CRIME AGAINST COPS LAPD LEADERS LET DOWN HONEST, DEVOTED OFFICERS.

Byline: Mike Arminio 

On my way to work, listening to news radio, I take in my minimum daily adult requirement of abuse for belonging to the LAPD at the time of the worst scandal to hit the department in decades.

I feel like an abused wife in the cycle of violence. Go ahead: Beat me and then tell me how much you need me.

I think it is funny how, in the paper, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office was quoted as saying: ``We're expecting the officers to be arrested like any other corrupt person.''

Whoa! Don't they usually throw in an ``allegedly'' when they say what someone is accused of doing?

You know - like ``the city councilman allegedly bought and smoked cocaine'' or ``the state official allegedly took some shady campaign contributions.'' It seemed as if they were sort of putting the paddy wagon before the drunk.

I guess, though, it's not unusual in the Los Angeles Police Department to be convicted and sentenced before the trial. We actually make pretty fair game with our shiny badges and our desire to do police work, regardless of how risky it is. I'm not talking about the risk of being shot or stabbed; I'm talking about the risk of being accused of anything and everything, of being fired and/or being hauled into criminal, civil and federal court.

Why do we take that risk? Some people seem to think it's simply because we are stupid. The reasoning, offered by many who work ``The Building,'' is that if you're stupid enough to stay in patrol - rather than seek a nonpatrol job - you deserve whatever happens to you.

That's why a lot of those cops assigned to the Police Administration Building drive around in pool cars without radios in them and aren't assigned radios. It discourages crime and, at the same time, discourages cops from getting involved in taking action on those crimes. No radios. No calls. No car stops. No personnel complaints.

I'm not trying to discount the importance of many of the jobs at ``The Building.'' No one can deny the need for or deserved prestige of a Robbery/Homicide Division, Abused Child Unit, etc. How could we do without the Officer Representation Section right now? They prove their worth every day.

I'm not really pointing my finger at any particular assignment. Everybody knows his or her worth and the worth of each assignment. But while patrol is the thing that attracts us to police work, why are so many compelled to get out of it?

Recently a friend, disgusted and worn down from the torturous ordeal of being the object of a drawn-out Internal Affairs investigation of multiple false allegations and a subsequent Board of Rights hearing, declared in tears: ``I hate this . . . department!''

I had to disagree. This officer didn't hate the department. He hated a system and some people who couldn't care less about how this officer's life was being affected.

There's a lot of evil out there, enough to go around for all of us to hate. I just think we need to identify the true object of our hatred. I don't think it's the department.

What or who is ``the department''?

This calls to mind something I told a recruit I worked with on his second ride-along, about 17 years ago in Southeast Division.

He was a bit disheartened by the ramblings of his no-personality partner the night before. The man had told him, ``You screwed up, kid. This department stinks, and this is a lousy job. You should have picked a different line of work.'' This speaker was a self-anointed ``veterano'' who had ``seen it all and done it all.''

The ``veterano,'' however, had failed to learn to appreciate the truly enjoyable things in police work: to do the job and have fun doing it. It had become only a job to him, and he burned out quick. That was the LAPD to him.

I can remember thinking, as a young recruit in 1977: I get to do all this and they pay me and I get a vacation? I didn't want to go on a vacation. The job was the vacation.

I told the recruit not to listen to what everyone else said about the LAPD. Whether special-interest groups, the brass, self-serving politicians or burned-out cops, they all have their opinions of the LAPD. The point was that it didn't matter what any of them thought.

From the recruit's point of view, he was the LAPD. He would make it what he thought it should be by the way he treated people, the way he backed up his brother officers, the way he performed his job, the way he wore his uniform and shined his badge.

It would be up to him to make others see the LAPD the way he wanted them to. As far as anyone around him could see, he was the LAPD.

Unfortunately, many others in the department have made it what they want it to be, and we have to live in it with them. While our mission has remained the same, to protect and to serve, the rules have changed - some for the good, some for the not-so-good.

It has become a lot less dangerous to sit out the game and avoid the risks. To many who originally joined the department to fight crime and seek adventure, it has become easier to find a nice quiet job, out of patrol, where uses of force, failures to appear in court, traffic collisions involving city property and personnel complaints are few and far between.

It's getting harder to blame them.

Others promote their way between these jobs to positions of leadership. The only problem is they don't know how to lead. How do you teach someone how to play the game if you've spent most of your time on the bench? Well, it's simple: You substitute favoritism, threats, double standards and an inflexible disciplinary system for experience, practical application and common sense.

Amazingly, many ``leaders'' don't get it. When you forget that your work force - the thing that can make you look good - is made up of people, not numbers, and you don't care about the people, they know it. You can order them to do a job, but they won't enjoy it and won't be doing it for you or care why you want it done.

If you show people you know what you are doing, show them why you're doing it and treat them as you would like to be treated, as adults, they will follow you into blazing machine-gun fire.

If you have avoided the same job you expect others to do, if you favor some over others because they're easily manipulated or look good in short skirts, if you make your own promotability a primary concern, if you tell people to do the job because you said so, it will be a struggle to get some even to write a parking ticket.

To ``leaders'' like these, morale is not a concern. I don't know a whole lot or claim to have the big picture, but I know one thing for sure, and I didn't need a Board of Inquiry to figure it out, either: If you don't concern yourself with your people's morale, they'll make their own morale.

It's no mystery as to how things can get so bad that it becomes the worst scandal in more than 60 years. No leadership. You can hire all the unqualified, ethics-challenged people you want. You can make us listen to all the apologies written by convicted felon-cops because they got caught.

You can attend all the leadership schools you want. You can demote, fire and prosecute all the cops and supervisors as fast as you can to show you're cleaning up this ``nest of corruption,'' but you won't stop it from happening again unless, as a leader, you truly lead.

After almost a quarter of a century, I feel like I just got here. I've had a great time.

Who is the LAPD? In my case, it's me.

Who is the LAPD to you?