The City Council on Wednesday agreed to pay nearly $13 million to people injured or mistreated in a May Day melee in MacArthur Park, bringing to more than $30 million the money spent over the last two weeks to settle lawsuits alleging LAPD misconduct.
The action served as a reminder of the Los Angeles Police Department's troubled past and its continuing path toward regaining the trust of some city residents and elected officials.
For the LAPD, Wednesday's $12.85-million payout -- covering most of the claims by immigration demonstrators and bystanders injured May 1, 2007, in MacArthur Park -- has a few strings attached.
Under the settlement, the department must submit to court oversight of its crowd control procedures -- another layer of federal involvement that comes as LAPD leaders are impatient to be free of a long-standing and more onerous monitoring program imposed after the Rampart Division corruption scandal.
The May Day settlement, approved unanimously by the council, comes a week after members agreed to pay $20.5 million to settle civil rights lawsuits filed by four current and former LAPD officers, three of whom were awarded $15 million by a federal jury after claiming to have been falsely arrested and maliciously prosecuted during the Rampart probe. That sum was on top of more than $75 million the city has paid to civilians affected by the 1999 scandal.
"Over $32 million in these last two weeks on Police Department litigation cases -- that's a tremendous amount of money," Councilman Dennis Zine said after the 11-0 public vote. "My concern is that the Police Department needs to be held accountable and responsible. . . . There are still other cases pending. This isn't the end."
He added, "While crime's down, we respect that, the conduct of the officers is important, and the management of the department is ultimately responsible for that."
Council President Eric Garcetti noted that the cost of the May Day agreement was enough to hire almost 130 police officers. "It underscores why police reform is as important as police hiring," Garcetti said. "A handful of officers can cost the city millions of dollars. We saw that in Rampart; we're seeing that here -- more than a handful here."
The settlement approved Wednesday will resolve a class action lawsuit and more than half a dozen individual lawsuits in federal court. It accounts for a large portion of the more than 300 May Day claims against the city.
