Judge frees LAPD from consent decree

Declaring that the Los Angeles Police Department has reformed itself significantly after decades of corruption and brutality complaints, a U.S. judge Friday ended a long-running period of federal oversight of the department.

U.S. District Court Judge Gary A. Feess terminated the consent decree federal officials forced on the LAPD in 2001 in the wake of the Rampart corruption scandal. The agreement required the department to undertake dozens of wide-ranging reforms meant to tighten internal checks on officers’ conduct and to submit to rigorous audits by a monitor who reported to Feess on the LAPD’s progress.

In freeing the LAPD, Feess and his monitor, Michael Cherkasky, lauded the department for its progress.

“When the Decree was entered, LAPD was a troubled department whose reputation had been severely damaged by a series of crises,” Feess wrote in his ruling. “In 2008, as noted by the Monitor, ‘LAPD has become the national and international policing standard for activities that range from audits to handling of the mentally ill to many aspects of training to risk assessment of police officers and more.’"

Police Chief William J. Bratton has used the consent decree as a blueprint for how to pull the department from its often ugly past into the modern era of policing. In recent months, however, Bratton has voiced increasing discontent, saying the continued oversight had become a stigma that was hurting morale in a department that had proved its ability to police itself.

Bratton struck an anti-climactic note Friday, saying that while the decision shows “the department has regained its reputation,” it was viewed internally as outdated and irrelevant.

“In the mind of the department, it has been over for a long time,” he said.

In ending the consent decree, Feess did not free the LAPD entirely. He approved a transitional agreement that attorneys for the LAPD and the U.S. Department of Justice proposed to him last month.

Under the terms of the new agreement, the Los Angeles Police Commission, which oversees the LAPD, will assume responsibility from the federal monitor for keeping tabs on the department’s ongoing efforts to fully implement a handful of still-incomplete or recently finished reforms.

If DOJ lawyers are unsatisfied with the commission’s oversight, the agreement allows them to bring the department back before Feess.

One of the outstanding issues is the department’s handling of the hundreds of claims of racial profiling levied against officers by minorities each year. As part of the new agreement, the department must press ahead with a nascent plan to outfit all its patrol vehicles with video cameras that will record all traffic and pedestrian stops. In addition, the commission will conduct a series of reports on how police officials investigate and resolve claims of racial profiling.

Also included in the transition period is the department’s financial disclosure policy that requires hundreds of officers in gang and narcotic units to submit details of their personal finances to supervisors. Intended as a tool to help identify and discourage corrupt officers who have access to cash, drugs and other contraband confiscated from suspects, the policy only recently went into effect.

As with racial profiling, the transition agreement calls for the commission to review whether department officials follow through with the disclosures.

“We’re disappointed by the judge’s decision. The department has made substantial progress under Chief Bratton, but there’s still too much evidence that skin color makes a difference in who is stopped, questioned and arrested by the LAPD,” said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union Southern California, the group that had most vocally argued against ending the consent decree.

The judge’s decision, Cherkasky said, “reflects a tough, hard eight years, but also a tremendous performance by the LAPD. The LAPD still has to make sure it doesn’t backslide, but that is up to them now.”

-- Joel Rubin

Comments

[maria]

Finally! Taxpayers should be aware that this has cost us millions of dollars extra a year, and so lifting this decree which is long overdue will save us money. It's about time the Police Protective League complied with that financial disclosure component - no one likes any intrusion into their personal lives and finances but that stubborness wouldn't be worth millions of $ to the city.

Hooray for Chief Bratton. He has really brought LAPD out of the Dark Ages of Chiefs Gates and Parks, under whose watch this happened. The ACLU will always find fault, but a recent Times Poll showed that over 70% of people in every community across the city think the LAPD is fair to all.

It's very impotant that the public be vigilant against the insidious plan of new City Attorney Carmen Trutanich to CREATE in this budget crisis a NEW Police Force of 200+ cops "with cars and everything" he said, as a private police force within the City Attorney's Office "to police the police" among other main tasks.

Trutanich says he wants to replace the Consent Decree with his OWN force, but we've known that Bratton's done the job already with oversight from the Police Commission and Mayor and Public Safety Committee.

That's an excuse to create a private dept. like what his buddy DA Steve Cooley has within the DA's office paid by the county and it's a boondoggle and power grab. It's a sign of distrust against Chf. Bratton, who is detested as too liberal, "Chief Ratton," by rightwing talkshow hosts where Trutanich and his friends are regulars. Meanwhile ACLU is always critical of LAPD whatever it does, from the other extreme.

At a time when the real LAPD has been told by Council (including Parks) that they can't expand the LAPD to the 10,000 force Bratton says he needs at a min. and which we were promised for our tripled trash fees.

LAPD hiring has been frozen due to the budget crisis. which is a shame. They did a superb job after the Lakers parade, Jackson hoopla, and to do an even better job all over the city, let's get the Council to honor their commitment on the trash fee hikes and Phone Tax S!

And I hope certain councilmembers and rightwing forces inside the LAPD stop hassling Chf. Bratton, we can't lose him.

[Maria]

This is long over due. When you look at an event the scale of the Michael Jackson memorial and not one arrest or serious incident LAPD are the ones who should be commended. The officers on the streets today are younger and have a different attitude of sensitivity and community policing compared to the old days.

[DonJMac]

Chf. Bratton, we can't lose him, OH YES WE CAN MS MARIA,HE HAS DONE A DECENT JOB,,HE'S BECOME A POLITICIAN NOT A CHIEF,THE POLICE OFFICERS ARE THE ONES THAT HAVE DONE THE GREAT JOB THAT CHANGED THE DEPARTMENTS IMAGE, AND OLD WAYS OF DOING THINGS,WHEN BRATTON TERM ENDS,WE THANK HIM AND WISH HIM THE BEST,BUT IT'S THE OFFICERS IN THE STREETS NOT A POLITICIAN (BRATTON) ON T.V. SUCKING UP TO TONY V., THAT MADE THE DEPARTMENT GREAT AGAIN.
GOOD WORK TO ALL OF THE LAPD OFFICERS AND THANK TO YOU ALL,,,GOD BLESS