Latino Officers Accuse LAPD of Promotion Bias

An organization of Latino law enforcement officers on Wednesday formally accused the Los Angeles Police Department of discriminatory employment practices, saying the department has failed many Latino officers who are deserving of promotions, pay raises and better assignments.

The allegations were filed by the Latin American Law Enforcement Assn., known as LA LEY, an organization comprised almost entirely of Latino members of the department, with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. The agency will conduct an inquiry and could order changes in departmental policies and payments to some individual Latino officers if the charges are found to be valid, an official for the state agency said.

Allegations ‘Unfortunate’

Police Cmdr. William Booth, a spokesman for Chief Daryl F. Gates, said the allegations are “unfortunate” and unfounded, and asserted that they are largely unsupported by the department’s Latino members. Booth voiced confidence that the state’s inquiry will clear the department.

The allegations represent the culmination of several years of monitoring of the police department by LA LEY, which has more than 500 members, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), as well as lobbying by the group before the city’s Police Commission and City Council, said Alan Clayton, a LA LEY spokesman.

Two years after MALDEF submitted a detailed report to the Police Commission outlining Latino concerns, the group has concluded that “systemic discrimination” still persists within the department, Clayton said.

“We’ve made our needs known, but there is still inadequate representation (of Latinos) above Patrol Officer II,” Clayton said.

Clayton said, for example, that Latinos comprise about 19% of the department patrol officers, but only about 8% of the sergeants. Disproportionately few Latinos have moved up through the ranks, Clayton said. Last year, no Latinos were promoted to captain, and this year Latinos were graded no higher than 18th on the list of candidates for promotion to captain.

Cultural Disadvantage

Clayton suggested that Latinos may be at a cultural disadvantage on written exams for promotion, and recommended that such tests be graded on a pass-fail basis.

LA LEY said denial of desirable assignments, such as homicide, narcotics, administration and vice, to Latino officers has exacerbated the problem. “Such assignments are desirable in part because they provide officers with experience which the department considers useful or essential for further promotion or advancement,” the group said in its complaint.

The department’s top-ranking Latino, Cmdr. Robert Gil, ascended to that post last year, and only after intensive lobbying by LA LEY and Latino City Council members Richard Alatorre and Gloria Molina, Clayton asserted. Similarly, the appointment of Capt. Art Lopez to head the Hollenbeck station in heavily Latino Boyle Heights came after intensive lobbying, he said.

But Booth denied that political pressure played a role in the promotions of Gil and Lopez, saying appointments were based on merit.

The police spokesman called the allegations “divisive.” “We just don’t believe the majority of our Hispanic officers agree with those charges,” Booth said.

“This department is a family. We truly are. Hispanic officers are just as much a part of the family as anyone,” Booth said. “We say we’re all one color: Blue . . . We all have a sense of prevailing thinking in the department.”

In defending the department policies, Booth cited a comparison to statistics between now and 1980, when the department signed a consent decree agreeing to improve the roles of minorities within the department.

Since 1980, Booth said, overall Latino representation in the department has increased from 10.7% to 18%. There have been substantial gains in Latino representation among lieutenants, detectives, sergeants and other ranks, Booth said.

In March, 1987, following talks with LA LEY and other Latino groups, Gates increased the department’s Latino recruitment goal from 22.5% to 30%. That effort has had mixed results, Clayton said, in part because of a high attrition rate at the Police Academy.