A Voice for Transparency

By Lori Craig

In a year that brought increased public scrutiny of police departments across the nation, the

Los Angeles Police Department faced questions and higher tensions around several incidents, including the shooting of a mentally ill black man, the misreporting of crime statistics and officers’ alleged tampering with in-car recording equipment. If it was an eventful time for the L.A. Police Commission, it was particularly so for Professor of Lawyering Skills, Robert M. Saltzman.

Saltzman, who has served on the commission since 2007, was the only one of five veteran commissioners

reappointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti in August 2013. He found himself trying to help the four new commissioners

“drink from a fire hose” of information about the complex organization.

“When I joined the Police Commission, I had the luxury of being the only person who was new; I joined four

others who had served already for two years,” Saltzman says. “As a new commissioner, it takes a while to figure out

what’s important and what isn’t, what’s accurate and what isn’t, who you can rely on. I had the guidance from the

other commissioners … but to the extent the newer four commissioners had any commissioners to look to, it was

me, and I have just one perspective. The issues we face are complex, so it is helpful to have a variety of perspectives.”

Rob Saltzman, professor of Lawyering Skills, pictured outside the L.A. Police Administration building. He has served on the police commission since 2007.

Saltzman’s perspective drew substantial attention when he cast the lone vote against reappointing LAPD Chief

Charlie Beck for a second five-year term. Key among his concerns are the department’s discipline system and the chief ’s respect for civilian oversight. Saltzman is troubled by what he perceives to be the inconsistent way officers are disciplined when they have committed the same or similar violations.

Perhaps more worrying to him is a lack of transparency from the department, which was underscored by several recent high-profile incidents, including the use of “ghost cars” —false internal reports showing more patrol cars in the field than were actually present.

“In my view, the only way that the police commission can function effectively as the civilian oversight for the police department is if the chief of police is fully in tune with the commission’s independent oversight responsibility,” Saltzman says. “There were a number of instances which made me question that: Information that was not shared with us at all, information that was not shared with us in a timely manner, and providing us, on occasion, with information that is just inaccurate.” The vote wasn’t an easy one for Saltzman, who“[doesn’t] really like conflict,” but both he and Beck expressed their interest in working together through the next several years of the commission term.

“I don’t think there’s any question but the LAPD is doing a better job now than it was just a few years ago,” Saltzman says. “The seriousness with which the department takes community policing, actually going into the community, getting to know people, knowing enough about the community to know what the serious risks are and how to respond appropriately, is really night and day from what it used to be.”

Saltzman also enjoys working with his now-seasoned fellow commissioners. “It’s a very diverse group of people, with only one straight male, and it’s a majority minority female commission,” Saltzman says. “Given the kind of important national issues we’re dealing with, I think our diversity gives the commission some added credibility that we might not

otherwise have.”

Saltzman says that, “the diversity within the LAPD ranks is especially important given the diversity of the population the LAPD serves, a point made abundantly clear by the national events of the past year.”

Saltzman particularly enjoys speaking to the new police officers as they graduate from the Police Academy. “I use the opportunity to remind the new officers that we expect them not only to protect us from harm, but also to protect our Constitutional rights. In other words, not to break the law to enforce the law.”

In addition to his role in police governance, Saltzman continues his tenure at USC Gould, where he first taught in 1980-81 and became associate dean in 1988. His job has evolved in the last 27 years, and he currently oversees the growing Academic Support Program. A challenging job market and increasingly motivated students mean there is no longer a stigma associated with seeking support, and while he used to see about 40 percent of the first-year students participate

in the fall exam preparation workshop and practice exam, last fall more than 170 of 200 students

completed the program.

“That was tremendous,” Saltzman says. “It was a huge amount of work for us because we only gave ourselves a five-day turnaround to grade and add comments to the exams, but it’s really great to feel that the students appreciate the value of what we’re doing.”

This article originally appeared in the Spring/Summer 2015 issue of USC Law Magazine.