Police Inquiry Panels May Join Forces

A special seven-member citizens commission appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley on Monday to investigate the Los Angeles Police Department and a similar panel put together by Chief Daryl F. Gates last week are considering the possibility of joining forces, The Times has learned.

“I think it would be good for everybody if we could come up with some kind of coordinated effort,” said retired state Supreme Court Justice John A. Arguelles, the head of Gates’ five-member civilian panel. “There are (now) two committees that might be perceived by the public as having independent agendas that they might want to advance.”

The chairman of the mayor’s commission, former Deputy Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher, confirmed that he and Arguelles talked Monday about the possibility of pooling resources. “We did have a discussion. I don’t know where it will lead,” he said.

Talk of a possible merger between the two panels was suggested last week by James Q. Wilson, a leading police expert who was expected to formally advise Bradley’s commission but said Monday he never agreed to do so. Wilson said he urged the mayor’s office and Christopher to avoid the risk of sending conflicting signals to the community in the wake of the Rodney G. King beating.

“It would be very unfortunate for everyone involved if we had two separate commissions trampling all over each other’s footsteps,” said Wilson, a noted criminologist and UCLA management professor. “One of their first orders of business ought to be to see if there is any way . . . to have one commission that people in Los Angeles will have confidence in to do whatever is necessary.”

Wilson is one of three “senior advisers” who was supposed to serve as a consultant to the mayor’s commission, Bradley said Monday.

But the mayor’s announcement caught Wilson by surprise. “Nobody asked me to be a senior adviser, nor did I agree to be one,” Wilson said.

Christopher said in an interview that Wilson had agreed to “render advice” to the commission, but he was not prepared to serve on the panel because of travel plans. Wilson was sought out because he is “a leading figure in this field and has been writing on police matters for a long time,” Christopher said.

The other two senior advisers are retired Assistant Police Chief Jesse A. Brewer and former New York Police Commissioner Patrick Murphy, the mayor’s office announced. Murphy said he has no idea at this time what his role will be.

The mayor’s commission was embraced on Monday by Gates, who has been under intense pressure to resign in the wake of the March 3 beating of King.

“We welcome an examination by any group that acts in good faith with fairness and objectivity,” the chief said in a prepared statement. “I believe that the Christopher Commission is made up of people of high quality. . . . I am sure the work of this group will complement the Arguelles panel and vice versa.”

He added: “My only hope is that both panels will do their assessment and inquiry in as short a period of time as is possible.”

Citing “a crisis of confidence” in the Los Angeles Police Department, Bradley announced his commission at a news conference Monday--the seventh major police inquiry launched in the four weeks since the beating.

“The time has come for a reasoned, objective, thorough and constructive examination of the structure and the operation of the police department,” the mayor said.

The blue-ribbon panel, named the Christopher Commission, will study a broad range of problems plaguing the department, including police brutality, Bradley said.

Other police probes stemming from the King incident are the Arguelles panel’s; an LAPD internal affairs investigation into possible administrative charges against the officers who participated in the beating and others who did not try to stop it; criminal investigations by the Los Angeles County Grand Jury and the district attorney’s office; a review by the U.S. Justice Department of police brutality complaints, and a Bradley-ordered Police Commission inquiry.

With a series of additional investigations likely to be initiated by congressional committees and other state and local agencies, Bradley said Monday that he decided to form a “high-level, independent commission” of his own.

“I am not willing to leave this inquiry to others,” the mayor said.

Bradley praised “the independent nature” of his commission, although the appointees include Mickey Kantor, a City Hall lobbyist and Los Angeles lawyer who has defended the mayor during investigations into his personal finances and official conduct.

Kantor, a well-known Democratic Party strategist, was named by Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, who asked to appoint one of the seven members, said Bradley spokesman Bill Chandler.

Shrugging aside questions about his relationship with Kantor, Bradley said: “The work of this commission is too important for anyone to raise speculations of this kind or questions of this kind. Mickey Kantor has a reputation for honesty and integrity that is completely above and beyond reproach.”

Other members of the mayor’s commission are Roy Anderson, chairman emeritus of Lockheed Corp.; Leo F. Estrada, a demographer and associate professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning; Andrea Sheridan Ordin, a former U.S. attorney in Los Angeles and now chief litigator at the Los Angeles law firm of Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz; John Slaughter, president of Occidental College, and Robert Tranquada, dean of the USC School of Medicine.

“We intend to make a thorough and comprehensive study of the operation and structure of the Police Department,” Christopher said. “It will be objective, independent and nonpartisan. We will focus not on a single incident or individual, but on the entire length and breadth of the problem.”

The mayor’s commission, which is expected to raise more than $1 million in private funds and donated services, hopes to issue its initial report in 60 to 90 days, Bradley said.

Last week, Arguelles and retired USC President James Zumberge were named by Gates to lead a study on police training with regard to the use of force and litigation involving police brutality. The panel’s three remaining members will be named by Arguelles, who retired from the state Supreme Court in 1989 and is now practicing law in Orange County.

Arguelles said two committees working separately could create the perception that Gates’ panel would lean toward the chief while Bradley’s commission would lean toward the mayor.

Arguelles said he suggested to Christopher on Monday that the two committees coordinate efforts. “I think that it is important that the respective committees be perceived as objective and independent. We both want to proceeded in that fashion,” he said.

In an initial interview Monday, Christopher said the mayor’s commission had no plans at this time to join Gates’ panel.

“It is important that a commission has the independence that I believe we will demonstrate that ours has,” he said.

But later in the day, Christopher softened his statement. “I certainly don’t challenge Justice Arguelles’ description of the discussion,” he said.

Chandler said the mayor’s office had no comment on the possible merging of the two panels. Gates could not be reached.

The numerous investigations into the King beating can be explained by the national outrage sparked by a videotape made of the incident by a man with a home video camera, legal scholars say.

The episode will be remembered as “one of the defining events in police history,” said UC Berkeley law professor Jerome Skolnick. “It is to police history what Selma was to the civil rights movement.”

With the exception of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Skolnick said he could think of no other single event that has triggered so many investigations.

“They may conflict with each other. But what they are all going to do is keep this incident alive for a very long time, and keep the focus of police violence as an issue alive,” said Skolnick, adding that he believes this is healthy.

For police involved in the incident, the multiple investigations will require each officer “to tell his story over and over and over again,” said Diane Marchant, an attorney hired by the Los Angeles Police Protective League to represent officers present at the King beating. “I’m just thinking that an awful lot of officers are going to spend an awful lot of time testifying when they could be on the street doing their jobs.”

Police Commissioner Dan Garcia said he and his colleagues, who began their investigation nearly four weeks ago, will attempt to coordinate with the Gates and Bradley panels. The Police Commission is already talking to the district attorney’s office, Garcia said.

While acknowledging a “danger of these various commissions duplicating efforts,” Police Commissioner Melanie Lomax said, “my basic feeling is that the Rodney King incident and all it represents is so profoundly disturbing to the city and the nation that all these commissions are necessary to quell the anxiety and build confidence that there will be institutional reform and a reduced likelihood of recurrence.

“In this case, my bottom-line opinion is the more the merrier in the sense that a wide-sweeping investigation of the LAPD is what is necessary in order to restore confidence.” The key to any citizens panel achieving substantive reforms is to produce findings that command public attention, said Murphy, a senior adviser to the mayor’s commission.

“Some (citizens commissions) have been very productive and some of them haven’t amounted to much more than a report being produced and put on a shelf,” he said.

Times staff writer Hector Tobar contributed to this story.

INVESTIGATIONS OF THE LAPD

Inquiries launched after the March 3 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police include:

CIVIL INQUIRIES

Christopher Commission

Formed by: Mayor Tom Bradley on April 1

Mission: To conduct a broad inquiry into Police Department practices and procedures.

Composition: Chairman Warren M. Christopher, former deputy secretary of state and chairman of the Los Angeles law firm O’Melveny & Myers. Other members are Roy Anderson; Leo F. Estrada; Mickey Kantor; Andrea Sheridan Ordin; John Slaughter and Robert Tranquada. Senior advisers are retired Assistant Police Chief Jesse A. Brewer and former New York Police Commissioner Patrick Murphy. Funding: Expected to raise more than $1 million in funds and donated services through businesses, foundations and universities.

Arguelles Panel

Formed by: Police Chief Daryl F. Gates on March 27

Mission: To restore confidence in the Police Department, examine incidents of excessive force and recommend reforms of LAPD policies.

Composition: Retired state Supreme Court Justice John A. Arguelles and James H. Zumberge, retired president of USC; three other panelists are to be chosen by Arguelles.

Funding: Expected to rely heavily on police funds and personnel.

Police Commission

Requested by: Mayor Tom Bradley

Mission: To open a wide-ranging investigation of the LAPD’s policies and practices, especially toward minorities.

Composition: The commission is appointed by the mayor. Attorneys Daniel P. Garcia, Melanie Lomax and Sam Williams are members. Recent appointment of Stanley Sheinbaum, a civil libertarian and Gates critic, is pending before the City Council.

Police Internal Affairs Division

Requested by: Police Chief Daryl F. Gates

Mission: To examine conduct of officers in the King case to determine whether any should be disciplined.

Composition: LAPD investigators.

CRIMINAL INQUIRIES

U.S. Justice Department

On March 25, FBI agents began visiting the homes of 246 officers who work out of the Foothill Division to determine whether there is a pattern of civil rights abuses. The civil rights division is also examining about 100 civil suits accusing the city’s police of mistreating suspects in their custody. This is part of a nationwide look at 15,000 lawsuits.

L.A. County Grand Jury

The 23-member citizens panel began hearing testimony on March 11 and indicted four officers on March 15.

L.A. County District Attorney’s Office

Fourteen Los Angeles County district attorney’s investigators are concentrating their efforts on the 17 uniformed officers who were present during the beating but did not intervene.

Compiled by Times editorial researcher Cecilia Rasmussen