All-civilian discipline panels are more lenient with LAPD officers, report finds
The LAPD commission’s all-civilian disciplinary panel has found the LAPD officers responsible for the Loyola and Pasadena Police Department shootings to be more lenient than their all-civilian counterparts, according to newly released data.
The commission’s all-civilian disciplinary panel has found the LAPD officers responsible for the Loyola and Pasadena Police Department shootings to be more lenient than their all-civilian counterparts, according to newly released data. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)
The new information comes as the LAPD begins to close out the most recent chapter of its criminal investigation into police misconduct, and as the LAPD continues to grapple with whether to keep a large disciplinary board in place.
The details of the latest LAPD commission, which was formed last fall to investigate shootings by LAPD officers, are summarized below.
* The officer who fired his weapon and killed Ricardo Diaz, a 27-year-old Latino unarmed man who was in a car with his mother and two other passengers.
* The six officers who fired their weapons and killed Sergio Santana, a Mexican-American man who was standing in the street with a metal-detector to his head who had earlier committed a misdemeanor and was also unarmed.
The commission found that six LAPD officers were involved in the shooting, but that only one officer — Sgt. John Pike — fired his weapon and killed Diaz. Pike also shot at Santana. But it found four of the officers — Pike, and his two teammates, Thomas Villareal and Eric Kowalczyk — were justified in shooting Santana, who the commission found had a metal-detector in his head. Villareal was not charged, but did receive counseling after his disciplinary hearing. Both of the officers who shot Santana — Kowalczyk and Sgt. Anthony Barksdale — received counseling.
In the shooting of Santana, the commission found that the officers did not fire their weapons until their bodies began appearing on the street.
“We do not know why they did not fire,” said Dennis LaM
