LAPD Watchdog Commission Is Napping, Critics Contend

As Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks forcefully imprints the stamp of his leadership on the department, a growing number of LAPD observers complain that his civilian bosses are becoming complacent about their oversight duties.

Former commissioners, police union officials and civil rights activists say the current five-member panel appears to be struggling to supervise a well-prepared chief, who is aggressively reshaping the LAPD in his image and who enjoys solid political support from Mayor Richard Riordan and other elected officials.

“My impression is that the commission is returning to the situation we had with [former chiefs] Daryl Gates and Ed Davis,” said Ramona Ripston, executive director of the Southern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “They’re becoming a rubber stamp for the chief. Where’s the oversight?”

Careful civilian scrutiny of the chief--even a highly competent one--is crucial, LAPD observers say, if the department is to be kept from slipping back into its historical insularity. Several community and city leaders, however, say today’s commission has been bowled over by Parks’ strong-willed management style and has failed to lay out its vision of where the department should go in terms of reforms and policing policies.

Current commissioners and the chief reject the notion that the panel is not properly overseeing the department or its chief.

“It’s pernicious to construe us as rubber-stamping everything,” said Commissioner T. Warren Jackson. “The more effective the chief, the easier our job. Clearly, we have an ongoing responsibility to manage what the chief does, but we should celebrate that we’ve got an effective leader and not start picking flyspecks out of pepper.”

Cmdr. Dave Kalish, the chief’s spokesman, said: “Simply because the commission and the chief are not at each other’s throats all the time doesn’t mean they’re not doing their jobs. Quite the contrary, under the leadership of this commission and chief of police, the department has made tremendous progress.”

Among the issues that have stirred the most concern among the commission’s critics:

* Commission agendas lately seem to lack important LAPD policy matters and instead are loaded with items granting “retroactive approval” to departmental decisions.

* The commission has spent eight months searching for an executive director, while other key commission staff members have left the office.

* The commission backed away from its discipline guidelines and let the chief draft his own document without commission input.

* The commission’s inspector general--who was supposed to be the civilian panel’s leading investigative agent into police matters--seems to have little support from her bosses. That perception this week led City Controller Rick Tuttle to propose having the inspector general report to him--as a way of maintaining her independence--instead of the commission.

* Commission President Edith Perez frequently makes public comments praising the LAPD for being “beyond” reforms that were proposed by the 1991 Christopher Commission, but has not convincingly explained how that has supposedly occurred.

Former Commissioner Gary Greenebaum, who resigned from the commission in protest in 1995 after the City Council undermined the panel’s attempt to discipline former Chief Willie L. Williams for lying, also criticized the current commission’s oversight.

In an article published on The Times’ op-ed page, he said the commission “seems to be returning more and more to the old rubber-stamp model” that had been the tradition before sweeping charter reforms in 1992 bestowed new oversight powers on the commission. Greenebaum declined to elaborate on his views when contacted for this story.

His comments, however, were echoed by others.

Councilwoman Laura Chick, the head of the City Council’s Public Safety Commission, said Greenebaum “said something that needed to be said. . . . I share his view on how important and sacred the commission’s oversight role is.”

Another former commissioner, who asked not to be identified, also accused the panel of being a “rubber stamp” with “no vision.” And yet another ex-commissioner, who also requested anonymity, expressed “concern” about the board’s direction, particularly in regard to the inspector general.

To some city and community leaders, Perez has set the wrong tone during her presidency, appearing to be more a booster for Parks than his civilian overseer. At commission meetings, she has been dismissive of department critics, combative with public speakers and hostile toward reporters.

“She acts like she’s the chief’s public relations manager,” said one City Hall official.

Perez strongly disputed that, saying she and her colleagues have “provided damn good oversight. . . . We won’t suffer fools lightly after the last [chief]. There’s an understanding between this commission and the command staff that we expect a much higher level of performance.”

Commissioner Jackson said Perez gets “better marks for substance than style,” but said that her contacts with the public are improving.

“I really support Edith,” said Jackson, adding that he hopes she seeks to renew her presidency for another year when her current term expires this summer. Perez said for the first time this week that she is interested in a second term.

While Perez has rankled some people, she continues to have the support of the mayor, who appointed her to the post.

Within Mayor Riordan’s administration, Perez is regarded as loyal and aggressive, though she is not held in the same high esteem as former Police Commission President Raymond Fisher, who now serves as the No. 3 official in the U.S. Justice Department.

Perez and the mayor have a friendly but limited relationship with little personal contact, sources close to Riordan said, adding that the commissioner most trusted by Riordan aides is attorney Gerald Chaleff, not Perez.

Commissioners say the criticism being directed their way is merely a “perception problem” and argue that the panel has made significant progress in many areas.

For example, the commission recently adopted a set of recommendations aimed at improving the LAPD’s contacts with people who speak little or no English. The panel also moved to review all law enforcement-related injury reports in the same way it examines all officer-involved shooting reports. And, commissioners say they are working on a discrimination unit as well as a “risk-management” program to help the department track and identify problem officers.

Perez said the commission should also get credit for overseeing initiatives that Parks brought with him when he stepped into the job, such as a reorganization of his command staff and the new FASTRAC policing model that uses crime statistics more efficiently to fight crime.

Moreover, some of the specific criticisms, commissioners say, are not valid. For instance, the search for an executive director was hung up because they tried unsuccessfully to increase the salary range for the post. And, they say, the commission had no authority under the city charter to impose its discipline guide on the chief.

“A lot of what we do are not the type of things that make headlines,” Chaleff said. “I don’t think we’re just accepting everything the chief brings forward.”

Commissioners say they have had disagreements with the chief, but they generally resolve them out of the public spotlight.

Nonetheless, the commissioners seem to be painfully aware that they are under attack. Several commissioners said they are unfairly being compared to the commission that ousted Williams last year.

Because Parks is extremely responsive to their concerns and has been very effective in running the agency, the commissioners have less need to “ride herd” on him, according to Chaleff. “We don’t have a major trauma to show our mettle.”

Furthermore, with two new commissioners, a new commission president and a new chief stepping in last summer “everybody is still sort of getting used to their roles,” he said. “I think we’re a commission that’s finding its voice.”

But after nine months of working together, critics say, that voice should have been found.

“Chief Parks has been able to manipulate the commissioners like a professional puppeteer,” said one City Hall official. “If the commission doesn’t find its voice soon, they might find out it’s too late to shout.”

Times staff writer Jim Newton contributed to this report.