POLICE SCANDALS OFTEN MORE THAN 'BAD APPLES'

Tough to Clean Own House, Expert Says

Sweeping Reforms of 'Culture' Needed

After blowing the whistle on widespread police corruption in New York City
in the early 1970s, undercover officer Frank Serpico was shot in the face
during a drug raid.

His fellow officers didn't come to his aid -- indeed, some believe his
colleagues set him up.

Three decades later, police officers in North America still fear being
labelled a "rat" -- a code of silence that protects corrupt cops and makes
it tough for police forces to clean their own house effectively, said Erwin
Chemerinsky, a law professor at the University of Southern California who
has examined several U.S. police scandals.

In Toronto, the police force is reeling from its worst scandal in recent
history, with 14 officers facing a slew of criminal and internal charges in
three separate corruption cases. Chief Julian Fantino has made it clear he
views the scandals as the work of a few "bad apples" among the force's
5,100 officers, not a systemic problem.

Adamant the Toronto Police Service can do its own housecleaning, Fantino
has ordered internal reviews and appointed a retired judge to implement
recommendations from a 2003 inquiry into corruption.

But law-enforcement experts argue that's not enough, and point to how other
jurisdictions have responded to similar crises with far-reaching reforms.

In the aftermath of scandal, police in Los Angeles, New York and London,
England have taken -- or had imposed on them -- drastic measures to
overhaul the culture of policing, including instituting powerful civilian
watchdog agencies, encouraging and protecting whistle-blowers and
developing early warning systems to weed out rogue behaviour.

Four years ago, Chemerinsky was asked to analyze a weighty report produced
by the Los Angeles Police Department's board of inquiry into a massive
corruption case that came to be known as the Rampart Scandal, after the
LAPD division embroiled in the affair. Members of the Rampart anti-gang
squad were implicated in crimes ranging from stealing cocaine to planting
drugs and guns on suspects and shooting unarmed individuals.

The scale and violence of the Rampart scandal are far beyond what is
alleged to have happened in Toronto, but the fallout from it is a textbook
exercise in examining the response of a beleaguered police department with
its ugly underbelly exposed.

There was much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth by the LAPD and the
police board of inquiry ultimately produced a 362-page report. Numerous
criminal cases are being reviewed and a slew of convictions have been
overturned.

But in the end, Chemerinsky found that the whole process missed the mark.

"The response to Rampart was 'This was just a few bad apples; this was just
a few bad cops,'" Chemerinsky said in a telephone interview from L.A. "I've
looked at enough police scandals. It's always the institutional response to
try and minimize the problem."

Chemerinsky said the investigation into the LAPD scandal failed to
adequately consider whether the incidents of police corruption were part of
a systemic problem. "The board of inquiry report fails to recognize that
the central problem is the culture of the Los Angeles Police Department,
which gave rise to and tolerated what occurred in the Rampart division,"
Chemerinsky wrote in his 150-page critique.

He recommended a comprehensive independent review of the force take place
and a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate police misconduct in
Los Angeles.

Ultimately the Rampart scandal led to the city's police force being
directly accountable to the U.S. Department of Justice. The federal
government threatened to pursue a civil-rights lawsuit against the LAPD for
police misconduct. Settlement of the suit took the form of an extensive
"consent decree" setting out in minute detail a plan to promote police
integrity and prevent misconduct.

The consent decree set a host of standards for the LAPD, covering
everything from use of force to the stopping of motorists. The L.A. police
force must also publish regular audits so the internal workings of the
department can be independently assessed. The reforms of the department
were also to be monitored by a U.S. federal judge for five years.

Chemerinsky said the LAPD has come a long way in cleaning up its act, but
not far enough. For example, there still isn't enough protection for those
who speak up about corruption. The LAPD officers he had spoken to,
Chemerinsky said, "were afraid that if they blew the whistle, the next time
they were in trouble, no one would be watching their back."

In Toronto, Fantino has promised the force will introduce whistle-blower
protection and dedicated phone lines where officers can report on dirty cops.

But the recent scandals in Toronto make it a good time to start asking
tough questions about the culture of the police force, rather than just
focusing on a few rogue cops, said Simon Holdaway, a visiting professor at
the University of Toronto's Centre for Criminology.

"There seems to be quite a basket of rotten apples there and that means
there is something wrong with the barrel," said Holdaway, who is the
director of the Centre for Criminological Research at the University of
Sheffield in England.

"A moment will be lost in this great city if this is just limited to
looking at police corruption and a few bad apples. You have to look at
police culture."

While Canadians are quick to compare themselves with the U.S., Holdaway
thinks that, in the case of policing, it is more appropriate to look to
England.

"Policing in America is highly politicized. A police chief is appointed by
the mayor. The chief is more accountable to the mayor than to the public."

Holdaway, who worked as a police officer for 11 years, believes the current
crisis in Toronto would be unfolding very differently if it had occurred in
his homeland. "I don't think we would have got into Fantino orchestrating
everything if this had been London."

Holdaway also was critical of the Toronto Police Services Board for not
taking a more proactive role in setting up its own review of the problems
plaguing the force.

"There is a question mark over the Toronto force," he said. "The chief can
help this by opening up the door and the police services board can help by
pushing at the door."

In England, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary -- which reports to
the British Home Office -- would be deeply involved. Its stable of
independent inspectors routinely monitor police forces throughout England
and Wales and keep a close watch on scandals, sometimes conducting their
own investigations, Holdaway said.

There is also a national civilian oversight agency called the Independent
Police Complaints Commission, which has recently had its powers broadened.
Its mandate includes investigating serious or organized allegations of
police corruption.

As a result of a spate of corruption cases about 20 years ago, London's
Metropolitan Police Service established an extensive internal
anti-corruption branch, Holdaway said.

In 1998, the anti-corruption squad was doubled to 120 officers and the top
police brass informed the public they feared there were up to 250 crooked
cops lurking in the force of 30,000 officers.

"The anti-corruption branch is very vigorous. If an officer is suspected by
the anti-corruption branch, they will set someone up to leave money or
drugs and see if the individual takes the bait," Holdaway said.

In New York City, a civilian watchdog keeps a similarly close eye on the
police, the result of a long history of corruption cases.

"Historically, about every 20 years a scandal has broken out in the NYPD,"
said Julie Block, who heads up the Commission to Combat Police Corruption,
which was set up in 1995 to break the cycle.

A major commission has followed each crisis, including the Knapp Commission
where Serpico made his stunning 1971 revelations of systemic bribe-taking
and links to organized crime.

Following yet another scandal in the early 1990s, a permanent civilian
entity was established strictly to monitor the issue of police corruption.
Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani set up the Commission to Combat
Police Corruption, a permanent civilian entity that monitors how the force
addresses and investigates allegations of internal misconduct.

"We sit down with investigators," said Block. "We randomly choose cases and
do spot checks. We look at whether they have been adequately investigated
and closed properly."

The agency also publishes studies analyzing how various aspects of the
NYPD's anti-corruption procedures are operating. Block said the city's
police department has come to accept that they are stuck with the agency
for better or worse.

"It's kind of like a bad marriage. We've decided to stay together for the
sake of the kids," she said.

But Block praised the concerted efforts of the senior command in the last
decade to institute a number of internal measures to stamp out corruption.

There is a special number the public can call to report alleged police
wrongdoing and it's advertised on the department's Web site. There is also
a private number police officers can call and their conversation won't be
recorded, Block said.

The New York force has a Profile and Assessment Committee made up of
high-ranking officers, who are responsible for identifying and more closely
supervising police who have a high number of complaints filed against them
with the city's Civilian Complaint Review Board. A separate unit identifies
and monitors officers seen to have disciplinary problems. As well, each
police precinct in New York has an Integrity Control Officer, whose role is
to watch for and report misconduct at the station level.

"I think there has been a change in the climate of the department itself,"
Block said. "In the old days, people were protecting a house of
prostitution and the payoff went all the way up the chain. Now the cases
you come across are more on an individual basis."

Still, reports by the Commission to Combat Police Corruption suggest the
force's internal mechanisms do not operate perfectly and could be supported
with greater resources.

Block argued this is why it is so important to have a hybrid of internal
vigilance within the police department, coupled with close civilian monitoring.

The bottom line, she said, is the police shouldn't be policing themselves.

"Just the fact we exist has value. If you know someone is looking over your
shoulder, human nature is going to make you dot your I's and cross your T's."