About Check LBPD

As the TigerText scandal indicates, transparency is not something at which the LBPD excels. In California, strong open records law can be used to create police transparency, but only if requests are filed. Through the California Public Records Act requests, CheckLBPD will strive to LBPD transparency—with the data hopefully being helpful to police reform efforts.

In this time of national political reform, the reforms offered by the LBPD seem to be little more than window dressing and symbolic gestures.

The LBPD formed its Office of Constitutional Policing "as part of the Police Department's commitment to the City of Long Beach's framework for reconciliation." A similarly named Los Angeles Police Department office is led by Lizabeth Rhodes, a former D.O.J. U.S. Attorney, the highest-ranking civilian in the LAPD. She reports directly to the chief and has "a long record of upholding the constitution, fighting corruption, and promoting ethics and integrity at every level of government."

The LBPD version is not run by, or even staffed by, an attorney. The office is led by an LBPD lieutenant, with a civilian administrator assigned to the office and the addition of a data scientist discussed in recent budget documents. The office reports to Assistant Chief Wally Hebeish instead of directly to Chief Luna.

A coalition of Long Beach Community groups presented the People's Budget, with a call to reduce police funding by 20%. While the City Council allowed the People's Budget to be presented, it had little influence. The police budget was only reduced by 1.5%—at a time when other city departments are facing deeper cuts to balance the city budget, and a 2019 Memorandum of Understanding agreed to by the City and LBPOA locks-in officer pay raises through 2022.

The MOU also requires the LBPD to provide the name of any group or individual who makes a public records request for a police officer's disciplinary file to the officer accused of the misconduct. The officer also gets five days to review the documents before they are produced to the requestors.

If you have a public records request you would like filed, but do not want an officer who was accused of misconduct to know your name (and a lot more as our Surveillance Architecture of Long Beach project will detail), CheckLBPD will gladly act as a go-between.

This five day heads-up regarding who is filing public records requests is not the only one-of-kind LBPD policy.

An LBPD shooting review board assessment, drafted after then-officer, now councilmember Cindy Allen's 1994 officer-involved shooting, describes an LBPD policy that limits the effectiveness of investigations. That assessment finds fault in the LBPD policy in which "homicide O.I.S. investigators are prohibited from interviewing the involved officers and that the involved officer is required only to write a report describing the circumstances of the shooting and the O.I.S. investigator is prohibited from even asking questions of the officer that may arise from a reading of the report and its comparison to other investigative findings."

All this is to say, the unchecked power of the LBPD is readily apparent in Long Beach.

With an untold fortune in Long Beach Police Officer Association campaign donations flooding the city for decades, including $500,000 to Mayor Garcia and his candidate-controlled PAC since 2015, it is not hard to imagine how the LBPD achieved such a protected status.