July 2005 www.LAPDOnline.org Greetings from the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department. The following is the monthly update for July 2005. We hope you find the information useful. You are encouraged to continue to visit our website at www.lapdonline.org as it has recently been redesigned and updated. CHIEF’S MESSAGE In any modern police department there will be times when management and union representatives agree to disagree. My commitment as a Chief of Police has always been to honor labor contracts and to work with unions to resolve differences of opinion in interpretations of policies and contract language. During the last 2-1/2 years I have been making many changes in the Department’s policies and procedures relative to our disciplinary system, use of force, and investigations of officers’ actions. All these efforts are intended to ensure that our officer’s integrity and professionalism are above reproach as we attempt to move out from under the clouds of scandal that have unfortunately covered the Department over the last ten years, obscuring the work of the real LAPD – an organization that is not brutal, racist or corrupt, and is one of the most effective crime fighting organizations in the world. Last month in the “Blue Line,” the union newspaper for the rank and file, there was an article that I feel may have unfortunately misrepresented the efforts and intent behind the ongoing reorganization of Professional Standards Bureau (PSB) and the creation of an administrative and criminal division within PSB. The article gives a lengthy hypothetical about all of the evils that could potentially befall officers if they should ever give a voluntary statement in any matter under investigation by repeatedly stating that the Department’s intent is “to maximize the ability to criminally prosecute” police officers. Implicit in the article is the idea that the LAPD is criminally prosecuting members that we should not, that we are out looking for opportunities to pursue criminal charges against officers from our Department who made honest mistakes or were in gray areas of the law. I regret that the author has that belief. Nothing could be further from the truth. The vast majority of our officers are honest and committed professionals who sometimes make mistakes that have to be addressed by our disciplinary process. But I also have to identify and discipline the criminals in our midst, and I will do everything in my power to maximize my ability to criminally prosecute them. Let’s go over some of the criminal cases that Professional Standards Bureau has brought recently: There was the cop who was raping prostitutes on duty. He was convicted and sent to prison. An on-duty narcotics investigator who was stealing money from drug dealers at the airport—not once or twice—and who was caught in two separate sting operations. He pled guilty. A Rampart patrol cop took a bribe on the front steps of Rampart Station, in uniform, from a victim in order to complete a crime report. He pled guilty. A captain was selling pirated DVDs. She pled guilty. And there was the officer who was committing Worker’s Comp fraud while assigned to Internal Affairs. She was convicted after trial. Which of these officers should not have aggressively been pursued by our Department? I don’t think that any police officers would want any of these former cops as partners. I have been very clear on my discipline philosophy that I will differentiate between malfeasance—the intentional, conscious doing of a bad act—and misfeasance, an officer trying to do the right thing but either negligently or improperly doing something wrong. There have been two other key elements that I have added to the discipline philosophy. They are both based on a laser-like focus on the primary purpose of discipline, which is to modify inappropriate behavior. First, I have made it clear that if we are seeking to modify behavior by suspension days, it is my belief that 22 days should be the maximum in the vast majority of cases. If an officer cannot change and modify their behavior following a 22-day suspension, they should not be a member of the LAPD. Secondly, that I believe in and endorse the concept of disciplinary settlements. This is a process by which Professional Standards Bureau and the accused officer meet and agree on the appropriate charge and the appropriate penalty. We will not accept a “guilty” plea if an officer insists they are innocent and the officer is just seeking a settlement in order to “get the matter over with.” What we have done in about 300 cases over the past two years is allow officers to accept responsibility, and for the Department to impose a reasonable penalty that is believed most likely to help the officer bring their behavior in line with the Department’s expectations, and then get on with their career. The settlement process speeds things up. Cases are resolved, the officers take responsibility and move on. The reality is that everyone loses with suspension days: the officer loses money, and the Department loses the work that the employee would have provided during that duty day. These changes have brought us from 108 directed Boards of Rights cases in 2002, to 68 directed Boards in 2003, to 29 directed Boards in 2004. We are working hard to ensure our disciplinary system is effective, efficient, and most importantly, just and fair. I want our investigators to be aggressive in pursuing the small number of our members that intentionally violate the law. I want them out of the Department. The move to a criminal/administrative functional split eliminates a constant refrain of our critics: that we have structured our internal affairs investigations in such a way to contaminate criminal investigations and to delay our administrative investigations. The article criticizes voluntary statements in any form. I don’t agree. I think there is a time and a place for an officer to give voluntary statements. I accept that the union and I don’t agree on this and that’s fine. Voluntary means just that: we ask and if officers want to provide a statement, great; if not, ultimately that is their choice and we will honor it. I leave it to them, their good judgment and good legal advice as to what they should do. I take no exception to the union suggesting a different approach from one that I believe is appropriate. What I do object to is the suggestion that somehow the Department is “head hunting” or inappropriately pursuing officers through the Internal Affairs process. This is a disservice to the men and women of this Department who are honorably serving in the Professional Standards Bureau. We are working very hard to make sure that good, innocent, appropriately behaving officers are protected from bogus complaints and that guilty officers, officers that are not worthy of the title, are removed from our ranks. That is my goal and my responsibility and I will not waver from it. CRIME STATISTICS - CITY-WIDE Year to Date as of June 25, 2005 Homicide Down -7.4% Rape Down -25.4% Robbery Down -8.1% Aggravated Assault Down -38.9% --------------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL VIOLENT CRIMES Down -27.8% Burglary Down -10.3% Burglary/Theft from Vehicle Down -16.3% Personal/Other Theft Down -12.6% Auto Theft Down -9.3% --------------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL PROPERTY CRIMES Down -12.6% TOTAL PART 1 CRIMES Down -16.3% WILLIAM J. BRATTON Chief of Police To unsubscribe from this newsletter please click on this link http://listserv.lacity.org/cgi-bin/wa.exe?SUBED1=lapd_monthly&A=1