California Conservative

As the Los Angeles Dog Trainer and other media have reported, LAPD Officer Steven Garcia has been found not guilty of violating Department policy in the wake of the 2005 shooting of Devin Brown.

I congratulate the member’s of the LAPD Trial Board, Chief Bratton, and Mayor Villaraigosa for their courage in not sacrificing a good officer for a tragic event. Had Devin Brown been in bed sleeping (where he should have been that early morning), he might be alive today. It is tragic when criminals force officers to use any force, but officers use force in response to criminals who refuse to comply with their lawful orders. Brown was no Boy Scout, and young offenders kill and maim innocent Americans every day. Brown made his decision and it cost him his young and pathetic life.

After having reviewed the evidence and LAPD Review Board’s rationale, Garcia’s innocence is clear - but that hasn’t silenced the LAPD’s noisiest critics. Like most police shootings, the entire incident transpired during the course of four seconds, and Garcia’s ten shots were fired in under two seconds. And as one board member explained, that’s one-thousand one, one-thousand-.

Those who question the Garcia decision should look at history. The Rodney King defendants were acquitted in 1992 not because they had not beaten Rodney King, but because the jury had correctly found the officers to have followed the Police Commission’s brutal policy of beating anesthetized suspects into submission with batons (1983-1991). Mayor Bradley’s own lawyer, Warren Christopher, tried to blame officers for in-policy use of force and, when the jury didn’t buy that, Bradley incited LA’s billion-dollar riot.

Duke Law Professor Erwin Chemerinsky says that disciplinary hearings involving police officers accused of misconduct must be open to the media and the public, and they were for more than two decades in Los Angeles, until late last year.

This is only partly correct. Does anyone remember when LAPD Officer Karen Tiffault killed a naked 16-year-old boy in 1999? Don’t feel bad - most references to that shooting are no longer online. Except for the City Council’s secret hearing and multi-million dollar settlement, the shooting of an unarmed and naked 16-year-old boy by a female officer wasn’t open, nor was there much outrage by Chemerinsky, Mack, or any of LA’s other whiny liberals who kept quiet about it. And while two large male officers probably could have restrained that juvenile, Officer Tiffault’s physical limitations required her to shoot and kill the teenager. There’s no record that Tiffault was charged or disciplined, but local politicians quietly settled that case so they wouldn’t have to explain LA’s anti-white-male hiring practices, or the lowered standards that result from the mediocre hiring practices they impose.

Chemerinsky says:

The board’s decision is particularly disturbing because the Police Commission,after a careful review, found that the shooting was not within LAPD policy…

The LAPD does not create policy without the Police Commission’s blessing, and members aren’t about to invite community outrage against themselves. The Police Commission found the shooting out of policy because, to support Garcia, they would have had to explain why they created the policies that led to the shooting - exposing themselves and the mayor who appoint them to ridicule reserved ordinarily for the cops who are forced to follow bad policy. And that would take courage and character - something that LA liberals aren’t celebrated for.

… In fact, the city last year came to the same conclusion and paid $1.5 million to settle a civil suit brought by the boy’s family.

When Brown’s family cashed in for $1,300,000 last July, it had less to do with the evidence and everything to do with LA’s incompetent and racially biased/anti-LAPD jurors. Can you imagine what an OJ jury might have awarded Devin’s neglectful family? Despite Brown’s behavior and Officer Garcia’s tactical awareness and restraint, jury nullification could have easily cost taxpayers millions more. By now, Brown’s wasted life has likely translated into a new car and plasma TV.

… It seems inexplicable that the board of rights, composed of two high-level police officers and one civilian, found that the fatal shooting of a teenage boy under these circumstances was justified... Such secrecy undermines the accountability of the LAPD. Without being able to observe disciplinary hearings or know the reasons for the panel’s conclusions, there is no way to evaluate whether the disciplinary system is working. Closed proceedings and secret decisions fuel the impression that the board of rights protects officers from warranted discipline and does not serve the interests of the city.

If Erwin and LA politicians really believed this they could open their doors NOW. The Los Angeles Citry Council and County Board of Supervisors routinely close their doors to outsiders. Is it because they don’t want to corroborate evidence that hiring mediocre cops under the pretext of diversity is a bad idea that implicates themselves? Is it because they don’t want taxpayers to know that they’re paying off bereaved families because they have no faith in the circus that IS the LA jury system?

If LA politicians really believed in openness, they could open their doors right now. And while Chemerinsky’s at it, maybe we should have all allegations of misconduct by lawyers, judges, and academics posted online and aired at public meetings so we can get a clear view of those groups as well. Openness is healthy in a democracy.

Holding board of rights hearings in secret serves no one’s interest.

I agree with Chemerinsky, Erwin, Bratton, and everyone else concerned about openness. But let’s open all the doors and not just a selected few. And LA’s politicians don’t need to wait for legislation – they can start today.

LA prosecutor Patterico also weighs in.

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Clark Baker is a senior contributor to CaliforniaConservative.org. He is an author, filmaker, father and retired LAPD officer. You may read more of his work here and here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 13th, 2007 at 6:28 pm and is filed under Author: Clark Baker, Crime, Law, Los Angeles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.