Pomona Police Department began making changes to its internal affairs division months before a Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury report made recommendations about the way it handles citizen complaints.
The grand jury report reviewed the citizen complaint process and internal affairs for 12 departments in Los Angeles County, including Pomona’s. The report, “Policing the Police,” aimed to improve transparency and oversight by:
- Increasing the availability and acceptance of citizen complaints
- Ensuring that timely and appropriate investigations occurred
- Assessing that compliance with the citizen complaint process was being followed
- Ensuring that logging and tracking measures were in place to identify problem officers early
As a result of its investigation, the grand jury found “effective community relations and public trust can be earned through an open and accessible complaint process.” But it noted that 44 of the 46 departments in the county do not have civilian oversight, a problem that should be “of great concern.”
Instead, most departments have either an internal affairs unit or Office of Professional Standards which investigates complaints by the public.
The 27-page document, which was released in late June, made a half-dozen recommendations for Pomona, most notably that it do better to provide complainants copies of their statement at the time it is filed. Departments are legally required to provide written notification within 30 days.
Pomona was in compliance 51 percent of the time, compared to Burbank and Glendale which were 100 percent in compliance, according to the report. On the other end of the spectrum, San Fernando police only met the legal requirement 8 percent of the time.
“In an attempt to achieve 100 percent compliance, we will send a letter to the complainant within 30 days of completion of the investigation regarding the disposition of their complaint,” Pomona police Chief Michael Olivieri said Wednesday in a statement.
Between 2013 and 2017, the report found that 9.6 percent of the complaints in Pomona were unfounded, only 5.5 percent were sustained while 78.1 percent of the complaints were listed as “other.”
Olivieri began reviewing his department’s policies and procedures in January, weeks after he was named the interim police chief, he said in the statement.
“What I created was a ‘Professional Standards’ unit, headed by a police lieutenant to oversee the interrelated functions of internal affairs, policies and procedures, training, backgrounds and recruitment,” he said.
The unit, which reports to Olivieri and the deputy police chief, has been tasked with re-evaluating the Police Department’s practices and procedures in internal affairs.
The goal is “to ensure that we are operating in accordance to industry best practices,” Olivieri said.
“Almost immediately, areas of improvement were identified by staff and changes were in process, even prior to the Los Angeles County Grand Jury inquiry,” he wrote.
Since the recommendations were released, Olivieri said the department is in the process of implementing numerous changes, including adding signage in multiple languages indicating the location of complaint forms and making those forms available in multiple languages online.
The department will also provide training to all personnel who process and obtaining citizen complaints.
Olivieri said Pomona is considering the jury recommendation to develop an appeals process when a complainant disagrees with the result of an investigation or disposition.
Pomona has already taken action on some recommendations, such as making complaint forms readily available in the department’s lobby and posting it online. Another change implemented by the department is to accept and log all complaints, regardless of the seriousness of the allegations.
“I sincerely appreciated working with the Grand Jury, and I appreciated their recommendations,” Olivieri said.
As an aside, Olivieri said he was touched by the grand jury’s decision to dedicate its entire report to the memory of fallen Pomona officer Greggory Casillas.
Pomona has until Sept. 30 to implement the changes recommended in the report.
August 15, 2018
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
By Liset Márquez
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