Inglewood to Act on Citizen Complaints

City officials in Inglewood have ordered the Police Department to begin investigating a backlog of more than 100 complaints filed by citizens against its officers, two of whom face criminal charges for their roles in the beating of a 16-year-old boy.

City Administrator Joseph Rouzan Jr. said Thursday that he had ordered Police Chief Ronald Banks to begin investigating the cases immediately and to file a report on how he intends to clear the backlog. The Inglewood Police Department is made up of roughly 190 officers; it was not clear how many of those are the subjects of the backlogged complaints.

Banks had been moving speedily to clear the one case that has brought his department unwanted nationwide attention, the beating of 16-year-old Donovan Jackson, which was captured on videotape. Officers Jeremy J. Morse and Bijan Darvish were indicted by a grand jury in connection with that incident, and Banks has moved to fire Morse.

But a Superior Court judge halted those proceedings this week when she temporarily blocked the department from dismissing Morse, who is criminally charged with assault.

It is not clear how long the other cases have languished, but the Police Department said it had received 58 complaints against officers from January through mid-July of this year, and has completed many of those investigations.

The department received 78 complaints last year, and 46 the year before, according to a police spokeswoman, Lt. Eve Irvine. “A lot of them have 30-day turnaround times,” she said. Seventy-six complaints filed since the beginning of 1999 have been from people who claim to be victims of excessive force by officers. The other complaints include charges of abusive language, civil rights violations and other alleged misconduct.

Allowing complaints to go for long periods without investigation can seriously compromise the ability of police officials to discipline officers found guilty of misconduct. In most cases, after one year, even the most serious offenses can be administratively handled only with reprimands; state law usually prohibits officials from suspending or firing officers for complaints that have languished for more than 12 months.

Although the department did not provide figures from before 1999, City Atty. Charles Dickerson provided a list of 170 cases since 1990 in which lawsuits were filed against Inglewood police officers for civil rights violations, shootings and alleged use of excessive force. The city has paid out $1.8 million in claims for those cases, but hasn’t had to pay more than $100,000 in a case since 1994.

Irvine said the department could not say how many complaint investigations are still open. Asked if the department could check its files, she said, “We just don’t have the staffing to do that.”

She also would not say how many complaints have been sustained, or how many officers have faced discipline or firing as a result of wrongdoing.

Banks, who declined to comment on the backlog, has been under intense pressure to defuse tension following the videotaped altercation between police and Jackson at a gas station July 6. The nationally televised tape shows Morse slamming Jackson onto a car, then punching him in the face.

His effort to quickly fire Morse came to a halt Wednesday when Judge Jean E. Matusinka issued a temporary restraining order against Banks and the city, ordering them to present their case in court Aug. 28.

Morse’s attorney in the administrative action, Richard Levine, had asked for the restraining order, alleging that the department violated state law by not reading Morse his constitutional rights before he was initially questioned and not allowing him to have his preferred attorney present at a later interrogation. Levine also alleged that Morse was not provided with notes, reports and other documents.

Morse also submitted a declaration to the court saying that he was interrogated during his off-duty hours, which his attorney said in court papers is another violation of the police officers’ bill of rights, a state code that spells out protections given to police.

Rouzan said that the allegations are not valid and that the city plans to appeal the ruling.

“We are just flabbergasted that the court did not allow us to continue our administrative process,” Rouzan said. “To stop it in the middle is highly unusual.”

Rouzan said that Morse had not exhausted his remedies within the city.

Banks recommended Aug. 1 that Morse be terminated, and he gave the officer written notification of his decision.

Banks had scheduled a meeting with Morse for Monday, when the officer would have had an opportunity to try to change the chief’s mind. That meeting has been postponed. Morse also can request an arbitration hearing, Rouzan said.

Matusinka ruled that Morse would suffer “irreparable injury” if the department took punitive action against him before the court hearing. The city and the Police Department now have to give the judge reasons that she should not issue a preliminary injunction preventing the termination.

In his recommendations issued Aug. 1, Banks also indicated that he believes Darvish, Morse’s partner, deserves a short suspension for his role in the incident. Darvish has been charged criminally with filing a false police report. In his report, Darvish described the blow to Jackson’s face but did not mention that Morse had slammed the boy onto the car.

Instead, Darvish wrote that Morse “assisted Jackson to his feet and had him stand facing the police vehicle.”

The department’s swift action against Morse and Darvish contrasts with the department’s usual practice, which is to wait until criminal proceedings against either the officer or the complaining citizen are completed before conducting an internal investigation, according to Irvine.

Rouzan, who served as police chief in both Inglewood and Compton before becoming city administrator, said it’s not uncommon for police departments to wait for the completion of criminal cases before undertaking internal investigations, in part because attorneys for complainants often advise them not to talk to investigators until the criminal proceedings are through.

Rouzan also revealed Thursday that Morse has been the subject of “more than half a dozen” complaints in the past year.

That many complaints, he said, “certainly should ring an alarm bell.... If you start seeing the same guy or gal’s name on a complaint three or four times a year, you want to take a look at that and say, ‘What’s going on here?’ ”