LAPD Finally Freed from Federal Oversight

The Los Angeles Police Department was officially free of federal oversight Thursday for the first time since 2001, when a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice was imposed in response corruption in the department's Rampart division.

U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess issued a two-sentence order Wednesday that formally ended the consent decree.

"The clerk is directed to close the file," Feess wrote.

The order closed a chapter in which the LAPD was compelled to implement widespread reforms to resolve issues of excessive force, racial profiling, evidence tampering and perjury.

Feess originally ended the consent decree in 2009, but ordered a transitional period to transfer oversight of the department from an independent federal monitor to the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners.

The transition agreement mandated that the department address hundreds of racial profiling claims, install video cameras in police vehicles, review financial disclosures by officers in the gang and narcotics units and continue monitoring for abuses in the gang suppression unit.

If the department failed to take action, Department of Justice attorneys could have returned the case to Feess for further action.

Tyler Izen, president of the Los Angeles Police Protection League, the union for LAPD officers, praised the termination of the consent decree, saying he was "pleased" the department is no longer under the jurisdiction of a federal judge.

"Now we can begin looking for efficiencies in LAPD processes while at the same time maintaining the transparency the public deserves," he said.There was no immediate response from LAPD officials or the mayor's office.

-- City News Service

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