Civil rights groups seek probe of LAPD’s actions

In a move with potentially serious consequences for the Los Angeles Police Department, several civil rights groups on Thursday asked a federal judge to investigate whether the department’s use of force at a May Day rally violated a sweeping consent decree imposed in 2001.

If U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess grants the request by groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, and if the resulting investigation finds the department violated the consent decree in the MacArthur Park melee, the judge could expand the federal oversight, set to expire in 2009.

“The decree was set up to prevent exactly the kind of outbreak of violence that took place May 1,” said Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney for the ACLU of Southern California.

Rosenbaum said his group was seeking an inquiry by court-appointed monitor Michael Cherkasky to determine whether the decree should be expanded, including requiring extra police training in handling demonstrations.

One member of the Police Commission said he saw no need for another investigation because both the LAPD and the commission’s inspector general were conducting probes.

“Let the systems in place do the job, and then we can evaluate how they did,” Commission Vice President Alan Skobin said.

Others joining the ACLU in the court filing include the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Homeboy Industries and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

The motion asks Feess for an evaluation of consent decree compliance in light of the police action “in defiance of existing court orders and departmental protocol, and in dramatic repetition of the kinds of police behaviors the consent decree is designed to prevent.”

The decree grew from the Rampart scandal, in which officers in an elite gang-enforcement unit admitted beating, shooting and framing suspects. It required the LAPD to adopt reforms to prevent civil rights abuses.

The document was a settlement between the city and the U.S. Department of Justice to address concerns by federal attorneys that the LAPD had engaged in a pattern of brutality and corruption.

The court filing Thursday questions whether the same “warrior culture” found in the since-disbanded anti-gang unit at Rampart exists in the Metropolitan Division, which broke up the May 1 rally.

At least 50 civilians have complained to the department that they were mistreated by officers wielding batons and firing foam-rubber projectiles into the crowd after some people threw rocks and bottles at officers.

“While what occurred in MacArthur Park would be unacceptable at any time, it is particularly shocking that it happened during a period when the department has been officially committed for almost six years to reform through the consent decree,” the filing said.

The consent decree requires periodic rotation and extra supervision of officers assigned to gang units.

Rosenbaum said one outcome of the inquiry could be a requirement that those rotation and supervision requirements be extended to the Metropolitan Division. The legal filing Thursday could result in a deeper examination than just whether policies were violated. It seeks an examination into whether the culture of the department, including an unofficial code of silence, has failed to change under the decree.

Earlier this week, a report by Cherkasky questioned whether the officers at the rally had received proper supervision and training and were appropriately deployed.

Cherkasky noted “unlawful use of force lies at the heart of the consent decree” and said the May 1 incidents “called into direct question when and how force can and should be used for dispersal of crowds.”

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com