Office of the Independent Monitor
of the Los Angeles Police Department

Remarks of Michael G. Cherkasky, Primary Monitor, for the Los Angeles Police
Department to the Los Angeles Police Commission November 13, 2003

Good morning. Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, Mr. Mayor, Chief Bratton, Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you very much for this opportunity to talk with you about the progress the Los Angeles Police Department ("LAPD") has made in the area of training.

As you are all aware the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) entered into a Consent Decree with the Department of Justice (DOJ) on June 15,2001. The Consent Decree provides specific guidelines designed to institute new policies and procedures to reform the conduct of the LAPD. I, and members of my Kroll team, were hired as the Independent Monitor to ensure that Consent Decree reforms are implemented in an effective and timely manner. We were also hired with the hope that the reforms would not just be superficial and ephemeral, but deep and long lasting.

Institutional change is an extremely difficult task. It is even more difficult in an agency, like a police department, that needs to change as it continues to play its critical role. The metamorphosis must occur as LAPD continues to effectively fight crime. LAPD does not have the luxury of sitting in a cocoon slowly growing their wings, but must evolve as they patrol the streets of Los Angeles.

The two and a half years since the Consent Decree started have been challenging for LAPD. The focus has been on what they have failed to do as far as compliance, not on their successes. This has certainly been unfair at times, and has missed or minimized a genuine, good faith effort, by the city and the LAPD management to make the necessary changes. This is also not healthy, as it is important to view the reforms mandated by the Decree as bringing about change for the better, not as a document used to bash LAPD. I realize that much of the negative comments about LAPD's failures come from my quarterly reports. I will continue to call them as I see them. But I have and will continue to comment on the areas of progress. One of those areas is in LAPD Consent Decree training.

There are many factors that can increase the likelihood of success in bringing about institutional change. They include leadership, clarity of mission, use of recognized best practices, great communications, determination, endurance, and last but not least, effective training.

Training communicates with the employees of the organization how the organization and the individual are expected to operate. It teaches them the how, why and where of job performance. Simply put, training gives the members of the organization the knowledge and skill of how to be successful inside the organization. It was correctly recognized by the City and the Department of Justice that organizational reform in LAPD could not be accomplished without appropriate specific training for all members of LAPD.

There are various training provisions specifically required by the Consent Decree. The one I want to focus on today is requirement that LAPD provide periodic training on police integrity. Our rating of the new integrity training implemented by LAPD is, in one word, "terrific".

Paragraph 117 of the Consent Decree requires all LAPD officers to have police integrity training in a number of specified areas. These include:

The duty to report misconduct and facts relevant to such misconduct;

What constitutes retaliation for misconduct, the prohibition against retaliation for reporting misconduct, and the protections available to officers from retaliation;

Cultural diversity, which shall include training on interactions with persons of different races, ethnicity's, religious groups, sexual orientations, persons of the opposite sex, and persons with disabilities, and also community policing;

The role of accurately completing written reports in assuring police integrity, and the proper completion of such reports;

Fourth amendment and other constitutional requirements, and the requirement of the Department's nondiscrimination policy, governing police reactions in conducting stops, searches, seizures, making arrests and using force; and

Examples of ethical dilemmas faced by LAPD officers and, where practicable given the location, type, and duration of the training, interactive exercises for resolving ethical dilemmas shall be utilized.

This training goes to the heart of the community based policing concept. It clearly announces to all LAPD officers' management's commitment to respect and partner with the community, as opposed to being outsiders who act as if they are a foreign occupation force.

We found the course excellent in all regards.

First, it was clear that the leadership of LAPD, most importantly Chief Bratton and his command staff, was fully committed to the message the training imparts. In various venues over the course of the last several months, the Chief of Police has described his commitment to develop a successful training delivery plan and his expectation that his command staff will support this goal. Then the Chief demonstrated that his commitment was not just words. They provided the necessary resources and made attendance not only mandatory, but also convenient. Instead of huge auditorium style with speaker systems that did not work, they made the facilities receptive and conducive for learning. Instead of little or no resources, the Department devoted a team of officers to resolving problems, which have historically plagued the Department's training. In order to measure consistency in content and quality of instruction, the Monitor's staff attended training at each of the three sites where the eight hour CEDP VII was offered. Despite the fact that the Monitor attended the training within the first days in which it was offered, all of the instructors observed by the Monitor were well-prepared and thorough, and each fostered an interactive learning environment while being mindful of the curriculum that needed to be covered.

The Continuing Education Division lead by Dr. Robin Green and Lt. Sandy Jo Macarthur have put together a substantively high grade product, that deals with serious issues in an interactive and interesting way, instead of being read off a power point in which neither the instructor nor the students seemed to be interested. The new lesson plans wrap a series of training initiatives into real life scenarios that can be discussed, dissected, and have meaning to the officers who are going back on the streets after the class. And they ask for, get, and use input from their audience to continually improve their product.

The message the LAPD is sending in its integrity training is that it and its officers care about the community, and will do their job appropriately and in partnership with the community in the future.

You, Commissioners should be proud of your department, and how far it has come in this critical area over the course of the last year. I congratulate you, and encourage you to attend a session. Chief Bratton has. Thank you.

The Office of the Independent Monitor of the Los Angeles Police Department was created by order of the United States District Court for the Central District of California and is charged with the monitoring of and reporting on the progress of the Los Angeles Police Department in complying with the terms of the Federal Consent Decree mandating various reforms.