Fearmongering worked to kill police accountability
LAPPL
Jun 27, 2008
The Los Angeles Police Protective League's mission is, ostensibly, to serve the desires of its members - the officers of the LAPD. So if the PPL's latest actions are any guide, accountability and credibility are apparently not among the rank and file's desires.
Given the dedication of most Los Angeles police officers, that seems most doubtful. But it is the message that's sent from the PPL's successful fight to kill Senate Bill 1019.
The bill - authored by state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, and supported by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAPD Chief William Bratton - would have reinstated the longtime and healthy practice of allowing public scrutiny of police disciplinary proceedings.
The bill died in a Senate committee Tuesday after the PPL's harsh ad campaign against it, as well as heavy lobbying from police unions across the state. Four members of the committee were so cowed they chose not to vote on the legislation at all.
Among other things, the PPL warned that a result of Romero's bill would be that "gang members could access LAPD officers' personal information to threaten them and their families." But that claim is so farfetched, it stretches the imagination.
First, the disciplinary-hearing proceedings and outcomes had been available to the public for seven decades, ever since Board of Rights hearings were established in the 1930s. That right was only taken away after a 2006 state Supreme Court ruling prompted Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo to interpret (or misinterpret, as it seems) the ruling to shut the public out of the hearings and strip officers' names from outcomes in use-of-force cases.
Yet during all that time in which the public had access to those proceedings, not one officer was ever tracked down by gang members wishing to do him or her harm, union officials admit. Not one.
Nor could criminals find useful information from following a disciplinary hearing even if they tried. Union officials also note that home addresses, phone numbers and other personal family information are not typically included in the proceedings' documents.
Though it was a baseless claim, this supposed threat was enough to shut down the public's right to know in cases in which serious misconduct has been alleged, and credible evidence produced.
The PPL has employed the same kind of reactionary rhetoric to fight another effort to bring more accountability to the LAPD through financial disclosure forms for officers working in the gang and narcotics units.
The disclosure forms are required as one of the last pieces of the federal consent decree worked out in the wake of the Rampart corruption scandal. The idea is that such forms would make it easier to identify any corruption before it bloomed into a Rampart-size problem.
And though this information would be kept confidential - and is pretty much the same as what any bank would seek in a mortgage application - the union is making the usual empty claim that obtaining it could harm officers should that information get out.
But that seems like a purely hypothetical - and highly unlikely - possibility. It's also beside the point. The disclosure requirement was worked out years ago when the city agreed to the consent decree. Killing it now would jeopardize the LAPD's compliance, and needlessly perpetuate the expensive and onerous decree for years to come.
The PPL has sued over the disclosure policy, and recently received a temporary restraining order against its implementation from a district judge. But this fight is far from over, and fortunately, it doesn't hinge on the political backbone of the state Legislature.
What's most unfortunate about the union's fight against police accountability is that it doesn't even serve its membership in a meaningful way. Accountability and credibility are vastly important to police officers, and secrecy does more damage to the LAPD than the occasional embarrassment of a groundless disciplinary hearing.
Bad things fester in the dark, and with Tuesday's action, it's just become a little darker in the LAPD. Surely the PPL can't want that for its members.
Union officials ought to recognize this, and work with the department to give the public the access it needs and to protect the privacy and credibility of its officers