Rampart Revisited
A major new report about the roots of the Rampart scandal is almost obscured by a spat between Chief
By David Davin
When civil rights attorney Constance Rice recently released the report of the Rampart Review Panel, which studied ongoing problems in the culture of the Los Angeles Police Department in the wake of the 1998-99 Rampart gang-unit scandal, one of her main recommendations - to hire thousands of new police officers - was already embroiled in controversy.
LAPD Chief William Bratton, who had originally initiated the Rampart report, had already been calling for more officers. The Los Angeles Police Commission was enthusiastic about this idea. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he was on board. But as the report came out, Bratton was under fire from former-police-chief-turned-City Councilman Bernard Parks and Councilman Dennis Zine for relaxing the hiring policy within the department to bring in new recruits who admitted to using drugs a limited number of times in the past.
To date, this has resulted in the hiring of six new officers who acknowledged experimenting with drugs. Council members Parks and Zine, a reserve police officer himself, attacked Bratton and the policy, saying he ought to stick to the "zero tolerance" policy or it would lead to more problems in the department. One of the most publicized elements of the Rampart scandal alleged that officers stole drugs from police evidence rooms.
In the ensuing flap that has engulfed Chief Bratton and the city council, the contents of the actual report, "Rampart Reconsidered," have been all but obscured.
When asked in a KTLA-TV interview about Parks's and Zine's criticisms, Bratton responded, "With all due respect to the council members raising the issue - they don't know what the hell they're talking about."
That comment, combined with Bratton telling Parks and Zine that they should "mind their own business," prompted Parks, Zine, and three other City Council members to write a letter to the Police Commission, the body that oversees the department, requesting a formal investigation into "Chief Bratton's ongoing actions."
"It's far too permissive," says Zine of the policy. "We're not talking about someone who smoked marijuana 20 years ago. And we're not talking about recreational drug use - we're talking about serious drug use."
Bratton and Zine have taken some steps to ease the tensions since then, hugging for the cameras in MacArthur Park on July 20 and saying they had no feud. Bratton also announced, "There will be no apology, but it has all been worked out."
Councilman Zine says that his and Parks's main concern is that hastily hiring officers will not help prevent future scandals in a department where "drug problems are a major issue."
Joe Domanick, senior fellow in Criminal Justice at the USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism, and a longtime observer of the LAPD, says, "Parks and Zine have been around long enough to remember what happened in the late-1980's, when there was a big push to hire more cops quickly. Some of them slipped through the screening process and wound up causing a lot of problems in places like Rampart."
The dust-up "isn't particularly helpful to the situation," says reform advocate and Racial Justice director for the ACLU, Catherine Lhamon. "It is predictable that they would act like this...we can only hope out of this will come real action," she says.
Erwin Chemerinsky, civil-rights lawyer and longtime advocate for reform of the LAPD, says what is truly special about the review panel's report is "the perspective of the report. Because [the panel] had the length of time that they did ... it is the most thorough report done [on Rampart]."
Other key findings and recommendations of the Rampart Review Panel report include:
• Moving away from "warrior policing," and toward community policing models to end the "us against them" attitude still pervasive in the force
• Ending the "code of silence" the report claims still exists in the department
• Fully complying with the Federal Consent Decree
• Significantly expanding the resources of, and making more independent, the Office of the Inspector General
• Commissioning performance and integrity audits
• Ensuring whistle-blower protection
Laurie Levenson, one of the review panel members, says, "The type of changes called for in [the] report are ones that we hope will be around for the long term. We tried to focus on systemic changes, cultural changes [within the department]. So many other reports focus on specific officers, specific incidents ... they miss the bigger picture. We tried to focus on the whole problem."
At the same time, says Levenson, "We tried very much not to have a report that would gain dust on some shelf." Indeed, Rice seemed concerned about this before taking the assignment. She originally refused Bratton's request for her to chair the panel, saying she did not want to add another report that would "be a doorstop for politicians." But Levenson says it would be a mistake to think Rice gave Bratton the report he wanted. "You don't know Connie if you're making that accusation," she says.
Bratton is apparently committed to seeing the report's recommendations enacted. "[Chief Bratton] doesn't want this report to sit on a shelf. So he's going to drive this internally," says Mary Grady, the LAPD's Public Information Director.
Others are skeptical. "We have to wait and see what actually happens from this report," says Lhamon. "A report itself can't make change ... only action can."
Indeed, some of these recommendations have surfaced many times before. For instance, the report calls for a broadening of the resources available to the Inspector General's office, and a greater independent role for the office in the future. The current inspector general, Andre Birotte Jr., says that is something his office would welcome. "Obviously I support any increase to my resources," says Birotte. "We're overwhelmed with the amount of work we have to do on a day-to-day basis."
However, these proposals have been made before. "That has been a recommendation that has been discussed in the past," Birotte says, "and at this stage ... it's unlikely that it will receive any traction."
If the report's recommendations are only enacted partially, it certainly would be nothing new, according to Chemerinsky. He says there is a "disturbing" cycle within the LAPD where leaders and politicians are confronted with a scandal in the department, commission a report, and then enact some of the suggestions of the report but ignore those that are problematic or politically sensitive, only to have the department relapse into scandal.
Levenson remains hopeful. "There are indications that this report will be received differently," she says.
"History says there will be another scandal," counters Chemerinsky. "It's like predicting an earthquake, you can't say when - or where - the next one will be, but you know there is going to be one. However, while you can't prevent earthquakes, you can take steps to prevent another scandal."
Published: 07/27/2006
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