A report detailing how LAPD officers avoided punishment even after breaking use-of-force policies is the latest blow to reform efforts in California.
Violent crime is up in California. So is the public’s fear of crime. And so is the poll-driven, tough-on-crime political rhetoric.
And indeed, the report clearly found that little or no discipline was ultimately imposed on most of the cops who the commission had determined violated the department’s deadly-force policies. There also were plenty of clear-as-mud exchanges, like this doozy between commission Vice President Eileen Decker and Assistant Inspector General Django Sibley.“What I’m trying to understand is, what does ‘not guilty’ mean?” Decker continued. “Now, does that mean that the decision of the Board of Police Commissioners that the case was out of policy was overturned?”
He threw in the proverbial towel in a huff on Twitter, citing the department’s entrenched tough-on-crime culture and the many failures to implement effective reforms. Well, not all politicians. Many Democrats have been trying to have it both ways. Like Gov. Gavin Newsom describing the “California way” of public safety in his recent State of the State address.