A City Council committee Wednesday advanced a proposed ordinance that would give Los Angeles police officers facing disciplinary hearings the option of appearing before an all-civilian review board.
The Ad Hoc Committee on Police Reform is in charge of crafting the new policy condemned by critics as a weakening of the LAPD’s disciplinary system. A measure calling for the changes was placed on the May 2017 ballot by the City Council with the support of Mayor Eric Garcetti and the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing the department’s rank-and-file officers. Charter Amendment C passed with 57.14 percent of the vote.
The LAPPL had argued the current system is unfair because of the belief that the police chief has undue influence on sworn members of Board of Rights panels, which currently consist of two command-level officers and a civilian.
Under a proposed ordinance that the committee recommended be drafted by the City Attorney’s Office under the provisions of Charter Amendment C, an officer facing disciplinary action will be able to choose whether the case will be reviewed by an all-civilian panel or a traditional board with two sworn officers and one civilian.
Current rules require the civilian to have a clean criminal record and at least seven years experience with arbitration, mediation, administrative hearings or comparable work, which has led to the Board of Rights panels to be stocked with many retired judges and lawyers, but City Council President Wesson has expressed in changing the rules so regular citizens could serve on the panels.
The committee also agreed to request that the Police Commission make changes to the qualifications for civilian hearing examiners to enhance diversity, increase the number of city residents, and allow for the inclusion of retired police officers who have been off the force at least one year.
Wesson, Garcetti and the council pushed for Measure C to be placed on the ballot despite a study of the LAPD’s system that found civilians have been found to be more lenient on officers.
Despite the report, Wesson expressed faith in civilian panels and said he wanted to see the makeup of the panels change to include regular citizens.
“If statistics and numbers would indicate that there is a certain degree of leniency when people, civilians, citizens are involved, then we need to change the way that we select the citizens,” Wesson said last year.
The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board opposed the measure, writing last year that “there is precious little evidence that there is anything wrong with the current discipline process, other than that officers and their union don’t like it.”