Most LAPD Reforms in Place, Chief Says

Los Angeles Chief Bernard C. Parks told his Police Commission bosses Tuesday that the department has carried out most of the recommendations proposed in two reports critical of the LAPD’s handling of discipline.

Parks said the department will press forward over the next year to completely resolve all the issues raised by the commission’s inspector general in her 1997 Six-Month Report, and by the department’s own probe of former Det. Mark Fuhrman’s taped allegations of police brutality.

“These two reports particularly challenged the department to examine its personnel systems and ensure they not only perform the purpose for which they were intended, but generate public confidence in its Police Department as well,” Parks wrote in a report to the commission.

The chief’s analysis of the two reports comes less than a week after he declared that the LAPD had implemented 80% of the recommendations contained in the landmark 1991 Christopher Commission report, which proposed sweeping reforms after the beating of Rodney G. King.

Parks’ recent accounting of the Christopher Commission report and other studies has been described by the LAPD as an attempt to “move beyond” the languishing reform agenda.

The LAPD’s critics see the chief’s actions--and the commission’s endorsement of them--as giving little more than lip service to crucial reforms. One area of concern, they say, is the way the chief has resolved hundreds of recommendations proposed in the various reports.

For example, the chief states that all but one of the 21 recommendations in the inspector general’s report have been “completed or closed.” But “closed” recommendations include matters that the department has concluded are not “feasible” or disagrees with.

In the inspector general’s report, the chief disagrees with the recommendation to create a “code of silence” category for misconduct because he believes such misbehavior more appropriately falls under the misconduct labeled “false and misleading” statements.

The chief said the LAPD has fulfilled most of the inspector general’s proposals regarding the tracking and recording of personnel complaints.

Inspector General Katherine Mader was out of town and unavailable for comment.

By the chief’s assessment, the LAPD has been less successful in implementing the recommendations from the department’s Mark Fuhrman Task Force Report. Of 23 “action items,” only 12 have been completed or closed.

“These are recommendations the department has imposed on itself . . . it is important to note for the record,” said commission President Edith Perez. “These were not imposed from outside” the department.

The Fuhrman investigation was launched after the detective’s taped comments to a screenwriter surfaced during the murder trial of O.J. Simpson.

While LAPD investigators determined that Fuhrman exaggerated or lied about episodes of police brutality during the taped conversations, they found that he told the truth when he spoke about institutional harassment of women on the force.

The department’s own highly critical report recommended changes in the way the LAPD handles personnel complaints, disciplines rogue cops, maintains internal records and holds command officers responsible for the actions of subordinates.

Since taking office a year ago this month, Parks has overhauled the way the department investigates, tracks and evaluates internal and external complaints.

Many of his new initiatives satisfy recommendations in both reports, LAPD officials said.

Perez, in a prepared statement, praised the chief’s approach to discipline reforms.

“The chief has made it clear that he has raised the standards of conduct for all LAPD personnel,” she said.

In other Police Commission action Tuesday, the board approved a loan program that would provide financial incentives for LAPD officers who purchase homes in the city. The City Council still needs to approve the program before officers would be able to apply for loans that allow them to buy houses in Los Angeles with little or no down payment.