REPORT: SHERIFF'S PROBES BIASED IN OFFICERS' FAVOR.

Byline: PATRICIA FARRELL AIDEM

Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- Countywide handling of citizen complaints by the Sheriff's Department has improved -- except in Santa Clarita, where an independent probe found a high rate of investigations biased in favor of deputies.

In a semiannual report on the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department released Thursday, a review team headed by Special Counsel Merrick Bobb found the local station "most in need of improvement" compared with stations throughout the county.

"We are also concerned that biased investigations were reviewed and approved throughout the chain of command without apparent comment or concern," the report said. "At the Santa Clarita Station in particular, the tone of investigative summaries did not always reflect appropriate impartiality and balance."

Santa Clarita station commander Capt. Anthony La Berge was out of town at a conference and could not be reached Thursday for comment. La Berge was assigned in December to head the station, replacing Capt. Patti Minutello, who had been on an extended leave and was then transferred. Some complaints in the report date back to January 2005, said Cmdr. Cecil Rhambo.

Sheriff's officials are reviewing the report, Rhambo said, and determining the validity of the criticism and whether changes are necessary.

"We're visiting each complaint just to see if there's something we may have missed," Rhambo said. "We don't view Mr. Bobb's report as something we should be overly upset about but if there's room for changes, we'll make them."

Missing from the data, he said, was the follow-up to in-house investigations.

"There isn't anything in each case that said what the commander did afterward, whether he talked to the deputy or did any other follow-up," he said. "I'd love to improve our service -- we're not going to shy away from any advice or criticism -- and if what we need to do is more clearly document the after-action, we can move toward that."

In one case a father filed a complain that a local deputy treated his daughter "exceptionally rudely" during a traffic stop. The investigator focused on the deputy's means of stopping the teenage motorist -- ruling it appropriate -- but ignored the actual complaint.

"A conscientious father would have taken (the girl's) driver's license for a period of time ...," the investigating official said.

Bobb's team found the response to be out of line.

"The editorializing and moralizing about the girl is entirely out of place," the report said. "The report is that the deputy was rude, an allegation that was never investigated. The investigation was nonetheless signed off by the captain and never changed."

The report pointed out two serious problems -- complaints were classified improperly as service problems rather than personnel complaints, and in-house investigations were "results-oriented."

In an investigation in Santa Clarita, the official assigned to the case never interviewed the complainant, but rather restated the complaint in a report and made a summary judgment.

In another local case, a woman complained she was treated rudely by a deputy who stopped her after she had driven on the opposite side of the road to get around a fallen tree. The deputy, she said, "told her she needed glasses," according to the report. The investigator determined "the problem appears to be that (the woman) is a poor driver. She didn't know what to do when her path was blocked."

Again the allegation in the complaint wasn't addressed.

Bobb recommended that countywide operations lieutenants and captains invest more in reviewing in-house investigations.

"Approval of biased investigations or summaries should not occur where there is an unwavering commitment to high-quality investigations," the report said.

The report is available online at http://lacounty.info/bobb.htm.

Bobb found that, countywide, 35 percent of citizen reports were deficient. Forty percent of those were classified improperly, failing to probe a particular deputy's actions or behavior.

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