As city attorney you failed to challenge what was often the brazen "testilying" of LAPD officers, the tainted or planted evidence they produced, or the frame-ups they perpetrated.
As a result, the city was forced to pay out an astounding $100 million during the 1990s to settle cases of police abuse, and $44 million more to settle all other suits against the department.
I understand the conflict you would have faced in speaking out against an LAPD you had to defend in court. But by doing little or nothing to pressure the department to limit the abusive behavior that was costing the city so much, you in effect condoned that behavior.
Nevertheless, Mr. Mayor, I believe that people change. Warren Christopher served as vice chairman of the McCone Commission, which investigated the 1965 Watts rebellion, and produced a classic establishment whitewash. Twenty-six years later, as chair of the commission that investigated the root causes of the Rodney King beating, his Christopher Commission produced an extraordinarily detailed, right-on-the-money indictment of Daryl Gates' LAPD and all it had stood for. The fact that many of the commission's recommendations were never fully enacted — and we got the Rampart scandal as our just deserts — should be a lesson to you.
Be bold, Mr. Mayor. Follow Christopher's about-face and see the job through. If you do, you'll have a shot at greatness and the city a shot at justice and peace.
Sincerely yours, Joe Domanick
Joe Domanick is the author ofTo Protect and To Serve: The LAPD's Century of War in the City of Dreams, and is the senior fellow at the Institute for Justice and Journalism at the University of Southern California.
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