To the editor: The Los Angeles Occasions stories that the L.A. police sustained simply three of 4,878 bias allegations over a decade (“Hundreds of complaints, few punished: How LAPD handles claims of racial bias,” July 24). Both the Los Angeles Police Division has achieved near-human perfection, or its system is remarkably good at discovering nothing improper.
The implications will not be merely institutional or theoretical. In simply two fiscal years, Los Angeles paid greater than $543 million in legal responsibility claims, settlements and judgments, with a big portion of that sum coming from instances involving police. That’s cash not spent on firefighters, road repairs, animal providers or different important public wants.
Los Angeles ought to cease pretending these payouts are merely the price of doing enterprise. Officers themselves typically know which colleagues habitually cross strains, frighten companions or look like unraveling. Town ought to give each sworn officer a protected, confidential approach to determine potential threats, then examine patterns moderately than dismissing every allegation in isolation.
Due course of should stay intact. However silence shouldn’t be town’s costliest coverage.
Gary Okay. Michelson, Brentwood
This author is founder, president and chair of the Michelson Heart for Public Coverage and Worldwide Affairs, a social welfare group that goals to propel legislative change.
