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Police officers and firefighters are expected to perform under very dangerous working conditions. They also enjoy greater job protections than many other workers. Generally, those who hold public safety jobs work with the additional benefits of court decisions favoring their employment rights, institutional climates predisposed to protecting their jobs, and active unions poised to defend them should problems arise. When investigating police and fire personnel, investigators must navigate such protections as the Peace Officers Bill of Rights, the Lybarger ruling, and the participation of union representatives, all of which make investigations of law enforcement and firefighters particularly challenging.
PII, which has broad experience working with police and fire departments, has a reputation for conducting fair and thorough investigations into potential wrongdoing by public safety employees throughout Southern California. A partial client list includes the Los Angeles County Fire Department, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles School Police Department, and the Los Angeles City Fire Department. For the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, PII was retained to develop training for the Department’s own Internal Affairs investigators. PII’s president Keith Rohman was later appointed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to the Sheriff Department’s Equity Oversight Panel (EOP). See Case in Point below.
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A firefighter alleged that he was being treated in a racially biased manner because he was Latino. The allegations stemmed from an incident in which the firefighter was disciplined for destroying fire station furniture as part of a prank. The firefighter claimed that he was receiving disparate treatment, because other non-Latino firefighters participated in similar horseplay, but were not reprimanded for it. PII’s investigation determined that, until he was disciplined, the firefighter had never expressed that he was Latino. Instead, he consistently reported that he was of Italian descent, that his nickname was "the Italian Stallion," and that he needed to have Columbus Day off to celebrate his Italian heritage. In addition, PII determined that the cost of the destroyed furniture was more than $30,000, and that non-Latinos were similarly disciplined.
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For the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, Keith Rohman, PII’s president, serves on the agency’s Equity Oversight Panel (EOP). The EOP is an independent, civilian oversight board charged with reviewing investigations of sexual harassment and discrimination claims conducted by the Sheriff’s Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB). In addition, the EOP makes recommendations on investigative findings and employee discipline. Established in 2003, the EOP is an outgrowth of the Bouman consent decree, which derived from a gender-discrimination lawsuit against the Department. The panel members are selected by the parties to the Bouman litigation and are confirmed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Read more about it here.
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