GANG, NARCOTICS COPS THREATEN TO WALK

Some 500 LAPD gang and narcotics officers are threatening to retire
or change jobs if the city follows through on a proposal forcing
them to reveal their personal finances, union officials said.

A financial-disclosure proposal set to be considered by the
five-member civilian police commission Thursday would be the last
major hurdle to comply with a seven-year old federal consent decree
meant to root out police corruption.

Under the proposal, all gang and narcotics officers with the rank of
lieutenant or below must provide a detailed list of their finances
including all their properties, past-due credit card debts, outside
income, stocks, bonds and checking accounts.

"No other law enforcement agency in the country forces its officers
to share this kind of information," police union President Tim Sands
said in a prepared statement. "This financial disclosure plan is an
unnecessary and ill-conceived intrusion into the private lives of
LAPD officers, their spouses and their children."

The decree, which arose out of the Rampart corruption scandal
implicating several officers on a gang detail of framing and beating
suspects, has been a top priority for LAPD Chief William Bratton, a
former consent decree monitor.

Bratton was vacationing Tuesday. First Assistant Chief Sharon Papa
said she could not comment on a matter that would be considered by
the Police Commission in closed session.

Under the proposal, financial disclosure would be phased in over two
years. Incumbent officers would not have to report for two years but
all newly assigned officers must divulge their finances within 10
days of their assignment.

In one Valley gang division, a supervisor predicted that the rules
would spark an exodus from an already struggling unit.

"Everyone here is walking except for one dope (narcotics) cop," said
the supervisor, who declined to be named.

Though decree reforms have been departmentwide, it's the gang units
that have seen some of the most intense scrutiny.

Many in the unit are already resentful of the amount of paperwork
the heavily scrutinized officers must do, he said.

"I already have a hard time recruiting here; nobody wants to leave a
job that is good to come here," he said.

The reform is only one of dozens forced by the federal consent
decree that radically shifted the way the LAPD conducted day-to-day
police work after the Department of Justice found "a pattern or
practice of excessive force, false arrests, and illegal searches
and seizures."

Under the decree negotiated by then-Mayor James Hahn to head off a
Justice Department lawsuit, the LAPD has implemented TEAMS II, a
complicated officer-tracking system that aims to root out troublemakers.

It also prohibited the use of secret informants, demanded that gang
officers be uniformed, created an integrity section and instituted a
massive audit division.

But the police union and others doubt whether the
financial-disclosure proposal will reveal bad officers who hide
money in trust funds with family members, in property and elsewhere.

"I am puzzled by this," said Robert Stern, the president of the
nonprofit Center for Governmental Studies. "Usually, (financial
disclosure) is meant to prevent conflicts, not corruption. I always
say that the ones who want to be corrupt will be corrupt and won't disclose."