COUNCIL WRITES BLANK CHECK FOR RAMPART PROBE

After months of confusion, paralysis and mounting impatience, members of the
Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday finally confronted the Los Angeles
Police Department's Rampart scandal, voting to write a blank check to the
Police Commission and its inspector general, who is charged with reviewing
the LAPD's internal investigation and recommendations for change.

The inspector general, lawyer Jeffrey C. Eglash, welcomed the council
action, and said he would confer with commissioners and their staff over the
next several days about the resources he needs to do his work.

"We'll be coming up with a plan of attack," Eglash said. "We'll do a
complete, comprehensive, thorough review. . . . It's ultimately going to be
the commissioners who decide the scope of that."

Eglash received a huge vote of confidence from the commission Tuesday, when
it voted to rule the fatal May 21 shooting of homeless woman Margaret
Mitchell a violation of LAPD policy. That vote adopted Eglash's analysis of
the controversial shooting, and in the process both overruled Police Chief
Bernard C. Parks and ignored suggestions from Mayor Richard Riordan's
administration about how to consider the case. The commission's vote,
therefore, demonstrates its faith in Eglash and suggests the panel's
willingness to face down political pressure.

At the same time, the commission's vote--a bare 3-2 majority--makes clear
that it is a panel badly divided. That is an extremely difficult problem for
a board about to face the most daunting challenge of its tenure.

Earlier in the day Tuesday, the commission tried to demonstrate its resolve
on that issue as well, voting to direct Parks to complete his long-overdue
Board of Inquiry report on the scandal and turn it in by March 1. Gerald L.
Chaleff, president of the commission, said the board would demand answers
from the chief and would empower its inspector general to make sure that the
LAPD inquiry is thorough. "We understand the significance of this," he
assured the City Council.

Council members also are weighing changes in the way police shootings are
investigated and next week will consider a motion to bring in an outside
investigator to probe the deepening LAPD corruption scandal.

Shocked Into 'Paralysis'

Taken together, the council and commission actions Tuesday represented a
sudden awakening of a dormant political establishment, which has fretted
quietly as the scandal has expanded month after month. Councilman Mark
Ridley-Thomas, one of the few city officials who has been outspoken on the
issue, described the city leadership as having been "shocked to a degree of
paralysis."

Now, he added, "people are finally moving from being shocked to being
activated to help get to the bottom of this."

In large part, that change was sparked last week by visits that a number of
city leaders got from an elected official with no formal authority over the
matter.

On Friday, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a former member of
the City Council, visited several council members and others at City Hall,
urging them to respond forcefully to revelations about police corruption.
Although Yaroslavsky declined to comment on his discussions with the city
officials, others said he was passionate and demanding.

"This is the worst thing ever," Yaroslavsky told the city leaders. "Imagine
it's 1965, [civil rights workers Andrew] Goodman, [Michael] Schwerner and
[James] Chaney are killed in Mississippi, and you're the speaker of the
House of Representatives. Do you order a study or ask for a commission? Or
do you go . . . nuts?"

Yaroslavsky's conclusion, sources said: "This is a moral issue. It's about
undermining our way of life. What are you going to do about it?"

Confronted with that scathing admonition, puzzled by Riordan's relative
invisibility on an issue that threatens to redefine his legacy and staggered
by last week's public disclosures in The Times of the scandal's breadth,
council members leaped into action over the weekend--and Tuesday vented
months of pent-up frustration.

Councilwoman Ruth Galanter called the Rampart officers under question
"disgusting" and their actions "an insult to everyone in this city."
Councilman Mike Feuer described himself as "appalled by this behavior."

Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, in approving the resolution to give the Police
Commission whatever resources it needs to tackle the problem, warned
Chaleff: "We have come to a very critical moment. This is one of those
be-careful-of-what-you-ask-for [instances], Mr. Chaleff. You finally got
it."

Feuer and Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, two of the lawmakers visited by
Yaroslavsky, introduced a motion to give the Police Commission and its
inspector general all the resources they need to conduct their
investigation, a proposal that they agreed to in a meeting with Riordan on
Saturday.

As chairman of the council's Budget Committee, Feuer had been inclined to go
straight to Eglash and ask him for a report on staffing and other needs. He
was dissuaded from that course, however, and agreed to the compromise
offered Tuesday.

"City leaders are really on trial here," Feuer said. "The test of our mettle
is whether collectively we have the will to assure an independent, thorough,
extensive examination of what we anticipate will be a lengthy Police
Department Board of Inquiry report."

Miscikowski agreed, and echoed her colleague's reflections on the historic
importance of civic leaders' response to the Rampart scandal.

"This is a very critical juncture in the crossroads of our city," she said.
"What this really underscores is the need, the demand and the process now
set in place for an outside, comprehensive, independent review that is going
to be conducted by our Police Commission, with whatever resources they deem
necessary."

The Police Commission itself is struggling with the Rampart matter, torn
between a mayor who appointed its members and strongly supports Parks and a
restless police reform community that questions the LAPD's ability to get to
the bottom of corruption in its midst.

Those tensions have given rise to speculation that Riordan is unhappy with
his commission, particularly Chaleff for failing to support Parks
sufficiently. Riordan did little to erase that feeling when, in his remarks
to the council, he described the resolution as "an important step to showing
the public that the chief, the City Council and I stand together in support
of our Police Department," omitting any reference to Chaleff or the
commission.

A spokeswoman stressed later that Riordan's oversight was merely an
accident, and the mayor appeared at a news conference with Chaleff, Parks,
Council President John Ferraro and council members Feuer and Miscikowski.

"We spoke with one voice," Ferraro said afterward.

Their show of unanimity was not universally welcomed, however.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California rejected the
council action to steer more money to the Police Commission. Ramona Ripston,
executive director of the local ACLU and a longtime supporter of bringing
greater civilian oversight to the LAPD, said she and her organization have
lost faith in the commission's ability to exercise its authority.

"The Police Commission is too much a part of the organization," she said.
"We need an independent commission,"

The ACLU bought advertisements in several newspapers today calling for
appointment of an outside panel to investigate the allegations.

"Mayor Riordan: the stakes are too high to sit this one out," the ads say.
"The time has come for real reform."

Similarly, state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) said that outside
intervention is the only thing that will clear the air at the LAPD. Hayden
called for the U.S. Department of Justice and the state attorney general to
launch their own investigations.

James Lafferty, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, criticized
Parks' request for millions of dollars to beef up LAPD internal
investigative functions. Lafferty described that plan as "a cynical pitch,"
and added that Parks' recommendation to hire additional captains and
sergeants is misguided, because "those supervising the line officers are as
guilty as those they were supposed to supervise."

Clamor for Outside Inquiry

Faced with those increasingly pitched criticisms, the city's political
leadership faces a tough campaign to forestall outside review of the LAPD.

Indeed, Councilman Joel Wachs is proposing that option. Although no action
was taken on it Tuesday, Wachs' proposal--to convene an independent
commission along the lines of the 1991 Christopher Commission that studied
the LAPD in the wake of the Rodney G. King beating--has supporters inside
and outside City Hall. Some observers predicted that if the Police
Department's Board of Inquiry report fails to put all doubts to rest about
the scandal and the LAPD's investigation of it, the city could soon face
growing demands for an independent commission.

"Chief Parks has done a superb job investigating what happened," said Wachs,
a longtime supporter of the LAPD and a candidate for mayor in 2001. "But
while the department proceeds with investigating what happened and punishing
those responsible, we need outside help to determine why it happened and
what can be done to prevent it from reoccurring."

Yaroslavsky agreed.

The supervisor called Tuesday's decision by the council "a step in the right
direction," but only a very small one.

"It's a compromise between doing nothing and launching a broader inquiry by
an outside panel," he said. "Some people view this as a public relations
problem. It's not a public relations problem. It's a criminal problem. And,
even more important, it's a moral problem. . . . Eventually, they [the city
political leaders] are going to have to go further. There's going to have to
be outside review."

Times staff writer Peter Y. Hong contributed to this story.