To Reform the LAPD, More Civilian Pressure Is Necessary

CHICAGO —  The message coming out of the first criminal case growing out of the Rampart scandal was stunning: Gang members were more believable than police officers. It’s hard to imagine a stronger impetus to reform the Los Angeles Police Department. Barely a day later, an independent panel convened by the Police Commission sent the message again, in unmistakable terms. The deeply troubled LAPD has to start making major systemic changes now, and the city’s political leadership needs to take responsibility for ensuring that this time the changes really do occur.

In the best of all worlds, the department would have long ago adopted reforms voluntarily. But there are reasons why it hasn’t. Many aspects of LAPD culture that must be changed--its insularity, its distrust of outside criticism, its fear of scandal--are themselves impediments to change. But the bottom line is that political pressure to contain scandal, at least in the eyes of police commanders, has until now been far greater than the pressure to fix its causes.

The federal consent decree can help bring about departmental reform. But if the LAPD decides to fight the spirit of the decree, it can impede reform. The misguided proposal of a Police Commission member that its inspector general reveal the names of whistle-blowers to Internal Affairs doesn’t bode well for much-needed independent oversight of the LAPD. Indeed, the latest report criticized the commission for its less than vigilant oversight of the LAPD.

The conviction of three LAPD officers for framing gang members should help communicate how much damage has already been done. As the police command absorbs the implications of the verdicts, it needs to hear a clear message from the community and its representatives that reform is long overdue.

Like many institutions, the LAPD fears scandal, and like many big-city police departments, it doesn’t address this fear logically. One time-honored bureaucratic means of avoiding scandal is to portray every incident of wrongdoing--at least those that can’t be ignored--as the isolated act of a rogue cop. Bureaucracies let blame settle down through the ranks until it reaches the least powerful player--the cop on the street. The command’s reaction is not to learn from mistakes or address their causes, but to tighten discipline and punish individuals. And, at the same time, to fail to hold top brass adequately accountable.

The Rampart corruption scandal is, to be sure, a story of corrupt cops who egregiously abused their power and engaged in reprehensible criminal conduct. But this tale of a few bad apples is only part of the story. Stories of individual fault and blame resonate with our belief that each person should take responsibility for his or her actions. The problem is, these stories also suggest that the individual bears all the responsibility, and that the rest of us are in no way tainted by his actions. But in police departments, the story of a bad apple may signal a deeper rottenness.

The Rampart CRASH unit, for example, was portrayed as physically and even morally separated from the rest of the LAPD. Rafael Perez, whose disclosures set off the scandal, was repeatedly referred to not as a cop gone bad, but as satanic. It’s more complicated and more difficult to say: Let us condemn these inexcusable actions, but let us also recognize that they expose a deeper sickness in the LAPD culture that must be addressed. This week’s advisory panel report is just the latest confirmation of how deep the roots of the problem go.

Stories of systemic failure are difficult to tell and to understand. They usually involve a complex web of bureaucratic acts and failures to act. They are more often caused by negligence, passivity or risk-avoidance than bad faith or dishonesty. But systemic failure can have devastating and far-reaching consequences. The consequences of the Rampart scandal for the L.A. criminal justice system, for example, are apparent in last week’s jury verdict that the credibility of police officers is no longer automatically granted.

One way to deny or ignore scandal is to refuse to identify patterns. The LAPD has resolutely turned away information that could have helped it identify problematic patterns. It didn’t adequately screen new hires, even though the Christopher Commission, nine years ago, implored the department to do so. The LAPD’s Board of Inquiry report on the Rampart scandal renewed the recommendation to institute psychological testing. Also, the LAPD too often turns away misconduct complaints (as it famously did with Rodney G. King), and should the Police Commission allow the disclosure of the names of complainants, it would further perpetuate the tradition of discouraging complaints.

As in most police scandals in big cities, it turns out that a small group of officers was overwhelmingly responsible for the misconduct and abuse at Rampart. If the LAPD had tracked complaints, verdicts against officers or such police conduct as use of deadly force, it would have had an invaluable way of identifying the cops, precincts or units that required deeper investigation at Rampart. The purpose of tracking is not necessarily punitive. If a cop has an unusually large number of excessive-force complaints, he might need better training, counseling, or a different assignment. At the very least, he might not be ready for a promotion that gives him more power and autonomy. One of the central Christopher Commission recommendations was to implement such a tracking system. In 1997, the Justice Department allocated $162,000 for this purpose, but the LAPD let the money languish and didn’t implement the system. Under the consent decree, it will finally have to do so.

But the hard truth is, Rampart CRASH was adhering to an unwritten departmental code, and was getting the job done. The real lesson of Rampart, borne out by the findings of the advisory panel report, is that the LAPD culture allows and encourages over-the-top policing, at least in neighborhoods identified as gang-infested. It looks at the bottom line--number of arrests--rather than at how the arrests went down. As Perez said, the Rampart method of doing business “produced big results for Rampart CRASH. Officers brought suspects in by the carload.”

Can a consent decree change a deeply ingrained culture? It can help. Under the best of circumstances, the agreement with the U.S. Justice Department is just a beginning. If the right monitor is appointed--someone who can maintain the trust and respect of all concerned--the LAPD will have some effective outside oversight. But reform can be thwarted if the parties are determined to violate the spirit of the decree. Or, more to the point, if the parties believe it’s politically safe to violate the spirit of the decree.

The dirty secret about failures of police reform--in New York, Chicago, L.A, and elsewhere--has been that reform won’t happen unless the community demands it. Police need to believe that reform can remove hurdles to honest policing. Minority neighborhoods need to have a choice between safe streets and unlawful gangs of roaming police officers. Most important, the entire city, through its elected representatives and otherwise, must make it crystal clear, through constant pressure and vigilance, that Rampart-style policing is repugnant, and that the demand for reform is community-wide. *