THE LAPD: NO SURPRISES HERE

The [Los Angeles] police department will not meet a June deadline for completing reforms stemming from a corruption scandal in the 1990s, ensuring continued federal monitoring of the agency. The city agreed to the reforms under a 2001 settlement with the U.S. Justice Department following the Rampart scandal in which rogue LAPD officers beat and framed suspects.

City officials say the extension of federal oversight will cost Los Angeles $30 million to $50 million a year, but police dispute that figure. "I can guarantee the consent decree is going to be extended, but from my perspective that is not a big problem. We are already in compliance with the vast majority" of the settlement, Chief William Bratton said Monday. Delays in reforms resulted from complications in a computerized system that quickly flags problem officers, he said. [And pigs fly too]

The settlement also requires reforms in use of informants, officer discipline and gang enforcement. The department is making good progress in those areas, Bratton said. "When I got here, the department was fighting the consent decree tooth and nail. It was not being embraced. It was not being pushed down in the organization, and it is now fully installed through the organization," he said.

U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess could rule that the city is "substantial compliance" on all or some of the reforms and partly or completely lift the federal monitoring.

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