THE TROUBLED L.A. COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT : Christopher Panel Drew Map That Showed Kolts the Way

Before they reviewed the first policy or examined the first officer-involved shooting, the more than two dozen lawyers who investigated the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department completed some required reading: the Christopher Commission’s scathing 228-page probe of the Los Angeles Police Department, which rocked the city a year ago this month.

“I handed out the Christopher Commission report as homework,” said attorney Merrick J. Bobb, who directed retired Judge James G. Kolts’ investigation of the Sheriff’s Department and was a member of the Christopher panel’s staff.

So if former Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher navigated uncharted waters, his blue-ribbon report on the LAPD provided Kolts with at least a map--one that, not surprisingly, led Kolts to strikingly similar findings in some areas of inquiry.

Yet there are crucial differences in the two reports--most importantly in the way each dealt with the man in charge of the law enforcement agency under scrutiny.

Like the Christopher Commission, Kolts and his staff uncovered serious flaws in the Sheriff’s Department’s system for handling public complaints. And like Christopher, Kolts found intense mistrust and anger toward law enforcement on the part of minorities, particularly blacks and Latinos.

Like the Christopher panel, Kolts and his investigators peeled back the curtain on what they termed “deeply disturbing” patterns of excessive force, a lax system of internal discipline and a core group of rogue officers who were the subject of frequent complaints or lawsuits--44 in the LAPD; 62 in the Sheriff’s Department.

And, like the Christopher report, Kolts’ study recommended community-based policing as the best cure for an ingrained problem of excessive force.

Unlike the Christopher report, however, Kolts’ study failed to turn up anything as shockingly dramatic as the racist and sexist computer messages sent by some LAPD officers.

And while two of Gates’ right-hand men turned against him and provided critical testimony to the Christopher Commission, Block’s top deputies held firm in their support of the sheriff--although lower-ranking captains and lieutenants were critical of his leadership.

Moreover, when it came to the thorniest issue of all--how much blame to pin on the man in charge--the two reports provide a study in contrast: The Christopher Commission played hardball with Gates; Kolts and his staff tiptoed somewhat gingerly around Block.

The Christopher Commission report called for now-retired Police Chief Daryl F. Gates to step aside and for term limits for the office of police chief. But the Kolts study made no such recommendation. Instead of charging Block with setting a tone in which excessive force was permitted--as the Christopher Commission implied Gates had done--the Kolts study simply urged Block to pay greater attention to the problem.

“We see our task principally as one of urging Sheriff Block and his senior staff to listen hard to what his captains and lieutenants are saying about dealing with excessive force,” the report states, “to pay careful attention . . . to hear and respond to the message of pain and hurt that is coming from the Hispanic and African-American communities. . . .”

From the outset, Kolts had to labor in Christopher’s long shadow. While Christopher had a volunteer staff of 100 of the city’s brightest lawyers and accountants, Kolts had a paid staff of four--two lawyers, a psychologist and a secretary--and about 30 volunteers. And while the Christopher Commission conducted its work under the glare of the public spotlight, Kolts and his team worked for seven months in near obscurity.

Their tasks, though similar, were not entirely alike--primarily because of differences between the two law enforcement agencies:

The Los Angeles police chief reports to a civilian Police Commission appointed by the mayor, while the sheriff is an elected official with no overseer other than the voters. The Sheriff’s Department, unlike the LAPD, contracts its services out to various cities; the level of police service depends on how much each community is willing to spend. Moreover, the Sheriff’s Department runs the county jail--the biggest institution of its kind in the country.

Throughout their review, Kolts and his staff were hindered by what they described as inadequate record-keeping. While the LAPD keeps detailed and extensive files, sheriff’s officials destroyed all records of internal affairs investigations prior to 1985. And unlike the LAPD, the Sheriff’s Department does not require written reports each time an officer uses force against a suspect.

Under the circumstances, the thoroughness and hard edge of the Kolts report surprised some observers.

Civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman--who earlier this year entered the Christopher Commission report as evidence in a successful excessive-force case against the LAPD--vowed immediately to make similar use of the Kolts study. “I will make Sheriff Block eat this report in court,” Yagman declared.

At the same time, some critics in the civil liberties community complained Monday that the Kolts study fell short of the Christopher Commission’s work.

“There are some real stark dissimilarities, which I believe put the Kolts report in a negative standing,” said Gloria Romero, co-chair of the Coalition for Sheriff’s Accountability. “What we found incredible was that this organizational dysfunction can be found to exist, but it’s as though the chief of the department, the sheriff, had nothing to do with it.”

While the Christopher Commission recommended beefing up the civilian Los Angeles Police Commission to provide greater control over the LAPD, Romero added, there was no similar recommendation from Kolts.

However, Kolts’ assistants said they were constrained from calling for term limits or civilian oversight because such changes could not be accomplished without an amendment to the state Constitution--and then would affect sheriffs across California.

“The voters get to deal with that issue,” said attorney Jeffrey Dasteel, who worked for both Kolts and Christopher.

“One of the moves with LAPD was to make the chief of police more responsible to the political process,” he said. “But the Sheriff’s Department is already responsible. Sherman Block is an elected official. If the voters don’t like what he does, they can vote for someone else.”

Policing Los Angeles

Here is a look at the two major law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT

Budget: $500 million annually for policing services.

Number of positions: 11,800 total; 8,000 sworn personnel (officers) and 3,800 civilian personnel. Department is third-largest police force in the U.S., behind New York City and Chicago.

Area served: Polices unincorporated areas of the county. Also contracts with 41 municipalities within the county.

Special services: Operates county jail facilities; transports inmates from jails to courthouses; provides policing along the Blue Line and security services for Superior Court.

Population served: 2.5 million people in a 3,182-square-mile area.

Demographics: Los Angeles County breakdown is 40% Anglo, 12% black, 37% Latino and 11% Asian; 54.6% of the population speaks English at home and 31.5% speaks Spanish.

Sheriff: Elected official, serves a four-year term.

Rate of violent crime: 1,365 per 100,000 population. New York City’s rate is 2,021 per 100,000 population.

Average age of sworn personnel: Mid-thirties.

Average years of service: Women, 10 years; men, 11 years.

LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT

Budget: About $550 million annually for policing services.

Number of positions: 10,450 total; about 8,450 sworn personnel and about 2,000 civilian.

Population served: About 3.5 million people in a 465-square-mile area. Demographics: Anglos make up 37% of the city of Los Angeles, blacks 13%, Latinos 40%, and Asians, Pacific Islanders and others 10%. For 54% of the population, English is not the primary language spoken at home. Rate of violent crime: 1,601 per 100,000 population.

Police chief: Selected by the mayor with the approval of the City Council; serves a five-year term.

Average age of officers: 37.

Average years of service: 11.

SOURCE: Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department report by Special Counsel James G. Kolts; report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department (Christopher Commission).

Compiled by Times researcher Michael Meyers

Inside the Department

According to the Kolts report, the Sheriff’s Department is largely Anglo and male. Of the 91 top-ranked officers, 84 are men and 78 are Anglos. Of the total sworn personnel--which includes all of the following but excludes civilian personnel--87.5% are men and 72.4% are Anglos. A breakdown: POSITION/NUMBER: Sheriff (1) BREAKDOWN: Man, Anglo. POSITION/NUMBER: Undersheriff (1) BREAKDOWN: Man, Anglo. POSITION/NUMBER: Assistant sheriffs (2) BREAKDOWN: Both men; 1 Anglo and 1 black. POSITION/NUMBER: Division chiefs (8) BREAKDOWN: All men; 62% Anglos, 25% blacks and 12% Latinos. POSITION/NUMBER: Area commanders (22) BREAKDOWN: 91% men and 9% women; 91% Anglos and 9% blacks. POSITION/NUMBER: Captains (57) BREAKDOWN: 91% men and 9% women; 86% Anglos, 5% blacks, 7% Latinos and 2% Asians. POSITION/NUMBER: Lieutenants (310) BREAKDOWN: 93% men and 7% women; 85% Anglos, 6% blacks, 8% Latinos, 1% Asians. POSITION/NUMBER: Sergeants (935) BREAKDOWN: 90% men and 10% women; 85% Anglos, 6% blacks, 8% Latinos, 1% Asians. POSITION/NUMBER: Senior deputies (118) BREAKDOWN: 93% men and 7% women; 77% Anglos, 11% blacks, 11% Latinos, 1% Asians. POSITION/NUMBER: Deputies (6,523) BREAKDOWN: 87% men and 13% women; 70% Anglos, 10% blacks, 18% Latinos, 2% Asians.

SOURCE: Report by Special Counsel James G. Kolts

Compiled by Times researcher Michael Meyers