A negative view of police hearings
Re “A legal lid on May Day inquiries,” Opinion, May 11
Merrick Bobb’s commentary on the MacArthur Park incident identifies the downside of opening Police Commission hearings to the public: that officers will be judged not on what they did but on what police administrators and the Police Commission believe the public wants to happen.
Before the Los Angeles Police Department could completely review the facts and make an informed judgment on the actions of individual officers, it relieved 60 officers of duty for “retraining.” The department didn’t want to wait for any facts to get in the way of a final judgment of assigning blame, deciding that it was more important to cater to perceived public opinion than to make informed decisions based on facts.
It is clear that board of rights hearings would only turn into show trials if the public were allowed in. The purpose of department discipline is to hold officers accountable for what the facts show they did wrong, not what the public believes they did wrong. In Bobb’s world, the discipline process only is working if its outcome satisfies community leaders or what he deems to be prevailing public opinion.
ROBERT BAKER
President
Los Angeles Police
Protective League
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