July 2011 Warning Bells Article

Posted by Administrator on August 22, 2011

Chief of Police Invades Independence of the Board of Rights Process

 Every Los Angeles police officer has the right to appeal a suspension of one day or more to a Board of Rights. Furthermore, the Chief of Police cannot terminate an officer without sending the officer to a Board of Rights, where the officer must be found guilty and the Board must recommend termination. William Bratton didn’t like it and the Police Commission doesn’t like it, but it has been that way in Los Angeles since the 1930s, and for good reason.

The history of the Charter legislation can be found in the first chapter of the Department’s Management Guide to Discipline. The bottom line is that the street cop needed protection from the politicians. It was hard to be an honest cop in those days. If a beat cop reported corruption, he found himself suddenly beset with administrative problems often resulting in termination.

The Board of Rights system was born in the storm of reform against political corruption. Voters made sweeping changes to the Charter starting in 1931. Police officers were given a substantial right to their positions. However, the Chief of Police could ignore the decision of the Board of Rights (called a Board of Inquiry at that time). Because the Chief was appointed by the Police Commission, which was appointed by the mayor, little had changed in regard to protecting officers from crooked politicians. Guess who came to the rescue?

The Management Guide to Discipline states: “In 1934, Lieutenant William H. Parker began to rewrite [Charter] Section 202. Parker was a law school graduate and former assistant to Chief James E. Davis. Parker knew the workings of city government close up. The Shaw brothers presided over a corrupt city, and Chief J. Davis was beholden to the Shaws. Mayor Shaw’s brother was controlling the vice squad and selling sergeant’s tests for $500.

Working with another lieutenant, Earl Cooke, Parker campaigned for the passage of the Charter amendment in 1935. Within two years, a reform mayor was elected and Chief J. Davis was forced to resign. Mayor Shaw became the first big-city mayor in the nation to be recalled from office, and his brother was prosecuted for corruption.”

The idea behind the Charter changes in the ’30s was simple. If you were going to punish or terminate an officer, the officer got a fair hearing where the Department had the burden of proof and the officer had a chance to defend him or herself. The hearing was a buffer between the politicians and the street cop. An officer was to be disciplined on the basis of evidence, not politics.

Did it work? Witness the political fallout from the Perez scandal that rocked Rampart Division. Chief of Police Bernard Parks’ solution was to fire every officer in Rampart CRASH. There were at least 86 Boards of Rights, the vast majority of which resulted in not-guilty verdicts. More recently, Chief Bratton announced to the Police Commission and the press that he wanted termination of at least four of the May Day 2007 Metro officers. Again, an examination of the evidence at Boards of Rights resulted in no terminations. That is the difference between examining the evidence and politics.

Inherent in the value of the Board of Rights is the independence of the panel, which consists of two command staff officers and a civilian. This independence is under assault. Chief Gates stated in his autobiography that he sometimes didn’t like the decisions made by the Boards of Rights, but he never interfered with them. Chief Parks is on record as requiring Board members who found officers not guilty in Boards to have a personal conference with him to explain why. Chief Bratton took it a step further and announced to all the staff officers that when he sent an officer to a Board of Rights, he expected termination because he only sent those to Boards who should be terminated. Furthermore, if they weren’t terminated, they would be transferred to the command of the Board member who had failed to terminate them. Let them deal with the officer, Bratton said. And yet we still had command officers who took their duty of examining the evidence seriously and would render a not-guilty verdict when they thought it was proper.

This brings me to the point of this article. Not content with the above, Internal Affairs has now gone a step further. They are reaching into the Board while it is still in progress. As has been related several times in the past, when a Board rules on a motion in favor of the officer, Internal Affairs reconvenes the Board to “reconsider” the ruling. A written argument is then submitted with Chief Beck’s name prominently on the top informing the Board that they have made a mistake and should reconsider their ruling under the attached argument. This generally has the desired effect and results in a reversal of the ruling. But sometimes it doesn’t.

A recent case, which inspired this article, went down this way. The officer’s representative argued that three out of the four counts charged against the officer were out of statute. (The result of being out of statute is that those charges cannot be considered in the penalty and should be withdrawn.) Internal Affairs argued that they were not out of statute. The Board considered the evidence and arguments from both sides and ruled that the officer’s representative was correct and sustained his motion. A few days later came the motion from Internal Affairs to “reconsider.” The written argument with Chief Beck’s name prominently on top was submitted and the Internal Affairs advocate had a deputy city attorney at his side to argue the legal points. Members of the Board listened to the arguments from both sides, then contacted their own deputy city attorney for advice. After careful reconsideration of all the arguments and consulting with their own deputy city attorney, the Board ruled that its initial ruling that the counts were out of statute was correct. The motion for reconsideration was denied.

One would think that would end it. After all, if the officer had lost the original motion, there would have been no reconsideration. The officer would have had to file a writ in superior court. Not so for Internal Affairs. Internal Affairs went to the Chief of Police. Chief Beck determined that the Board was wrong and ordered it to proceed on all four counts.

So much for the independence of Boards of Rights! The irony is that when Chief Beck was a captain, he was one of the best Board picks on the Department. He cared about cops. He took his job of looking at the evidence seriously. And he was independent. He called it like he saw it. If the evidence showed that the officer was guilty, Beck punished the officer to the extent required, including termination. If the evidence wasn’t there, he made that call regardless of the inevitable trip to Chief Parks’ office to explain why.

Charlie Beck would have been the last one to allow someone to reach into one of his Board of Rights and interfere with the process. What has changed? Where is he getting his advice?

And it is the process that we are defending, because what can happen to one can happen to anyone. This isn’t the ’30s, as people will tell you. All that corruption is gone. Maybe, but under the changes to the Charter that were implemented a few years back, the system in place is starting to look like the ’30s. The Chief of Police has no civil service protection. The Chief is beholden to the Police Commission, which is appointed by the mayor.

If the independence of the Board of Rights system is eliminated, the officer loses the protection from politicians that has been in place for over 70 years. Once the process is destroyed, all we have to do is wait for the arrival of the crooked politician, and it is 1931 all over again. The current mayor and the current Chief of Police won’t be here forever.

There are warning bells to be heard. History does repeat itself. The process must be protected. Yes, the League is likely to file yet another lawsuit on behalf of the process, just as it did over the interference with discovery and representation that was reported last month. The stakes are high. The fight must continue …

Be legally careful out there. v

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June 2011 Warning Bells article

Posted by Administrator on August 22, 2011

Death by a Thousand Cuts

If the Constitutional Policing Unit really wanted to up their recap, there would be no bigger apple orchard than following around Internal Affairs as it conducts Boards of Rights and Administrative Appeals. The Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the United States govern these proceedings. And there is also the simple concept of fairness that we all learned as far back as our sandbox days.

While the Police Commission brags to the public about the transparency of the LAPD, Internal Affairs repeatedly refuses to provide evidence to accused officers and resists any attempt to get it by other means. For example, an employee representative assigned to defend an officer in an Administrative Appeal wanted to review officers’ logs at a traffic division to determine whether working out was routinely allowed. Denied. Another rep wanted to view the chrono log of the IA investigator who did the investigation of his officer. Denied. A League attorney defending an officer at a Board of Rights wanted to see the IA chrono log related to the service of a complaint on his officer. Denied. An Admin Appeal rep wanted to convene the hearing to request a continuance. Denied. An attorney wanted a Force Investigation Division report to defend his officer in an Admin Appeal. Denied. An advocate put on a witness to testify against an officer. The day ended before the representative could cross-examine the witness. The next day, the witness called in sick. The representative asked for a continuance until the witness was back on duty. Denied. The representative asked that the witness’s testimony on direct be stricken because the accused officer was being deprived of the constitutional right to cross-examine witnesses against him. Denied.

It goes on and on. Sometimes, the Board or hearing officer will order Internal Affairs to supply a document, but the next day the same denial will be made in another case. Challenging these numerous and unending denials of discovery, and other unfair actions, is time-consuming and expensive. For instance, after the chrono log was denied, the representative fought for a discovery hearing with the hearing officer. Finally, it was scheduled. League attorneys assisted the representative and a city attorney appeared to assist the advocate. A hearing was conducted and arguments were made by both sides. No confidentiality was asserted by the advocate, so secrets weren’t being spilled, just merely that since the Chief hadn’t seen the log, the officer wasn’t entitled to it. The hearing officer, after listening to the arguments, ordered Internal Affairs to produce the chrono log for inspection. This was done. The representative observed that it was a typed log obviously formally prepared. The Internal Affairs investigator stated that the log was created from notes made at the time and that to respond to a question he would have to look at those notes. The rep asked to see the notes. The IA investigator said he would check with the advocate. Denied. Now the representative has to schedule another hearing to ask the hearing officer to order those notes to be produced. Why? What are they hiding? What are they ashamed of? What is it about due process that they refuse to understand?

To avoid going to court hundreds of times over these continuing denials of discovery and other obstructive tactics, the League has filed and served one lawsuit seeking to solve all the problems. The complaint against the Department makes the following allegations:

 “Commencing in or about 2010 and continuing to date, the Defendants and their agents and employees have approved, administered, perpetrated and engaged in a systematic pattern of implementing practices so as to deny the League’s represented employees their constitutional, statutory, municipal and/or administratively mandated rights to a full, fair and meaningful administrative hearing, including the right to administrative discovery and provision of related non-confidential investigative materials and/or other information that might aid in the employees’ defense, by engaging in unlawful and/or improper conduct so as to deprive, intimidate, interfere, discourage, vex, hinder, restrain, harass, annoy and/or retaliate against the employees represented by the League and/or their defense representatives for exercising their lawful rights in securing fair and meaningful administrative hearings. “Defendants’ unlawful and/or improper conduct denying, interfering or abridging the rights of employees represented by the League to full, fair and meaningful administrative hearings and the right to administrative discovery and provision of related non-confidential investigative materials and/or other information that might aid in the employees’ defense includes, but is not limited to: a.) refusing to provide discovery which relates to the administrative case; b.) providing untimely discovery; c.) refusing to permit defense representatives access to non-confidential documents or other information related to the investigation which might aid in the employees’ defense; d.) refusing defense representatives the opportunity to interview witness; e.) intimidation of defense representatives; f) restriction of issuance of administrative subpoenas of witnesses; g.) denial of issuance of administrative subpoenas for production of Department’s records; h.) intimidation of witnesses; and i.) exertion of pressure or influence on Los Angeles Police Department command staff presiding as hearing officers in administrative cases.”

The central theme of all this fancy legal talk is this: Why is it that the Department feels it cannot conduct an honest investigation, make a logical decision as to discipline and put the investigation on the table for inspection instead of constantly hiding facts, dodging discovery, blocking accused officers’ representatives and trying to rig the process against the officer?

I suspect it has a lot to do with ego and a need for control. These are the very things that the founding fathers of this republic sought to control through a history-changing style of government called democracy, which contained a system of checks and balances. The absence of checks and balances leads to an expansion of power, and unchecked power ultimately leads to corruption. This has been a well-traveled road throughout history.

The antidote is due process. That is what the League’s lawsuit is seeking to restore in our disciplinary process. It is unfortunate that we have to resort to this extraordinary and expensive process. There will be discovery, depositions, interrogatories and eventually a trial. It is telling that the League is not seeking any monetary damages. These are hard financial times for the City and the goal here is to simply force the Department to treat its employees fairly. The League has exhausted all efforts to correct the situation, and this lawsuit is a last resort.

The source of the problem is at the management level and does not, for the most part, lie with the case-carrying personnel complaint investigators, although the arrogance of power sometimes trickles down to the street. Officers will complain to us about things like interviews that are unequivocally ordered without regard for the officer’s schedule, or the officer’s attorney’s schedule. But the discovery violations and other machinations usually take place at a higher level of rank. The large majority of Internal Affairs investigators successfully do their job while honoring the officer’s rights.

So we head into this legal battle … or maybe people in high places within the Department could worry about the fair treatment and constitutional rights of officers as much as they do about the fair treatment and constitutional rights of the citizens on the street, and allow our officers to focus their energies on crime problems instead?

Be legally careful out there.

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May 2011 Warning Bells Article

Posted by Administrator on June 23, 2011

The Power of the Pen — to Put You in Jail!

Sometimes a thoughtless act can have devastating consequences far surpassing anything imagined at the time. There are all kinds of ways of unintentionally crossing the line. The very nature of your job creates a minefield to maneuver through each day. Take report writing, for instance.

An Orange County deputy sheriff found out the hard way about exploding reports. According to the press, the deputy was assigned to do followups on 39 property crime cases. He was supposed to contact the victims on each case and determine their willingness to cooperate in situations where DNA might result in solving the crime. Apparently, he decided to take a few shortcuts. In 18 of the 39 cases, he wrote that he had contacted the victim and they didn’t care to cooperate. He hadn’t, but what did it matter? It was just a report.

Getting criminally prosecuted undoubtedly never crossed his mind. Unfortunately, after he handed in the 39 follow-up reports, some of them began to unravel. For instance, one of the victims who he wrote about interviewing and who he had written had declined to cooperate turned out to be dead. That was bad luck for both of them. In the end, the district attorney filed 18 misdemeanor counts against the deputy. He took a jury trial and was convicted of eight of the counts. This was an unexpected end to a 10-year career.

It behooves anyone who puts a pen to an official report to know about 118.1 PC.

118.1. False statements in crime reports; Penalties

Every peace officer who files any report with the agency which employs him or her regarding the commission of any crime or any investigation of any crime, if he or she knowingly and intentionally makes any statement regarding any material matter in the report which the officer knows to be false, whether or not the statement is certified or otherwise expressly reported as true, is guilty of filing a false report punishable by imprisonment in the county jail for up to one year, or in the state prison for one, two, or three years. This section shall not apply to the contents of any statement which the peace officer attributes in the report to any other person.

This should give you pause every time you put pen to paper. Writing a report may be the most important thing you do, short of testifying. Any time you put something into the report thoughtlessly, or under an assumption or without carefully checking the facts, you may open yourself up to unexpected consequences. The ultimate goal in writing a report should always be accuracy.

The problem is compounded by the Department’s current emphasis on reducing overtime. Before an investigation is complete, the original unit is often ordered to go end of watch and pass the rest of the investigation off to another unit to avoid overtime. Does the second unit really understand everything that the first unit did? They’d better, or the report will not be accurate. And that is the first step in what could turn out to be a disaster.

Another unofficial Department procedure that could lead to disaster is the “designated finder” concept. To reduce overtime, officers in narcotics and gang units executing search warrants may be encouraged to have one officer be the official finder of all the evidence. This means that only one officer will have to go to court. This is fraught with danger since the property report reads as if only one officer was at the scene searching. While it may be true that this officer was directed to all the found evidence and officially seized it, cross-examination in court months later can get pretty tricky (and dangerous to one’s career). Don’t expect the Department’s gratitude over the overtime you saved to protect you.

If you have the misfortune to be involved in a situation that gets blown into a media event, things get even more critical. Take the Rodney King incident, for example. The reports written in that incident before the Holiday video tape became known to the media were eventually blown up into four-foot-by-six-foot exhibits to be displayed in front of the jury as prosecutors beat up the officers on the stand over every seeming inconsistency in the report that could be imagined.

A few years later came the Rafael Perez scandal. The prosecutors brought Rafael Perez a stack of hundreds of arrest reports to look at to tell them which were false arrests. Perez had a field day in his attempt to draw focus away from his crimes. Every report that Perez selected was scrutinized by teams of IA investigators to find inconsistencies on which to send officers to Boards of Rights. Most officers were cleared, but the experience wasn’t any fun. Who would have thought in 1998 that reports written in 1995 would be subject to such intense inspection?

Don’t let carelessness, assumptions or inaccuracy affect your long-term career goals when you pull that pen out of your pocket. When you turn that report in, hear warning bells. Like a bullet, once fired it can’t be brought back. So, like you do when you fire a bullet, strive for accuracy!

Be legally careful out there.

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April 2011 Warning Bells Article

Posted by Administrator on May 30, 2011

Not Perfect Again

I seldom name officers whom I write about in my articles, but this time I am going to make an exception. For one thing, his name is already splashed all over a Los Angeles Times article, and the adjudication of the shooting that he was involved in has been posted on the Police Commission website. I am going to try to tell his side of the story so, hopefully, the inevitable Google searches will at least bring up one article that tries to describe what it was like to be in his shoes.

The officer’s name is Tony Hyong Im. He works Wilshire. He is a PIII now, but will shortly be downgraded as a result of this shooting and, yes, we will appeal. I am not telling any secrets because the categorical use of force findings by the Police Commission examine the incident in great detail on its website and because the Los Angeles Times story quotes its documented sources as “the LAPD’s official review, analysis and findings of the incident, and the Board of Police Commissioners’ findings of the incident.” It also quotes an unidentified “senior official” who wishes to remain anonymous.

The Times article, published on March 1, describes the murder of Flor Medrano, a 30-year-old female who was stabbed to death by her boyfriend. The Times story, as you might imagine, is written from the perspective of the murder victim and is critical of the Department. In the Times’ defense, the reporter did not have access to the officers involved in the incident and it appears he tried to consider all sides of the story. The article, however, neglects or glosses over a couple of the facts that make a huge difference in how Officer Im made decisions as the night in question progressed.

Our use of force policy tells us that the actions of our officers are not to be looked at with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but that is exactly what is happening here. A woman tragically died and the Department microscope came out with the 20/20 hindsight lens firmly attached.

First, let me establish for the record that Tony Im is not your average employee. At the time of the incident, he had 12 years on LAPD. He was recently named Wilshire’s Officer of the Quarter. Officer Im has received 12 bureau commendations, 48 citizen commendations, 80 area commendations, three other Department commendations, 10 other area commendations and two business commendations. He has a commendation that was signed by a member of the Los Angeles City Council for “rare and unwavering courage to go where others dare not go.” The month before the shooting, Im was the divisional leader in calls for service. His commanding officer called him a “productive, competent, tenured officer.”

If this sounds like the epitome of a hardworking, conscientious officer, why is he headed for a downgrade? All it takes is one radio call. In this case, it was “go to the station.”

Another unit had been flagged down by Flor Medrano, who was afraid that her boyfriend was going to kill her. They brought her to the station and started the investigation, but they were too close to end of watch. To save on overtime, Im and his partner were called in to take over the call. It won’t be the first time in this story that concern over overtime will play its part.

Officer Im and his partner spent the next three hours at the station with her. In brief, she had been dating the boyfriend for three months. He was insanely jealous. She tried to break up with him, but he wouldn’t have it. He came over to her apartment and demanded entry. She allowed him in and he raped her. He had also beaten her in the past. To top things off, she said that he carried a gun.

Officer Im took a felony crime report from her at the direction of a detective, and successful efforts were made to identify the boyfriend and obtain his record. While this was going on, the boyfriend kept texting Flor on her cell phone. The officers directed her to set him up for an arrest by arranging a meeting place. She tried. He became suspicious and that attempt fell through.

Then the boyfriend texted that he was at her apartment and was setting things on fire. Flor lives in an apartment building on the second floor. She has a steel door with a deadbolt and barred entrance windows, and she had the only key. The boyfriend had no way to get in, but the officers could not take a chance that the boyfriend was not telling the truth. It did not make any sense that he would be able to get in the apartment, but it did make sense that he was in the area. They had a signed crime felony crime report and plenty of probable cause to book him if they could get their hands on him.

Since the officers were in full uniform and driving a black and white, the detective decided to take the officers with him in his plain car and go have a look. They drove to Flor’s address and parked. The detective decided that since he was in plain clothes he would scout the location while Im and his partner remained close in case the suspect was there. Because they were in uniform, they did their best to stay out of sight.

The detective went up to the second-floor apartment. There was no fire. The lights were out. The steel security door was locked and undamaged and no activity was visible from outside. The boyfriend was lying about starting a fire, but it was logical to believe that he was in the area. The detective and officers returned to the station.

All incidents are handled through a series of small decisions. Each decision affects other decisions in the train of decisions that move to the end of the incident. The Police Commission and Chief of Police had the advantage of knowing how the story ended when they condemned the officers for their tactics. Officer Im did not have that knowledge, which is why the courts and Department policy negate 20/20 hindsight in judging an officer’s actions. Were the decisions reasonable with the knowledge that the officer had at the time that they were made? That is the relevant question.

At this point, Officer Im was focused on getting the boyfriend into custody for terrorist threats, rape and battery. It was logical to believe that the boyfriend could not be in the apartment based on the fact that he was not there when Flor left and locked the steel security door; there was no evidence that the door had been forced, and there was only one key, that Flor had in her possession. Im was familiar with the area and knew that there were no fire escapes on the rear of the buildings. Since Flor lived on the second floor, there was no access to any rear windows.

What Officer Im did not know was that he was dealing with a Spiderman of sorts. The Los Angeles Times printed a photograph of the front of the building. It would have been fairer to print a photo of the rear. The boyfriend was in the area as the officers suspected. He had returned to the apartment after the detective had left and banged on the apartment door. He could not gain access. A neighbor later testified about hearing noises on the roof. To the neighbor’s disbelief, the boyfriend had gained access to the roof and somehow managed to lower himself down a bare wall two stories above the ground and gain access to a bathroom window at the rear of Flor’s apartment. A look at the accompanying photo will give you an idea of how unexpected that would be.

The back of Flor Medrano's building. Her apartment was on the second floor.

From Im’s point of view, the texting indicated that the boyfriend was still around and interested in harming Flor. To him, the solution to the problem was the arrest of the boyfriend. Flor, however, was tired of this and wanted to go home. In fact, she insisted.

The officers tried to talk her into going to a sexual assault shelter, to her mother’s home or even staying the night at Wilshire station, but she would have none of it. She felt safe at the apartment behind the steel door and bars, and she had the only key.

You do not get to arrest the victim. She is free to leave and free not to take your advice. The officers had to deal with her decision.

Officer Im contacted the vice unit. He wanted to circle the place with undercover officers to wait for the boyfriend’s next move, which would logically be to return to the apartment to confront Flor. Vice support was denied. No overtime was available for this. The detective requested permission from the watch commander for Im and his partner to sit on Flor’s apartment for five or six hours. The watch commander gave him two hours, then he wanted them back to their patrol duties. As usual, the division was in need of units on patrol. And so, Officer Im had to do more with less.

His decisions were based on two factors. The first was that the apartment was safe. The second was that the boyfriend was in the area and needed to be arrested. Absent a belief in Spiderman, this reasoning was reasonable.

The officers and Flor formulated a plan. They did not want to alert the boyfriend that she had gone to the police. To provide cover, in case he was in the area, they had Flor go to a McDonald’s (as they followed in a plain car) and get some food in a bag to carry with her. She would then go up to her apartment. If the boyfriend was watching, he would think that she had merely gone out for food.

In the meantime, the officers, handicapped by being in uniform, parked their plain car where they had a full view of Flor’s front door and scrunched down as best they could. Their plan was that if the boyfriend appeared, they would allow him to get in the courtyard, where he could be trapped, and affect the arrest. Obviously, they could not accompany her to the door. The sight of uniforms would ruin the entire plan. Besides, based on their belief of the safety of the apartment, no check was necessary. The boyfriend could not be in there.

They told Flor that they would be outside for two hours, and gave her their personal cell phone number. They told her that if the boyfriend came to her door, she was to call 911. She and they felt she would be safe behind the steel barred door while officers responded. The hole in the plan was the Spiderman exception. He was already there.

All was quiet for the two hours. The officers did not see anyone approach the door, so they phoned Flor to tell her they were leaving. Several attempts resulted in what appeared to be an answer, then a disconnect. Officer Im suspected that the calls were being dropped. It could be the service; it could be a dead battery; it could be a lot of things.

Then they received a call on their cell phone and heard a scream. The officers bolted out of the car and requested a backup as they ran up to the door. The door now kept them out. It was quiet. Had they heard a scream, or was Flor contacted again by the boyfriend over the phone and was screaming at him?

Im told the probationer to cancel the backup. He did not want his fellow Wilshire officers overdriving to help him. He knew they would come anyway, just slower. Then another scream. He told his partner to put out the backup out again.

He looked through the window and saw Flor backing up into the living room. He saw blood on her. He saw the boyfriend advancing with a knife. He began shouting orders, but he had no clear shot — she was in the way. The boyfriend stabbed Flor and she went down. There was the clear shot. He fired, and the boyfriend went down.

He reached through the bars and the window trying to reach the inside lock on the steel door to get in to help Flor. It was too far. “Sweetie, come to me,” he implored. “Come to me and open the door.” She tried; she crawled, but she couldn’t make it. Other units were there almost immediately. A crowbar was brought by one of the officers, and the door was pried open. It was too late. He was heartbroken.

It didn’t take long for the microscope to come out. You can read all of the criticisms in the Times and on the Police Commission’s website. They need not be repeated here and there is not enough space. Nothing was overlooked, including Officer Im’s magazine being one bullet light.

The failure to get an emergency protective order was cited, but it is a red herring. The boyfriend was arrestable on sight. There was no need to get a judge to issue an order, serve the boyfriend and then arrest him if he violated the order. Any officer could arrest him immediately for terrorist threats and rape on probable cause. The detective would have an arrest warrant the next day at any rate.

Bratton used to say that “if you are in the right, we will back you up — the benefit of the doubt goes to you. If you are wrong, we will retrain you.” Officer Im was wrong in the sense that he failed to anticipate a Spiderman, but who would?

You can also throw in various other things that, in hindsight, one can wish were done differently. But the point of the philosophy expounded by Bratton is that mistakes made while an officer is trying to do the right thing are far different from officers deliberately breaking the rules.

The L.A. County Domestic Violence Counsel and the Domestic Violence Death Review Team both gave commendations to Officer Im for his efforts. After all, he did remain exposed in a window to cover Flor in the presence of a suspect whom he had been told was carrying a gun, along with all the other things done that night to try to protect Flor and arrest the boyfriend. No one can dispute that Officer Im was at least stepping up to the plate to try and help Flor Medrano.

Using 20/20 hindsight, it is hard not to think that he would have been better off if he had just taken a report and gone back out on patrol. But 20/20 hindsight shouldn’t be used by anyone.

And what about the 140-plus commendations, Officer of the Quarter and highest radio call recap of the month? The Department position seems to be “what have you done for me lately?” The Department should hear warning bells. The answer from the troops may be “nothing, it’s not worth taking the chance.”

Be legally careful out there.

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March 2011 Warning Bells Article

Posted by Administrator on April 25, 2011

“No More Gotcha” Policy Is Rejected by Board of Rights

It was a centerpiece in Chief Bratton’s attempt to get police officers out of their cars and back into enforcing the law after being pounded by Chief Park’s disciplinary system.

“I have never seen a department eat its own like LAPD does,” Bratton told the members at the League Delegates Conference shortly after he arrived.

His solution was to forge a new policy that the League has strived to help enforce. Not only did he repeatedly state the policy, he published it in the March 2004 issue of The Beat. “We cannot let the corrupt actions of a few ruin the reputation of more than 9,000 honest, hard-working cops. But let me make it equally clear that the game of ‘gotcha’ in this Department is coming to an end. If you are in the right, we will back you up — the benefit of the doubt goes to you. If you are wrong, we will retrain you. If you are corrupt, we will jail you,” Bratton wrote.

Supposedly, it was the Department standard in dealing with discipline. It made sense. It was fair. And, most importantly, it worked. Officers did begin to get out of their cars and do more police work. Arrests climbed and crime dropped. But Bratton is gone.

Recently, a League attorney attempted to introduce the above writing in The Beat as evidence of Department policy in a Board of Rights. This has been done in the past in numerous Boards and Administrative Appeals.

This time it was different. Internal Affairs objected. “It’s from a former regime,” the advocate stated.

“Do you have a document that says gotcha is back?” asked the League attorney. “Do you have any evidence that this policy has been changed?”

The Internal Affairs advocate did not, but his argument was effective with the Board. They denied introduction of the evidence. Perhaps they had inside information that gotcha is back.

I didn’t know that we divided Department policy into regimes. For instance, there are many special orders with Chief Park’s signature on them that are still in effect. Continuity flows from one Chief of Police (COP) to the next. Normally, when a COP wants to change the policy, it will be put in writing. A new special order, notice or writing of some kind is issued formally,changing the former policy and stating the new policy. After all, the officers need to know. Dividing the rules by regime can be confusing!

It makes a difference when we argue your case, too. When we believe the Department is being unfair, we currently argue that they’re violating the policy delineated by Chief Bratton. Now, apparently, we have to argue that there should be a policy like that delineated by Chief Bratton if officers are to be treated fairly.

There has been an increase in the conflict between accused officers’ representatives and the Department regarding discovery. As mentioned in previous columns, the Department’s position is that if the Chief didn’t see the document, the officer doesn’t get it. This has caused a lot of litigation, and more is coming.

Whatever the legal outcome, the League can’t understand this need for secrecy. What is the Department ashamed of? It would seem that an honest investigation and a well-considered disciplinary disposition can be put on the table for the officer to see. If there is competent evidence and the decision is well-considered, there isn’t a darn thing the officer can do except submit to the discipline. The League and the City save legal expenses, and the officer can see that he or she is not the victim of a jam job.

On the other hand, if the investigation is shoddy or shady, or the disciplinary decision is prejudiced, illogical or slanted, the Department should be ashamed. The question then becomes the ethics of barring the officer’s representative from discovering this. The Department should hear warning bells because the bottom line is that hiding the evidence fosters suspicion and distrust. The transparency touted by Chief Bratton to the community about the operation of LAPD apparently stops at the officer level. Or maybe transparency, too, is from another regime and no longer is recognized. Is this another change of policy that remains unwritten?

The problem of refusal to provide discovery has become so pervasive across both the Boards of Rights and Administrative Appeal hearings that the League is considering filing a declaratory relief lawsuit to force the Department to operate more openly on the disciplinary front. Along with this, we are filing several grievances and unfair labor practice actions. The issue is relatively simple. Why can’t the officer be allowed to see the investigation and evidence developed by that investigation when attempting to defend him or herself?

If the Department expects the officers to aggressively enforce the law, the officers need to feel that they will be supported by the Chief of Police when the inevitable complaints roll in. Officers can live under the Bratton policy. But does the Bratton policy still live?

Be legally careful out there.

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February 2011 Warning Bells article

Posted by Administrator on March 11, 2011

CONDITIONAL OFFICIAL REPRIMANDS – GOOD THING OR BAD?

When I first heard about the Conditional OR and how it was to be implemented, I thought, great idea! The logic for it that was first presented was enlightening. The logic is this: The goal of the disciplinary system is to change employee behavior when the Department believes that the employee is engaging in misconduct. Up to now, that was accomplished by a system that mirrored the criminal justice system — punishment. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and suspension days piled on suspension days. The problem is that the pound-of flesh approach does not work. In most cases, an officer who has been given six months off does not return to work a happy camper or a more productive employee. So, what to do?

The Department (officially, at least) decided to go in another direction. It developed a discipline strategy, based on each individual case, to change the employee’s way of thinking so that the employee realizes his or her error and goes forward a wiser person. If the employee’s thinking cannot be changed, then rather than dealing with a disgruntled, unproductive employee, termination is the answer. So change of behavior becomes the standard, not extracting the proper pound of flesh commensurate with the crime.

The situation presented as an example was this: An officer, close to end of watch, receives a radio call and doesn’t want to go overtime. The officer hits the at-scene button, reports no PR and goes end of watch. The basic radio call kissoff. The PR calls in again, another unit is assigned to handle the call and the PR makes a personnel complaint. The complaint is investigated and adjudicated as sustained by the commanding officer. So far, routine. At this point, the commanding officer calls the officer in for a conversation. He or she informs the officer of the proposed adjudication and enters into a discussion with the officer about the misconduct designed to explain the ultimate effects of his or her actions. For instance, other officers in the division had to carry the officer’s workload, the citizen was let down, the reputation of the divisional response time suffered, etc.

If the officer now understands all of this and realizes the wider implication of kissing off the call, he or she will change. The officer will not do it again because the wider effects of the action are understood; therefore, the reason for punishment (changing the employee’s thinking) evaporates. Extracting the pound of flesh (criminal model) is actually counterproductive. So, there is a meeting of the minds between the CO and the officer. Instead of receiving a five-day penalty, the officer is issued a Conditional OR. The condition is that the officer does not do something similar again, or the penalty will be 10 days the next time. The foundation of this is that the officer and the CO have had a meeting of the minds and the employee has changed. The insurance is the increased penalty if the officer fails to remain enlightened about handling radio calls.

As I said, great idea! Until, that is, the Conditional OR started being imposed with no meeting of the minds. Problems started being reported by officers of having conditional ORs handed to them without discussion. Some had no time limits. Some were vague on what a similar act would be. Some had outrageously heavy penalties, such as downgrades or removal from special assignments if similar acts occurred. All had one thing in common: no involvement of the officer.

For instance, the officer may completely disagree that he or she has done anything wrong. By forcing a Conditional OR instead of the five-day penalty, the officer has no right to a Board of Rights to challenge the sustaining of the personnel complaint. The Conditional OR frustrates the disciplinary scheme of the Los Angeles City Charter. Of course, the officer can request an administrative appeal, but it’s not binding on the Chief of Police.

Another problem is that of tying the hands of another adjudicator down the line to make his or her own decision about another situation involving similar misconduct. For instance, let’s say that an officer works for a commanding officer who sees him or herself as a strong, but fair, disciplinarian, in spite of the fact that this CO’s subordinates see him or her as an out-of-control, dictatorial egomaniac. This CO issues a Conditional OR for a minor piece of misconduct that has a five-year tail for similar misconduct which would result in a 22-day suspension, removal from a coveted assignment and a downgrade. This CO then promotes out of the division. Another commanding officer, wise and well-liked, takes over the division and has it humming at high morale in short order. Four-and-a-half years later, our officer makes a similar mistake with some mitigating circumstances present. The discretion has been removed from our wise leader to do what he or she thinks is best.

Finally, if an officer has a five-year tail, is there an impact on productivity? If you know that you will lose a coveted assignment if the Department believes you have another personnel complaint of a similar nature, will you reduce your citizen contacts to reduce your chances of having another complaint? If you’re an experienced patrol officer, will you try to get off the street and hide in a pogue job until your tail has expired? It might be the best advice from a career standpoint. These are serious questions connected to the Conditional Official Reprimand.

There is going to be a study of the impact of Conditional ORs that will be done by a Department psychologist. It is supposed to be anonymous, and I recommend that if you’re selected as one of his interviewees that you cooperate with him.

I believe that Conditional ORs can be a good thing if done properly. This psychologist’s study should help us understand when they are good and when they are bad. To me, they are valuable when there is a meeting of the minds between the commanding officer and the accused officer. The dialogue is important. If there is no meeting of the minds, then the traditional disciplinary process should take place with all the procedural protections that the law demands.

The Department should hear warning bells when Conditional ORs are just thrown down on the table and implemented as a penalty. We’re back to the pound-of-flesh philosophy of discipline. There are likely to be unintended consequences.

Be legally careful out there.

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January, 2011, Warning Bells article

Posted by Administrator on March 10, 2011

Here is a New Year’s resolution for you: “I will think defensively whenever I send an electronic message.” This means personal cell phones, computers and all those devices in-between. Like a tape recorder or a camera, the Internet never forgets the messages it transmits.

When it comes to cell phones, just speaking on one at the wrong time can end up with a visit from your friendly Internal Affairs representative. When you’re in a black and white, you’re in a fish bowl with all eyes on you. Just as you loved to catch your parents doing something that they had recently admonished you for doing, citizens love to catch an officer off base. This includes having a cell phone up to your ear as you’re driving the black and white down the street. “Aha!” they cry, “gotcha.” Then their cell phones are used (probably while driving) to text in your shop number to the tip line, and away you go down the 1.28 trail.

Enjoy blogging? Then consider what happened to a Missouri police officer. The officer was part of a SWAT raid that resulted in a dog being injured. There were protests and the local newspaper posted photos of the activists on its website. The officer knew that one of the protestors in the photograph holding a sign that decried cruelty to animals had a criminal record, and he commented on it in the blog below the photograph. “The guy with the ‘stop the brutality’ sign has multiple convictions for assaulting people with guns!!! I’d like him to stop the brutality of humans!” wrote the officer. The newspaper removed the comment, but it had been seen and the electronic web never forgets. The comment was retrieved and the officer took suspension days for revealing confidential law enforcement information.

Next, let’s look at Facebook. A New York officer lost a trial against a suspect he arrested for possessing a weapon when the defense attorney attacked the officer’s credibility in front of the jury by referencing a Facebook post he’d written about watching the movie “Training Day to learn proper police procedures.” The jury brought in a not-guilty verdict, and the officer was undoubtedly embarrassed when cross-examined about which police procedures from Training Day that he admired most: murder, thievery, narcotics use on duty, beatings, etc.

Before you get too amped up on your First Amendment rights of expression, consider Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006). A district attorney wrote a memo criticizing his agency’s decision to prosecute. A full discussion of the legal issues surrounding the First Amendment is beyond the scope of this article, but it is instructive to look at some of the language in this U.S. Supreme Court case.

“Held: When public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, they are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline. (a) Two inquiries guide interpretation of the constitutional protections accorded public employee speech. The first requires determining whether the employee spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern. If the answer is no, the employee has no First Amendment cause of action based on the employer’s reaction to the speech. If the answer is yes, the possibility of a First Amendment claim arises. The question becomes whether the government employer had an adequate justification for treating the employee differently from any other member of the general public. This consideration reflects the importance of the relationship between the speaker’s expressions and employment. Without a significant degree of control over its employees’ words and actions, a government employer would have little chance to provide public services efficiently. Thus, a government entity has broader discretion to restrict speech when it acts in its employer role, but the restrictions it imposes must be directed at speech that has some potential to affect its operations.”

Be aware that the protections of the First Amendment may not be as powerful as you might believe. Personnel complaint investigations are becoming routine when it comes to messages and photos being sent among officers using their cell phones. Racial bias, sexual harassment and just plain good old “conduct unbecoming” allegations can result from these messages, even if they were sent with the best of intentions. However, explaining your intentions to Internal Affairs might be uncomfortable months later. (They don’t have much of a sense of humor, you know.) Always remember that private messages have a funny way of not staying private. They’re forwarded to others, posted and sometimes even retrieved from your phone carrier by subpoena.

 Police One discusses a case of a criminal defense attorney who was able to subpoena the cell phone records of his client’s arresting officer. The lawyer argued that the cell phone was carried on duty and was occasionally used to contact other officers and supervisors. The judge likened it to a notebook, and upheld the subpoena giving the defense attorney access to the officer’s phone traffic and text messages. Do you use your personal cell phone on duty? If you do, consider the fact that a suspect may one day be reading the message you are about to send.

Currently, one-third of the agencies polled nationwide state that they require Facebook, Twitter and MySpace passwords from prospective officers as part of their background checks. They then audit these accounts for statements that might reveal bias or other potential problems. Will the Police Commission be demanding the same before they allow you to go into a coveted position in the near future? It’s one small step beyond the issue of financial disclosure, and the Commission’s demand for a biased policing conviction is getting desperate!

In the private sector, there are firms that specialize in analyzing “social intelligence.” The data sphere is mined by these companies, which gather information for their clients regarding prospective employees or employees who are being considered for a promotion. This same service can be used against you by defense attorneys and plaintiffs’ attorneys, and in many instances it has already happened. These firms not only look at your Facebook profile, they also examine your “friends’” Facebook profiles for information or pictures of you that you may not even know have been posted. The same goes for Twitter, online forums, blogs, newspaper postings, forwarded e-mails and any other electronic information on the ’Net or in public records. From this information, they “predict” what your long-term behavior is likely to be. Employers act on these predictions in order to avoid expensive hiring mistakes.

Is it accurate? Who knows, but it is used, and therefore it has a practical effect on whether people get a job or promotion. So, the next time your thumb hangs over that send button, hear warning bells. Imagine you are sending a copy of your electronic message to a suspect, to Internal Affairs or to the Los Angeles Times, each of whom might one day be able to access it. Do you really want to hit send? Think it over.

Be legally careful out there

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Watch Your License Plate Frames

Posted by Administrator on February 7, 2011

Info from ORS rep Cliff Armas:

On 01/19/2011, three members of Mob Piru Crips, out of Compton, CA were arrested for a residential burglary that occurred in the City of Whittier. The burglary was interrupted by the victim, an off-duty LAPD officer. The suspect had already ransacked two out of three bedrooms, and placed the victim’s .38 revolver and ammunition in a pillowcase. One of the suspects admitted to following law enforcement officers home. When asked how they identified officers, he stated they look for stickers that indicate any type of law enforcement affiliation on personally owned vehicles. He also indicated they look for “KMA” license plate frames. The suspect stated they target law enforcement officers’ homes because they know they will find guns. In this particular case, the suspect did not admit to following the victim to his residence. Any questions, contact Detective Allen Lemus at (562) 244-0057, Whittier PD, Case #11-000592.

Category Categories: Officer Safety  |  Comments No Comments »

December 2010 Blue Line Article

Posted by Administrator on January 14, 2011

Maybe It Is Time to Rethink Some Policies

According to the Associated Press, a police officer was involved in an on-duty shooting and wounded the suspect. The suspect was arrested. Apparently it was a controversial shooting because community members stormed the police station and tied two officers to their chairs. Then, in front of them, they hacked the shooting officer to death with machetes and set his body on fire. Twenty members of the mob were later arrested, but that didn’t do the hacked-up officer much good.

This occurred in Haiti. But you don’t have to go that far to find police officers gunned down in front of their homes; abducted, never to be seen again; and ambushed while on duty. Just look south a couple of hundred miles to Mexico. Closer yet, look less than a hundred miles east to Hemet. Two suspects have been arrested there in connection with stalking a police officer for months after he had arrested one of them. They set booby traps and even attempted to rig a rocket launcher to hit the police station.

Then a couple of months ago, Rampart station had to be evacuated because someone sent a threatening letter filled with an unidentified white powder to the LAPD officer involved in the shooting of the knife-wielding suspect that has received much media attention. The white powder turned out to be harmless — this time.

It doesn’t take much to set off people who are intent on breaking the law and inciting violence. According to news articles, a suspect was recently arrested and charged with attempting to hire an assassin to shoot an LAPD officer in the back of the head and bury him in the desert for impounding his car.

The point is that personal violence against police officers is getting closer and more likely on a daily basis. Not resisting-arrest-type violence, which has been with us since the first Roman Centurion went in pursuit of a speeding chariot, but personal-revengetype violence, the kind that targets a specific officer and has no respect for home, family or bystanders.

We learned this lesson in 1985. Detective Tom Williams was targeted for assassination by a suspect whom he had arrested for robbery. The suspect hired a gunman who had Tom’s home under surveillance and eventually tailed him to the school where he was picking up his son. Then the shooter did a drive-by with a fully automatic pistol. Williams shielded his son, but took nine bullets and died at the scene. The suspect was convicted and sentenced to death,but remains on death row 25 years later laughing at the criminal justice system.

If one were to dream up the perfect shooting that would have the support of the community, it would be the recent Rampart officer involved shooting (OIS). Citizens fleeing from a knife-wielding suspect flag down officers and request their help. The suspect is threatening a pregnant woman. When officers arrive, the suspect turns on them after they order him to drop the knife, necessitating a shooting. No one is hurt, except the suspect.

One can only conclude by the three days of subsequent rioting that officers cannot count on community support for anything. Everyone has an agenda and it has nothing to do with the truth or common sense.

This brings into question the Police Commission’s rule about routinely releasing the names of officers involved in an OIS. Why does it insist on this? Well, the reason usually stated is that it must do so under the attorney general’s opinion handed down on May 19, 2008. Attorney General Jerry Brown opined that in response to a California Public Records Act request for the names of peace officers involved in a critical incident, the agency must disclose the names unless, given the facts of a particular case, the public interest served by not disclosing the names clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosing the names.

What that means in plain language is that if an officer is operating undercover, or the incident involves a streetgang member and there is a possibility of retribution by other gang members or some such justification, the name need not be released. It is a case-bycase balancing process, says Brown.

There is, however, a big difference between releasing a name after a California Public Records Act request has been filed and voluntarily releasing names every time there is an OIS. After all, the only people who ever file California Public Record Act requests are the folks from the Los Angeles Times, and they aren’t interested in every critical incident. Heck, sometimes Paris Hilton is in town!

LAPD could be in compliance with the opinion by merely waiting for that California Public Records Act request and then cheerfully complying. That would at least give us a day or two to see if there will be rioting and to determine if the involved officers will be safe. But, no. The Commission’s policy, in the name of transparency, is to trot your names right out there. Not only that, a few months later they’ll post their opinion of your tactics and use of force on the Internet, complete with a detailed analysis of your actions for all to see.

Of course your names are cleverly hidden by referring to you as “Officer A,” “B” or “C.” Don’t worry that a Google search for police action on the date in question will usually bring up the incident from newspaper accounts, complete with your name, or that another computer search can easily result in your home address.

The Pasadena Police Officers’ Association (POA) actually went to court last year to prevent its department from releasing the names of two officers who had been in an OIS of a gang member. The POA feared retaliation. The judge agreed and restrained their department from releasing the names. The Los Angeles Times intervened and the battle raged on. Finally, the judge ruled that his order was moot because the newspaper had already published the officers’ names, which they had obtained from other police documents. The officers had also been named in a lawsuit. The final legal determination would not be worked out.

We know from the murder of our own Officer Tom Williams that these things happen. How long before it happens again? The Police Commission should hear warning bells before it is too late. There are times when it is too dangerous to be politically correct under the guise of transparency. That time is now.

Be legally careful out there.

Category Categories: Officer Safety, Use of Force, Warning Bell Article  |  Comments No Comments »

November 2010 Blue Line Article

Posted by Administrator on January 14, 2011

 

Come on in; the Water’s F-F-F-Fine!

While I have great respect for Chief Beck, when I read his article last month about “Myths and Rumors about Financial Disclosure” I couldn’t help but think of the comedy cliché of the kids in the swimming hole trying to entice their playmates into jumping into the freezing water. While it may be a funny situation on television, you might not think it is so funny once you have taken the plunge. And once you jump, there is no going back.

The whole situation reminds me of the party where the entrance is free, but it costs 20 bucks to get out — a fact that is in small print, if mentioned at all, on the party flyers. This raises the question as to whether it was ever free in the first place, along with some speculation about the ethics of those who neglected to fully disclose or even provide the small print — kind of like those pressuring officers to “just fill out the forms; it’s no big deal.” There is a ton of pressure being applied to “sign on the line.” The League has pointed out many of the dangers, such as security, but I wanted to weigh in on some lesser-discussed problems.

What If You Are Rejected?

We know that officers who have taken polygraphs to get into Narcotics Division and received a polygraph reading of “inconclusive” have been tailed for months by Internal Affairs. The Chief says that there will be no corrective action taken, but that only means that there will not be any charges based on your rejection. Just as the officers with the inconclusive polygraphs were not charged with failing the poly, it is true that you will not be charged with failure to pass financial disclosure, but will you tailed by IA? (To our knowledge the tails revealed nothing, just as the inconclusive polygraphmeant nothing.)

Remember that the reason that you are being forced through financial disclosure is to find dishonest cops. The Department’s theory is that if you either have “unexplained wealth” or your “debt-to-asset” ratio is bad, that is a sign that you are either dishonest or in danger of being dishonest. Or maybe you can assuage their suspicions in the subsequent audit if grandpa died and left you a million-dollar house, or you have a lot of medical bills because of a recent illness. In that case, expect to bring in wills or medical bills, at a minimum, to convince the auditor. Although it is true that your financial information will not be in TEAMS II, the fact that you applied to the specialized unit and were rejected probably will be, in some shape or form. Think of how that will affect the opinion of your supervisors. Then there are your peers. Who among your friends will not know that your financial condition has barred you from a trusted position?

Although I predict that everyone who falls in line and fills out financial disclosure documents will fly through with approval (rejects being bad publicity at the moment), the real test will be when they start doing those required random audits.

Just what is a bad debt-to-asset ratio? No one will say. And the Chief’s understanding that we are in a financial crisis doesn’t really make logical sense. If we can’t trust people with bad debt-to-asset ratios, what difference does it make that times are bad? The pressure to steal, under their theory, is the same. (What is wrong with this theory is that the number of “poor-but-honest” people is overwhelming, and always has been!)

Even the act of deciding not to sign the financial disclosure documents on re-up, or refusing to go along with the audit, will put a stain on your reputation. Special Order No. 20 plainly says that it may bar you from future acceptance backinto the specialized unit. Why? The implied answer is that you are not trustworthy. Written between the lines is that there must be some reason why — related to dishonesty — you won’t share your finances with the Department.

Pitchess and Brady Motions

Guess what? Whether you are accepted or rejected is based on a recommendation from the auditor and passed up the chain of command. That recommendation is in writing, of course. If it is written, it can be discovered. The Department will not surround the Chief’s safe with SWAT officers to fight off the FBI or the Marshals when a judge issues a subpoena for your financial disclosure information. Just because your bank account number is not on the form does not mean the form cannot be considered relevant by some court.

Criminal defense attorneys are no doubt salivating over the battle to get to your financial disclosure status, since refusal will give them grounds to ask for dismissals. Your credibility is always an issue in court and the Department has publicly declared its belief that your debt-to-asset ratio is relevant to your credibility. The number of arrestee allegations about dishonesty (made after consulting with defense counsel) will probably go through the roof because that sort of allegation puts your financial disclosure information at issue.

When Gerald Chaleff, who is one notch below Chief Beck, was asked in a deposition if Pitchess motions and Brady motions applied to the financial disclosure information, the City attorney representing him ordered him not to answer. (Good call on her part.)

Internal Affairs

It is said that Internal Affairs will not have access to the financial disclosure documents. First of all, if you put something in, or leave something out, and the form does not match outside information, there is no doubt that false and misleading charges are a distinct possibility and Internal Affairs will be poring over all your documents.

That aside, let me end this article with a quote from paragraph 19 of the declaration of Mr. Chaleff, signed on November 18, 2009, and provided during litigation:

“The Chief of Police will also have the sole authority to allow access to the confidential financial disclosure forms to those individuals who will need access to these forms in order to carry out the performance of their official duties; for example, as part of an Internal Affairs investigation of misconduct. The Board of Police Commissioners will also have access to the confidential financial disclosure forms in the course and scope of their duties. However, in my experience as a member of the Board of Police Commissioners and in my experience with the Department, this is not the type of information that is normally requested by the Board of Police Commissioners in the course and scope of their duties. No other individuals or groups will have access to the confidential financial disclosure forms absent a court order or pursuant to a valid legal process.” [Emphasis added.]

There isn’t room to go into all the ins and outs of the decision regarding filling out those forms in this article. Go to www.warningbells.com under “Hot Issues” and find out a lot more information.

Be legally careful out there.

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