Tag Archives: LAPD

LAPD

LAPD Chief Michel Moore’s Financial Disclosures Show That In 2021 To Date He Likely Earned Between $35,600 And $339,370 From Stocks And Dividends Alone — Which Works Out To Between $164.06 And $1,563.92 Per Day — Per Freaking Day! — Annualized It Is Between $59,881 And $579,830 — Which Is Entirely On Top Of His Annual Compensation Of More Than $450K Per Year

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Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore apparently earned between $164.06 and $1,563.92 per day in 2021 from his investments in the stock market alone. This is a total of something between $35,600 and $339,370 from January 4, 2021 to August 5, 2021. Annualized it comes to between $59,881 and $570,830, which is a lot of damn money!1 That’s the news, and the rest of the post consists of me showing my work. I put all salient information into a spreadsheet if you want to check my method.

We start with Moore’s 2020 Form 700.2 These require disclosure of some information about the employees’s investments including names of the stocks and which of four ranges includes their fair market value. The ranges are as follows, with links to their Yahoo Finance pages showing the historical data I used in the calculations:

  • $2,000—10,000
  • $10,001—$100,000
  • $100,001—$1,000,000
  • Over $1,000,000

Moore discloses ownership of fourteen different stocks, all of them but one with aggregate values in one of the two lower ranges. Here they are along with links to their Yahoo Finance pages, which is where I obtained historical price data:

Moore's Stock Holdings (click to expand)
Stock name Value range
Altria Group $2000—$10,000
Emerson Electric $2000—$10,000
Home Depot $10,001—$100,000
Cisco Systems $10,001—$100,000
Discover Financial Services $2000—$10,000
Intel $100,001—$1,000,000
Pfizer $2000—$10,000
Kraft $2000—$10,000
Philip Morris $10,001—$100,000
Mondelez $2000—$10,000
Royal Dutch Shell3 $10,001—$100,000
Western Digital $10,001—$100,000
Texas Instruments $10,001—$100,000
Linde PLC $10,001—$100,000

And here are the prices on January 4, 2021, on August 5, 2021, and the percent change in value:

Moore's Stock Prices (click to expand)
Stock 1/4/21 price 8/5/21 price Absolute change Relative change
Altria 40.84 47.36 6.52 15.96%
Emerson Electric 78.01 101.06 23.05 29.55%
Home Depot 263.92 333.111 69.191 26.22%
Cisco 43.96 55.76 11.8 26.84%
Discover Fin Serv 89.61 127.1 37.49 41.84%
Intel 49.67 53.89 4.22 8.5%
Pfizer 36.81 45.06 8.25 22.41%
Kraft 34.23 36.94 2.71 7.92%
Phillip Morris 81.5 99.59 18.09 2.22%
Mondelez 57.92 61.86 3.94 6.8%
Shell 36.03 41.2 5.17 14.35%
Western Digital 53.06 67.07 14.01 26.4%
Texas Instruments 162.22 193.16 30.94 19.07%
Linde PLC 258.81 304.83 46.02 17.78%

All but one of Moore’s stocks pay dividends, which can be a significant part of investment income. Here are the dividend rates as of August 5, 2021:4

Moore's dividend rates (click to expand)
Stock Dividend
Altria 7.26%
Emerson Electric 2%
Home Depot 2%
Cisco 2.65%
Discover Fin Serv 1.59%
Intel 2.58%
Pfizer 3.46%
Kraft 4.33%
Phillip Morris 4.82%
Mondelez 2.27%
Shell 3.67%
Western Digital N/A
Texas Instruments 2.11%
Linde PLC 1.39%

And applying the percent change to the minimum and maximum values of each range of Moore’s holdings and adding twice the dividend yield shows his minimum and maximum investment gains, both total and daily, for 2021 through August 5:5

Moore's min/max 2021 gains (click to expand)
Stock Min 2021 gain Max 2021 gain
Altria $609.60 $3,048.00
Emerson Electric $671.00 $3,355.00
Home Depot $3,022.00 $30,220.00
Cisco $3,214.00 $32,140.00
Discover Fin Serv $900.40 $4,502.00
Intel $13,660.00 $136,600.00
Pfizer $586.60 $2,933.00
Kraft $331.60 $1,658.00
Phillip Morris $3,184.00 $31,840.00
Mondelez $226.80 $1,134.00
Shell $2,169.00 $21,690.00
Western Digital $2,640.00 $26,400.00
Texas Instruments $2,329.00 $23,290.00
Linde PLC $2,056.00 $20,560.00



Total $35,600.14 $339,370.00




Min daily gain: Max daily gain:

$164.06 $1,563.92

As stated in the opening paragraph, these calculations show that Moore’s estimated 2021 investment gains through August 5, 2021 were between $35,600 and $339,370. August 5, 2021 was the 217th day of the year, so simple division shows that from investments alone in 2021 Moore earned between $164.06 and $1,563.92 per day in 2021 from investments alone.

This isn’t insignificant, by the way. According to Transparent California Moore earned $462,648.52 in salary and benefits in 2019,6 which is $1267.53 per day. At the top end of my estimate, then, Moore’s investment income adds more than 73% to his annual compensation. At the very least he’s increasing it by 13%.

Does this mean something? Certainly. Am I going to speculate? Certainly not. Like I said above I put all the figures into a spreadsheet so you can check my work if you want to. And that’s it. That’s the blog post!

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LAPD

Gerald Chaleff — Who Wrote A Report Exonerating LAPD Of Moral Responsibility For Their Appalling Violence Against Protesters During The 2020 Civil Unrest — Applied In February 2020 To Be An LAPD Civilian Hearing Examiner — Which Casts Even More Doubt On His Ethical Independence From LAPD — Hearing Examiner Applicants Have Their Fingerprints Run Against DOJ And FBI Databases — Even Chaleff Had To Do This Although He Was Formerly President Of The Police Commission — No Surprise That He Came Back Clean But What Is Surprising Is That I Have Copies Of The Confidential Reports! — And So Do You If You Want Them!!

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This post is based on three public records pertaining to attorney and long-time police booster Gerald Chaleff, hired by LAPD to report on their misbehavior during the 2020 civil unrest. If you don’t want to read through the nonsense to get to the goods, here they are:

⤕ February 4, 2020 email from Cindy So — Establishes that Chaleff applied to be an LAPD hearing officer in early 2020.

⤕ DOJ report on Gerald Chaleff

⤕ FBI report on Gerald Chaleff

In 2020 LAPD was in full-on attack mode against the protesters who filled the streets of Los Angeles supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and other progressive causes. They shot, beat, and falsely arrested protesters by the hundreds. As part of their carefully planned media response strategy LAPD engaged former Police Commission president Gerald Chaleff to write a report on their misbehavior.

Given the psychopathically lenient approach the Commission takes with respect to LAPD oversight no one sensible expected Chaleff’s report to tell much truth, and we the sensible certainly were neither disappointed in this expectation nor surprised that Chaleff’s recommendations boiled down to the usual training, training, and more training.

Chaleff’s connections with LAPD, from his time on the Commission to his stint as William Bratton’s Special Assistant for Constitutional Policing, whatever that may be, have been widely reported. But I haven’t seen any reporting on the fact that in February 2020, before COVID shut down the City and before he was engaged to write his report, Chaleff applied to LAPD to be a civilian hearing officer.
Continue reading Gerald Chaleff — Who Wrote A Report Exonerating LAPD Of Moral Responsibility For Their Appalling Violence Against Protesters During The 2020 Civil Unrest — Applied In February 2020 To Be An LAPD Civilian Hearing Examiner — Which Casts Even More Doubt On His Ethical Independence From LAPD — Hearing Examiner Applicants Have Their Fingerprints Run Against DOJ And FBI Databases — Even Chaleff Had To Do This Although He Was Formerly President Of The Police Commission — No Surprise That He Came Back Clean But What Is Surprising Is That I Have Copies Of The Confidential Reports! — And So Do You If You Want Them!! →

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LAPD, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Los Angeles Has Paid Almost $1.5M Settling Recent Public Records Suits Against LAPD — But LAPD Continues To Violate The Law With Impunity — Newly Obtained Reports Show That They’ve Radically Decreased Staff In The CPRA Unit — Even As They Deny Requests Which They Claim Would Use Too Much Staff Time To Fill — They Pad Their Request Completion Stats By Prioritizing Innocuous Automated Reports Rather Than Substantial Material — And They Handle Requests From Mainstream Media Outlets More Promptly Than Others

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The Los Angeles Police Department routinely violates the civil rights of Angelenos. They kill, beat, and maim, of course, but also conduct countless racist pretextual stops of drivers and bicyclists. They’re allowed to do this by the LA City Council, and without good information about what they’re up to it’s not easy for Angelenos to control them.

But they also routinely violate the California Public Records Act. The details range from egregiously obvious to subtly technical but in every case the goal, and for the most part the actual result, is to keep public records out of the hands of the public. They have been sued repeatedly and successfully for this over the last five years.7 To my knowledge they’ve never prevailed in a public records case.

LAPD’s violations are expensive.8 Since 2016 the City of Los Angeles has paid out at least $1,377,224 to settle CPRA suits against the police department only.9 Given the number of pending cases this figure is likely to top $1.5M by the end of 2021. The fact that settlement payments come from the City’s general fund clearly facilitates LAPD’s strategy of denying access to records until a suit is filed.

One of the most common reasons LAPD gives for denying the public access to records is that to produce them would be “burdensome.” There’s no such exemption in the CPRA, but courts have found, in some cases, that a public agency’s use of its resources, including employee salaries, to fill a request serves the public interest less than the production of the records would do.10 Continue reading Los Angeles Has Paid Almost $1.5M Settling Recent Public Records Suits Against LAPD — But LAPD Continues To Violate The Law With Impunity — Newly Obtained Reports Show That They’ve Radically Decreased Staff In The CPRA Unit — Even As They Deny Requests Which They Claim Would Use Too Much Staff Time To Fill — They Pad Their Request Completion Stats By Prioritizing Innocuous Automated Reports Rather Than Substantial Material — And They Handle Requests From Mainstream Media Outlets More Promptly Than Others →

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LAPD, Los Angeles City Council

Soon-To-Be-Indicted Mitch Englander Resigned From LA City Council Effective January 1 2019 — By January 31 2019 Steve Soboroff — At That Time President Of The Police Commission — Was Conspiring With LAPD Chief Michel Moore And LA Police Foundation Board Member Warren Dern To Get Englander A Seat On The Police Foundation Board — Soboroff And Dern Had Lunch With Englander At Freaking La Scala To Discuss It — Although Nothing Seems To Have Come Of The Plan

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December 31, 2018 was now-convicted felon Mitchell Englander’s last day on the Los Angeles City Council. He was all like “I am stepping down for a once in a lifetime career blah blah blah” but of course he was getting out ahead of his arrest, exposure, conviction, and sentencing for corruption. The impending disgrace, however, didn’t stop his zillionaire cronies from cushioning his landing with job offers and fancy lunches.

Most famously, of course, on January 1, 2019 he started his new career with the Oak View Group, which is a Los Angeles based “global advisory, development and investment company for the sports and live entertainment industries.” In other words, a perfect landing spot for an as-yet-unindicted former politician. Nothing hurts these politicos more than being forced out of the inner circles of power, though, and making a zillion dollars a year as a lobbyist doesn’t quite fill the kind of ego void created by public disgrace.11

And unhinged typewriter fetishist and perpetual inner power circle dweller Steve Soboroff, at that time president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, apparently understood this quite well. Which is probably why, on January 31, 2019, Soboroff fired off an email to Hollywood power lawyer Warren Dern, also a member of the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Police Foundation:
Continue reading Soon-To-Be-Indicted Mitch Englander Resigned From LA City Council Effective January 1 2019 — By January 31 2019 Steve Soboroff — At That Time President Of The Police Commission — Was Conspiring With LAPD Chief Michel Moore And LA Police Foundation Board Member Warren Dern To Get Englander A Seat On The Police Foundation Board — Soboroff And Dern Had Lunch With Englander At Freaking La Scala To Discuss It — Although Nothing Seems To Have Come Of The Plan →

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LAPD, Lawsuits, Los Angeles City Government

In 2016 An LAPD Police Dog Attacked Heller Castillo — When He Opened His Front Door Because He Thought The Police Wanted Him To — Although He Was Not A Suspect In Any Way — The Law Imposes Strict Liability For Non-Suspect Police Dog Attacks — A Top Secret Confidential Report Obtained By MK.Org Reveals That In January 2020 Deputy City Attorney Lisa Lee Recommended A $75K Settlement Offer Because “a jury would almost certainly find in favor of the Plaintiff” — Which Is A Good Reason To Settle — But Lee Thought The Plaintiff Would Refuse — He Was Asking For $800K And His Lawyers Surely Know About Los Angeles Juries — However Ending The Case Was Not Lee’s Purpose — Which Is Apparent Since She Recommended A So-Called 998 Offer — Which Is An Aggressive Litigation Tactic — That Is Absolutely Not Reasonable For Cities To Use Against Citizens — Cities Ought To Seek Justice — Not Petty Revenge — The Case Is Ongoing By The Way — Trial Setting Conference In April 2021

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In April 2016 LAPD was out hunting suspects with police dogs. One of the dogs scratched on the door of Heller Castillo’s house. He thought the police wanted him to open the door and did so, at which time he was attacked by one of their dogs. Castillo filed a suit. In January 2020 he City Attorney’s office recommended in January 2020 that City Council authorize an aggressive settlement offer of $75K that Lisa Lee, the Deputy handling the case, thought wouldn’t be accepted but wanted to make anyway for strategic reasons, even though she knew the City was at fault and was convinced they’d lose badly if the case went to a jury. Here’s a copy of the confidential report that Lee sent to City Council in January 2020 in advance of the closed session called to discuss the issue.

According to the Los Angeles City Charter the City Attorney represents the City of Los Angeles in lawsuits.12 Which means that from time to time the City Attorney has to consult with the City Council to ask for direction from their client, the City of Los Angeles.13 On such occasions the Brown Act allows14 such meetings to take place in secret, which they always do.

But prior to such meetings the City Attorney’s office sends a confidential report to the City Council so that they can be ready to discuss. These reports are generally exempt from release15 under the California Public Records Act, but from time to time I manage to lay my hands on a copy of one. This last happened with the employment practices case brought by LAPD officer Ray Garvin against the City of Los Angeles.

And today I have another such confidential report for you. This is from January 2020 and has to do with the case Castillo v. City of LA,16 in which a police dog bit plaintiff Heller Castillo during an LAPD operation in which he was in no way a suspect. Lisa W. Lee, the Deputy City Attorney handling the case, recommends in this report to City Council that she be allowed to make a 998 offer of $75K to settle, even though, as Lee says:

it is anticipated that Plaintiff will not accept an offer of $75,000, [but] we believe that we should make the offer as a tool to encourage settlement.

Lee doesn’t think Castillo would accept $75K because he is asking for $800K, because the state of California imposes strict liability for police dogs biting non-suspects, and the facts are horrific, so that a jury is unlikely to find in the City’s favor:
Continue reading In 2016 An LAPD Police Dog Attacked Heller Castillo — When He Opened His Front Door Because He Thought The Police Wanted Him To — Although He Was Not A Suspect In Any Way — The Law Imposes Strict Liability For Non-Suspect Police Dog Attacks — A Top Secret Confidential Report Obtained By MK.Org Reveals That In January 2020 Deputy City Attorney Lisa Lee Recommended A $75K Settlement Offer Because “a jury would almost certainly find in favor of the Plaintiff” — Which Is A Good Reason To Settle — But Lee Thought The Plaintiff Would Refuse — He Was Asking For $800K And His Lawyers Surely Know About Los Angeles Juries — However Ending The Case Was Not Lee’s Purpose — Which Is Apparent Since She Recommended A So-Called 998 Offer — Which Is An Aggressive Litigation Tactic — That Is Absolutely Not Reasonable For Cities To Use Against Citizens — Cities Ought To Seek Justice — Not Petty Revenge — The Case Is Ongoing By The Way — Trial Setting Conference In April 2021 →

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LAPD

An Anonymous Complaint Against LAPD Commander Anne Clark Of The Detective Services Group Details Her Sexist Misrule — Reveals The Existence Of A Secret Internal Affairs Audit Of The Detective Bureau — Accuses Clark Of Hating Women Command Staff — Humiliating Them In Public — Accuses Deputy Chief Kris Pitcher Of Enabling Clark’s Bad Behavior For His Own Selfish Purposes — And Of Conspiring With Clark To Criminally Misuse Federal Funds — And Michel Moore Opened Up A Personnel Complaint Against Clark On The Basis Of This Anonymous Email — Did I Mention There Is A Complete Copy Of It Right Here For You?!

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GREETINGS NEW READERS FROM LAPD!! If you’re enjoying this story please note that it was only possible because some lovely and thoughtful person inside LAPD leaked a confidential email to me. Maybe you’ve seen something the world ought to see? Send it along, friend! You can use my Dropbox here, just make up an email address and name, or go full tinfoil hat and use Tor and PGP! Details here.

Commander Anne Clark runs LAPD’s Detective Services Group, which makes her second in command of the Detective Bureau, reporting directly to Deputy Chief Kris Pitcher. But it’s not a happy workplace, apparently. According to an anonymous email sent on August 6. 2020 to Los Angeles Police Commissioner Shane Murphy Goldsmith by someone using the pseudonym David Well, Internal Affairs Group was at that time conducting a “workplace audit”, apparently LAPD-speak for IAG investigations that lack “CF numbers”, whatever those might be.

Despite the pseudonym, though, I’d bet good money the anonymous complainant is a woman. The accusations against Clarke are not only completely plausible, they have to do with the kind of pro-male sexism that certain women in certain powerful positions can display. They’re not really the kind of problems that men tend to notice in this amount of detail. E.g.

“Anne Clark dislikes other female command staff within Detective Bureau, which appears to be based on their gender. She is very cordial to and supportive of the male Captains but rude, obnoxious, disrespectful and downright mean to the female Captains.

It’s hard for me to imagine a male LAPD officer noticing this kind of behavior and at the same time thinking it’s worth complaining about.17 There are plenty of other examples like this. In fact all of the specific examples have to do with Clark’s mistreatment of high-ranking women, which suggests that the complainant is also a high-ranking woman. The email also faults Clark’s superior officer, Kris Pitcher:

Deputy Chief Kris Pitcher is complicit in that he listens to how she speaks to others during Compstat inspections or other venues, yet does nothing to stop her unprofessional demeanor, most likely because he has been promised the next Assistant Chief position and does not want to jeopardize his appointment by being blamed by Clark for taking action against a female employee.

Michel Moore received Well’s email, which is transcribed in its lurid entirety below, and had his command staff initiate a personnel complaint against Clark. He also asked for a briefing on the Workplace Audit Well refers to. But I have no idea what happened after that, at least not yet I don’t!
Continue reading An Anonymous Complaint Against LAPD Commander Anne Clark Of The Detective Services Group Details Her Sexist Misrule — Reveals The Existence Of A Secret Internal Affairs Audit Of The Detective Bureau — Accuses Clark Of Hating Women Command Staff — Humiliating Them In Public — Accuses Deputy Chief Kris Pitcher Of Enabling Clark’s Bad Behavior For His Own Selfish Purposes — And Of Conspiring With Clark To Criminally Misuse Federal Funds — And Michel Moore Opened Up A Personnel Complaint Against Clark On The Basis Of This Anonymous Email — Did I Mention There Is A Complete Copy Of It Right Here For You?! →

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LAPD

Never Before Seen Unredacted Confidential Closed Session LAPD Use Of Force Reports Now Available — Twelve From 2019 And Two From 2020 — Along With Sixteen Confidential 24 Hour Incident Summaries From 2020 — Including Police Killings — Wounds — Complete Misses — Officers Shooting Their Guns By Mistake — Three Dead Dogs — A Very Rare Example Of An LAPD Family Liason Unit Report — Apparently After LAPD Officers Shoot A Person They Send These People Out To Meet With Their Victim’s Family — Which I Did Not Know About

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When Los Angeles Police Department officers shoot, hurt, or kill people or animals, and even when they fire their guns by accident, the Department investigates the incident and reports on it to the Police Commission.18 For sufficiently serious incidents both the Chief and the Inspector General review the evidence and write confidential reports, which are then considered in closed session by the Commission. Even the least serious incidents get covered in a so-called “Chief of Police 24 Hour Occurrence Log Force Investigation Division” report. The ones for which

The Department publishes summaries of the first kind of reports on their website and it’s possible to get redacted versions of the original confidential closed session reportsif you ask for them,19 but I’ve never seen the unredacted reports published anywhere. Until now, that is, because I have an unprecedented set of records comprising both Chief and OIG reports from 14 cases in 2019 and 2020 and 18 of the previously mentioned 24 Hour Occurrence reports from 2020 for you today!

Some of the more serious cases also have confidential minority opinions filed by LAPD Command staff and I have those too, also unredacted. One of the cases, Alex Flores, has an unredacted LAPD Family Liason report. AYou can download all of them here on Archive.Org, or read on for brief summaries and direct links. Here are internal links to the files organized by victim in ascending date order:

🜰  Raymond Hernandez
🜰  Unintentional gunshot 1
🜰  Garrett Scott Coressel
🜰  Unnamed pit bull 1
🜰  James Frazier Lazzeri Jr. — Incl. minority report
🜰  Rodolfo Louis Coleman
🜰  Unintentional gunshot 2
🜰  Unintentional gunshot 3
🜰  Alex Flores — Incl. LAPD Family liason rpt
🜰  Nathaniel Robert Pinnock — Incl. minority rpt
🜰  Nathan Alexander Tovar — Incl redacted version for comparison
🜰  Lonyea Calloway
🜰  Julio Rafael Rodriguez
🜰  Oktawian Balenkowski
🜰  Unintentional gunshot 4
🜰  Alfonso Mauldin
🜰  Aleksandr Rusanovskiy
🜰  Daniel Rivera
🜰  Unnamed pit bull 2
🜰  Ben Montemayor
🜰  Kwame Page
🜰  Abigail Rodas
🜰  Yordy Ochoa
🜰  Maximillian Ochoa
🜰  Unnamed protester
🜰  Kevin Carr
🜰  Julie Anne Archer
🜰  Brandon Maxwell
🜰  Bryan Gudiel Barrios
🜰  Vanessa Nunez
🜰  Unnamed pit bull 3
🜰  Manuel Marshall Hernandez

Continue reading Never Before Seen Unredacted Confidential Closed Session LAPD Use Of Force Reports Now Available — Twelve From 2019 And Two From 2020 — Along With Sixteen Confidential 24 Hour Incident Summaries From 2020 — Including Police Killings — Wounds — Complete Misses — Officers Shooting Their Guns By Mistake — Three Dead Dogs — A Very Rare Example Of An LAPD Family Liason Unit Report — Apparently After LAPD Officers Shoot A Person They Send These People Out To Meet With Their Victim’s Family — Which I Did Not Know About →

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LAPD

California Cop Disciplinary Processes Are Notoriously Top Secret — They Don’t Even Release Names Of Accused Officers Except In Very Extreme Circumstances — But Here Is A Spreadsheet From August 2020 Showing All Pending LAPD Board Of Rights Cases — Including Accused Officers’ Names And Serial Numbers — Names Of Hearing Officers — Defense Attorneys — LAPD Department Advocate — Who Acts Like A Prosecutor — Dates Of Upcoming Hearings — And Other Disciplinary Processes Also — I Have Never Seen Anything Like This Document!

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Santa Claus teaches children many important lessons about ubiquitous surveillance and moral judgments,20 but if those children grow up to be LAPD officers, well, the lessons are no longer true for them. I mean, Santa Claus can make a list and check it twice and no matter how naughty officers are accused of being, a lot of time no one outside of 100 W. 1st Street ever hears a word about it.

This deep, deep silence gets even deeper when a board of rights is involved. These shadowy hearing boards review the Chief’s punishment recommendations and almost always overturn them. But the names of officers appearing before boards of rights are secret, as are their findings and pretty much everything about them. Boards of rights have gotten some attention from the news since 2017, though.

That’s when LA voters amended the Charter to allow for all-civilian membership. People feared that civilian boards would go much easier on accused officers, and the officers themselves clearly believe that this is the case. The usually toothless LAPD Office of the Inspector General is currently looking into the process afforded by these boards. And he’s going to release his conclusions in the aggregate. Like e.g. since they’ve been allowed to, it looks like 100% of LAPD officers choose all civilians.

Why? Well, we could ask them if we knew who they were, but … well, actually, I have a record for you! It’s a spreadsheet from August 2020 with lists of all pending board of rights hearings. I also exported this as a PDF and you can read it in HTML over here. It includes the names of the accused officers, their attorneys, and the names of the members of the boards of rights.

It reveals the date the precipitating incident took place and the date of the next scheduled hearing so it’s possible to see how long the process takes. So for instance, the next time you see LAPD Officer Oscar Rojas, serial number 43061, you could ask him how his hearing on December 7, 2020 went. Or LAPD Officer Monica Moore, serial number 35815, you can ask her if she’s worried about her upcoming hearing on February 8, 2021.
Continue reading California Cop Disciplinary Processes Are Notoriously Top Secret — They Don’t Even Release Names Of Accused Officers Except In Very Extreme Circumstances — But Here Is A Spreadsheet From August 2020 Showing All Pending LAPD Board Of Rights Cases — Including Accused Officers’ Names And Serial Numbers — Names Of Hearing Officers — Defense Attorneys — LAPD Department Advocate — Who Acts Like A Prosecutor — Dates Of Upcoming Hearings — And Other Disciplinary Processes Also — I Have Never Seen Anything Like This Document! →

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LAPD

The Oscar Joel Bryant Foundation — Which Represents African-American LAPD Officers and Civilian Staff — Surveyed Its Members On Workplace Racism Regarding The George Floyd Protests — Sixty Percent Of Respondents Witnessed Or Were Aware Of Racist Statements Made By LAPD Employees — Foundation President Jody Stiger Met With Chief Michel Moore To Discuss — Here’s A Copy Of The Foundation’s Newsletter With Stiger’s Report — And A Lot Of Other Interesting Material

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The Oscar Joel Bryant Foundation “represents African American officers and civilian employees who proudly serve the Los Angeles Police Department and other municipal agencies throughout the county.” The Foundation publishes a quarterly newsletter known as Pursuit. In the Second Quarter 2020 issue Foundation president Jody Stiger wrote that soon after this Spring’s protests over the killing of George Floyd began, he …

… began to receive numerous calls and texts from members and non-members regarding the harsh and callous comments being made about the Black Lives Matter movement, officers that decided to kneel with protesters, and countless other comments that were, quite frankly, racist and incongruent with the Department’s Core Values.

The Foundation’s board of directors surveyed the members, asking simply “were you witness to, or aware of, any concerning statements made by LAPD employees in regards to the recent protests and calls for police reform?”

Sixty percent of the respondents answered “yes,” and Stiger told Foundation members that the board had met with LAPD Chief Michel Moore “and expressed your concerns to him. I personally read some of the responses to him, and he was very disappointed with what you all witnessed in the workplace.”21
Stiger goes on to describe other actions the board planned to take to protect the safety and well-being of their members while on the job. Stiger’s entire statement is transcribed below. The Foundation’s members have a unique perspective on the question of what should be done about the LAPD. I haven’t heard as much about it as I have some others, and it makes the whole newsletter, which I was lucky to obtain a copy of, definitely worth reading.
Continue reading The Oscar Joel Bryant Foundation — Which Represents African-American LAPD Officers and Civilian Staff — Surveyed Its Members On Workplace Racism Regarding The George Floyd Protests — Sixty Percent Of Respondents Witnessed Or Were Aware Of Racist Statements Made By LAPD Employees — Foundation President Jody Stiger Met With Chief Michel Moore To Discuss — Here’s A Copy Of The Foundation’s Newsletter With Stiger’s Report — And A Lot Of Other Interesting Material →

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LAPD

LAPD Disciplinary Procedures Are Notoriously Secretive — But I Recently Obtained Records About An Officer — Nicholas Owens — Accused Of Using A Monkey Emoji To Comment On A Video About Mike Tyson And Subsequently Exonerated By A Board Of Rights — Which Reveal Unprecedented Information — Including The Board’s Detailed Rationale For Its Findings — Which Doesn’t Create Much Confidence In The Validity Of The Process — Like E.g. One Reason They Exonerated The Guy Is That None Of His Extensive Sensitivity Training Specifically Covered Emoji-Based Racism — It Sure Looks Like LAPD’s Disciplinary System Is Performance Rather Than Substantial Process — Remember This Whenever Politicians Or Cops Pass Off Disciplinary Procedures As Some Kind Of Police Reform — The Police Run The Process — And Can Make It Look Genuine As Long As The Proceedings Are Secret — So Let’s Open Them Up!

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Summary: LAPD officers accused of rule violations often appear before a Board of Rights in an adversarial proceeding with the Department playing prosecutor. Most end in exoneration. All records of these proceedings are top secret so no one can tell if the process is corrupt or not. I recently obtained records about a disciplinary case against Officer Nicholas Owens, accused of posting a monkey emoji as a comment on a Mike Tyson video, which include the Board’s detailed Rationale for Findings. This includes an explanation of the reasoning behind the Board’s exoneration of Owens. The explanation doesn’t provide much confidence in the integrity of Board of Rights hearings in general. The other document records the Departmental discipline process, which precedes the Board of Rights hearing.

Police discipline records are notoriously top secret in California. Since forever until 2019, when Senator Nancy Skinner‘s monumental SB1421 took effect, they were uniformly exempt from the California Public Records Act. Even now, though, only records relating to the most egregious misconduct can be released, and only when the officer is found guilty.22

But the huge majority of complained-against officers, at least in Los Angeles,23 are exonerated and most police misconduct isn’t covered by SB1421, which leaves most police disciplinary records completely off limits, and even the release of these very limited SB1421 records was and is highly contested. The

In 2019 police statewide fought SB1421 implementation in court, they fought to stop its retroactive application, and are still slow-walking and otherwise obstructing access to the newly available records.24 Releasing records of disciplinary procedures that end in exoneration isn’t even being discussed. But it certainly ought to be, not least because such secrecy really reinforces mistrust of the police.

The most obvious reason for police to be so vehemently against release is that proceedings ending in exoneration are empty performances with predetermined outcomes. If they’re not scripted, the thinking goes, then why not release the records? If privacy is the issue then why not release public versions, as LAPD does for use of force cases? As Peter Bibring of the ACLU says, “That lack of transparency prevents the public from having any faith that the process is working.”

What Bibring doesn’t say is that if the process isn’t working but the public still has faith in it, transparency is likely to destroy even that. Let’s find out! I recently obtained copies of confidential LAPD disciplinary records from a case where the subject was ultimately exonerated. Even though the offense was relatively minor, involving the officer’s use of a monkey emoji in a Facebook post about Mike Tyson, these records provide unprecedented insight into LAPD’s complaint handling procedures.

It started with a July 2018 complaint, called in to LAPD by a citizen, about the contents of Officer Nicholas Owens’s25 Facebook page.26 These two records reveal an unprecedented27 level of detail about LAPD disciplinary proceedings in much, much more ordinary cases than are covered by SB1421. I have never seen anything like them. Here they are:
Continue reading LAPD Disciplinary Procedures Are Notoriously Secretive — But I Recently Obtained Records About An Officer — Nicholas Owens — Accused Of Using A Monkey Emoji To Comment On A Video About Mike Tyson And Subsequently Exonerated By A Board Of Rights — Which Reveal Unprecedented Information — Including The Board’s Detailed Rationale For Its Findings — Which Doesn’t Create Much Confidence In The Validity Of The Process — Like E.g. One Reason They Exonerated The Guy Is That None Of His Extensive Sensitivity Training Specifically Covered Emoji-Based Racism — It Sure Looks Like LAPD’s Disciplinary System Is Performance Rather Than Substantial Process — Remember This Whenever Politicians Or Cops Pass Off Disciplinary Procedures As Some Kind Of Police Reform — The Police Run The Process — And Can Make It Look Genuine As Long As The Proceedings Are Secret — So Let’s Open Them Up! →

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