Click here to read the actual powers of the Citizens Police Complaint Commission as given to commissioners in the City Charter.  You will notice that our LBPD has refused to allow those powers with the collusion of the POA, City Hall and the Mayor.

Positive Solutions

• Remove the executive administrator, as that position is not in the Charter for the Citizen’s Police Complaint Commission. The CPCC is to be self-governed.

• Expand the description of the complaints with original copies, and not just the edited remarks of the Internal Affairs Department of the LBPD. The Commission has the right to see all original documents from both sides without alteration.

• Affirm the City Manager will reimburse any outside investigators required by the commission. There is no limit on the amount of money the commission may spend on investigations and private investigators.

• Affirm the LBPD present all complaints within a reasonable time. (suggested 7 days.) At present, the complaints are held up by the Administrator so long that the 12-month limitation statute is breached, and the complaints must be dismissed by law. The presentation shall not be from a hired middleman, but directly from the LBPD complaint department, unaltered.

• Affirm the power of holding hearings by the commission. Even if a police officer wants to bring their Police Officers Association lawyer to the hearing and decide not to speak, that presence can be required by the commission. (Often taking the 5th Amendment so as not to incriminate oneself is as telling as any testimony).

• Affirm the commissions right to call any and all witnesses and experts to hearings, discussions, and investigations.

• Remove the presence of any police officer or commander or any other personnel from the LBPD during the hearing and meetings of the commission.

Without changing one thing in our Charter this would immediately open up the Citizens Police Complaint Commission for transparency and accountability and results.

The final piece of reform must be a Charter Amendment.

Currently, the CPCC reports to the City Manager, who for the past 2 decades has served at the beck and call of the Mayor. This is not in the Charter. Only the City Manager can affirm or dismiss a finding of the CPCC without the influence of the Mayor or anyone. Nonetheless, in order to form a more equitable result (as over 80 percent of the findings of the CPCC have been dismissed during the past 8 years) I propose a Charter Amendment:

• Let the CPCC report directly to City Council in a full report with full investigatory background discovery.


• Let the CPCC also publish its findings in redacted form to the public.

I believe these positive steps would make a real reform of the Citizens Police Complaint Commission.

Read a statement from a CPCC commissioner on the body’s lack of independence and inability to affect decisions –> Porter Gilberg: “I am a commissioner on the Citizen Police Complaint commission and the commission is a farce.”