Police commissions urged to be watchdogs

NUKOLII – Police commissions nationwide need to actively manage police

departments to curb corruption and to ensure proper police services, says a top

Los Angeles County law enforcement official.

If municipalities don’t follow

that advice, they will be confronted with runaway corruption that has plagued

the Los Angeles Police Department, which may have to pay out $125 million in

claims or settlements related to police misconduct, said Jeff Eglash, inspector

general with the LAPD.

For police commissions to be effective, they must

have access to information on police operations, confidentially for those who

have filed complaints against officers, and the ability to investigate

complaints, Eglash said.

Eglash issued the warning during a keynote speech

at the sixth annual National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law

Enforcement (NACOLE) conference at the Radisson Kaua’i Beach Resort.

More

than 70 people attended the first meeting of the four-day conference

Wednesday. They included police commissioners and representatives from police

watchdog organizations from throughout the United States.

NACOLE’s mission

is to develop strategies to review and investigate questionable police

activities.

Kaua’i Police Commission chairwoman Heidy Huddy-Yamamoto said

her group asserts its control over the operations of the Kaua’i Police

Department.

“We will not be ignored,” she said.

While the commission

sees itself as a friend of officers, it will take an objective stand on all

complaints lodged against them, she said.

Kaua’i Police chief George

Freitas said the department or the commission investigate about 15 complaints a

year. Following a national average, about 15 percent of the complaints are

substantiated, Freitas said.

The complaints range from the attitude of

officers during an arrest to alleged lack of thoroughness in police reports,

Freitas said.

In complaints that are substantiated, the officers are

subject to disciplinary action Freitas sets, ranging from reprimand to

dismissal.

This year’s Rampart scandal in Los Angeles spotlighted the

corruption in the LAPD and raised questions about the “oversight ability” of

the Board of Police Commissioners, the department’s watchdog, Eglash

said.

The scandal centers around the Rampart area, an impoverished

neighborhood north of down town Los Angeles that is home to violent gangs and

has one of the highest murder rates in that city, Eglash said.

To control

gang violence, a special police unit called Rampart Community Resources Against

Street Hoodlums (CRASH) was formed. During an investigation, one of the unit’s

officers, Rafael Perez, was caught stealing seven pounds of cocaine from an

evidence locker and confessed to the crime last September, Eglash

said.

Perez also confessed he regularly planted drugs or guns on suspects,

wrote false reports and affidavits, committed perjury in court, used excessive

force, stole drugs and sold drugs, Eglash said.

In another case, Perez and

his partner shot a 19-year-old man in the head without cause and tried to cover

up the incident, Eglash said. The victim died later.

The depth of the

scandal staggered Los Angeles residents, Eglash said.

“One politician

aptly called it `a dagger aimed at the heart of democracy,”‘ he said.

In

exchange for a five-year sentence, Perez revealed widespread corruption within

the CRASH unit, Eglash said.

At least 21 officers have been relieved of

duty, resigned or been fired in the wake of the scandal and another 70 are

under investigation.

So far 106 convictions have been overturned at the

request of the Los Angeles district attorney, and the county faces up to $125

million in claims and settlement stemming from alleged police misconduct,

Eglash said.

LAPD convened a board of inquiry into the scandal and found

widespread failures by department managers and supervisors contributed to

police corruption, Eglash said.

The Los Angeles Board of Commissioners also

convened an independent review panel to examine the issue, including whether

the board’s oversight powers of LAPD operations was adequate, Eglash

said.

Following the Watts riots in 1965, a commission noted it wasn’t

enough, and two other commissions in 1991 and 1996 reached the same conclusion,

Eglash said.

A more far-reaching consequence, Eglash said, was the Justice

Department’s announcement in May that it was going to sue the LAPD for engaging

in a pattern of civil rights violations.

The city of Los Angeles has

responded with an announcement that it favors a settlement rather than face

years of litigation, Eglash said.

“For a department that believes in

control, agreeing to be overseen by a federally appointed monitor and a federal

court will be a bitter pill for our very proud department to swallow,” Eglash

said.

The unpaid five-member commission, consisting of a four attorneys

and owner of a car dealership want to turn things around. they are hard-working

and dedicated, and want to do “the right thing,” Eglash said.

But the group

can’t do its job properly because they deal with trivial matters like parade

permits and has a staff that is too small to oversee a department with 13,000

employees, including 9,600 officers.

The commission doesn’t have access to

all pertinent information on police operations and must deal with a powerful

police chief, Eglash said.

A commission that looked into LAPD operations

found the department failed at taking and tracking complaints, processing them

and imposing meaningful discipline against bad officers, Eglash said.

To

fix these problems, his office was created to audit, monitor and oversee the

discipline system of the LAPD, Eglash said.

Eglash said he still has run

up against obstacles — lack of access to information, lack of confidentiality

to complainants, lack of resources and opposition to performing investigative

rather than oversight roles, and efforts by the police chief to discredit

him.

In one case, Eglash said he was criticized for not making a report

against a police captain who noted that 75 top command officers were

incompetent managers. A report, Eglash said, had already spelled that

out.

While the police commission should recognize the operational expertise

of the LAPD, the police brass should recognize that his work and the work of

the police commission bring credibility to the process, Eglash said.

Police

corruption doesn’t happen overnight, but rather takes years of overlooking

minor indiscretions by police officers, Eglash said.

He urged audience

members to persevere, because the job police commissioners and police watchdog

groups do is “incredibly important.”

Staff writer Lester Chang can be

reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and lchang@pulitzer.net