’s commissioners chose Parks to replace Williams, the commission and the mayor moved into a posture of abject and at times embarrassing thralldom to the chief.

The office of the inspector general was created during this time and unfortunately had to struggle in an atmosphere of departmental hostility and indifferent support from the commission. Nonetheless, in 1998, the Police Commission found a public relations firm to spin its optimistic self-assessment.

Next year, the commissioners will have to decide whether to renew Parks for a second term. The commission needs to develop a review process for Parks that will bolster its role as an independent, thoughtful body. In effect, the commission must create a job description for the chief. It should specify how the chief should relate to the inspector general and to federal authorities on the consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department. It should specify the guidelines by which the Police Department shares information with the commission and the inspector general.

The mettle of this Police Commission also will be revealed by how it handles proposals from the mayor. A newly elected mayor has a mandate for policy change and deserves a great deal of leeway. Hahn has focused on improving officers’ working conditions through revised work schedules and changes in the discipline system.

Down the road, however, the commission should monitor the progress of mayoral initiatives and propose changes as needed. Today’s good ideas may not look so good later. An example is the 1937 charter change to give Civil Service protection to police chiefs, which had to be overturned by voters in 1992. To play this role, the commission must have the mayor’s trust but also the credibility to earn the mayor’s respect.

Finally, the Police Commission must be a place where reform has a home. Police reform now is an orphan, with the district attorney trying to dump the Rampart investigation. If anyone is going to ask whether the Rampart scandal has been resolved, it should be the department’s civilian overseers.

The real tests are yet to come. If the new commissioners are reasonable, informed, credible and fair, they can create a model for a Los Angeles Police Commission. And then they’ll have more good spin than they can handle.

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Raphael J. Sonenshein, a political scientist at Cal State Fullerton, served as executive director of the City of Los Angeles Appointed Charter Reform Commission.