Another day, another
LAPD official going before the cameras trying to polish the badge so to
speak. This time it was Deputy Chief Mark Perez, head of what's
called the "Professional Standards Bureau'.
By all accounts a fine man,
Perez was the SME (subject matter expert) in LAPD parlance on the controversial Board of Rights process that led
to Christopher Dorner's firing and ultimately, his homicidal
carnage. Perez was served up, so to speak, because the police
wanted to provide someone to clarify the ''misinformation'' out there that's
been reported post Dorner about the Board of Rights process.
When it was my
turn, I asked the Deputy Chief what ''misinformation'' the department wanted to clarify.
His answer was ''that the system is someone skewed or unfair."
Well, here's the deal: That isn't ''misinformation." That's the opinion of many officers who've come forward to us and in
particular to our legal analyst Robin Sax, to say--in layman's terms--they
were screwed in the Board of Rights hearing. But in the LAPD's eyes, news
organizations trying to responsibly analyze these claims are guilty of
spreading ''misinformation'' as if we were some cold war CIA backed black
ops group telling the Russians we were going to invade, say, England in
order to get them to divert resources to protect it while we were secretly
planning to invade, say, Fuji? You get the idea.
Anything that is
contrary to their official stance is ''misinformation." Well at least
they're watching the news when they're not making it.
At any rate,
Perez admirably and clearly answered any and all questions patiently and as
fully as he could, and now we know what we already knew, that the LAPD
believes it's disciplinary system is fair, unbiased and well thought out--A
system, ironically, that was put in place in the '30s specifically to be fair
to officers who were victimized by corrupt LAPD brass that could basically fire
anyone it wanted to for basically any reason.
Traffic tickets don't really cut it, and
having said all the above, I also want to say that I sincerely appreciate every
cop out there who puts his life on the line to protect us every day. I'm just
making the point that no organization is perfect which, to its credit, the
LAPD readily admits.
