officers - The Black Vault

.!).'.
Keane brought u.e LAPD
controversy in meetings with his
training officers because, he saia,
"I wanted to make sure that nothing
even close to that happens in
this department."
"It's certainly a black mark on
law enforcement," Keane said of
the videotaped beating. "I was on
the streets 20 years, and I never
saw anything like that my entire
career."
Iannone and Cooke both served
as high-ranking LAPD officers
before taking over their departments,
and both refused to comment
on the King incident.
Because of the international allure
of Beverly Hills, its 132 police
officers are constantly.in the spotlight,
and have endured controversies
in the past. The Zsa Zsa Gabor
cop-slapping trial, for one, made
headlines around the world, Iannone
said.
And although he always stresses
the "ever-present necessity for
doing the job professionally," Iannone
said he and his lieutenants
"have tried to drive that message
home" doubly hard in recent
weeks.
"We've talked about this, but we
haven't experienced anything profoundly
negative," Iannone said.
"The citizens treat us very well,
and we try to reciprocate."
The Culver City Police Department
is especially sensitive to its
image in the community, Cooke
said. His department bas been sued
for alleged brutality, and a federal
judge late last year cleared the way
for a constitutional challenge to a
department policy that limits the
ability of citizens to register complaints
of police brutality or misconduct.
The lawsuit, which accuses Culver
City police of violating a West
Los Angeles man's civil rights, is
expected to get under way as early
as next week.
Cooke said he has seen no need
to tell his 117 officers to do
anything different in the wake of
the LAPD incident, except that
they should expect some adverse
and unwarranted media publicity
and reactions from the public.
"Nothing has happened in the
last few weeks that indicates any
kind of a substantial problem in
law enforcement or in this department,"
Cooke said.
· ''But when anyone of us does
anything wrong we have legions of
people that say . . . it was all the
police's fault. It is popular to hate
police officers.
''We have to deal with this. I tell
[the officers] that they have to
expect it, that they are not going to
be appreciated."
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