L.A. Newspaper Sues Sheriff's Department Over Its Repeated Refusal To Comply With The Law

from the law-ignorement-officers dept

Very few California law enforcement agencies welcomed a new state law that finally lifted the ordained opacity that shielded misbehaving cops from the public's scrutiny. The law that went into effect at the beginning of 2019 gave California residents access to records dealing with misconduct, use-of-force, and other "bad apple" behavior for the first time in decades.

State law enforcement agencies responded to the new transparency by obfuscating, stonewalling, and suing. The smartest agencies destroyed records with their cities' blessing before the public could get to them. The state's top cop even claimed the law did not affect records created before the law went into effect, directly contradicting the legislation's author. Public records requesters sued back, knowing they were in the right. After all, not a single court in the state has aligned itself with law enforcement's fervent belief it should never be accountable ever, no matter what laws are on the books.

The Los Angeles Times is suing the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department for refusing to follow the new law. But who could blame the gang-infested LASD for being evasive, what with its unusually large number of reasons to keep the public in the dark about its activities?

Eighteen months after making a very detailed request for information about misbehaving officers, the LA Times is asking a court to benchslap the Sheriff's Department around a bit. As additional leverage, the Times is quoting the law, which makes compliance mandatory, rather than something whose nuances should be sorted out in front of a neutral party.

Before we get into the LA Times' lawsuit [PDF], let's just warm up with a statement from the LASD:

A county spokeswoman… said in a statement that L.A. County is “committed to fulfilling its responsibilities” under the California Public Records Act.

is it tho?

[T]the Sheriff’s Department denied The Times’ first and second CPRA requests for electronic records and letters of discipline, claiming that The Times’ requests were overbroad. LASD claimed that it was “unable to assist … with your request as it is too broad in scope” and that The Times had not made requests that “reasonably describe the identifiable record or records.” The Sheriff’s Department claimed that The Times would have to identify specific names to obtain SB 1421 records, even though SB 1421 has no such requirement and the names of deputies disciplined were not public before the Legislature enacted SB 1421.

First, the LASD demanded the LA Times request records using officers' names -- information that had been unavailable for years until this law was passed. Then it decided to keep playing hard to get even after the newspaper came up with the names the law didn't say it had to have in its possession to request these records.

While Cmdr. Scott Johnson of the Sheriff’s Department stated on April 5 and 8, 2019, in communications by phone and email, that the Sheriff’s Department would provide records on a rolling basis regarding the 325 named individuals, the County has failed to provide responsive information on more than 300 of them even though more than 18 months have passed since SB 1421 went into effect.

Out of the 325 officers' records requested, the LASD has only bothered responding with info on nine of them. And, despite claims that a shortage of manpower was keeping them from complying with the new law, the department had time to shower the LA Times with tons of bullshit-laden digital paper.

On February 6, 2020, the Sheriff’s Department sent several hundred identical emails claiming that “stays … prohibited the Department from releasing records until they were lifted,” even though the stays had been lifted eleven months earlier.

After screwing around for another couple of months with supposedly limited resources, the LASD asked the Times if it really wanted the records it had spent most of 18 months asking for. The answer is this lawsuit.

For a few more months, the LA Times continued to request more records. And the LASD continued to claim it was "gathering" records while failing to produce any evidence of this "gathering" or, indeed, the records themselves. And so the narrative continues for several more pages, part of the Times' 155-page lawsuit.

But, hey, taxpayers: this is all fine. The LASD doesn't just blow off newspapers and their public records requests. It's also sticking it to The Man!

L.A. County’s chief law enforcement watchdog, the Office of Inspector General, also sought documents — through a subpoena — related to allegations that Villanueva directed the coverup. The Sheriff’s Department did not comply.

God bless the boys in whatever-the-fuck-color they're wearing now, who are willing to spend our tax dollars thwarting the oversight we're paying for and ignoring the laws we want them to comply with.

Filed Under: bad apple, california, lasd, police misconduct, records, transparency
Companies: la times

Recordings Capture Cops Discussing Department's Most Rotten Apple

from the thanks-for-the-convo,-but-what-are-you-doing-about-it? dept

Accountability begins at home. But nothing happens if no one's willing to make the first step. Officers who witnessed another officer's brutal act had plenty to say about it, but apparently not to anyone who mattered.

Recordings obtained through records requests by NJ.com contain three hours of candid conversations between officers about the actions of Cataret, New Jersey police officer Joseph Reiman. Reiman is a military veteran and the mayor's youngest brother. Officer Joseph Reiman is also responsible for 20% of the department's force deployment.

From the time Joseph Reiman was hired in July 2015, the 50-person department logged 115 incidents in which an officer used force, such as a punch, baton or weapon against a suspect, according to documents obtained under the state Open Public Records Act.

Reiman, 31, the brother of longtime Mayor Daniel Reiman, accounted for 24 of the incidents, more than twice as many as any other officer.

The obtained recordings captured the reactions of officers responding to the scene of an arrest handled by Joseph Reiman. When they arrived, they were confronted with a 16-year-old suspect lying face down in gravel with "blood all over the fucking place."

The officers, who have not been identified, remark that this disturbing situation is par for the course for Officer Reiman.

"I've been doing this less time than you but I've never punched anybody in the face like [inaudible]... never," an officer says in the recording.

"That's what I told Jerome last time," another officer responds.

The fact that these complaints never made their way up the chain of command likely has to do with the other officer at the scene: Charles Reiman, another of the mayor's brothers. As the officers leaving the scene point out, there's zero chance anyone in the department would be willing to pursue a case against the mayor's siblings.

The official narrative to explain the events, according to the officers, started at the scene and continued at headquarters: One recalls, "When I was there, they were like, 'Well, he was in a car accident. He was in a car accident.' I'm looking at this kid's face, I'm like, "that ain't a f-----g car accident... the whole side of his face has to be away from his skull and it's like repeated... lump... lump... lump."

Officer Charles Reiman, the middle Reiman brother who was the second on scene, had repeated, "He wouldn't show his hands," the same officer recalls.

"Charlie's already, ya know, writing his thesis," he says.

Another officer can be heard later in a separate recorded conversation,"They are going to blame it on the car accident... Nothin's gonna happen. They're gonna say nothing happen... he didn't have his body camera on."

The officer already knew Reiman's body camera wasn't on and questioned whether anyone's recorded the incident.

"What do you want to bet... they're all sitting around a table right now trying to get their f-----g story straight?" one officer asks after leaving the hospital.

And there it is: the legal defense for Reiman's actions was in development before this second set of officers arrived on the scene. When it's a cop's word against a beaten 16-year-old, "he wouldn't show his hands" tends to give officers permission to handle the situation with whatever level of force they want to, rather than what's actually necessary.

Joseph Reiman is now under indictment for criminal assault. He's still on the payroll while this advances through the judicial system. His history of excessive force is documented. Reiman is also a triple threat: writer, actor, and director of his own body cam footage.

[W]hile the Carteret police force is equipped with body cameras, videos that could tell the full story in some of Reiman's encounters do not exist or have been withheld, and at least one was corrupted, according to NJ Advance Media's investigation

Reiman's actions have prompted some interesting reactions. The most ridiculous reaction is that of Reiman's attorney.

Joseph Reiman's attorney, Charles Sciarra, said in a statement Friday, referring to the police heard in the videos, that these "officers are known malingerers who slow roll to calls like they did on this one, and are cut from the same cloth as the officer in the Florida school shooting who stayed outside the building while those kids were slaughtered."

Even if this were accurate, it would still be an incredibly shitty way to represent your client. It shows you're no better than the person you're representing -- someone willing to toss slurs at cops who don't regularly beat arrestees, and to portray appropriate force deployment as cowardice. But here's the thing: Reiman's attorney is making these accusations when he doesn't even know for sure which officers were captured on the recordings.

Sciarra also called on NJ Advance Media to name the officers so the attorney could "review their pitiful arrest numbers and lack of law enforcement activity as well as their agenda."

Reiman and his attorney deserve each other. Both have the mindset that efficient, brutal policing that steamrolls civilians' rights is the best policing.

The other reaction is (comparatively) much better. A letter from the county prosecutor puts a new person in charge of internal investigations. This "extraordinary measure" was prompted by the department's refusal to deal with mounting excessive force allegations -- a great many of them tied to Reiman and his partner -- and it's apparent unwillingness to conduct required background checks on gun purchasers. As the letter notes, the Cataret PD has spent two years ignoring its background check duties.

The scathing letter sent by Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey to borough officials --which was obtained by NJ Advance Media Thursday but dated Monday -- orders the recently hired Carteret police director, Kenneth Lebrato, to take over the department's internal affairs unit for at least six months.

[...]

Carey described Lebrato as "uniquely well qualified" because of his experience in the prosecutor's office.

Citing internal affairs issues in the letter, Carey calls current Carteret Deputy Chief Dennis McFadden, who is referred to as the chief in the borough's news releases, "ineffective in executing his official duties."

This may result in more attention being paid to the department's bad apples. Unfortunately, the better apples are only talking to each other, rather than their supervisors or city officials. Then again, the system is rigged against police whistleblowers, who will not only be ostracized, but possibly deliberately placed in danger by their colleagues. In this case, the system is even worse because the two officers involved in the cover-up of this excessive force are related to the top man in town. These officers stated as much on video: no one in the department would be willing to go head-to-head with the mayor's PD siblings.

So, the burden falls on the public. Investigative journalism has forced the system to address long-ignored problems. But this only goes so far, and it only works when journalists are able to apply consistent pressure via records requests (which often involves expensive lawsuits). Public servants are shirking their duties. Cops who have a duty to intervene are refusing to do so. The refusal to engage in internal accountability shifts an undue amount of the burden to private enterprises, who have to pay to perform oversight tasks that the public is paying PD officials to perform. The Cataret PD has been willing to house abusive cops for years, all on the taxpayers' dime. Only now, after being exposed, is it seeking to address its multiple issues.

Filed Under: accountability, bad apple, cataret, charles reiman, daniel reiman, joseph reiman, new jersey, police