Update Regarding Internal Affairs Investigation NR20022jc

The Los Angeles Police Department’s Internal Affairs Group has completed the first of a series of investigations of misconduct allegations, involving the falsification of Field Identification (FI) Cards by Metropolitan Division officers. This investigation involved incidents that occurred in the San Fernando Valley in early 2019. While additional investigations are ongoing, Chief of Police Michel Moore has concluded that the actions of one officer was a serious violation of Department Policy. Chief Moore has directed the officer to an administrative tribunal for the purpose of removal. The Department has also presented this case for criminal filing consideration. The two other officers involved in those incidents remain assigned home pending the outcome of additional investigation.

This Department has worked for decades building public trust and will not tolerate this type of behavior, which destroys those efforts to create lasting bonds with the people we protect and serve. While the extent of this failure is still being determined, the LAPD is currently implementing additional safeguards to ensure the accuracy and legitimacy of the information recorded by officers in the field. Some of these safeguards include elevating the supervisory review and approval of gang field identification cards including the review of mandated body worn video recordings by all uniform personnel during the completion of gang FIs, and elevating the appeals process for those individuals that believe they were misidentified as a gang member or desire to be removed from the database.

The Department has also ordered the retraining for all Metropolitan personnel and gang enforcement personnel regarding the implementation of new, more stringent criteria in the collection of information associated with the California Gang Database. This more stringent criteria is in advance of the California Department of Justice formal adoption of earlier recommendations by this Department regarding the criteria being used to enter individuals into the CalGangs Database.

In announcing this next step in the ongoing series of investigations, Chief Moore stated, “I am committed to continuing the pursuit of a thorough examination of all of the circumstances of this failure including what organizational issues or motivations may have influenced this behavior. I have heard clearly the voices of those in our community who believe these actions discovered have existed in our past as well as today. And while to date our investigation has found the vast majority of the time our personnel have acted with integrity, we are determined to understand what motivations existed for anyone to commit serious misconduct in the falsification of information on a Department report.”