"If I am a corrupt cop, I can tell you, I am not putting the money I steal into my checking account." So true. No self-respecting corrupt cop with half a brain is going to keep dirty money anywhere it might be found so easily. A dirty cop will already have set up some way of hiding these finances so this whole exercise is just a waste of taxpayers' money and police time, both of which could be better utilized in weeding out the corrupt cops in the first place. How dumb. Jerry December 21, 2007 Los Angeles Police Told to Disclose Their Finances By <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/randal_c_archi bold/index.html?inline=nyt-per> RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD New York Times LOS ANGELES - Officers of the Los Angeles Police Department's gang unit and narcotics unit will be required to disclose an array of personal financial information to the department under a new anticorruption policy. The policy, which experts described as rare among law enforcement agencies, if not unprecedented, was unanimously approved Thursday by the Police Commission, a civilian panel that oversees the department. It was met by a lawsuit from the police union and warnings that it could lead to officers' mass exodus from the units. The commission's president, Anthony Pacheco, said the panel had acted to meet the requirements of a 2001 consent decree between the city and the <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/j/justice _department/index.html?inline=nyt-org> federal Justice Department that stemmed from one of the worst cases of documented police corruption in the country. In that scandal, involving gang and narcotics officers in the Rampart Division, near downtown, 70 officers were implicated in offenses including drug dealing, stealing and unjustified shootings. The new policy, to take effect Jan. 16, requires the roughly 600 officers already serving in the units, and in some cases members of their families, to submit information within two years on income as well as bank accounts, stock and property holdings, and other financial assets. Officers transferring into the units will be required to provide the data before they are accepted. While officers in such specialized units here and elsewhere typically undergo background checks that include lie-detector and other tests, they are not routinely asked for such detailed financial information, said Wes McBride, executive director of the California Gang Investigators Association, an advocacy group. But Mr. Pacheco said the commission, the police union and the department had unsuccessfully wrestled for years with developing a policy that would satisfy the federal judge overseeing the consent decree. He said the new arrangement would deter suspect officers from applying and give the department another tool to uncover an officer's unexplained wealth or assess whether an officer, perhaps a financially struggling one, might be tempted to engage in illicit conduct. He and top Police Department officials disputed the union's assertion that the policy would lead to large-scale transfers, which the chief has the power to grant or reject. "My experience over time is people will adjust," Mr. Pacheco said. The lawsuit by the union, the Police Protective League, was filed in state court and asserts that the policy violates a California law giving police officers special protection against being required to disclose private information. Tim Sands, the union's president, acknowledged that service in the gang and narcotics units was coveted by many officers as a path to promotion and other opportunities. But Mr. Sands predicted that far fewer officers would apply for the units and that many now serving in them would seek transfers, out of concern that private information given the department could be publicly disclosed as a result of lawsuits or leaks. Further, he said, the policy will do little to detect corruption. "Traditionally, financial disclosure has been used to show conflict of interest, not corruption," he said. "If I am a corrupt cop, I can tell you, I am not putting the money I steal into my checking account." . <http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714/grpId=11648958/grpspId=1705447214/msgI d=50956/stime=1198239004/nc1=3848614/nc2=4776373/nc3=4840958> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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