A broken trust.

Byline: The Register-Guard

During closing arguments last week in the trial of Roger Eugene Magana, Deputy District Attorney Bob Lane reminded the Lane County jurors who soon would decide the former police officer's fate that they could not heal the gaping wounds to the Eugene Police Department and the community it serves. "The cops will have to do that themselves," he rightly observed.

In the wake of Wednesday's conviction of Magana on 42 counts of sexual and other heinous crimes against women - and the earlier conviction of fellow officer Juan Francisco Lara on similar charges - Police Chief Robert Lehner has a great deal of work to do - and many disturbing questions to answer.

Law enforcement officials must not underestimate the depth of the damage. An unwelcome shadow hangs over this community. Rightly or wrongly, many women now wonder if they can trust police, and those lingering fears, in turn, have taken a toll on the department's morale, confidence and effectiveness.

Lehner must now conduct a full, open and unflinching investigation. It must answer questions such as how could such egregious, ongoing misconduct possibly go undetected by fellow officers and supervisors?

The links between Magana and Lara must also be clearly identified. Department officials initially denied any connection, yet four of 13 women accusing Magana gave testimony linking the two officers, and Lara's victims also mentioned Magana in their testimony at Lara's sentencing hearing earlier this year. If such a secret alliance existed, how did it come about, how did it remain undetected, and how can the department keep it from happening in the future?

The investigation must also determine if other officers, or even supervisors, were involved, either directly or indirectly, in the misconduct. Lehner has said he's confident that the abuses were limited to Lara and Magana. But so far he has nothing more than anecdotal evidence and professional instincts to back that up. That's not enough.

During the Magana trial, several women said they told other officers that they were being preyed upon by the officer. If that's so, why weren't they believed? Why weren't these women given the same levels of respect and credibility that would be afforded Joe Average who flags down an officer to report an assault or car theft?

Hopefully, Lehner is right, and other officers were not complicit. But a rigorous, impartial investigation of that disturbing possibility is essential.

An investigation must also take a hard look at the department's recruiting, hiring, training and supervisory practices and recommend reforms. The department already has begun this process and is expected to make adjustments in coming weeks. But those should not preclude far more extensive organizational reforms in the future.

Given a recent scathing external audit of the department's internal investigations, Lehner's first move should be to put this critical task in the hands of either an outside agency, such as the Oregon State Police, or an independent auditor. Attempting to keep this review within the department would be a serious mistake at a time when the agency's credibility - and track record - are at such dismal lows.

Finally, Lehner should move swiftly ahead with plans to thoroughly restructure the way the department handles internal complaints. The current system is unreliable, untimely, incomplete and poorly supervised. It inspires little or no trust in the community, as evidenced by the absence of formal complaints by any of the victims in the Lara and Magana cases.

To begin with, Lehner should eliminate the secrecy that needlessly shrouds the current review process, and install a system that provides for citizen participation, as well as outside assistance, when warranted. While the chief plans some immediate changes in the near future, he has cautioned that more major reforms may be months, even a year, away. Given the gravity of the situation, he should step up the pace and work with the city's police commission to put such reforms in place before the end of the summer.

Both Magana and Lara have done grave damage to their former department. Now, it's time for police to put their house in order and begin rebuilding the trust of the community they serve.