UNJUST-ified!!!

by Scott Glover and Matt Lait/reprinted from the LA Times

A Los Angeles police officer who fatally shot a mentally ill homeless women armed with a screwdriver in 1999 will not be disci-plined, although the civilian Police Commission had ruled that his tactics and use of deadly flawed that he should be punished.

Repudiating the commission’s finding three years ago, an LAPD disciplinary panel found that Officer Edward Larrigan was justified when he shot 55-year-old Margaret Mitchell, according to transcripts of a May 12 hearing.

Although the Police Commission found that Mitchell had not posed a legitimate threat to Larrigan, the disciplinary panel determined that Mitchell’s conduct had left Larrigan with no choice but to shoot. The officers said she lunged at Larrigan during their confrontation. As a result, the panel concluded, Larrigan will not be disciplined.

“Officer Larrigan’s response was defensive. It was reactive,” said Capt. Richard Wemmer, who headed the three-member discipli- nary panel, which included another LAPD captain and a civilian. “It was his last, indeed his only, resort to prevent serious bodily injury or death to himself. And it was compelled in the end by the actions of the victim.”

The ruling by the LAPD Board of Rights raises issues relating both to the shooting and to civilian oversight of the Police Department. Department leaders have wrestled for years over the confrontation that resulted in Mitchell’s death. Police Chief Bernard C. Park’s concluded that it had conformed with LAPD rules and two police commissioners agreed with him, but a commission majority found that had it violated department rules. Thus, the ruling, which effectively overrules the commission majority, calls into question the Police Commission’s judgement and its ability to be the final voice of such matters.

In the board’s decision, Wemmer praised Larrigan for protecting others from Mitchell’s “frenzied and irrational” behavior. Mitchell was stopped because she was pushing a shopping cart that officers suspected was stolen.

“Sworn to protect and serve, Officer Larrigan did not have the luxury to let her go,” Wemmer said. “Rather, he went in harm’s way and, consistent with policy, acted in defense of life,”

Police Commission President Rick Caruso, who was appointed to the commission after the Mitchell case was reviewed, said he found the disciplinary panel’s findings “troubling.”

“We, as commissioners, should have the last word on this,” Caruso said. He added that the decision, and others like it, also prevent the chief of the LAPD from imposing discipline when warranted.

“You basically get your legs cut out from under you,” Caruso said. “I don’t agree with this process. I never have.”

LAPD Deputy Chief Michael Berkow, who was traveling with Chief William J. Bratton in the Washington. D.C., and spoke to the chief about the case, said Bratton was not sufficiently familiar with the facts of the Mitchell shooting to comment on it specifically.

But Berkow said Bratton has been frustrated with the disciplinary process.

“He has less power here than in any other police department he’s been at,” said Berkow, who heads the department’s professional standards bureau, which used to be internal affairs. “Discipline is not in the hands of the police chief, who is responsible for managing the department.”

Mitchell was shot May 21, 1999, near the intersection of Fourth Street and La Brea Avenue, shortly after Larrigan and his partner, Kathy Clark, both bike patrol officers, stopped her to determine whether the shopping cart had been stolen. As the officers sought to question her, Mitchell ignored them and began walking away.