LOS ANGELES : League’s Funding of Officer’s Appeal Prompts Protest

The Los Angeles Police Protective League’s decision this week to finance Officer Douglas J. Iversen’s civil court appeal of his firing was met with sharp negative reaction from the head of an association of African American police officers.

Sgt. Leonard Ross, president of the Oscar Joel Bryant Foundation, said Police Chief Willie L. Williams “made the proper decision” in firing Iversen for shooting an unarmed tow truck driver. Williams’ decision was made at the recommendation of a three-captain Board of Rights hearing panel.

“While Iversen is entitled to support, he had his day in court,” Ross said. “He had that representation. At what point do they (the league) determine that an officer has broken the law or done something wrong?

In the wake of Iversen’s termination Tuesday, Protective League President Cliff Ruff announced that his union would fund an appeal by Iversen on the grounds that the veteran officer’s termination set a bad precedent. “Previously, officers haven’t been terminated for out-of-policy shootings or (for) drawing of weapons,” Ruff said.

Ross strongly disagreed. “Come on,” he said in a telephone interview. “They need to recognize that it is a disservice to the public to always cry foul when an officer has obviously done something inappropriate.”

The Board of Rights found Iversen guilty of drawing and discharging a firearm in violation of department policy in the shooting of John L. Daniels in a Southwest Los Angeles gas station near a flash point of the 1992 riots, which had occurred several weeks earlier.