Thank goodness! The discipline system IS fair after all!
At least that is the conclusion arrived in the recently released investigation report written by the Department and given to the Police Commission in November of last year. After Dorner’s rampage, Chief Beck directed the Department to conduct focus groups to express their opinions regarding Dorner’s claims of bias in the disciplinary process. Five hundred civilian and sworn employees participated and their viewpoints were analyzed. The report, in essence, says that there is no evidence of bias and page after page of statistics are given proving it. The report mentions and then dodges the real issues that plague the system. If it has any value, it maybe in the recommendation section that lists six objectives.
If the Department was truly trying to find out what is wrong with the LAPD discipline system, they missed some important avenues of investigation. For instance, ask the opposition. It can be understood why no one asked me what I think is wrong with the system because all you have to do is read my Warning Bells articles. But how can you claim to be getting an objective view of the system without asking Randy Quan, Jodi Gonda, Robert Rico, Ira Salzman, Bill Seki, Mike Stone, Mike Williamson, Muna Busailah, Larry Hanna, Gary Fullerton, Greg Yacoubian and Dave Winslow about their perspective of the fairness of the system?
These League panel attorneys and others are in the trenches. They have done hundreds of Boards of Rights, thousands of personnel complaint interviews, hundreds of Skelly responses, and have combined centuries of experience in dealing with the system. No one asked them anything.
In a similar vein, no one interviewed the officers working the Officer Representation Section as a unit. They have a unique insight into the internal workings of the system based on their daily participation with it.
The LAPD has lost millions of dollars in lawsuits brought by officers who were abused by and through the discipline system, yet none of these cases were analyzed to gain insight as to aspects of the system that were deemed by juries to be unfair.
Finally, there is no mention in the report of the four separate lawsuits filed by four different captains who are suing the Department because they were retaliated against by the Department because as Board members, they did not terminate officers who had been sent to Boards of Rights. This cuts to the center of the issue of fairness of the disciplinary process. The game is rigged. How can this type of information not be assessed in a report that is purporting to be examining the fairness of the system?
Instead, the report focuses on racial bias and rank bias and presents an extensive statistical analysis to refute it. Mark Twain told us that there are three kinds of lies, “lies,” “damn lies,” and “statistics.”
The statistics, we are told, show that there is no racial bias. Two hundred and eighty two officers were directed to a Board of Rights by the Chief from 2010 through 2013. The racial makeup of the Department is 43 percent Hispanic, 36 percent Caucasian, 12 percent African American, 7 percent Asian and 3 percent other. The racial makeup of those officers sent to a Board of Rights in those years was 42 percent Hispanic, 35 percent Caucasian, 14 percent African American, 6 percent Asian and 3 percent other.
Similarly, the statistics show that there is no rank bias, the report says. 68 percent of sworn personnel are of the police officer rank, 16 percent are detectives, 12 percent are sergeants, 3 percent are lieutenants, and 1 percent are command staff. The ranks of those directed to a Board of Rights by the Chief from 2010 through 2013 were 74 percent police officers, 14 percent detectives, 10 percent sergeants, 1 percent lieutenants, and 1 percent command staff. Close enough to show no rank bias, the report finds.
Females, however, might be getting a break, or, maybe they are just better behaved than their male counterparts. The Department is 81 percent male and 19 percent female. Only 12 percent of those officers directed to a Board of Rights during those years were female. The report finds that it is difficult to conclude that bias was a factor because the variance was not significant over that period.
Having thus proven that there is no evidence of bias, the report recommends that the Department should establish six objectives. These objectives are laudatory, but meaningless unless someone holds the Department’s feet to the fire. Every officer should keep a list of these objectives and read them back to supervision every time the disciplinary system is twisted or perverted.
Objective #1: Promote fairness and consistency in investigations and adjudications. The Department is going revise “Complaint Investigations: A Guide for Supervisors” and the ”Management Guide for Discipline.” They are also going to publish Conditional Official Reprimands guidelines. We will see whether they are going to be changed in the direction of fairness, or just tightened up to be more oppressive.
Objective #2:Promote fairness and consistency in penalties for sustained allegations. The Department is going to publish a Penalty Guide, also known as a bail schedule. The League will be involved in this through a meet and confer.
Objective #3: Promote fairness and consistency in the Board of Rights process. The Department is going to revise the Board of Rights manual. Again the League will be involved. The Department is also planning on training the Board of Rights hearing officers. This is scary to say the least. According to the four captain’s lawsuits, previous training consisted of telling Board members that when the Chief sent an officer to a Board with a recommendation of termination, they better do it. The League must try to be present for any training, but I suspect that there will be resistance to this.
Objective #4: Ensure disciplinary decisions are never influenced by bias. This will consist of gathering more statistics to identify patterns. Also the Department is going to develop an anti-nepotism policy.
Objective #5: Promote awareness of the disciplinary system and discipline imposed. An underlying belief of the Department is that there is nothing wrong with the disciplinary system, officers just don’t understand it. Therefore, you will get more training, information about discipline will be put on the LAN, and gender, rank, and ethnicity percentages will be posted.
Objective #6: Ensure complaints are properly handled while prioritizing investigations appropriately and promoting alternative resolutions in limited cases. According to the report, during any calendar year, 28 percent of the work force has one or more complaints pending against them. Almost one out of every three officers is riding a beef at any given time. Nine percent of the personnel complaints are sustained. Sergeants complain that they cannot do any supervising in the field because they are tied up in investigating personnel matters. The Department is looking at establishing a tier program to prioritize investigations.
So, are these objectives just fluff to please the Police Commission, or is the Department serious? I am skeptical, but I would like to be surprised. I don’t think management gets it. When an officer is found not guilty by a Board of Rights, the present thinking of upper management is that these incompetent Board member captains need training. It doesn’t occur to them that the captains have competently listened to the evidence and made the correct decision. It does not occur to them that it may be the incompetent investigators who left large holes in the investigation and the incompetent staff officers who failed to recognize this and filed the charges. In the end, upper management doesn’t believe in the system. Not believing in the system, it is hard to get the troops to believe in it. This is to everyone’s detriment. Let’s all get together and actually try to meet the six objectives.
Be legally careful out there.
