Lou Reiter, Author at LLRMI - Police Training and Expert Services for Law Enforcement, Jails & Corrections, Insurance Pools, Risk Managers, and Attorneys

About Lou Reiter

Lou Reiter currently is a police consultant. He offers three (3) separate professional services to the law enforcement community. He provides training to police groups in the high liability areas of use of force, emergency vehicle operations, high risk operations, investigations of citizen complaints, Internal Affairs procedures, investigation of critical incidents, and liability management.Each year, Lou conducts an average of 5-10 agency management audits and liability assessments. These have been for state, county and municipal police operations. The size of these agencies has been from 3 persons to 39,000 employees. These audits allow him to be in police cars up to 100 hours each year. He has been a consultant on 8 U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section, investigations of agencies involving patterns and practices of Constitutional violations. He was selected as a Federal Court monitor for the Consent Decree of Colln v. Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, CA.Lou provides litigation consultation to attorney firms involved in police civil actions. Since 1983, Lou has been retained in over 950 such cases in nearly every state plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. This has been on both sides of the table with approximately 60 percent being for plaintiffs.Lou Reiter was a member of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1961 to 1981. During that tenure he had 22 different assignments and rose through to ranks to retire as Deputy Chief of Police. About 70 percent of his time was spent in uniformed operations while the bulk of the remainder was in Internal Affairs, use of force review, training and personnel administration.Lou has been published throughout his professional career. He was one of the principle researchers and authors of the 1973 Police Task Force Report of the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Standards and Goals, where he authored the chapters on Internal Discipline, Training and Management-Employee Relations. In 1993 he authored and published the Law Enforcement Administrative Investigations a Supervisory and Agency Guide to handling citizen complaints of misconduct, conducting administrative investigations, managing the Internal Affairs Function, and creating reasonable and defensible discipline.

NARCOTICS / SPECIAL ENFORCEMENT UNIT CONTROL AND AUDITS

It is almost becoming a common occurrence when the news reports that some law enforcement special unit’s personnel are indicted or being investigated for criminal misconduct. These types of special units come in various forms and names: HIDTA, street crime, [...]

THE PITFALLS OF RELYING TOO MUCH ON STATE AND CONSTITUTIONAL CASELAW. WHY AGENCY POLICY, INTENSE ANALYSIS OF CRITICAL INCIDENTS, AND EMPLOYEE MISCONDUCT IS MORE IMPORTANT.

By Lou Reiter, LLRMI Co-Director and Director of the Public Safety Internal Affairs Institute The U.S. Supreme Court and the other Federal courts have been good to law enforcement. Their decisions have saved local police jurisdictions a lot of money [...]

SHOULD POLICE RECRUITS BE TAUGHT LAW ENFORCEMENT HISTORY[1]…WARTS AND ALL.

By Lou Reiter, LLRMI Co-Director and Director of the Public Safety Internal Affairs Institute Most police recruits come from the same group of Americans who don’t know anything about the Korean Conflict or Vietnam War and may think that World [...]

Where Is Law Enforcement Heading These Days?

By Lou Reiter, LLRMI Co-Director and Director of the Public Safety Internal Affairs InstituteLou Reiter Are these just words or something more? “Professional or skilled journeyman.” “Warrior or Guardian of the Peace.” Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s [...]

CAN THE POLICE CHANGE…A HISTORICAL LOOK SUGGESTS MAYBE NOT!

By Lou Reiter, LLRMI Co-Director and Director of the Public Safety Internal Affairs InstituteLou Reiter The Ferguson incident in 2014 focused renewed attention on local police practices. As I have written and trained over the last several years, policing has [...]

Police Union vs Police Administration

Police Unions vs. Police Administration By Lou Reiter, LLRMI Co-Director and Director of the Public Safety Internal Affairs Institute In the wake of the public protests following the George Floyd incident in Minneapolis there is a lot of venom being [...]

INTERNAL AFFAIRS SERGEANT SAYS, “OFFICER, HAND OVER YOUR CELL PHONE!”

This encounter is becoming more and more common in today’s public safety employee administrative investigations. Can you order your employee to produce and assist in discovery of materials that might be on his/her personal cell phone or smart device? The [...]

COPS’ CREDIBILITY IS BEING SUCCESSFULLY CHALLENGED

For years law enforcement officers have believed that their word would be believed. That day is gone! Four events have eroded what once was a quality we took for granted. It is the actions of the few that is affecting [...]

POLICE CIVIL LAWSUIT SETTLEMENT ‘GAG ORDERS’

In July of this year the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 4th Circuit, ruled that a Baltimore police civil settlement ‘gag order’ was a violation of the Plaintiff’s First Amendment Right. Ms. Overbey called to report a burglary and ended [...]

Some Sex by Consenting Officers Okay by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

©2018 Lou Reiter, Co-Director, Legal & Liability Risk Management Institute (www.llrmi.com) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided in Perez v. City of Roseville, et al., D.C. No. 2:13-cv-02150 GEB-DAD, that the termination of Officer Perez for engaging in [...]