Police Complaint Commission Inadequate

In a recent article published by the Gazette the LBPD Chief of Police stated that he wants to know when one of his officers acts in a manner that reflects poorly on the department or is illegal.

That’s good, but it is not good enough. The public should know the results and findings related to misconduct complaints.

We do not.

In the same article the executive director of the Citizens Police Complaint Commission (CPCC) stated, “Our complaints are personnel driven, and none are open to the public … the city attorney has ruled that these are personnel issues and we can’t release that.”

Bad ruling.

Many police departments release their findings related to misconduct, excessive force and shooting investigations – in so doing they comply with the law by omitting the officers name, much like the actions taken by the LAPD and its police commission in the recent public debate related to the police killing of Ezell Ford.

This kind of transparency allowed all constituencies to provide comment to the citizen board of policy makers who oversee the police department within a framework of checks and balances – one in which the chief of police properly has disciplinary authority, while the police commission has overall policy authority and conducts its own independent investigations.

The Long Beach constituent has no opportunity to learn what the city manager views as misconduct or what he chooses to conceal from public view.

We also have no idea if his decisions conflict with those of the chief of police, the law enforcement professional that provides the public face for the police department and yet has no disciplinary authority over department employees.

The CPCC executive director also asserts that the so-called independent CPCC has significant impact, stating that the city manager can balance recommendations between the CPCC and the police chief.

Again, the public has no way to judge the actions of the city manager or weigh them against the conflicts of interest that arise from his responsibilities related to contract negotiations with the police union.

It is well known that the police union – once satisfied with the answers offered in closed-door, videotaped interviews by our politicians – makes substantial contributions to their election or re-election campaigns.

The city manager is hired and fired by those politicians, creating an automatic conflict between his need to nurture union contentment while exercising his authority to discipline their constituency.

An example: An examination of a civil law suit revealed that the police department found misconduct relative to violations of 4th amendment rights and identified serious training needs related to the use of force in responding to a noise complaint.

The CPCC investigator cut and pasted the internal affairs investigation report of that incident into a report for the CPCC, and made it appear to be an independent investigation. Using that same report for its review process the CPCC found no misconduct.

The city manager subsequently wrote a letter to each of the involved officers stating that two independent investigations were conducted and that it was his finding that everything the officers did was legal, right and proper. Months later the city settled the law suit for more than $300,000.

This is not an isolated incident. This writer personally filed a complaint with the LBPD internal affairs division and provided incontrovertible evidence that LBPD police officers misappropriated city equipment for personal use and repeatedly violated election laws.

That investigation was taken away from the police department’s internal affairs division by the city manager and handed to the director of human resources for investigation, the same department under the city manager responsible for police union liaison. Four months later a curt letter was received from the director of human resources stating that, “the city has reviewed your complaints and have addressed them internally.”

The officer’s names were not asked for, only the disposition classification. Was the complaint sustained, not sustained or exonerated? We don’t know what the city position is regarding this kind of illegal conduct.

We should know so that We the People can better judge what city hall insiders now clearly manipulate to keep from us.

Next time this column will examine statements made by Jeff Price, CPCC chair who defends the work of the CPCC against allegations that the commission is a rubber stamp.