U.S. Presents Demands to LAPD

Armed with a list of demands for improving the Los Angeles Police Department, federal authorities on Thursday met with their city counterparts and pressed for rapid adoption of a vastly expanded computerized officer tracking system, as well as a revamped system for investigating and disciplining wayward police officers, according to sources close to the negotiations.

Federal officials also insisted that they expect any deal with the city to be in the form of a consent decree filed with a federal judge, not in a more informal memorandum of understanding, as advocated by Mayor Richard Riordan and Police Chief Bernard C. Parks. Riordan recently said he believed that the federal government would back away from its demand for a consent decree. However, sources inside Thursday’s negotiations said the Justice Department officials specifically emphasized that they remain committed to that course.

Reached just as the meeting was ending, Riordan declined to comment, saying he had not yet had a chance to be briefed on the talks.

Sources said the discussion Thursday opened with the issue of the consent decree but quickly turned to computerized officer tracking, a long-standing source of contention, since the city promised to upgrade its system in 1997. The federal government set aside money to help that process along, but despite promises of quick progress, the system today remains on the drawing boards.

Participants in the all-day session, held at the city’s Department of Water and Power, described it as slow-going but collegial, as federal officials methodically laid out the first phase of their proposed reforms, which covered such areas as the handling of citizens’ complaints and the investigation of officer-involved shootings. Justice officials also broached the subject of bringing in an outside monitor to oversee the reform efforts. Members of the city team mostly asked questions.

Top officials of the Justice Department have stated publicly and privately that they are prepared to file a lawsuit against Los Angeles and the LAPD if the city refuses to go along with the federal proposal--and if the two sides cannot reach a compromise that satisfies the federal government. At the same time, those officials have stressed that they would prefer to strike a deal that would avoid a costly and protracted lawsuit.

The proposals that federal authorities put on the table Thursday are just the first in what is expected to be a long list. One source on the city’s side of the talks said local officials believe they heard about a quarter of the federal government’s proposal Thursday. More sessions are scheduled in the coming weeks.

Over the past month, sources familiar with the federal government’s emerging position have stressed that the Justice Department is looking for ways to bolster and enhance the authority of the city’s Police Commission and its inspector general to give them more meaningful oversight of Los Angeles’ 10,000-officer police force. Suggestions in that area include allowing the inspector general and commission to draft their own proposals for boosting their powers and then giving a federal judge the power to enforce those proposals.

One key point of contention has been whether the Justice Department would insist that the city agree to those demands as part of a consent decree or whether it would allow the city instead to enter into what is known as a memorandum of understanding. A consent decree would carry greater force because it would be overseen by a judge, who could find city officials in contempt if they failed to hold up their end of the bargain.

A memorandum of understanding is more like a contract, and the only recourse the Justice Department would have if Los Angeles failed to live up to it would be to sue for breaking the deal. That is especially problematic in an election year because it is not clear whether the next administration in Washington would be inclined to follow through on enforcing the agreement.

Riordan and Parks favor the memorandum of understanding, but they appear to be bucking not only the federal government, but most of the city government as well. Many other key city officials--including Police Commission President Gerald L. Chaleff, Chief Legislative Analyst Ron Deaton and City Atty. James K. Hahn--are more amenable to a consent decree, as are a number of City Council members.

“What the mayor is asking for is the maximum amount of wiggle room,” said Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, one of the council’s most forceful police reform advocates. “The question is: ‘Why?’ We don’t need wiggle room on reform.”

On the council, however, positions are always fluid--in this case as in many others.

Although a majority of council members appear to echo Ridley-Thomas’ view of the acceptability of a consent decree, a number of others stress that they want to explore all their options.

“The details are everything here,” said Councilman Mike Feuer. “I have embraced the [Department of Justice’s] participating with us in reforming the Police Department. I’m not sure what shape that will take. . . . I am clearly not one to be counted as definitely supporting a consent decree. I’m also not one who is definitely against it. I won’t know until I see what’s on the table.”

Councilwoman Laura Chick said she would support a consent decree if it allowed the city to participate in a “partnership role” with the Justice Department.

“I don’t want to see the federal government running our Police Department, and I would fight that,” Chick said. “It is possible that a consent decree could be written in a way that puts down a lot of these things we want to accomplish. . . . We need outside pressure applied on the Police Department to ensure that the reforms are real, substantive and lasting.”

That sentiment--support for substantive reform backed by Justice Department weight--is widely shared on the council, where some members believe the proposed decree may represent the last, best chance for significant reform of the Police Department. As a result, they form an unusual ally with the federal government in its quest to bind city officials to a tough deal.

At Thursday’s session, the federal contingent was led by Steve Rosenbaum, who heads the Special Litigation Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Bill Lann Lee, the acting head of that division, did not attend Thursday’s meeting, but he did meet earlier in the week with Parks.

Parks, who had been vacationing with his family in North Carolina, considered the matter so important that he flew to Washington to consult with Lee even after receiving word of his granddaughter’s killing in Los Angeles.

According to sources familiar with that meeting, Parks pressed his case against the adoption of a consent decree that would put certain LAPD operations under the oversight of a federal monitor and judge. Those sources added that Parks left the meeting convinced that, despite his arguments, the Justice Department remained committed to that approach.