Criminal
May 26, 2001
Sheriff Department Monitor is Wrong Man to Do the Job
The profile on U.S. Department of Justice lawyer Michael Gennaco appearing in the Daily Journal (David Houston, "Gentle Demeanor Aids Prosecutor," May 14) trivializes police misconduct and sends the wrong message to law enforcement - especially the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, who Gennaco has been appointed to monitor.
The profile on U.S. Department of Justice lawyer Michael Gennaco appearing in the Daily Journal (David Houston, "Gentle Demeanor Aids Prosecutor," May 14) trivializes police misconduct and sends the wrong message to law enforcement - especially the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, who Gennaco has been appointed to monitor.
The disciplinary record of the department in wrongful-shooting, excessive-force and physical-harassment cases is one of the worst in the country. The department's investigation of such matters has been self-serving, dilatory and designed to cover up and obscure real police crime.
For example, in deputy-involved shooting cases, the shooter and his or her partner are carefully coached and rehearsed as to the alleged justification for the shooting before their statements are taped or recorded. They are "walked through" the shooting in the presence of each other. And then, what passes for an investigation is conducted by the department's own homicide detectives, with a view to supporting the shooter's story line. Civilian witnesses who may contradict or undermine the deputy's explanation are not interviewed or are misquoted.
In excessive-force cases, it has long been the policy of the department to arrest injured civilian victims of deputy misconduct and charge the victims with a cover-up crime: resisting arrest, interfering or assault and battery on an officer. In People v. Dole, A481947 (L.A. Super. Ct. April 17, 1991), a deputy acknowledged under oath that it was department policy that "[i]f you [a deputy] hurt somebody, you arrest him."
The department also had - and perhaps still has - a policy of deferring investigation of an excessive-force victim's misconduct complaint while underlying criminal charges are pending against the victim, thereby encouraging false criminal charges by deputies who are the subject of such complaints.
In the Dole case, in which a jury awarded 35 plaintiffs a total of $15.9 million, more than 15 deputies - including a sergeant - took the stand and perjured themselves by falsely testifying under oath that some of the plaintiffs had thrown rocks, bottles and even a wooden washtub at the deputies as they advanced toward the home - where plaintiffs had been attending a quiet, orderly bridal shower - in order to effectuate a dispersal order.
The perjurious testimony was given in the face of contrary observations of numerous neighbor witnesses and a video of the entire event taken by a neighbor from directly across the street. That video also showed several deputies, later identified, actually clubbing persons in handcuffs laying upon the driveway. Many of the victims suffered blunt-force trauma to the body, and several sustained severe head injuries, including one who became mentally disabled as a result.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, no deputy was disciplined for any actions taken or decisions made that night. In fact, no internal-affairs investigation of any deputy for any misconduct was ever conducted, nor was any investigation or criminal prosecution of a deputy undertaken by the district attorney.
The department ignored for years the Lynwood Station, whose deputies terrorized that community in the guise of gang suppression. Actually, the deputies there had themselves formed a gang, dubbing themselves the Vikings, symbolized by tattoos above the ankle, hand signs and other gang identification, all of which Sheriff Sherman Bloch dismissed as recreational frolic. Yet, at least one lieutenant who tried to control the situation at Lynwood was sabotaged and run out of the station.
Civil rights actions, known as the Lynwood litigation, brought by private lawyers in an effort to stop the department's unconstitutional practices, eventually resulted in a federal-court verdict in excess of $430,000 against the county, which later was subsumed in a settlement with the county for $7.5 million, coupled with the appointment of a monitor for five years.
The point of all this is that the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department has vigorously and constantly resisted change or moderation of its force and shooting policies and practices. Only a strong and determined monitor is going to effectuate change; and that will require someone willing to enforce constitutional and human rights in the criminal courts against those deputies who manifestly abuse their authority.
Here, however, we have a monitor appointed who is characterized as a man of gentle demeanor. Our citizens do not need a gentle prosecutor. They need a tough law enforcer who will energetically and unashamedly root out of the department goons, perjurers and reckless shooters who see their job out of a gun barrel. This will take a person who does not place his image before his duty.
Mr. Gennaco is not such a person.
He refused to prosecute two Riverside County deputy sheriffs whom a video camera aimed from a hovering helicopter caught mercilessly beating two unarmed, nonresisting, helpless undocumented workers on the ground. Indeed, Gennaco used the power of his office to frustrate and prevent civil discovery for nearly a year.
More recently, he has refused to prosecute the Riverside police officers who recklessly and needlessly shot and killed a woman in an automobile just as she was roused from sleeping.
Gennaco's explanation for failing to prosecute these cases was that the legal standards were too high to get a conviction. With that attitude and view of the Constitution, he is of little value to police-misconduct reform.
There are just too many unjustified police shootings that end up not being prosecuted, generally because the prosecutors are more sympathetic to the cops than their victims - and because prosecutors don't want to soil their conviction records.
Yet, the standard for prosecuting lay civilians for murder who wrongfully shoot police is the same as for prosecuting police whose shooting is unjustified: Both cases require proof of specific intent and guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The difference is, when an officer is the victim, prosecutors do not agonize over whether to bring murder charges against the shooter. It should not matter who the victim is.
The imperative here is to deter lawless law enforcement and establish a policy of deterrence of reckless and unjustified police homicides. Gentleness isn't going to do it.
Hugh R. Manes is a retired civil rights lawyer who specialized in police misconduct litigation for 35 years.
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