LAPD’s Claim of Progress Questioned

Despite the Los Angeles Police Department’s repeated assertions that citizen complaints against police officers are falling, the agency’s system for tracking complaints is so inadequate that any conclusions about progress are impossible to support, a new study has concluded.

“Statistics purporting to document the number of adjudicated complaints are almost meaningless,” Inspector General Katherine Mader determined after an exhaustive examination of the LAPD complaint process.

A reported decline in complaints has been a mainstay of the LAPD’s claims of improvement as well as of Police Chief Willie L. Williams’ efforts to secure a second term.

But Mader’s report, which was shared with top city and Police Department officials Friday afternoon, notes that the department’s claims of progress are based on a decline in the number of citizen complaints that are investigated as Internal Affairs cases--down from 717 in 1991 to 496 in 1995. But those investigations represent only a fraction of the overall complaints, and the LAPD itself determines how many cases to formally investigate.

The result: the LAPD is investigating fewer complaints formally, but that does not mean it is receiving fewer, and it makes no effort to track how many it is receiving.

For instance, the department does not include in its annual complaint statistics the number of grievances handled by captains in the divisions--a number that could top 2,000 a year--nor does it keep a tally of complaints recorded in daily police station logs or in lawsuits filed against the LAPD and its officers. The annual totals also do not include the number of cases in which charges against an officer were filed and investigated but then dismissed by high-ranking department officials through a process known as “miscellaneous memo,” a controversial practice that Williams has pledged to abolish.

“As a result of the above-described varying methods of receiving complaints of police misconduct from the public, it is not possible to accurately determine how many public complaints are received by LAPD in a given year,” Mader’s report concludes.

It also notes that Internal Affairs investigators are overworked and raises questions about the LAPD’s stated commitment to punishing officers who protect colleagues under the so-called “code of silence.” In addition, Mader makes a number of recommendations intended to make tracking complaints easier and more accurate. Police commissioners are expected to begin considering those recommendations next week.

Although Mader’s report makes no mention of Williams’ recent decision to apply for a second term at the command of the LAPD, her findings create new problems for the embattled chief. Williams has made the alleged decline in civilian complaints against police officers an important plank in his argument that he deserves another five years.

But Mader’s findings suggest that the progress Williams has cited is at best disputable and at worst merely a manipulation of the figures detailing complaints and their investigations. That raises a double bind for Williams; first by potentially undercutting his claims of progress and second by giving new ammunition to those who question the chief’s credibility.

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Some critics of Williams declined to comment Friday on the inspector general’s report. An aide to the chief said Williams has received the document but had not had time to read it. The aide said the chief intends to respond to its findings next week.

Beyond its potential implications for Williams, Mader’s conclusions tend to bolster LAPD critics who have long questioned the Police Department’s claims of improvement.

“Complaints aren’t going down,” said Michael Zinzun, a longtime activist and leader of the Coalition Against Police Abuse. “They have leveled off, and they’ve leveled off at a very high level that demands police accountability.”

According to Zinzun, his group receives four to 10 complaints every day. Other organizations such as the ACLU, the NAACP and Police Watch all field complaints as well, and encourage residents who have gripes about the police to take them to the LAPD’s Internal Affairs Division or the city’s Police Commission.

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In 1991, the reform group known as the Christopher Commission uncovered significant problems with the LAPD’s system for receiving and investigating civilian complaints. Among the changes it recommended was creation of a civilian inspector general who would monitor the complaint process for the Police Commission.

After long debate, the inspector general job was created last year and Mader was hired to fill it. Her hiring irritated some top LAPD officials, who worried that her role would be to second-guess their efforts and distract them from running the Police Department. But Mader has emerged as an influential insider, prodding the department on a variety of issues and winning the strong support of the civilian Police Commission, which oversees police department policy.

Mader has helped monitor the LAPD’s ongoing investigation of former Det. Mark Fuhrman and has assisted in an internal inquiry probing allegations that the CIA sold drugs in Los Angeles. Mader has not publicly commented on the CIA probe, but her report notes that no evidence has surfaced so far to support the allegations.

Her report does credit the LAPD for progress in some areas. She noted that the department responded quickly and efficiently when questions surfaced regarding the availability of complaint forms in LAPD stations.

But other areas raised troubling questions. Mader determined that lower-ranking officers are found guilty of misconduct twice as often as supervisors or command staff, and that upper-echelon officials are twice as likely to have charges against them cleared by “miscellaneous memo.”

Although her report cautions against reading too much into those numbers, rank-and-file officers have long complained about a perceived double standard under which command staffers receive less serious discipline than their subordinates. Mader’s report does not confirm that theory, but it does not disprove it, either.