LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Police Chief William Bratton introduced new details of the department’s new discipline system in a video shown at roll calls and division offices Monday.
The new plan replaces a system that Bratton described as “misguided, overzealous and unfair.”
“Our disciplinary system which treated every small matter as a federal case has been self-defeating,” Bratton said in the recorded announcement.
Bratton made the video so officers would know that an unpopular system had been changed, and he also wanted to encourage them to feel more comfortable about doing their job, said Officer Jason Lee, a department spokesman.
The new policy was worked out in November by Bratton, the Police Protective League and the civilian Police Commission.
Minor complaints and disciplinary matters will now be handled by captains at the division level, which will also offer mediation for some disciplinary infractions.
Bratton told the officers that corruption, brutality or other serious misconduct will not be tolerated under the new policy.
“If you are guilty of those offenses we will throw the book at you,” Bratton said. “We cannot let the Rampart-type actions of a few ruin the reputations of 9,000 hardworking, honest cops.”
Bratton was referring to a police corruption scandal at the Police Department’s Rampart Division during the late 1990s involving cover-ups, evidence planting, lying under oath and shootings of unarmed suspects.
Instituted in 1998 by former Chief Bernard C. Parks, the department’s complaint process has drawn criticism from rank-and-file officers and union officials, who have charged that the disciplinary system seriously damaged morale by treating frivolous claims on a par with corruption.
The severity of disciplinary sanctions has been an issue in the department for years.
The blue-ribbon Christopher Commission that investigated the department after the Rodney King beating in 1991 found that the complaint system was “skewed against complainants,” some commanding officers evaluated witnesses in inconsistent ways that were biased toward officers and that “division investigations are frequently inadequate.”