It's time for the mayor to wake up. This city and its police department need an independent commission - and we need it now. Relying on the police department to ferret out all of the underlying problems is like having a cancer patient operate on himself. Only an independent, blue-ribbon commission with a broad mandate to examine the entire criminal justice system and then to ensure that the necessary reforms are implemented by the police department can do the job the residents of Los Angeles deserve.

First we were told we were just looking at a few bad apples - now Chief Parks is calling this corruption a cancer eating away at the LAPD. Chief Parks has proposed a number of good reforms, but at root he continues to treat this as a character issue that he can resolve by going around to every precinct and personally telling officers to up their professional standards. Well, that is not enough. This indeed is a cancer. It's structural and it's cultural - and it stems from the LAPD's ongoing refusal to open itself up to public scrutiny so that officer misconduct can be screened for, detected and eradicated before it has a chance to spread.

The problem with this report is it really tells us nothing new; it just acknowledges longstanding problems within the department: a faulty complaint system, inadequate tracking systems, poor supervision, and bad hiring practices - problems that groups interested in police reform have pointed out for years. Chief Parks wants us to believe that "we do not need to reinvent the wheel, introduce a flock of new programs or institute revolutionary approaches to police work. What we do need to do is emphasize a scrupulous adherence to existing policies and standards."

Chief Parks, the present system cannot be defended. The LAPD claims credit for uncovering this scandal and making it public, but the report admits systemic failure to find the problems in the first place. If Rafael Perez had not been arrested for theft and copped a plea following a mistrial in order to gain a lighter sentence, the structural problems that have been festering for years - shootings, beatings, cover-ups, perjurous statements - would not have been discovered.

Chief Parks blames, in part, the lack of an adequate computer tracking system to track officer misconduct. The Christopher Commission recommended this system back in 1991; the federal government gave seed money to the department to implement it. Why didn't the chief, the second in command of the department until 1992 and then in charge of Internal Affairs, make sure that this system was in place long before he learned of the Rampart scandal?

The Board of Inquiry report fails to look at what is going on in divisions outside of Rampart. It fails to take into account the most recent revelations of corruption within the department. It fails in its attempt to ensure the public that true structural changes will be made and must be made.

The ACLU of Southern California announced its support today for LAPD Chief Bernard Parks' request to bring in a team of FBI agents to help investigate the most serious scandal in the department's history.

'This is a constructive development,' said executive director Ramona Ripston. 'Federal agents will help uncover the depth and breadth of the current scandal.

'However, asking for help with the investigation should not divert our attention from the need to have an independent blue ribbon panel look at the Los Angeles Police Department to determine what changes in policies and practices are necessary to bring about needed reform,' Ripston continued. 'The panel's mandate should include a look at the entire criminal justice system to find out if prosecutors and judges ignored evidence of deep-seated corruption. Until changes are put in place, we cannot be assured that a scandal of this magnitude will not happen again. Public confidence will be restored only when an independent commission recommends systemic changes, with a procedure in place to ensure that changes are actually implemented.'

The ACLU of Southern California today called on Mayor Riordan to appoint an independent, blue-ribbon civilian commission to review thoroughly the operations and policies of the LAPD in the wake of the growing scandal rocking the department. "The City Council's vote to increase resources to the present Police Commission is insufficient to bring about the necessary reform," ACLU executive director Ramona Ripston pointed out. "The corruption and brutality that have surfaced in the last six months have been festering for years. The present Commission failed in its oversight function, despite years of outcry from community members who have been trying to bring this problem to the public's attention."

"In addition to full and broad subpoena power and an investigative staff independent of the police department, the new, blue-ribbon commission must be given a mandate to look beyond the confines of the Rampart CRASH unit," Ripston continued. "The systemic problems will not be uncovered by the police policing itself, and they have not been uncovered by the present Police Commission. We believe that for true reform to be properly implemented, the new commission must continue its work after it makes its policy recommendations. One of the failings of the Christopher Commission was the lack of follow-through; many of the meaningful reforms suggested were never implemented."

Earlier today, the ACLU announced a regional newspaper ad campaign calling upon Mayor Riordan to take action and bring accountability to the LAPD. The full-page ad will appear in the Wednesday, February 16, 2000 western region edition of the New York Times, as well as other local newspapers.

The ad decries Riordan's inaction in the face of revelations of systemic corruption within the LAPD, and calls for Riordan to appoint an independent commission charged with investigating the scandal and overseeing the following reforms:

-The complete overhaul of the LAPD complaint process, which currently does more to discourage civilians from reporting officer misconduct than to keep police misconduct in check.

-The creation of a special prosecutor's office to investigate police corruption independently, with the power to subpoena and prosecute corrupt officers to the full extent of the law.

"We are all familiar with Mayor Riordan's crusade for accountability, but as this most recent scandal clearly shows, there will never be true accountability within the LAPD so long as civilians are routinely prevented from bringing police abuse to light and to justice," says Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California. "It is past time for the Mayor to stop defending the status quo and to implement meaningful civilian review of the LAPD, once and for all."