LAPD’s Inspector General Goes to Work

Katherine Mader arrived at work early Friday, her first day in a new job. She fumbled for the right key, then popped the door to her office and dumped a load of documents on a desk already covered with computer printouts, Los Angeles Police Department personnel files and her own detailed game plan of how to proceed.

There is, after all, plenty to do.

Mader’s arrival marked the first day of the first inspector general in the history of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, a position whose creation was long anticipated and, in some quarters, dreaded.

Within the Police Department, Mader--an incisive, determined former deputy district attorney who investigated police shootings and prosecuted an LAPD officer for murder--already is seen as a powerful force in city policing. Some view her as a new intrusion on the LAPD’s historical autonomy; others see her as a necessary check on a department still struggling for public acceptance. Virtually all agree that she will act as a bellwether in the shifting and tense battle for leadership of the LAPD.

“This is one more step in the new and improved direction of this department,” one high-ranking official sarcastically grumbled. “Policing by lawyers.”

By contrast, the police commissioners who hired Mader and the reform advocates who have pressed for the creation of her job since 1991 say her first day marked an important step in the restoration of public trust in the LAPD--especially its much-maligned disciplinary process. Starting Friday, Mader assumed responsibility not for imposing discipline, but for monitoring the way the LAPD investigates and disciplines its own.

Beyond that, she also will be empowered to take on projects as the Police Commission sees fit--jobs ranging from tracking the LAPD investigation of former Det. Mark Fuhrman to conducting audits on the status of reform proposals. The goal, commissioners say, is to have an independent official constantly scrutinize the department and report the results to the commission and a sometimes skeptical public.

“The department can’t lose sight of the fact that the public needs to have confidence in the process,” said Police Commissioner Raymond C. Fisher, a leading force behind Mader’s hiring. “It’s very important for the department to win back the public’s trust.”

The goal of restoring public confidence was in the forefront for the Christopher Commission, whose reform blueprint remains the guiding model for today’s LAPD. In its report, the Christopher Commission lamented the understaffing of the Police Commission and argued that the dearth of civilian oversight had allowed excessive force to fester.

Its recipe: more Police Commission staffing and stricter civilian oversight. The Christopher panel considered recommending that an outside civilian review board handle LAPD discipline, but compromised instead. It proposed leaving discipline inside the department but adding an inspector general, whose job would be to monitor discipline and ensure that it was handled fairly.

Five years later, Mader’s hiring has fulfilled part of that mandate.

The question now: Can she make the job work, or will departmental resistance and other obstacles undermine the position that so many observers believe is key to the reform process?

That question stands at the heart of LAPD reform and of the debate over who will lead the department in the years ahead, its chief and his command staff or the civilian Police Commission charged with setting policy for the LAPD.

“There are some people who don’t like change of any kind, and obviously the reforms constitute change,” said Mader. “But I look forward to working very closely with people within the department, and I know that there are many people within the department who are eager to press forward with the reforms recommended by the Christopher Commission.”

Dogged and thorough, Mader has worked as both a defense attorney and a prosecutor. She has prosecuted some police officers and investigated others for alleged offenses such as excessive force, perjury and murder. Twice she tried to persuade juries to convict LAPD Officer Douglas Iversen of murdering a tow-truck driver in a 1992 shooting, but the panels could not agree either time, and eventually the case was dismissed.

Many lawyers and others who know Mader say they expect her to approach her task relentlessly, an assessment that comes from adversaries as well as allies. John Barnett, who represented Iversen, gave her an opponent’s highest compliment. “I would not want her after me,” he said.

In addition to her work as a lawyer, Mader headed the state’s Patients’ Rights Office in the mid-1970s. She distinguished herself in that role of monitoring state hospitals by not shying away from controversy. Her first acts in her new job suggest that she remains unafraid of confrontation.

Two of her initial appointments on her first day were with Leonard Ross, an LAPD sergeant who heads an association of black police officers, and Bill Harkness, the outspoken newly selected president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League. Ross and the league have long been at odds, and Harkness has made no secret of his contempt for LAPD management or for civilian interference in some Police Department affairs.

Harkness called his meeting with Mader a productive one and said he looked forward to meeting with her monthly.

Although Mader’s work ultimately may bring her into conflict with the league, her message Friday was welcomed by some of its leaders. “One of the main themes that I’d like to get across,” she said, “is that people in like circumstances should be treated equally.”

In theory, few would oppose that. In practice, however, that could mean pushing for more standardized LAPD discipline, curbing some of the erratic punishments meted out to officers and, possibly, recommending more severe punishments for certain offenses.

Reform advocates acknowledge that the inspector general’s task is sweeping, but they urge Mader to move ahead forcefully.

“The pace of reform has been pathetically slow, and it’s important to have a single person who can be accountable to the commission on these issues,” said Joe Hicks, a longtime police reform backer who heads an organization of community groups called the Multi-Cultural Collaborative. “Now it’s important that she demonstrate that she can be effective.”

Police leaders, on the other hand, suggest that Mader could run into obstacles if she tries to do too much, too soon.

“If she comes in here convinced that everything is screwed up and that she has an agenda, people will react negatively,” said one top LAPD official. “She needs to show that she’s objective.”

Mayor Richard Riordan generally echoed that sentiment. How much she can help the department, he said, “depends on how well she works with the police and how well they work with her.”

A full menu awaits Mader.

The police commissioners, her bosses, expect Mader to monitor the LAPD’s investigation into misconduct allegations raised by the taped statements of former Det. Fuhrman.

Commissioners also want Mader to begin dissecting the department’s disciplinary system, examining issues such as whether investigations of complaints are thorough and whether police are making sure that prosecutors have the chance to consider filing charges against officers whose disciplinary cases may also involve criminal misconduct.

In addition to the commission’s laundry list of projects, a recent report on the status of LAPD reform contains suggestion after suggestion for Mader.

In that report, authors Merrick Bobb and Mark Epstein suggested that she monitor injuries to suspects and officers, study why minorities and women continue to struggle to break into the LAPD’s highest ranks and track police disciplinary boards, among other things. Longer term, the report also recommends that the inspector general conduct audits of the LAPD complaint process and publish her results.

What’s more, new potential projects have a way of always popping up. Between Mader’s hiring last month and her first day on the job, for instance, the department was confronted with the latest embarrassing challenge to the integrity of its disciplinary process. That issue erupted over the LAPD’s handling of so-called “miscellaneous memos” and the department’s failure to account for some of those files, which document investigations of LAPD officers that were resolved without formal personnel complaints.

The department has refused to make the documents public, deepening questions about its handling of the material. Fisher said he hoped Mader would examine the department’s use of miscellaneous memos. And Friday, Mader arrived at work to find her new office awash in miscellaneous memos.

What with audits, commission ideas and her own projects, Mader’s mandate is huge and daunting. And each of the undertakings represents a small but important shift of authority from the Police Department to its civilian overseers.

That troubles some LAPD insiders, who grew up in a department proud of its independence.

But police commissioners said that even though they understand the department’s concerns about the proper role of civilian leadership, they remain committed to setting policy for the LAPD.

“This is a change that the department will naturally resist until they see that she is fair,” said Commissioner Edith Perez. “They have been resisting it. They’ll continue to resist. But that doesn’t mean you don’t do it.”