The Los Angeles City Council has voted to place an amendment to the City Charter on the November ballot, that, if approved, would empower the chief of the LAPD to fire officers the chief believed had committed serious misconduct.
"Nothing that is before us today will diminish any current power of the chief," said Council president Paul Krekorian.
"The only thing that is before us is — to what extent — to expand the powers of the chief," he said, urging a "yes" vote more than a year after he and Councilmen Hugo Soto-Martinez and Tim McOsker introduced plans for major reforms to the secretive discipline system used to punish officers for violating the law or department policies.
Soto-Martinez, however, was one of two "no" votes, saying the language of the measure isn't specific enough, and the changes could create unintended loopholes that could derail punishment in some cases.
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"I don't think that it gets us what we had originally wanted," Soto-Martinez said.
"We had wanted for there to be the ability to terminate police officers when they create misconduct, that is not happening today," he said. "It's going be a two-tiered system, some folks may be fired, many folks who create misconduct, will not."
The Charter change as approved Tuesday would give the chief the authority to "directly" terminate officers who'd committed serious misconduct, as defined by new statewide regulations on police officers, including sexual misconduct, excessive force and fraud.
Police misconduct
Fired officers would be able to challenge their terminations, and officers accused of other wrongdoing that didn't meet the serious misconduct standard would be subject to the current LAPD system, in which the chief may only recommend termination or other punishment to an internal trial board, called a Board of Rights.
Those Boards, which almost always meet in secret, decide whether an officer is guilty of the violation and may reduce or eliminate the chief's recommended punishment.
The Council's proposed Charter amendment would also rescind a change pushed by the officers' union in 2017 that allows officers to opt for a trial board of three civilian hearing officers, and would instead require the Boards be composed of one member of the LAPD command staff and two civilian hearing officers.
The all-civilian boards tended to reduce punishment more often, according to an analysis by the LA Police Commission's investigative arm released last year.
The Council has to vote a second time next week in order to finalize the action and place the measure on the ballot.
Read the LA City Attorney's discussion of the proposed changes here:
