Dillydallying on LAPD Bias

For two years, the reform-minded Los Angeles Police Commission has backed the creation of an independent unit to investigate sexual harassment and discrimination complaints. It should be up and running by now, but City Hall politics and a plodding bureaucracy have impeded progress.

Clearly, special efforts should be made to ferret out bias in the department. The Christopher Commission report, released in 1991 after the Rodney King beating, documented a hostile climate for minorities and women in the ranks. Since the Police Commission proposed creating the antidiscrimination unit, newspaper articles, City Council hearings and court cases have further illuminated the problem.

The Police Commission members want the special unit to report to them and not to the chief. That independence would allow officers to make a complaint without fear of intimidation or retaliation from anyone in the chain of command.

However, the commission, despite its good intentions, cannot give this reform a green light without funding from the city. Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who chairs the Personnel Committee, introduced a motion Tuesday that would shift $470,000 from another LAPD account to fund the new antidiscrimination unit. That may be a start at long last.

Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul might be the best the council and the mayor can do, given other fiscal pressures, including the huge allocation proposed for expansion of the force and new equipment. Even so, the creation of the special investigative unit should not have taken this long.

Just last month, for instance, a jury found that LAPD gender bias prevented a woman officer from joining the all-male SWAT team, and that when she complained, some officers retaliated with threats and disparaging messages. Damages have yet to be awarded in this case, but similar ones have proved increasingly expensive for the city.

Police Chief Willie L. Williams has decried discrimination against minorities and women. The chief also has overseen a strong recruitment drive to put more women in the ranks, an important reform. But the antidiscrimination unit should remain near the top of LAPD priorities.