Police Respond to Critical Audit, Face Withering Criticism

Some key moments in the two-and-a-half hour committee meeting are shown in this Pasadena Now video.

 

Pasadena police officials responded to an audit report highly critical of police detective operations before the Public Safety Committee Monday afternoon, then faced withering comments from the public and one doubtful Councilmember who called for greater police oversight.

Three other Councilmembers seemed generally supportive of the presentation by Police Chief Phillip Sanchez and Commander John Perez, which outlined the Department’s response to 58 recommendations by the auditors to correct procedural flaws in operations.

The $190,000 audit was initiated in 2013 after concerns arose about the quality of work being performed by Pasadena detectives when a respected judge dismissed a 2007 homicide case, ruling that the investigating the detectives had committed misconduct, its authors said.

Auditors said they found “a serious lack of formal training” for detectives, weak policies regulating the way in which criminal investigations are conducted, very little visible supervisory oversight of day-to-day operations and serious flaws in the Department’s records and case management systems.

“Some officers were allowed to operate extremely close to the line of legality with little or no visible oversight from supervisors,” the report says at one point.

Perez told the Committee that the Department has accepted all the audit’s recommendations and either implemented or begun to implement corrective actions on 51 of them. The remaining seven relate to specific cases which must be “biopsied” or intensely reviewed; Sanchez said he intends to hire an outside investigator for that.

“There were several areas of concern identified by the auditors’ report – primarily violations of protocols, practices and policies,” Chief Sanchz said in his opening statement. “It doesn’t suggest, however, that the officers were ‘rogue.’ Nobody was placed in prison wrongfully. Checks and balances were in place.”

Committee Chair Vice Mayor Jacque Robinson told him she found the report to be “very alarming.”

“There are systemic problems in the Pasadena Police Department” which led to “egregious conduct,” Councilmember John Kennedy said.

“If there is a lack of training, lack of oversight and lack of accountability in the detectives’ division then we must contemplate these problems may exist elsewhere in the department. How do we get to the bottom of this?” Kennedy asked, before suggesting the Department requires far greater oversight than the Public Safety Committee provides.

Public comment from local civil rights attorneys, activists and the parent of young men whose cases were investigated by Pasadena detectives was sharp and at times emotional.

Civil rights attorney Dale Gronemeir told the Committee he was bothered by the timing of the report’s release, noting the city had it but did not release it for months. Gronemeir wondered if “withholding” the report was related to its potential impact on a murder trial involving Pasadena detectives that was pending during that time.

“We really need a clear answer on the timing as to whether the timing had anything to do with the fact that these [flawed] practices continued and were central in the aquittal of Rashad McCoy in the murder of Mr. Jones,” Gronemeir said.

Another speaker expressed personal pain.

“I’ve lost my home. I’ve lost my marriage. I’ve lost my children,” Lawanda Sanfond told the Committee, choking back tears. “This is a hurting thing for a family that was destroyed by these police officers. It has to stop now.”

“We recognize that there are areas and challenges in the past decade that could have been addressed sooner and should have been addressed sooner,” Sanchez said. “We’re a different organization.”

The two-and-a-half hour meeting concluded after all comments and questions to Sanchez were completed.

Committee chair Robinson asked Sanchez to prepare a timeline on how soon all the audit’s recommendations would be implemented and to return the committee as soon as practicable with that schedule.

The Executive summary of the report is available online here.