Hank Hernandez

September, 2008

A Few Bad Apples

Three recent cases involving LAPD officers paint a picture of a police department management with a deeply ingrained culture of denial that enables certain staff and command officers to violate officers’ rights with impunity. LAPD management appears to go to great lengths to not know about or address its bad apples within their ranks – and the harm that they inflict on the morale of officers, the public and the City treasury.

In Harper et al v. City of Los Angeles, et al, 2008 DJDAR 10723, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the City of Los Angeles must pay a jury award of $5 million each to three LAPD officers who were prosecuted and acquitted of criminal charges in connection with the Rafael Perez (Rampart) incident. The three-judge panel also approved an award of attorney fees of about $2.5 million, including interest, to the officers’ attorneys. In this case, our officers proved to a jury that they were arrested and prosecuted at the direction of former Chief Bernard Parks and members of his management team without reasonably trustworthy information sufficient to lead a person of reasonable caution to believe that the officers had committed a crime.

In Los Angeles Police Protective League v. City of Los Angeles, et al, LASC No. BC 368108, the League filed a civil action in 2007 seeking declaratory relief after management representatives caused illegal administrative searches of assigned detectives’ desks, files and cabinets at Robbery-Homicide Division (RHD). This matter was recently settled for attorneys’ fees and with an agreement regarding the recognition by management of the applicable provisions of the Public Safety Officers Bill of Rights Act, which were violated during the searches at RHD. However, we are now seriously looking at another recent instance of a newly promoted patrol commanding officer searching files of supervisors under his/her command without notice or consent, or a search warrant.

In yet another unconscionable case of illegal behavior by police management, the League recently authorized funding for a new civil rights lawsuit as a result of an outrageous and illegal administrative search of an on-duty uniformed officer by contract hospital staff after the Department received a bogus third-party complaint against the officer. This illegal search was authorized despite a large civil judgment in federal court against the City a few years ago in Gibson v. City of Los Angeles, which was based on another illegal administrative search by police management in violation of the civil rights of the (now former) LAPD officer involved.

Once the management veil is lifted in these cases, it is clear to us that City officials lack any effective system to address patterns of abuse of sworn officers by police management. In spite of the alleged positive attributes of the TEAMS II system of tracking “deviant“ rank-and-file officers (at a cost of over $28 million to the City’s taxpayers), it is a dismal failure in identifying and tracking repeat police management offenders. It seems that the Police Commission, as well as elected City officials, has to work incredibly hard to not know about these management repeat offenders.

Make no mistake. A few bad apples in police management ranks can and has done untold damage to the morale of officers, to the communities they serve and to the City as their employer. Indeed, as demonstrated in just the three cases mentioned above, there are a few bad apples clustered in different commands of the Department. Together these so-called police leaders and their enablers become the cruel and corrupt face of the LAPD in the eyes of our rank-and-file officers and their union. The harm caused by these buffoons continues to accumulate. The numbers don’t lie. The above-mentioned cases, and others to come, clearly demonstrate that the LAPD has a broken system for monitoring and disciplining its managers. They just call it “training needs” when it comes to them …

Hope that you are having a great summer. Stay in touch and be careful out there.