[Peace-discuss] Fw: [police oversight] WaPo Opinion: After Christopher Dorner’s rampage, how to build community trust in police

Tue Feb 19 16:53:08 UTC 2013

I thought that you might find this thought provoking article interesting and something that provides food for thought as well.

From: BRIAN BUCHNER 
Sent: February 19, 2013 9:22 AM
To: policeoversight at yahoogroups.com 
Subject: [police oversight] WaPo Opinion: After Christopher Dorner’s rampage, how to build community trust in police

After Christopher Dorner’s rampage, how to build community trust in
police

By Sunil Dutta, 
February 15, 2013

The Washington Post

Sunil Dutta is an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department. The
views expressed here do not represent the LAPD.

Christopher Dorner, the former L.A. police officer who died Tuesday
after allegedly going on a murder spree, said racism was behind the Los
Angeles Police Department’s decision to fire him in 2009, after he
accused another cop of kicking a mentally ill man. In a perverted
mission of vengeance, Dorner allegedly killed two civilians and two
officers.

“I know I will be vilified by the LAPD and the media,” Dorner wrote
in an online manifesto. “Unfortunately, this is a necessary evil that
I do not enjoy but must partake and complete for substantial change to
occur within the LAPD and reclaim my name.”

Given its history of scandal, the LAPD has spent a decade building a
kinder, gentler organization and making significant strides in
community-based policing. Even past detractors, including civil rights
lawyer Connie Rice, admit that the LAPD has changed since the early
1990s. But people still associate the department with events of 20 years
ago: the acquittal of officers accused of beating Rodney King, the
subsequent L.A. riots and the resignation of Chief Daryl Gates.

The department’s problems aren’t all in the past, either: In
November, a jury awarded former officer Pedro Torres $2.8 million after
finding that officials retaliated when he verified claims about an
allegedly racist supervisor. During the past decade, 17 officers have
won million-dollar-plus verdicts in lawsuits claiming harassment,
discrimination and retaliation. African American officers, including
some supervisors I’ve spoken with, say in private that they don’t
feel like they are part of the system and don’t trust it.

Indeed, some people even sympathize with Dorner, despite his
unconscionable acts. “He’s been a real-life superhero to many
people,” Columbia University professor Marc Lamont Hill told CNN.
“People aren’t rooting for him to kill innocent people —
they’re rooting for somebody who was wronged to get a kind of
revenge against the system. It is almost like watching ‘Django
Unchained’ in real life.”

Police Chief Charlie Beck said he would reopen the case that led to
Dormer’s termination — not to appease an alleged murderer but to
prevent the ghosts of the LAPD’s past from being resurrected.

While Beck made a wise move, it doesn’t go far enough to assure
people of the LAPD’s integrity. We need to change the way complaints
against police officers are adjudicated, putting investigative power in
the hands of the people.

As long as police have existed, officers have been accused of racism,
brutality and covering up for their friends. In the past, a lack of
accountability often meant that police organizations did not pay serious
attention to or even record citizen complaints. As a result, many
citizens still don’t trust police departments to investigate their
own. Similarly, officers do not trust internal affairs investigators or
disciplinary processes.

I worked as an internal affairs investigator in the LAPD for about
three years. When I visited police divisions to look into complaints
against officers, I was usually greeted by the same question: “Who are
you going to burn today?” Officers often believed that internal
affairs was out to get them on flimsy charges.

At the same time, when I interviewed community members who had filed
complaints against officers, I was disappointed to learn that, despite
my reassurances and best efforts to conduct impartial inquiries, many
complainants believed that a fair investigation was simply not possible.
Nor do misconduct investigations satisfy a skeptical public. If an
officer is exonerated, the community often believes that malfeasance is
being covered up.

Police serve the community — any concerns about their integrity must
be transparently, expeditiously and judiciously resolved. Relying on
cops to police cops is neither efficient nor confidence-inspiring.

The solution? Abolish internal affairs units and outsource their work
to external civilian agencies.

Police have slowly started to incorporate civilian oversight in their
misconduct investigations. For example, the LAPD’s office of inspector
general has oversight over the department’s internal discipline. Yet,
while the inspector general’s staff receives copies of every personnel
complaint filed and tracks and audits selected cases, it does not have
the authority to impose discipline. Nor do most civilian review boards,
which are not empowered to conduct independent investigations. This
leads detractors to say that such boards are ineffectual.

Police have long resisted external oversight. Some of us say that those
who aren’t in uniform do not understand the intricacies of law
enforcement. Won’t civilian investigators be harsher toward officers
— unsympathetic to the challenges faced by beat cops battling armed
bad guys?

These self-serving arguments perpetuate archaic policies. Outsourcing
misconduct investigations to civilians would directly address community
concerns about the “blue wall of silence.” Officers who fear
retaliation for reporting misconduct would feel more comfortable working
with an external agency. In this system, complaints such as Dorner’s
about the vindictiveness of superiors would all but disappear.

Using sergeants and detectives as internal affairs investigators costs
police departments a lot. These supervisors are paid more and have more
seniority. Assigning seasoned officers to internal affairs also depletes
the number of field personnel who could prevent mistakes and misconduct
by patrol officers in the first place. Outsourcing misconduct
investigations would be far less expensive and would let veteran
supervisors do the jobs they should be doing.

And why shouldn’t every police contact with the community — every
traffic stop, every interrogation — be recorded on video? If Dorner
and his partner had had a cop-cam, his claim that his partner used
excessive force might have been resolved the same day. There’s just no
excuse for not recording police contacts with the public. Technology has
made cameras effective and affordable. Some officers already record
their arrests to protect themselves against false allegations of
misconduct. This should be standard operating procedure.

If even one citizen thinks that Dorner may have had a point, that’s
too many. The only answer to those worried about police conspiracies is
transparency. Only by opening our doors can we build trust, and truly
serve and protect.

mailto:sunildutta911%40outlook.com 

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Twitter.

The Washington Post Company

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