When newly elected City Attorney Carmen Trutanich was sworn in on Wednesday, one of the more interesting things he announced was his plan to hire 200 investigators that would allow his office to have what amounts to its own small police force. Trutanich hinted that such a group might, among other duties, provide a kind of check and balance watch dog function for the LAPD.
Here is what the LA Times reported about Trutanich’s speech:
“We’re going to build this unit, we’re going to fund it, we’re going to get them automobiles, we’re going to have a regular police force,” the city attorney said. That force…..might even be responsible for keeping an eye on the LAPD, he said.
“I don’t want to see a need for another consent decree,” Trutanich said, referring to the federal restraints imposed on the LAPD after the Rampart Division corruption scandal. “If there’s something that we need to do to supervise LAPD to make sure that they comply, let the independent police department — the bureau of investigation — do that supervision. Why do we have to make millionaires out of private lawyers?”
This is a rather interesting idea. Although some police watchers would like to see the Federal Consent Decree stay in place, others like myself, think it has long outlived its usefulness and is no longer an “engine of reform” for the department. Instead of stimulating further correction or improvement in the department, U.S. District Judge Gary Feess has come to resemble a vaguely abusive foster parent who demands adherence to pointless and demeaning rules—like the financial disclosure requirement for gang and narcotics officers.
On the other hand, for the LAPD to police itself has not proved to be a good solution either. The arrangement has satisfied the union—the LAPPL—but despite the best efforts of Bill Bratton and his capable command staff, there are changes that remain to be made in the LAPD’s ” culture,” and more trust that still needs to be built with the city’s other stakeholders.
Thus having another law enforcement entity providing a check and balance could be a concept worth exploring.
It is unclear what such a structure would look like. And certainly there are potential pitfalls. It would not do to have bad blood between two of the city’s law enforcement agencies. Plus, since there’s a hiring freeze in city government, Trutanich will have to do some creative cost cutting elsewhere in his budget to find the funds to hire his proposed swarm of detectives.
Yet I hope Trutanich does pursue the notion. It is one among a number of intriguing ideas being floated by the City Attorney’s office in the past few weeks that are worth watching as they are developed.
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photo by Francine Orr for the Los Angeles Times
Who’s going to be the watch dog over City Attorney Carmen Trutanich?
In the picture (right side) there is a man in a yellow/orange tie that is in the BOHICA position (Bend Over Here I Come Again). Remember that, that, is how the devil lost. I can’t believe the Mayor would waste a good opportunity to yet screw another innocent Angeleno?
Woody asks
Who’s going to be the watch dog over City Attorney Carmen Trutanich?
Been volunteering for those psychological tests again, haven’t you?
Hmm… I wonder what Steve Cooley thinks about that. The Los Angeles DA’s office already has a special unit that investigates and prosecutes bad cops. (This unit investigates every single officer-involved shooting in the county.)
The City Attorney’s office, on the other hand, is tasked with prosecuting MISDEMEANORS only. (And only within the city limits, not the county limits.) What would be the point of setting up such an office as described above? To slap cops on the wrist?
Good point, CLF—about the misdemeanor issue. Now you’ve made me wonder what Trutanich has in mind.
CLF:
What would be the point of setting up such an office as described above? To slap cops on the wrist?
Could be baby! Could be.
To just, slap’em on the wrist and then give ‘um ice cream and pumpkin pie!!!!!
Um, um…Good, as Sheriff Andy Taylor used to say!
Thanks for the heads up Cele.
CLF, you are right, the Clty Attorney only has the power to prosecute misdemeanors. However, if a cop suffers a misdemeanor conviction for a crime involving moral turpitude, the cop loses his or her job. That’s no slap on the wrist.
Furthermore, Trutanich’s cops can investigate all crimes, misdemeanors and felonies. If a crime turns out to be a felony, it can be taken to the DA’s office or the Attorney General’s office for felony prosecution. In other words, city attorney investigators are not limited by the prosecutorial power of the city attorney’s office, they can take the case to the appropriate agency.
Does it make more sense now?
Celeste, you must be out of your friggin’ mind to think it’s a good idea for this egomaniac Trutanich to have his own police force complete with cars no less, and all the gadgets and gizmos, for 200 cops within the City Attorney’s office, operating as his own personal police force “to police the police.”
First of all he’s promised to CUT the budget not add this enormous expense. He says he’d fund it by “saving” on outsourcing legal cases BUT his promise during the campaign was to save money for the city, i.e., for US the taxpayers, to put back into the General Fund for use for OTHER vital services. NOW THE GUY WANTS TO CREATE HIS OWN POLICE FORCE? That’s not just an outrage during this budget crisis when the city can’t fund 200 more cops, but it’s downright fraudulent and a gross violation of public trust.
“What would Cooley think of it?” someone asks. Trutanich doesn’t make a MOVE without Cooley, his enabler who not only recruited him to run but had precisely this in mind: to use Trutanich as an extension of his own reach into all recesses of government. Cooley already has HIS own police force of hundreds of investigators — which by many accounts operate as Cooley’s personal eyes and ears, collect dirt for him and help his stay in office including by intimidating potential critics.
“Who would watch over Trutanich?” indeed. With Cooley his puppetmaster, and County Sheriff Lee Baca in their pocket, I mean, corner, and their claims of having family members loyal to them in O’Brien’s (feds’) office, and Zine (and even Democrat Janice Hahn, finally getting a chance to get even with Anotnio for defeating her brother from San Pedro, the Trutanich clan’s home base) throwing their Republican weight around: it’s a “perfect storm” in their favor. As Trutanich campaign manager/ “Transition team member”/ also called “young Republican party strategist” John Thomas tells their blood brother Kevin James on his show regularly.
Oh and just maybe a chance to get even with Chief Bratton for having the audacity to endorse the other guy, the one he’d worked with and trusted for the last 8 years. Do you honestly mean to say, Celeste, that you think this Trutanich out of a small boutique firm in San Pedro, who for the last 25 years representing criminal clients accused of toxic pollution, running afoul of gun laws, rape and battery etc. etc., is MORE equipped to know what’s best for LAPD than Chief Bratton? Based on WHAT data, exactly?
Didn’t even the Times’ own poll just find that a large majority of people across every ethnic and socio-economic spectrum in the city strongly support Bratton’s “new” LAPD? (And isn’t the Consent Decree likely to be lifted soon anyway, making the argument that Trutanich needs to CREATE a private police force of 200 highly-paid and heavily equipped cops with cars and everything they need, downright superfluous from the get-go? Even the Daily News’ article on the inauguration has all its normally VERY conservative and previously pro-Trutanich readers weighing in that this is outrageous and shows Trutanich’s duplicity. Yet he’s got YOU someone on board? Amazing… or are you going to look at it logically (which acolyte “Jack” clearly doesn’t in his specious atttempts to persuade — frankly he scares the bejeezus out of me.) Sorry Celeste but this is exactly the kind of duplicity anyone who knows and/or worked with Trutanich warned about.
Although I support Trutanich, it appears that he is intent on making the City Attorney’s office a mini-DA’s office: legislation to authorize misdemeanor grand jury investigations, an in-house police force, very heavy reliance of staff from the DA’s office (Schram, Livesay, Lacey), etc. Does LA need a mini-DA? And what about the civil side of the City Attorney’s Office? Do we need a separate misdemeanor prosecutor — or should Trutanich consider a Charter amendment to relinquish that function to the DA?
Is Gary Schram, Trutanich’s guy, related to Wendy Greuel’s husband Dean Schram? Doesn’t seem like a very common name.
larry – right on. they must be related. The whole deal with Trutanich is a set up by the DA and FBI to attack LAPD and Bratton. Most of the Trutanich people are plants from Washington (ex FBI/CIA).
I’m constantly amazed how things are taken out of context. Read the Daily News story correctly and it states this:
“”””Among other changes he plans is creating a separate investigation bureau that could have as many as 200 people assisting the attorneys. He said the Los Angeles Police Department provides a team of 85 people to work with the City Attorney’s office. But that raises questions about independence and conflict of interest if his office has to investigate the LAPD, he said.””””
Trutanich doesn’t want to waste more millions on a consent decree and that’s it.
Something else that corroborates my (and mark’s) realization of the obvious: how this is designed to be a slap at Bratton but disguised behind “cost saving” rhetoric that falls apart with the first little poke, like a house of pickup sticks.
Kevin Roderick on KCRW, April 27th, on why the PPL is wrong to want to elect the police Chief:
“Making the L A Police Chief an elected position. The idea’s being floated by the LAPPL. They’re the union that represents the rank and file officers, and would love to have a chief its members could intimidate and control. A chief less like William Bratton, in particular…a union with money, like the Police League could buy its way to tremendous influence (like they just DID, spending $750,000 to elect Trutanich and hammer Weiss).”
“…That (electing the chief) would be better, the League (i.e., its head, suburban Republican Paul Weber and his clique, incl. BFF’s Dennis Zine, Steve Cooley) argues, than leaving the hiring of the Chief solely to the police commission, which answers only to the mayor.
“Editorial writers have called the league’s position cynical and corrupt. I have to agree.
“If anything, the League has too much political clout. Too often it uses its power to obstruct reforms that are making the LAPD a more professional, and more respected, department…
“Its leaders prefer rhetoric that dishes up the old, discredited, less professional LAPD culture embodied by Chiefs like Daryl Gates…
“You get the sense that the old boy’s network is still out there, seething and waiting to take back control.”
Well, with the election of Trutanich they just did, to a significant degree. That “old boy’s network” of old white guys tending to the corpulent and suburban Republican, from Trutanich himself to DA Steve Cooley, Zine, the guys Mark listed, Baca, the judges he lined up at his inauguration, the largely retired old guys he recruited for his tv ads and “testimonials” who knew him 25+ years ago when he did work on the public’s side in the DA’s office, the rightwing radio talk show hosts like Kevin James/ Doug McIntyre, his campaign transition team: ALL of them.
(Sure he’s got some token ethnics and liberals, like Bratton-battling Jan Perry and Prrks, whose disastrous tenure created a need for the Consent Decree in the first place. And even Bill Rosendahl has been lately trying to prove his “mettle” by stymying Bratton and backtracking on promises to use the tripled trash fees for cops — the 1000 goal promised — and swiping it into the mismanaged General Fund, along with a majority of the Budget Committee. Including Parks. And Janice Hahn who Trutanich had long been recruiting “For payback to your brother,” as neontommy.com overheard him say on his cellphone in so many words. And anyone who wants to jockey for position vs. the mayor. But they all just play into his/Cooley’s/Zine’s et al’s last gasp of the “old boy’s network” not too happy with the multi-cultural, 21st century, more professional direction Bratton & Co. have taken the LAPD in. Above all, they hate his independence and refusal to kiss their collective old, white, reactionary Republican behinds.)
Interesting thread, guys. (“Guys” being a non-gender specific form of address in this case.)
It’s interesting Celeste, because unless we stay on top of it, the republican guard will take over this city. It’s a disgrace that so many people were fooled by all the attack ads and mailers that were sent out to destroy Jack Weiss and Rocky Delgadillo. I don’t think there’s ever been a dirtier campaign in history, and I hope that Jack gets the job at LAX to prove that environmental and minority concerns are still valued by intelligent voters. I will be voting for Rocky as our Attorney General because we need someone in Sacramento to protect all that we’ve worked for. Don’t be fooled again by the FBI/CIA agents who are trying to take over our city and our state. We know what Trutanich/Cooley/Baca and the rest of them are doing, and they need to be stopped.
Also read the very elluminating comments to Paul Teetor’s July 1st L A Weekly’s (that notoriously anti-Democrat/Bratton paper, in most people’s minds) article, “City Atty Carmen Trutanich in the House.”
One Mort Allen, an elderly gentleman/ homeowner assn. activist/ RonKaye supporter who’s devoted most of his last 2 years to electing Trutanich, gives his blatantly sycophantic take on why this Trutanich/ Cooley/ Baca/ Zine/ Paul Weber-dominating PPL’s rightwing ex-CIA-FBI people’s sweep is good for LA. Instead of being reassuring it is, as rebutter “Los Ojos” points out, very scary. (This is a view commonly echoed by supporters/sycophants and family members in person, on blogs, etc.) Allen supports the contention of Trutanich’s whole family that they were ALL elected to “clean up” the Democratic mess and put them all in jail. (We get lots of weirdly irrelevant and cultish bio info here, too.) It’s a vendetta with messianic-righteous-Christian soldier rhetoric, with overtones of self-perceived aging John Waynes on Harleys, theatrically preying on people’s assumptions that all pols, especially Democrats, are corrupt and need this posse to “save us.”
Vindictive as this bunch is even in victory (start with your regular commenter David (Berger) on Trutanich’s staff, and as nasty and hypocritcal as their campaign was, the extent to which dozens of Trutanich’s all believe THEY were also elected and charged with a mission to seek and destroy whoever they see fit is perhaps the most outrageous thing to have ever happened not only in this city, but any city. While I don’t take any position on Rocky’s tenure or Mark’s opinion of him, he’s right that Trutanich ran the nastiest campaign in L A history but supporters like Baca (with the viciously anti-Weiss attack dog Zahniser on their side for some reason) chose to be blind to it because they were intent on winning whatever it took, to implement their sweep and Cooley’s agenda. It is clear that the vendetta this “old boy’s network” of reactionary Republicans and Trutanich’s clan and Kool-Aid drinkers like Allen (and misc. revenge-seekers along for the ride) have towards ALL Democrats is persecution not legit prosecution, and they MUST be stopped.
Hmmmmm, this was more interesting when it was about possible policy, but now it’s devolving into the pro and anti-Trutanich factions, which is likely going to get us no where.
By the way, the people I know thus far on Trutanich’s team are smart, sane, creative and not in the least reactionary—quite the opposite, in fact.
Sorry celeste but you haven’t scratched deeply enough beneath the surface, and haven’t looked and read and listened to the right places. Outside, way outside the liberal, sanitized media. They do have a particular vendetta against Rocky that goes beyond the rational and into deeply personal and ideological, to start. Just to start, they make very clear — they aim to use rightwing talk radio as they have in the past, as well as rightwing blogs nd media, to shape all future elections and policy and attack liberal Democrats on principle. Sure they have their charm offensives and pick up enough diverse people to camouflage their base, how else would they have gotten this far? It may not be “interesting” to you but it should be to all of us. With most people in L A having the political attention span and depth of gnats, they count on us not to.
It’s not about politics, the NSA, CIA and FBI are taking over the city and Trutanich and his ex CIA people are deep deep deep into this conspiracy to destroy all our freedoms. Look what Bush senior did to the county – he was ‘ex’ CIA (ha!) and we’re letting this happen under our noses. MaLu and larry are right. There is a vendetta against Delgadillo and Weiss because they are environmentalist and they also know about security – that’s why Weiss is trying to get hired at the airport, to protect the environment, and the last thing DC wants is independent control at the airport. So wise up Celeste, there’s a conspiracy going on, and everyone’s fooled by the dirty tricks these republicans are running.
I agree with mark, that “law and order” Democrats are their worst nightmare. As are those who mean what they say about protecting the environment, but are business-friendly at the same time. The leftwing/ most “progressive” faction of the Democratic party are easier for them to marginalize, but when someone makes a lot of sense and has the potential to unite people across both parties, as does Weiss — that poses the greatest danger to them. I will say that Rocky turned out to be one of those “law and order” Democrats facing up to the illegal immigrant aspect of the gang problem too, and even his worst critics applaud his community prosecutor program.