Parks Vows to Keep LAPD Disciplinary System Despite Foes

Confronted with a new study that uncovered deep-seated unhappiness among rank-and-file police officers over LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks and his disciplinary system, Parks said last week that he remains convinced that he should stay the course in his efforts to find and punish police misconduct.

“People are upset that the chief is holding them accountable,” Parks said in an interview. “When you do something as serious as being a police officer--where you carry a gun and take people’s liberty--you should expect some scrutiny.”

Parks was responding to the recent release of a study by UCLA researchers who have spent four years surveying Los Angeles police officers. That study, principally written by professor Wellford W. Wilms, is the most extensive of its kind ever conducted at the LAPD. It found overwhelming unhappiness among officers about the department’s system for accepting and investigating complaints against police, and it also documents widespread disenchantment with Parks, the person most responsible for that system.

“Despite the chief’s intentions, most officers continue to regard him with fear and hostility,” the report states. “His stern public demeanor and reputation as a taskmaster no doubt intensify their feelings. Probably contributing to officers’ trepidation is the fact that, since taking office, Parks has disciplined more than 800 officers and fired 113--more than any chief in the department’s recent history.”

According to the survey, 18% of the officers surveyed in 1999-2000 believed Parks was leading the LAPD in the right direction. That’s a thin minority of the overall force, though a modest increase from two years ago, when just 15% approved of his leadership. A larger percentage, 43% of the total number interviewed, approved of Parks’ integrity, and that number also was higher.

Indeed, the survey’s findings also include a number of possibly heartening signs for the LAPD. The researchers found growing acceptance of community policing among a rank-and-file that once tended to dismiss such an approach as more a public relations initiative than a genuine policing strategy. And one of the report’s more provocative findings is its conclusion that, contrary to popular belief, few police officers today complain of racism or sexism in the workplace.

Ninety-five percent of officers interviewed for the report agreed with the statement that “Employees from many different backgrounds are welcome in my area/division.” When asked an open-ended question about what officers would change, most focused on equipment, work schedules or other workplace issues. Of the 798 officers who were asked that question, just 10 identified a need for increased diversity.

Still, the report--titled “The Strain of Change: Voices of Los Angeles Police Officers”--captures flashes of sexism and racism, only to dismiss them as the natural byplay of rough-and-tumble camaraderie forged in police work.

At one point, the researchers describe an incident observed in the West San Fernando Valley. As a group of officers drank sodas on a warm summer day, an Asian American officer approached.

“Open those squinty eyes and you’ll see better,” one man at the table remarked.

“God, when I do that, all I see is white people,” she responded, according to the report. “It’s so bright here I think I’ll go inside.”

The report’s authors offer that as an example of relatively harmless rhetoric and say that, overall, they found very few officers who complained of sexism or racism.

That was in stark contrast to the abiding complaints about LAPD discipline and the chief. According to the report, 60% of officers interviewed in 1996-1997 worried that they would be punished for making honest mistakes. Three years later, that number had risen to 80%. Officers also complained about a particular aspect of the discipline system: that even complaints that are ruled “unsustained” linger in police files, where they are not supposed to be used to consider promotions or discipline, but may be consulted if there is evidence of a pattern of misconduct.

“The most worrisome part of this survey is the huge number of officers who have disregard for the disciplinary system,” Wilms said in an interview last week.

Wilms added that those concerns may become more pronounced in the coming months, as city officials move to fulfill their obligations under a consent decree hammered out with the federal government and approved last week. That decree already has attracted the opposition of the city’s police union, and some of its provisions--including ones to require new documentation of traffic and pedestrian stops and the creation of a new computerized officer-tracking system--are sure to irritate rank-and-file police.

Parks, however, said he had no intention of lightening up on his officers, especially at a time when the department is trying to demonstrate its seriousness about corruption.

“My job is not to call you up every day and say: Do you feel like working?” Parks said. “We need to pay our officers well, train them well and ask them to do their jobs. And they need to do them.”

The full report is available at https://www.gseis.ucla.edu/research/lapd.html.