Decision close on financial disclosure for gang cops/narcs

Or at least, things should be coming to a head with the last day for the City Council to act on a rule earlier adopted by the Police Commission coming next week. Either way, things are heating up and this rule that promises to end a years-long federal consent decree has divided top city officials and law enforcement.

On Tuesday Warren Christopher --as in the former secretary of state who headed the independent investigation of the LAPD after the Rodney King debacle -- and a slew of other civic leaders told the council in a letter to politely back off.

The council had been deciding -- or I should say are still deciding -- whether to overturn the commission's decision to force gang and narcotic officers to supply detailed records of their assets and any joint accounts they may have.
Some argue it could leave police vulnerable to identity theft and will not root out corrupt officers as it is intended to do. But commission members argued they simply had no choice but to pass it if they were ever to get out from under the costly consent decree.
If passed, police have been threatening to walk off their narcotics and gang assignments, while both Sheriff Lee Baca and District Attorney Steve Cooley worry the result could be disastrous, putting public safety in danger as veteran officers abandon their posts.
Then swept in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday with his "compromise" to get a federal order preventing lawyers from getting hold of police records -- at least in some cases. Either way, the police union isn't happy and it has filed a lawsuit.