Program #319 and 322 Videotaped November 9, 2001

GUESTS: Mark Ridley Thomas, L. A. City Councilman
TITLE: Lt. Kenneth Hillman, Los Angeles Police Union

PART 1:

According to L. A. City Councilman Mark-Ridley Thomas the U. S. Department of Justice found the Los Angeles Police Department to have a pattern and practice of discriminatory behavior and misconduct and after repeated efforts to cause reform of the LAPD, felt they needed to step in and lay down the law.

Lt. Ken Hillman responded by saying the LAPD has always rooted out problem officers. It was NOT the Federal Monitor, the Federal government coming in. He said the LAPD Internal Affairs are the ones that discovered the actions of Rafael Perez and Nino Durden., that the LAPD started the investigation.

Ridley Thomas was asked if he approved of the Consent Decree mandate to have police officers gather racial data on the streets of Los Angeles. He said yes, because people were being stopped and interrogated because of their ethnic background. When asked if the Police should not be stopping people he said he absolutely believed there was a justification for a law enforcement officer to pull someone over, but time and time again there is insufficient cause for it, so that is identified as a pattern.

When asked what effect there would be if police officers are gathering racial information on the streets Lt. Hillman said “we don’t want our officers suddenly feeling like they cannot do their job. You take a black officer and you put him in West L. A. and predominantly he’ll be stopping whites. That does not mean he is a racist it just means that is the environment he works in. Or a white officer in South Central Los Angeles or a Hispanic officer in Korea town and he is stopping Koreans. Our union does not support hard profiling.

PART 2:

Lt. Ken Hillman told Full Disclosure that the Los Angeles Police Union objects to the Federal Consent Decree mandate that the officers must guess as to the ethnic background of people they stop because they are not allowed to ask and the must keep track of this information. He wondered how they could tell the difference between a Jamaican or an African or Filipino or Asian. He said he was worried that this information could be used against the police officers in civil rights cases.

Councilman Mark Ridley Thomas said it was necessary to gather this ethnic information because too many law –abiding citizens, who happen to be either African-American or Latino, are pulled over by law enforcement officers, and it is both demeaning, it is unsettling and humiliating.

When asked if police officers should be discouraged from stopping minorities on their beat, Mark Ridley-Thomas said “for no ubstantiated, justified reason, I would say Yes.”

According to Lt. Hillman the Rampart (scandal) was blown out of proportion. “We (LAPD) relieved over 200 officers” and out of that number he said 199 were exonerated of unfounded charges. Lt. Hillman said that while those officers were under investigation, for over two years, they could only receive pay for 30 days. Most of them lost their homes, 79 percent went through divorces, one attempted suicide and all were completely exonerated and unfounded. He said the Department is facing a consent decree because of what was done by two and maybe three others, Nino Durden and Raphael Perez.

Ridley-Thomas suggested that the Police Union and management had a propensity to sweep the racial profiling problems under the rug. Hillman responded that the there was an over reaction to the Rampart scandal and the media has never reported in the aftermath of Rampart any balance on the story.

In response to Mark Ridley-Thomas suggestion that there was a “pattern and practice” by the Los Angeles Police Department engaging in misconduct and civil rights violations Hillman adamantly objected and accused the City Council of making $150 million in settlements with the arrestees as a means to justified entering into a Consent Decree because of the millions it was costing in settlements, saying it was a scare tactic to bully the city into civil rights Federal monitor. The Department is not out of control, the Police Department has resolved it.