Extension Sought for Police Decree

The independent monitor who is overseeing reform of the Los Angeles Police Department asked a judge Wednesday to extend by two years a consent decree requiring change, and to reject the city’s request that the decree be narrowed.

Citing the LAPD’s “lack of substantial compliance” on key reforms, Michael Cherkasky filed papers opposing a joint request made by the city and the U.S. Department of Justice to reduce the scope of the decree to the 30% of reforms that have yet to be enacted. Cherkasky was appointed by the federal court to monitor the five-year decree.

“Notwithstanding the significant progress which has been made, the city should be bound not only to reforming those areas in which reform has not yet been completed, but also, under court supervision, to maintaining those reforms which have been successfully implemented,” Cherkasky wrote.

The filing sets up a showdown between the parties when U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess holds a hearing Monday to consider the various motions.

Having appointed Cherkasky as his “eyes and ears” on the consent decree, Feess probably will give “considerable weight” to the independent monitor’s position, Loyola law professor Laurie Levenson said.

“The judge has been very reliant on him and I think the judge trusts him,” she said.

As an independent court-appointed monitor, Cherkasky has additional credibility from being outside the political push-and-pull involving LAPD reform.

Extending the entire consent decree for two years would be a setback for the city and the LAPD, which had hoped to shed the yoke of the voluminous document, which spells out 191 reforms. Complying with the decree has been a costly and time-consuming task, involving about 110 workers in the LAPD.

The city agreed five years ago to make the reforms rather than face a Department of Justice lawsuit that would have alleged that police engaged in a pattern and practice of civil rights abuse and brutality.

The lawsuit was threatened after Rampart Division anti-gang officers were found to have improperly shot and beaten people, as well as planting evidence.

Police Commission President John Mack called Cherkasky’s position “regrettable.” He said he expected part of the decree to be extended but believed that the monitor should have agreed to release the city from those mandates already acted on.

“That’s very disappointing,” Mack said. “In those areas where progress has been made, what’s the rationale for extending them in the decree?”

Cherkasky acknowledged in his filing that the LAPD was a “different agency” than it was five years ago when the consent decree began. “It is an agency which has made great strides in instituting the reforms,” he wrote, praising the department, the Police Commission and its inspector general for “hard work” to make changes.

“That being said, there remains substantial work to be done,” the monitor wrote.

Among the tasks as yet unfulfilled is creation of the TEAMS II computer monitoring system, which would allow LAPD managers to track many aspects of officer conduct, from the number of citizen complaints and lawsuits filed against them to the number of times they fire their guns and get into car accidents.

“The community, which this consent decree was designed to protect, cannot afford to suffer a reversal of any of the significant gains which have been made,” wrote Cherkasky, expressing concern about department “backsliding” if the decree was partly lifted.

In addition, Cherkasky argued that no provision existed in the consent decree for a “piecemeal” extension.

The city’s proposed decree amendment also would have given the Police Commission’s inspector general -- after a year -- many of the oversight responsibilities now held by Cherkasky. The city has been required to pay $11 million to Cherkasky’s firm, Kroll Inc., to cover the five-year monitoring costs.

The monitor’s position was hailed by Catherine Lhamon, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which last week supported a two-year extension of the entire consent decree.

“The independent monitor’s submission underscores the value of dispassionate external review of the Los Angeles Police Department by appropriately crediting the police for work done well and simultaneously continuing to prod the police toward fuller compliance with promised reforms,” Lhamon said.

Earlier in the day, a group of African American community leaders also called for the entire decree to be extended, but for five years, not two.

James Harris, of Community Call to Action and Accountability, cited the fatal police shootings of 13-year-old Devin Brown and toddler Suzy Pena as evidence that continued and thorough court monitoring was warranted.

The shootings, he said, “are just a few examples of why residents in South Los Angeles are concerned that if the consent decree is not extended and monitoring is discontinued, the attitudes and actions of the LAPD will not change.”