The not-quite-new LAPD

THE LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT is not the same organization that looked the other way as Rampart Division thugs in uniform planted weapons on gang suspects in the late 1990s, or when officers stayed in station houses while looters rampaged during the riots of 1992. But how different is it, and how much can it be trusted to monitor itself? Those are the questions as a federal judge considers whether to extend the five-year consent decree designed to make the LAPD more transparent and accountable.

Actually, the question isn’t really whether to continue federal monitoring of the department, which began in 2001, but whether to extend the entire 93-page consent decree, or just parts of it. Both the city of Los Angeles and the U.S. Justice Department concede that the LAPD hasn’t met all the conditions imposed on it in the wake of the Rampart corruption scandal, so there is no chance the monitoring will end as scheduled June 15. When U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess holds a hearing on the matter May 15, the city will ask him to extend only parts of the decree -- the 30% or so of the 191 mandates the LAPD hasn’t met. The ACLU and other civil rights groups want him to continue the whole thing for two more years.

What’s the difference? In practical terms, not much. In symbolic terms, quite a bit.

If the city wins its case, the LAPD might have a little more flexibility on audits and would be able to phase out the federal monitor more quickly. But the staff working on compliance issues will remain in place. The case is mostly about image. The LAPD wants to be able to show that it has made substantial progress in the last five years. Activists argue that there is still significant distrust of the department in the community.

Both sides have a point. But for the most part, the LAPD’s documented improvements represent the easy stuff; what remains are the most difficult and vital reforms, particularly the creation of a new computer system that tracks officers’ disciplinary actions and other personnel records.

And there are signs that the department and its civilian overseers aren’t ready to fly on their own. After 25 years of releasing the names of officers subject to use-of-force investigations, the Police Commission capriciously decided in December to withhold that information. Critics also point to statistics on traffic stops showing that black and Latino motorists are three times more likely to be asked to leave their vehicles than white drivers. These numbers don’t necessarily indicate racial profiling -- they don’t tell anything about the interaction between officer and driver that might have escalated matters, or crime or gang patterns -- but they do point up the need to put video cameras in all police cars.

If the decision before Judge Feess is mostly about sending a message, he should send messages to both the LAPD and the civilians who supervise it: to the Police Commission, that covering up information is unacceptable; to the City Council, that it should approve the mayor’s proposal for a pilot program to install cameras, and that the program should be expanded in the future; and to LAPD managers, that their failure to complete an officer-tracking system is an embarrassment. He should extend the entire consent decree for two more years.