Editorial: Misstep on L.A. police discipline can still be walked back — if City Council and activists up their game

Charter Amendment C, which voters approved Tuesday, undermines a key component of the Los Angeles police discipline system by granting officers an option to choose a historically more lenient group of judges when they’re accused of violating department policies. Worse, though, is that it locks out a range of smarter, more thoughtful reforms that policing experts have recommended over the course of more than two decades to make the disciplinary process more transparent, more effective and more just.

Police discipline is an urgent topic here and around the nation amid public demands for more accountability and more civilian oversight in response to shootings and other contentious uses of force. Despite the increased scrutiny of police, the politically powerful Los Angeles Police Protective League had the smarts and the clout to get Mayor Eric Garcetti, the City Council and ultimately the voters to rebalance the system in favor of officers accused of serious misconduct, rather than the city at large.

Blame lies squarely with Garcetti for brokering a closed-door deal with the union to propose the amendment, which he then heavily marketed to voters. City Council President Herb Wesson added insult to injury with his comical promise to hold hearings on discipline reform — not before drafting the ballot measure and putting it to voters, but after. Testimony in the first hearing, held just a week before the election, showed that at least a few council members failed to grasp that their reform would make discipline for accused officers more lax, even though that likelihood was clearly set forth in their staff’s analysis.

On first blush, continuing the hearings might seem pointless. The measure authorizes the council to make reforms within only the narrowest of parameters. For example, it can’t increase the role of the chief or the police commission, steps that experts have urged in the past. It can only offer a new choice to officers accused of serious misconduct — have your cases heard, as they are now, by a Boards of Rights consisting of two police command staff and one civilian; or a board composed solely of civilians.

Studies dating back to at least 1999 show that civilian Board of Rights members are far more likely than police command staff to excuse or minimize punishment for misconduct. Under the guise of more civilian oversight, the union appears to have made it more likely for misbehaving officers to escape firing or other serious discipline.

Still, it may be possible to salvage some modicum of constructive reform — if the council applies itself to the issue in a way it has not yet done.

It theoretically could decline to move forward with an ordinance implementing Tuesday’s measure, but that’s unlikely.

The council clearly does have the power to flesh out the selection process and criteria for civilian Board of Rights members. It should now reexamine the criteria for selecting those eligible to hear cases. Nothing stops the council from requiring that many, most or even all potential hearing officers be retired law enforcement officers, for example, or at the other end of the scale, advocates for increased police accountability. The council should consider those options, among others, just as it should consider whether to stick with the current standards that require at least seven years’ experience in mediation or arbitration.

Much now depends on how open and inclusive the promised hearings are, and on how in-depth are the council’s examination of the issues. Wesson said he hoped the vote would mark the start of a “very serious conversation” about policing in Los Angeles. Whether it does is now largely in his hands, as he will shape the belated council hearings.

Much depends as well on the degree to which those organizations and activists that opposed Charter Amendment C but failed to organize an effective campaign — or even to submit ballot arguments against the measure — improve their own game. Some of them have advocated for “civilian review boards” to administer police discipline but have failed to make clear what that means or how such boards would be different from what voters just adopted. Charter Amendment C opponents are unlikely to stop the council from moving forward with boards made up solely of civilians, but they can press hard for a selection process that results in boards that aren’t quite so lax on discipline. And they can lay the groundwork for a new and better reform at the next possible opportunity — on the 2020 city ballot.

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