Mock Grand Jury to Probe Police Abuse

Former U.S. Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark will head an “alternative grand jury” on police crime in Los Angeles that will examine allegations of misconduct in the LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department, it was disclosed Tuesday.

The mock grand jury, which will also include former New York City police officer Frank Serpico, is being convened by a coalition of civil rights groups and citizens who say the Christopher Commission is unlikely to bring about needed changes in the Police Department in the aftermath of the Rodney G. King beating.

They also claim that the commission, appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley and Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and chaired by former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, is too narrowly focused.

“They are limited to the LAPD, and they are starting from the premise that they don’t know whether there is a problem,” said Carol Watson, president of the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, one of the groups supporting the mock grand jury.

“We do not have to be convinced there is a problem; we know there is,” she said. “We have evidence that there have been abusive practices going on in both departments for many years and that they have largely been ignored by the leadership of those departments.”

Watson, who specializes in police brutality lawsuits, said she and her colleagues have been accumulating evidence of police abuses for years and believe that in the wake of the King incident the time is ripe to make them public.

“The problem of law enforcement misconduct is much broader than just the LAPD and precedes Daryl Gates,” Watson added. “And unless changes are made they will continue after his departure.”

Testimony from police officers and victims, police reports, photographs, videotapes and other evidence will be compiled by civil rights lawyers and activists throughout June and presented to the mock grand jury in a public hearing June 29 at Mt. Vernon Junior High School. At that time, the group is expected to return mock indictments.

Presiding over the panel will be Clark, a peace and civil rights activist who was once Christopher’s boss at the U.S. Justice Department when Christopher was an assistant attorney general.

Other panel members will include former New York City policeman and whistle-blower Serpico, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), and civil rights attorneys John McTernan and Marion R. Yagman. Attorney Stephen Yagman, who has been filed a number of brutality suits against the Los Angeles Police Department, will serve as legal counsel.

The examination will address police recruitment, training and performance, including alleged violence and dishonesty on the force, how complaints of police misconduct are investigated and the discipline and civilian oversight of police.

While the Police Department has been the focus of attention since the March 3 beating of King, a videotape recently surfaced showing sheriff’s deputies beating rioting prisoners in the Central Jail five years ago.

Although the mock grand jury has no authority to enact changes, Watson said the panel is being convened in hopes that “public exposure of these problems will create enough pressure that the people in a position to make changes will make them.”

The “grand jury” was formed by Concerned Civil Rights Lawyers, Equal Rights Congress, Police Misconduct Lawyers’ Referral Service, Inner City Law Center, National Laywers’ Guild and Southern California Coalition for Civil Rights.

In another development Tuesday, the Los Angeles Police Commission canceled its regular meeting and instead met behind closed doors to discuss “personnel matters.”

While one source said the panel met with investigators it has hired to probe the Police Department, the commissioners, interviewed on their way into the meeting, would not be specific about their agenda.

“I’m not going to get into it,” Commissioner Stanley Sheinbaum said when asked if the citizens panel would be discussing Chief Gates.

Tuesday’s meeting was the first for Commissioner Michael R. Yamaki. A prominent criminal defense lawyer and past president of the Japanese-American Bar Assn., Yamaki is the mayor’s newest appointment to the beleaguered commission, which has been beset by a series of resignations during the past several months.

Times staff writer Sheryl Stolberg contributed to this story.