Los Angeles Police Department investigators routinely fail to fully investigate citizens' complaints against allegedly abusive officers, often omitting or altering crucial information in ways that help exonerate the officers, according to a report to be released today.
The 34-page report by the Police Commission's inspector general raises questions about the department's ability to police itself, adding to still-unresolved problems highlighted in previous reports.
The audit, which is expected to be presented to the civilian Police Commission today, examined how 60 complaints filed against officers in recent years were handled by the officers' supervisors and investigators in the department's internal affairs group. In 29 of the cases -- nearly half of the time -- it found some sort of flaw, including investigators who inaccurately recorded statements and failed to interview witnesses or identify accused officers. In some cases, investigators failed to address allegations of misconduct at all. "We are always concerned about the quality of our investigations," said Deputy Chief Mark Perez, head of internal affairs. "We take these findings very seriously."
Although Perez said the report's findings would be used to improve training of internal affairs officers, he dismissed the notion that the report amounted to a serious indictment of the quality of complaint investigations. Mistakes may be made, he said, but they rarely, if ever, affect the decision of whether to discipline officers.
"With the volume of cases we get each year, we cannot spend an infinite amount of time on every complaint," he said. "We make judgment calls that someone second-guessing us afterward might not like. . . . But I have a very high level of confidence that the adjudication at the end is right."
Inspector General Andre Birotte declined to comment on the report. But in it, he wrote that the issues raised "are essential to maintaining the integrity of the complaint process."
In several of the cases reviewed, Birotte and his staff indicated that the investigators' conclusion that the accusations against officers were "unfounded" would have been different if the investigations had been handled better.
