LAPD gets mixed progress report

The Los Angeles Police Department continues in its failure to comply with some requirements of a federal consent decree for handling investigations into the use of force, a court-appointed federal monitor said in a report released Wednesday.

But the monitor found that compliance had been achieved in most areas cited six months ago by a judge.

During a week in which the department is dealing with allegations of excessive force caught on two videotapes made by bystanders, the findings in Independent Monitor Michael Cherkasky’s quarterly report sparked more debate about the LAPD’s investigation of uses of force.

Some observers asked Wednesday why the department has not yet implemented all 191 of the reforms five years after a court mandated them. It was delays in complying with about 30% of the reforms that caused a federal judge in May to extend the decree three more years.

“Five years is a pretty long period of time,” said Blair Taylor, president of the Urban League of Los Angeles.

The decree was approved in 2001 to address allegations by the U.S. Justice Department that the LAPD had engaged in a pattern of police abuse.

Cherkasky’s latest report looked at 39 mandates, or paragraphs, of the decree that had not been complied with when the judge approved the extension.

The monitor said the LAPD has since complied with three-fourths of them, including auditing of department reports by the inspector general and better handling of citizen complaints.

“We are pleased with the progress that has been made in those paragraphs,” the report said. “ ... There do remain a number of paragraphs for which we have continued to withhold a determination of compliance or await implementation.”

Police Chief William J. Bratton, whose office had been given a draft copy of the document, said he was generally pleased with progress on the decree.

“Everything is going very well from my perspective,” said Bratton, who planned to discuss the report over dinner Wednesday night with Cherkasky. “Fortunately for us, things are progressing well.”

However, the monitor found that the LAPD had failed to comply with requirements that managers consider an officer’s work history in recommending discipline for excessive force and analyze whether supervisors’ “response to the incident ... was appropriate.”

The report also found that the LAPD fell short in a requirement that officers involved in fatal or near-fatal use of force be referred to department psychologists for evaluation.

In looking at 13 uses of force, the monitor determined that in three cases, discrepancies were not identified or addressed in the investigative reports.

The LAPD failed to immediately initiate complaint investigations in five of the use-of-force incidents, the monitor said.

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