LAPD Chief Won’t Give Details on Consultants

Over the last two years, Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton has used more than $1 million in grants to hire longtime friends and former business associates as LAPD consultants, and now refuses to tell the City Council exactly what work was performed.

Bratton says he doesn’t have to disclose much information because the money came through a private foundation -- not city coffers. But because the council was obligated to formally accept the grants, members say they have a right to know the details.

The money came from the Los Angeles Police Foundation, a private, tax-exempt nonprofit established in 1998 by then-Chief Bernard C. Parks. It raises money from millionaires and other major donors as well as from small contributors who attend foundation fundraisers.

The organization uses the money to pay for LAPD projects or initiatives: undertakings as varied as buying radiation boxes for the bomb squad, providing ropes to help SWAT team officers rappel from helicopters and holding a San Fernando Valley “Picnic for Peace.” The group’s work has been widely praised for aiding the department more quickly and efficiently than public contracting often allows.

The Bratton consultants -- all experienced law enforcement experts -- were paid, in some cases retroactively, for work that included offering advice on applying for state and federal grants and implementing the LAPD’s computerized crime-tracking system.

As of last summer, the consultants had been paid more than $911,000. In January, the foundation authorized the expenditure of $63,536 more for “third-quarter consultant fees,” according to a letter Bratton sent to the Police Commission, the civilian board that sets LAPD policy and standards. Fourth-quarter fees brought the grants’ total to more than $1.3 million, foundation records show, though officials say the work is tapering off.

In some cases, the consultants supplied the LAPD and the private foundation with written reports verifying their work, but in others the only evidence given was the assurance by LAPD officials, including Bratton, that the work had been completed and was satisfactory.

“We rely on the department to verify that the deliverables have been delivered,” said Karen Wagener, president of the foundation.

All told, the organization has given out about $3 million in grants in its seven years of existence. Although most of that has gone for equipment, the Bratton consultants have been a major expenditure in recent years, and beginning in 2005 the size of their remuneration has drawn the attention of the council, which is required to approve any donation to the city.

The council voted to accept the donation of the consultant services, but at the same time it directed the LAPD to submit the consultants’ reports so members could determine whether the money was being spent well. Bratton refused.

Instead, the department sent the council a list of consultants hired and brief descriptions of what they were hired to do, -- a response that failed to satisfy key council members.

Subsequent council requests have been rejected as well, even after members passed a resolution in July instructing the LAPD to report back to it within 30 days and to include “all of the actual reports and recommendations which the consultants have provided” in return for the money.

To date, the council has not received those reports.

“I’d like to see the tangible results of that consultant work,” said former Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, who was chairwoman of the Public Safety Committee when the matter came to a head last year. “If there is private consultant work going on with the Police Department, I think the public would benefit from knowing what that involves.”

Miscikowski said she has no reason to believe that the consultant contracts have been abused but added that the large sum involved and the lack of a public, competitive process for hiring consultants begs for some public oversight.

Even some council members who approve of Bratton’s performance as chief are bothered by his unwillingness to supply them with documentation about the consultants’ work.

“I know the chief to be a team player, and I appreciate what he has done in my district,” said Councilman Ed Reyes, a member of the Public Safety Committee. Reyes said he generally believes that any work product and reports produced by the consultants should be shared with the council if feasible, because “it’s important to maintain the confidence of the public about what we do.”

But he said he wanted to hear directly from Bratton on why some reports may not be shared.

“It seems rather odd to me,” Reyes said of the chief’s refusal to share reports. “We are all in this together. It’s a team effort.”

When the council first demanded that the department produce the consultants’ reports, the Police Commission forwarded that request to Bratton’s office. Richard Tefank, executive director of the commission, said that request was denied to his panel as well.

“We’ve asked for them from the department, and we have not received them,” he said.

Last week, Bratton confirmed that he had ordered some of the material withheld, despite the council directive. The chief said that he reports all expenditures to the commission, which sends them on to the council for acceptance, and that any dispute appears to be over whether council members can control the consulting work rather than be advised of it. He insisted that the work product from the consultants includes advice and analysis on sensitive issues, such as how officers feel about department operations.

“Many of the reports are generated by consultants and focus groups, and I have no intention of sharing these intimacies gathered in confidence,” Bratton said. “There is no need for the council to have that information.”

In some cases, the work of the consultants did not result in written reports at all, according to LAPD officials. And in other instances, the consultants’ work has been incorporated into other department projects.

The LAPD, for instance, drafted a comprehensive “plan of action” for the department with the help of consultants. That plan was made public in October 2004.

The consultants hired to advise Bratton and the LAPD include several who have worked with the chief at other departments.

The largest of the contracts went to John Linder, who created the action plan, along with doing other work, and has been paid $617,736, according to the foundation.

Linder worked closely with Bratton when the chief headed the New York Police Department and the New York Transit Police.

Robert Wasserman and Joan Brody received $133,353 and $62,868, respectively, from the foundation. Wasserman worked with Bratton at the Boston Police Department and at the New York Transit Police, and headed Bratton’s transition team when he took over the NYPD. Brody also served on the transition team in New York.

Bratton said that before he became LAPD chief, he worked off and on for about a year providing consulting services as a subcontractor for Wasserman on projects to improve traffic and policing in London. Bratton said he does not recall exactly what he was paid but said it was “probably only a couple of thousand dollars.”

Wasserman and Brody, like Linder, received acknowledgments in Bratton’s autobiography for contributing to his success in policing on the East Coast.

Another of the consultants, George Kelling, was a co-author of the “broken windows” theory and recently co-wrote an article with Bratton defending that concept in the National Review. Kelling, who worked with Bratton in Boston, has been paid $6,504 by the L.A. foundation.

Consulting was also provided by former NYPD chiefs Patrick Harnett and Lou Anemone, as well as Bill Andrews, who was part of Bratton’s policy staff at that department and the New York Transit Police.

Bratton acknowledged that the consulting contracts had gone to friends.

“Every one of these people is a close friend,” he said. “These are people I have worked with for years at the New York Police Department and New York transit authority to significantly improve public safety.”

In some instances, there is little tangible to show for their work. A short report to the Los Angeles City Council by Tefank said Anemone, for instance, “assisted in the development of Compstat,” the computer-aided crime-tracking system pioneered in New York City and launched in Los Angeles before Bratton became chief.

In an interview last week, Anemone said that he did his consulting from June to December 2003 and that he is not aware of any written report produced as part of his services.

“It was mostly verbal,” Anemone said. He was paid $72,253, according to the foundation.

Mel Levine, chairman of the Police Foundation’s board, declined to comment on the dispute between Bratton and the council but said his group had been “vigilant in our oversight.” Levine added that he was confident the foundation had received its money’s worth from the consultants.

Although the Police Commission’s executive director previously asked for the reports and was denied them, commission President John Mack said he had no plans to request them again or to ask for other work prepared by consultants hired by the foundation.

“I don’t have any reason to question the appropriateness as to whether the department is properly utilizing consultants,” Mack said. “I have no concerns about how the money was spent or how the consultants were utilized.”

If anything, he added, his bigger concern was not with the department’s position but rather the council’s insistence on seeing the material.

“Frankly, the chief and the department are accountable to the Police Commission,” Mack said. “One concern I have is that the council not get into invading the commission’s role in terms of accountability.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Private police consultants

Over the last three years, a foundation set up to aid the Los Angeles Police Department paid $1.35 million to consultants for services and expenses from 2003 to 2005.

* Linder and Associates...$617,736

Prepared and published the LAPD’s “plan of action” in October 2004. Conducted focus groups and analyzed Police Department systems and practices. John Linder worked closely with Bratton, mostly as a consultant, when the LAPD chief headed the New York Police Department and the New York Transit Police.

* Kamber Group...$162,425

Richard Aborn of the Kamber Group conducted focus groups regarding the LAPD’s consent decree with captains, supervisors and gang units. Worked with Constantine Aborn (see below).

* Constantine Aborn...$12,837

See above (Kamber Group)

* Harnett Associates...$112,019

Analyzed detective operations and crime control strategies. Patrick Harnett served as an assistant chief in the NYPD under Bratton, and the two worked together as security consultants, starting in 2000, advising police departments, including those in Trenton, N.J., and Miami.

* William Andrews...$87,396

Reviewed strategies for reducing youth crime and for communications. Andrews was a part of Bratton’s policy staff at the New York Transit Police and NYPD.

* Athena Yerganian...$79,982

Assessed new technologies. Worked at the Boston Police Department.

* PS Comm...$79,092

* Strategic Policy

Partnership...$54,261

PS Comm and Strategic Policy Partnerships, both run by Robert Wasserman, helped develop a technology transition plan and participated in a leadership conference. Wasserman worked with Bratton at the Boston Police Department and New York Transit Police before heading Bratton’s transition team when Bratton took over the NYPD.

* Anemone Consulting Inc....$72,253

Helped develop the department’s computerized crime-fighting system. Lou Anemone was a deputy to Bratton at the NYPD.

* Joan Brody...$62,868

Helped the LAPD with grant proposals and helped develop a gang conference. Served on his transition team when he became head of the NYPD and is credited in the chief’s autobiography with helping raise his national profile.

* Hanover Justice Group...$6,504

George Kelling, a coauthor of the “broken windows” theory and longtime Bratton associate, helped analyze the LAPD’s handling of the city’s homeless. Kelling worked with Bratton in Boston, and he and Bratton are coauthors of a recent article in the National Review defending the “broken windows” concept.

* Tony Lopresti...$5,885

Assessed LAPD video technology.

Sources: Los Angeles Police Foundation, Los Angeles Police Commission

Los Angeles Times