My Last Word on Financial Disclosure – WASN’T

By Tyler Izen on 10/27/2010 @ 01:05 PM

On February 1, 2010, “My Last Word on Financial Disclosure” was posted on our blog. While the politics, mismanagement and ill-prepared and executed consent decree negotiation that resulted in the current financial disclosure requirement do make me crazy, I really intended to say my peace and move on. But our Department leadership just won’t let me!

The Chief feels great pressure to have our officers sign financial disclosure documents and join gang and narcotics units. Unfortunately, it seems that his desire to convince people that the requirements of financial disclosure are insignificant has led to misguided and erroneous statements by the police performance auditor, who is primarily responsible for the auditing of financial disclosure forms. I documented some of the misleading information that was provided during a meeting at Mission Area in an email that I forwarded to him. You can read that email here. In a nutshell, I, along with the entire Board of Directors, consider any effort to minimize the possible effects of financial disclosure or the audit process required as a ploy to entice people into signing it.

My feelings on financial disclosure have not changed. Unfortunately, neither have the requirements, the special order, or the dangers and pitfalls. I do not believe there will be any positive changes to the financial disclosure policy unless police officers refuse to sign it.

If you have been told that something has changed, please ask for it in writing. If you are going to attend an informational meeting and use that information to make your decision, please make an audio recording of the meeting (with everyone’s knowledge, of course) and keep it for future reference.

Financial disclosure is a source of frustration for all of us. However, the Department leadership has an obligation to provide accurate information unless they want a topic that is already so hotly contested to also become divisive.

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Going above and beyond, and making the ultimate sacrifice for his country

By LAPPL Board of Directors on 10/22/2010 @ 04:14 PM

The 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment was scheduled to complete its mission in the field of Afghanistan’s war-torn Helmand Province yesterday. Tragically, Staff Sergeant and LAPD Officer Joshua J. Cullins was not with his fellow Marines when troops arrived to relieve them. He died on Tuesday – only two days earlier - from a roadside bomb as his unit was investigating an explosion.

Joshua didn’t have to be there. Rather than return to Los Angeles to rejoin the Department ranks and leave his Marine unit behind, he volunteered for a second tour of duty in Afghanistan. He chose to risk his life - the ultimate sacrifice - to be part of a mission he truly believed in. He wanted to make a difference, and to those who knew him he did. In our book, this redefines the phrase “above and beyond the call of duty.”

In July, Joshua was injured by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. He made a remarkable recovery and wanted nothing more than to get back to work. That was just the kind of guy he was. Knowing all he’d been through and how he’d worked so hard to recover quickly, it was crushing to learn of his death. We’ve all began a grieving process that will not soon end.

Joshua was the second member of the LAPD to die fighting for his country in the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict. Less than seven months ago, we lost Robert J. Cottle, an LAPD SWAT officer and sergeant major with a United States Marine Corps Reserve battalion. Clearly a common thread in the character among our United States military, R.J. too had volunteered for the deployment that ultimately took his life.

Joshua joined the LAPD in 2008 and had a most promising law enforcement career ahead of him. His positive impact on the Department during his short time with us speaks to the character of this great Angelino and great American.

We invite you to share your personal experiences and memories of Joshua as we do our best to honor him as a fellow officer, friend and hero. Leave a comment here, or if you have a longer story and/or photos to share, send them to info@lappl.org. If possible, please provide the date that the photo was taken, its location and name everyone in the shot.

We will always remember Joshua J. Cullins. To honor him, R.J. and all of the other men and women who have been killed while serving our Country, we must never forget that the sacrifices they made were for us.

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Audits reveal urgent need for corrective action

By LAPPL Board of Directors on 10/16/2010 @ 02:11 PM

The audits coming from the office of City Controller Wendy Greuel these days paint a dismal picture of the city government’s ability to manage its finances. While this would be unacceptable in the best of economic times, it is particularly galling and painful at a time when city services – including public safety – are being curtailed in an effort to make ends meet.

The latest audit released this week found that mismanagement of workers compensation claims by the city was costing taxpayers millions of dollars. The audit — which former City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo tried to block by suing then-City Controller Laura Chick — found that failure to collect from third parties responsible for employee injuries may have cost the city more than $3 million each year. Another $1 to 2 million is potentially being lost through use of a practice of adjusting disability payments to mask errors committed by the Personnel Department, according to the audit. Finally, the audit found that it was taking on average more than five-and-a-half years to resolve cases.

This scathing audit came on the heels of another released in July for fiscal year 2008-09 that showed only 53 percent of some $553 million in city billings was collected, resulting in a loss of $260 million annually. Translation: The City is leaving $1 million on the table each and every business day.

City leaders are quick to look to city workers for easy fixes to the budget mess. Greuel’s audits suggest their time could be better spent collecting the money that is owed to the City and finding ways to fix wasteful business practices that rob the city treasury of desperately needed funds.

It is important to recognize that this important audit relied on the city controller receiving permission by the city attorney to conduct the review because it was housed in his office. When voters overwhelmingly approved charter reform in 1999, they gave sweeping new powers to the city controller to conduct performance audits over city programs.

Unfortunately a lone judge ruled that the city controller does not have the ability to audit taxpayer funded programs if they are housed within an elected official’s office. Surely the voters didn’t intend to let a politician’s door stop transparency and accountability

This issue is winding its way through the appeals process but could be easily settled by asking the voters to clarify the issue at the ballot box. Next March’s city election would be a good time to do this.

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People want to know - Deal or No Deal?

By LAPPL Board of Directors on 10/10/2010 @ 10:17 PM

Apparently, Jerry Brown isn’t the only one who doesn’t understand why he did not get the endorsement of the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

In the taped message he inadvertently left on a Protective League answering machine, Brown aides referred to Meg Whitman as a “whore” who got our endorsement, implying that she traded a public safety "carve out" on pension reform, for the League's endorsement. Media and others have jumped on that assumption as the reason we endorsed Meg Whitman. Wrong!

Brown was clearly uninformed as to how the pension system in Los Angeles works. As a charter city, Los Angeles has its own pension system and enacts its own pension formulas. Any changes in police pensions, such as the tier increase in 1998 that was actively supported by former Mayor Richard Riordan, have to be approved by voters in the City of Los Angeles.

Meg Whitman is not a resident of Los Angeles or a member of any governing body in the City of Los Angeles. If elected Governor, she would have no say in any changes to the pension formulas in the City of Los Angeles.

The reason Meg Whitman received our endorsement is because of her positions on issues of public safety. She has stated that she is committed to fully fund public safety and she is a lifelong supporter of the death penalty. When we endorsed her, we clearly stated that Whitman understands that jobs, the economy and budgets are the key issues affecting the future of the California. We have serious concerns about Attorney General Jerry Brown’s budgetary management skills and believe Whitman is better suited for the economic challenges facing California now.

The facts are this: The LAPPL interviewed both candidates, posed a series of questions to both and based on the candidate's responses as they related to public safety and law enforcement, made a decision. It is true, Whitman has proposed offering only 401(k) defined-contribution pensions to new state employees while letting police and fire personnel continue to receive defined-benefit pensions, but that will NOT impact Los Angeles police officers.

Neither Meg Whitman nor Jerry Brown can affect the pensions of police officers in Los Angeles, now or in the future. What they can do is have a great impact on public safety throughout the state—including Los Angeles.

"Paid for by the Los Angeles Police Protective League PAC. Not authorized by any candidate or committee controlled by a candidate".

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Job candidates shunning the LAPD is a cause for concern

By LAPPL Board of Directors on 10/07/2010 @ 03:15 PM

It is counterintuitive that in this challenged economy, applications to join the LAPD as police officers are down by 30 percent.

As reported in the LA Weekly, only 9,232 people applied to become LAPD officers last year compared to 13,202 the previous year. This should be cause for inquiry and concern by the Chief, the Mayor and the City Council. After all, the quality of recruits accepted for Academy training is in direct proportion to the size of the candidate pool. The larger the pool, the higher the caliber of applicants chosen to join the finest police department in the world. With unemployment the highest it’s been since the Great Depression and some 300 sworn positions open in the Department, one would think the candidate pool would be at record high levels.

To stimulate thinking in understanding and addressing this issue, we offer ideas for why some men and women in the job market are having second thoughts about even beginning the application process:

• Entry level pay for new hires has been cut by 20 percent. Current officers have already made other significant concessions.
• Ongoing news media reports on the City budget crisis and elected officials calling for city worker pay concessions and reduced pensions and benefits have combined to make a City government job less attractive than it was just a year or two ago.
• Police work is dangerous. But now, more than at any time in recent memory, police officers are under attack. Activists are blasting police for doing their jobs the way they were trained to do them. And, increasingly, we’re dealing with officers literally under attack - often by early release prisoners or parolees the system has lost track of. The recent story of a parolee taking aim at three LAPD officers with an assault weapon before he was shot and killed heightens the anxiety about the realities of city policing.

It may be tempting for city leaders to rationalize the decline in LAPD job applicants. But we suggest a more thoughtful approach is in order – in the long-term interests of our city and the police force that protects its residents. If this is an early warning sign, Los Angeles needs to heed the warning and take corrective action.

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Los Angeles Times Story Threatens Safety of Key Witness

By LAPPL Board of Directors on 09/28/2010 @ 02:31 PM

“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.”

The Los Angeles Times would do well to consider that famous quotation of former United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in reviewing the paper’s factually accurate and well-written coverage of the case involving the murder of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Juan Escalante by members of the violent Avenues street gang. (Driver in deputy's slaying provides details of attack in testimony, 9/23/10).

It is a universally well-known fact that it is extremely difficult to get people to cooperate in gang cases by testifying in court. Understandably, witnesses often have deep fears of retaliation by other gang members. That didn’t dissuade Times Staff Writer Victoria Kim from exercising extremely poor judgment in reporting the names of witnesses who testified at the trial. The Times even named a 15-year-old boy who is trying to disassociate himself from the dangerous and often retaliatory Avenues gang. He cried several times on the witness stand while testifying against the alleged shooter and an accomplice. Inexplicably, the article discusses his testimony at length, yet never mentions more material and relevant evidence that officials had obtained jail recordings, wiretaps and other confessions from the defendants in the case. Why not?

Here is a question for the Los Angeles Times: Why was it important for the public to know the name of the witness who testified? His name added nothing to the story and, in fact, the overwhelming majority of the people who read it would not know him. However, that name did have significance to the scant few who did know him, and with potential troubling consequences we outlined above. Further, if the purpose of the story was to tell the readers the strength/weakness of the case, shouldn’t the public have been informed of the additional evidence which bolstered the case?

Through her careless reporting, Kim and the Los Angeles Times handed a “green light list” to the Mexican Mafia and other Avenues gang members, needlessly compromising the safety of the witnesses named in the article. We join LAPD investigators, Los Angeles County Sheriff deputies and the District Attorney’s office in being appropriately outraged by what we see as a serious lapse in journalistic judgment and ethics.

There is an old saying, “Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel” and some have suggested that we not upset the Times with such a critical blog. Our view is simple: freedom of the press allows the Los Angeles Times to report what happens in a court of law. However, the simple question that apparently was not asked by Ms. Kim was, how does what she included and decided to exclude from this story advance readers’ understanding and evaluation of this case?

Going forward, we implore the Times to consider the safety of the witnesses in their coverage of gang member trials.

* Click here to read the LA Times’ response to this Blog story.

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A teachable moment: public pressure shouldn’t override officer safety

By LAPPL Board of Directors on 09/10/2010 @ 04:30 PM

When the Chief of Police reacts to public pressure, you can hope for the best but sometimes end up dealing with the fallout.  Tuesday’s press conference and Department press release was a case-in-point.

We were pleased, of course, that Chief Beck publicly defended and praised the three bicycle patrol officers who confronted the knife wielding man in the Westlake District on Sunday. The Chief said the officers had only about 40 seconds to take decisive action in the quick-moving emergency situation. It was textbook police work by the three officers who share 20 years of experience on the force.

However, we were taken aback and not at all pleased with the Chief’s sudden decision to reveal the names of the three officers involved, specifically identifying the officer who used deadly force in defense of life.

With emotions running high among some residents, precipitating open rancor and violence toward LAPD officers, it was neither the time nor the place to disclose such sensitive information. Logic and sound policing principles should have carried the day, allowing time for calm to return to the neighborhood first. At the very least, the officers involved were entitled to know in advance that their names were being made public. Moreover, the Department should have performed a threat assessment of the risk to the officers and their families before disclosing such information to the public.

The hasty disclosure of the officers’ names, accompanied by the release of additional information by an “unnamed” LAPD source regarding prior officer-involved shootings, are frustrating reminders that public considerations always seem to overshadow officer safety and privacy concerns.  It is difficult to ask the rank-and-file to trust a department that has a propensity to mishandle sensitive information - whether it is improperly storing confidential files in unsecured parking lots, accidentally posting internal reports on the Internet, or purposely disclosing officer information to the media.

In response to the Department’s failure to follow its own policy and procedures regarding release of private information, the League has filed a class action grievance on behalf of our members. We cannot forget that LAPD officers, who put their lives on the line everyday to protect the public, deserve better treatment than what they’ve received this week.

The buzz phrase “teachable moment” clearly applies to this situation---we hope that the Department recognizes the error they committed in imprudently and prematurely disclosing the names of the officers involved in the Rampart shooting and vows to place officer safety above political expediency in the future.

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Los Angeles Police Protective League reaction to protest

By LAPPL Board of Directors on 09/07/2010 @ 10:27 AM

If an intoxicated man is reckless enough to threaten innocent people with a knife, causing one resident to flag down passing officers for help, it should come as no surprise that he may do something as irrational as turn on the uniformed bicycle officers with that knife in an attempt to kill them.

Likewise, any person, whether or not they speak English, or who has had too much to drink, should understand that threatening officers with a knife will result in a swift and appropriate response by police, and if necessary, it will include the use of deadly force. It was precisely that combination of behavior on the part of Manuel Jamines on September 5 that precipitated his death.

Various community “activists,” including the Revolutionary Communist Party, are attempting to gin this shooting up into a controversy, agitating a small handful of others to conduct “protests” of this shooting. The pathetic attempt to excuse the armed advance on the responding officers by claiming the man “did not speak English” only highlights the inanity of the “protest.” For the record, the officers gave him commands in English and Spanish, not that it matters because getting drunk and threatening bystanders and then LAPD officers with a knife is dangerous and self-destructive in any language.

This was not and should not be a controversial shooting. Certainly this was a tragic incident and undoubtedly uncomfortable for people in the area to witness, but police work isn’t pretty. Police officers don’t get paid to get stabbed, nor do we possess magical powers or weapons that allow the seamless disarming of armed and dangerous individuals. When an individual, armed with a deadly weapon, makes a decision (however poor that decision is) to advance on police officers, then that individual is solely responsible for whatever the consequences may be.

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