LA police commission held its first meeting since protests began

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles Police Commission held its first meeting on Tuesday since the protests began in the city. Normally, these meetings are open to the public, but because of the pandemic, the meeting was held virtually through a Zoom session. Zoom has limitations to the number of people who can attend the virtual session, which is why only 500 people were able to log in and attend.

It was a pretty extraordinary meeting that went on for several hours. The meeting was called to address the recent unrest. The opening words from LA Police Commission President Eileen Decker were about the need for change, starting with the commission. During the meeting, LAPD Chief Michel Moore spoke about the events occurring over the past few days.

Note: As Moore was speaking on the Zoom session, some of the audio was buffered and inaudible due to the technology limits.

Moore stated, "There were reports of individuals who believe officers used excessive force or misconduct. I want to assure you that we will investigate each complaint, and I promise to hold accountable anyone who violates our policy or commits other misconduct. This mobilization has resulted in not just uniform officers on the field being increased and being present in an effort to facilitate and manage (inaudible) and to interrupt and disrupt and prevent acts of violence, but we also have mobilized our internal affairs (inaudible) investigators and are working 24 hours a day and are available to and will respond to complaints of misconduct and conduct those investigations."

Some of the commission members were listening intently along with the 500 members of the public were were able to join. Some of the calls for resignations were because of the comments Moore made Monday night about looters that had to be walked back and then apologized for. Other comments asked for more people of color to be on the commission, and others expressed the fear they are feeling right now in their city.

Of the 250 people who were asked to speak during the meeting, some of the statements were very emotional. The language was pretty dicey at times with a lot of accusatory comments made by some of those who have been unhappy with the LAPD.

Because of the limitations on how many members of the public could participate, the commission will be researching ways to expand the number of people the city can accommodate for future meetings. Zoom allows up to 500 people with their large meeting add-on, but the commission would like to increase participation.

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