Proposed Rule Would Punish Critics Within LAPD

The Los Angeles Police Department is considering a regulation by which officers at any level could be fined or even fired for criticizing the department’s policies, personnel or administration.

Under the proposed rule, officers could be charged with “unbecoming conduct” by making statements that “discredit” the department or undermine its morale, according to a copy of an internal report obtained by The Times.

Department employees also would be prohibited from disclosing confidential information learned in meetings with the chief of police, the report recommends. Present policy allows an officer to reveal such information if he feels disclosure “is necessary in the performance of my duty.”

Officials of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents about 6,700 of the department’s 7,000 officers, expressed anger when told of the proposal.

“I think this is intended to give the chief a hunting license against those officers who make statements he disagrees with,” said Robert Loew, a league attorney. “It’s inconsistent with their own manual section which finds that a well-informed public is essential to the existence of a democratic nation.”

Said David Baca, vice president of the league:

“It seems to me it would be a sad day when an LAPD officer would be forbidden from expressing his personal views simply because the command and staff feel it would be inappropriate.”

Others, including some police supervisors, also were critical of the proposal.

“Is there a hammer and sickle next to this?” asked one department administrator who spoke on condition that he not be identified.

Police Chief Daryl F. Gates conceded that the proposed revisions “are bordering on an infringement of people’s rights.” Accordingly, he said, he intends to examine them carefully before recommending that they be adopted or shelved. “I look at this kind of stuff with a good deal of abhorrence because I grew up in a time when you didn’t need these kinds of rules,” Gates said. “You understood what was proper, you understood what loyalty to your organization meant and you understood the necessity for not creating disruption within your organization. But today, where it’s been carried mostly by labor lawyers and by arbitrators, they want a rule for every damn thing. . . .”

The proposal, which is now being studied by the city attorney’s office, would forbid officers from engaging “in any conduct, including oral and written communication, which tends to subvert or adversely affect the department’s interest in maintaining efficiency, harmony, discipline, uniformity, morale or esprit de corps, or which discredits the department or any member thereof. Such behavior shall be classified as unbecoming conduct.”

Los Angeles police officers can be suspended and even fired for conduct unbecoming an officer, a violation that can include off-duty drunk driving, moonlighting without permission and discharging firearms unnecessarily.

Cmdr. Chester D. Spencer, the Police Department’s employee relations director, drafted the recommended policy revisions last month. He said this week that an officer would have to repeatedly violate confidences or frequently besmirch the department before facing dismissal under the proposed policy change.

“If there were frequent violations, I’m sure an employee could be removed,” Spencer said. “It would really have to be compounded, in my opinion. This is to explain to employees what the department expects of their behavior.”

Gates said it is not his intent to stifle his officers’ constitutional right of free speech. Nor, Gates said, does he want to deprive officers of the opportunity to gripe--so long as they do it internally.

‘Open-Door Policy’

“I have an open-door policy. . . . I’m just not offended by people who speak their minds,” Gates said. “The thing I’m really offended by is the little sneaky people that are constantly coming to you and other media people . . . who you always name as ‘unnamed sources.’ Those are the people that I think are little weak weasels. I wish I could write a rule against them, but I don’t know of one that’s low enough to get to them.”

Gates speculated that the rule changes would have little impact on the rank and file of the department.

“I don’t think it would make much difference to them one way or the other,” the chief said. “Most of them abide by all of this anyway simply because they know it’s the right thing to do. . . . I wouldn’t anticipate a great uprising over it.”

Frederick N. Merkin, senior assistant city attorney, said his office expects “within the next few weeks” to issue an opinion on the legality of the proposed policy changes.

If the proposal passes legal muster, it will be circulated among members of the department’s management for comments before being forwarded to Gates and then, if he approves it, to the civilian Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners for ultimate consideration.

Spencer said he decided to propose the changes in department policy after reading an article in the December, 1984, issue of an FBI magazine. The article described cases in which courts allowed law enforcement organizations to impose restrictions on the work-related speech of their employees.

‘Deficiencies’ Claimed

“We had some discipline cases in the past where there was a question whether we had rules and regulations dealing with this sort of thing,” Spencer said. “We felt we had deficiencies in our policy. I don’t do anything unilaterally. I discussed it with the chief, and he recommended we research it.”

One of those discipline cases involved Cmdr. Kenneth G. Hickman, Spencer said. Hickman found himself in hot water last year after allegedly voicing opinions, both in public and private, that were critical of Gates.

The chief accused Hickman in a closed-door staff meeting of acting “damn near seditiously,” and Hickman lost his assignment as Westside task force commander for the Olympic Games.

He was accused of biasing a Gates-ordered management study with his own personal views and was ordered to appear at a department hearing, During the hearing, an assistant chief was asked by Hickman’s attorney to disclose what Gates may have said privately about Hickman. The assistant chief refused to answer, citing a section of the Los Angeles police manual that says, “Whatever I see or hear of a confidential nature or that is confided to me in my official capacity will be kept ever secret unless revelation is necessary in the performance of my duty.”

‘Nebulous and Ambiguous’

In the proposed policy changes, Spencer has recommended that the “performance of my duty” passage be dropped because it is “nebulous and ambiguous.” Instead, he has recommended adoption of a new passage that clearly states that all command staff meetings with the chief be held confidential and that no information from those meetings be disclosed without the chief’s permission.

“I really regret that any of this has to be brought up again,” Hickman said Thursday when asked to comment on the the policy changes that the department is contemplating. “Whoever sent (Spencer’s report) to the press shouldn’t have done that.” Hickman is now the No. 2 person in the Support Services Division, a unit that includes computers and communications systems.

Gates, who spoke highly of Hickman during an interview this week, denied that the Hickman case specifically prompted the proposed changes.

“I think the taxpayers deserve that a public organization be run effectively and efficiently and with the least disruption possible, and that’s what this is aimed at. . . .,” Gates said. “It makes no sense to go out and undermine the organization publicly or non-publicly.”