L.A.P.D. Gang Units Emptying Out Over Federal Rules

January 11th, 2011 (3) Posted By Pat Dollard.

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Dozens of anti-gang police officers across the city are quitting their assignments over a requirement to reveal personal financial information under strict anti-corruption rules, The Associated Press has learned.

Gang units in some of the city’s most violent neighborhoods are being left with multiple vacancies, with officers choosing instead to work regular patrol shifts, Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger said Monday.

One of the areas most affected is the city’s northeast division, which includes territory controlled by the notorious Avenues gang around Highland Park. Rather than fill in financial disclosure forms, most of the division’s anti-gang unit has decided to leave and return to patrol, resulting in an unspecified number of vacancies.

Paysinger and other police officials stressed the reassignments would not affect public safety. The former gang officers — along with their street smarts and gang expertise — would remain in the neighborhoods they had long served.

The main difference would be that, as regular patrol officers, they would not be able to use some of the investigative techniques they could as gang officers.

“The community should not be concerned,” Paysinger said. “We haven’t backed away from our gang enforcement posture.”

The deadline for officers to sign the LAPD’s financial disclosure forms is the end of March but many officers are letting their superiors know ahead of time that they are declining.

The rules were mandated by the U.S. Department of Justice after a scandal in the late 1990s involving misconduct by anti-gang officers from LAPD’s Rampart division.

The rules require gang and narcotics officers to reveal portions of their personal financial records to the department and are supposed to snare corrupt officers in units frequently handling cash or drugs.

The police officers’ union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, has long faulted the requirements, saying they are onerous and sap morale, among other criticisms,

Paysinger said gang officers who chose to quit rather than fill in the forms did not have a full understanding of the policy, and said the financial disclosure forms were less intrusive than credit card applications

The departure of gang officers could put the cash-strapped department under additional pressure. Already, it has had to cut overtime to deal with a shrinking budget.

Despite this, the city last year recorded its lowest homicide rate in decades.

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  • Pat

    I can understand why an honest cop would see this requirement as a bit insulting. But I worked as a computer programmer for 19 years in the banking industry. Because of the potential for financial abuse I had to be bonded, fingerprinted and my finances were subject to examination by our audit department at any time. That’s just the way it is. And I worked for a company in the private sector. Men and women who receive their salaries from the taxpayers will always be subject to greater scrutiny than private sector enployees.

    I sympathize, but quitting a job because you don’t want to be subject to financial disclosure rules is extremely unusual in today’s world…and a bit naive.

    • .user

      What you’re not seeing is that the requirement is yet another arbitrary intrusion of government into your personal life.

      In the name of “safety” and “security” people, way too often, let those offering “protection” into areas of their personal life that they had no business in to begin with. Hell, putting everyone in jail would accomplish the task just fine..

      The main problem here is that other people (government or private) will not draw a line in the sand that it will not cross unless the employee, taxpayer, or the customer forces them to and puts up some kind of resistance. Taxpayers vote, customers boycott, and employees can only quit and leave the company/institution unable to perform its role.. which may make them reconsider (or maybe not if they’re stubborn enough)

      I don’t really buy into the claim that “The community should not be concerned, We haven’t backed away from our gang enforcement posture.”

      This sounds so reassuring. I’m sure they’re perfectly capable of enforcing this “posture” without officers in gang units.. :roll:

      “Paysinger said gang officers who chose to quit rather than fill in the forms did not have a full understanding of the policy…”

      In simpler words, the officers that quit are dumb because they simply don’t understand.

      I also sympathize, but if they’re willing to quit their jobs over it then perhaps they *do* understand the policies better than what the article’s and this Paysinger guy author would have you believe..

  • Joe Mudd

    In the Bible it say’s do not muzzle the ox
    while it’s treading out the grain.

    Hell if you let people keep the bootee there’d be no need for cops and there would be no gangs.
    (thinking)
    Taxes would be lower I’d need to carry a gun so
    would everybody else and crime would go away
    I better stop before I become a constitutionalist.