Huebner FTO interview 009, 1991-06-11 |
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,, • • • la. NAME OF INTERVIEWER: lb. DATE OF INTERVIEW: le. LENGTH OF INTERVIEW: ld. NOTES: Huebner June 11, 1991 approx. 2-1/4 hours 2. I.D. CODE: Huebner 009 3. ,S.E.X: Female 4. ~: White 5. ~= 6. DIVISION: Wilshire 7. CQRRENT BANK/ASSIGNHENT: PJ/FTO; Wilshire 8. MISC. PERSONAL 8ACKGRQUNP: 9. MISC. L.A.P.p. BACKGROUHP: [Huebner 009] 1 . CONffDfNTIAL CONflDtNTIAL 10. FIELD TRAINING -- SELECTION OF F.T.O.s: She became an FTO before the hiring "binge"; at that time she believes her captain was looking for FTOs with (a) maturity, (b) a strong work ethic, and (c) the ability to process paperwork correctly and quickly. Now there are no standards; with the hiring binge, they just needed warm bodies; officers are promoted to P3/FTO positions far too quickly; the temporary FTO spots are a joke; this has led to the P3/FTO stripes meaning nothing; the abandoning of standards is not tactically sound; has created a dangerous situation in the field; the trainers don't know what they are doing themselves. Because of her maturity and prior experience, she was actually assigned to a probationer just 2 months after she came off probation herself; even then the Department was short-handed, and she had impressed her superiors enough to be assigned to training duties; thinks this was too quick, even though she was experienced and capable; believes 4 to 5 years experience should be the minimum requirement. 11. FIELD TRAINING -- TRAINING OF F.T.O.s: Went to FTO school before becoming a P3 but long after she had been training probationers; her biggest complaint about FTO school r was that it did not teach training techniques; too much emphasis on paperwork. 12. FIELD TRAINING -- MISCONDUCT BY I DISCIPLINE OF F.T.O.s: [Nothing noteworthy discussed.] 13. FIELD TRAINING -- EVALUATION OF F.T.O.s' PERFORMANCE: Evaluation is built into the regular officer evaluations; no special boxes or sections for FTO performance; no added emphasis in the evaluation on teaching skills or communications skills; informally, FTOs seem to be judged by how well their probationers succeed. 14. FIELD TRAINING -- ASSIGNMENT($) TO PROBATIONERS: At Wilshire, FTOs have some say over which probationers they are assigned; FTOs can request certain probationers; she often asks for reassignment to a probationer she had previously (she likes to see how they have developed over the intervening months). She is a strong personality; is known to work well with Hispanic males, despite their hyper-macho attitudes; therefore often gets assigned to Hispanic males. [Huebner 009] 2 CONflDfNTIAL 15. FIELD TRAINING -- RELATIONSHIP WITH/ TRAINING OF PROBATIONERS: For the first 2 weeks or so, probationers are a liability to the team; during that period she takes the lead and has them simply observe and "get the feel" of the job; she gradually starts backing out and letting the probationer take the lead in situations; is very strict re reports, tactics, and safety; not afraid to reprimand and yell at probationers; never berates probationers in public or in front of other officers; does not like the fact that many FTOs do yell at probationers in front of others; she believes this does lasting damage to self-confidence. Emphasizes courtesy and positive interaction with citizens; she finds this part of the FTO job to be the most difficult because the Academy does not teach you how to talk to people; this is the Academy's biggest failure; most probationers just read from the "scripts" and never crack a smile in dealing with citizens. 16. FIELD TRAINING -- EVALUATION OF PROBATIONERS: The evaluation forms do contain boxes for rating the probationer's relations with (a) citizens, (b) other officers, ( c) sergeants, and ( d) other racial groups; she takes these ratings very seriously; many FTOs do not take them seriously. She often gives probationers low ratings; many probationersw should never have made it to the field; the Academy no longer even pretends to screen people out; the Department expects the FTOs to do the screening, but that is difficult to do; difficult to accumulate the documentation necessary to terminate a probationer. She had one particularly horrendous probationer who was incompetent, insubordinate, and a "coward" in the field; she wrote him up for every little thing and "went to bat" to get him terminated; he was not terminated. 17. ROLL CALL TRAINING: [Did not discuss.] 18. USE OF FORCE: Believes it was a big mistake to outlaw the choke hold; people are afraid to use the carotid now that it is classified as a deadly force response -- why use it when you could use the gun instead. Another mistake is training cops to use the baton at the first sign of trouble; kicking can be very effective; she has used kicks to immobilize many suspects; kicks are allowed and can be used with particular effectiveness by females; recruits are not trained to use kicks. [Huebner 009] 3 . . CONflDtNTIAL Wrestling is not taught at the Academy anymore; wrestling and swarming are effective control techniques and should be relied on more heavily; recruits should be taught to wrestle and swarm until it is second nature; recruits now tend to be afraid to use their bodies to subdue suspects; they are not trained to do anything but shoot and thump with the stick. Women can swarm as well as men; she has used her body to subdue suspects -- usually by jumping on their backs until they get tired and fall down. 19. RODNEY KING INCIDENT: She has worked with one of the officers involved in the beating (Powell); although he is aggressive, she does not think that he is the type to beat suspects without cause. Believes that the officers involved did exactly what they are trained to do -- do not "tie up" with the suspect and keep going/hitting until all resistance ceases; up to the last few baton strokes, the actions were in policy (hit, back up to observe compliance, hit, back up, hit, back up, etc., until resistance ceases). The last few strokes were too much; believes that adrenaline rush took control. Sees a major problem with the sergeant's performance; he should have ordered a swarm when King first went to his knees and the "hitters" backed up; King was vulnerable at that point and could have been easily subdued by a swarm without endangering the officers; the sergeant also got too involved; should not have done the tasing himself; there were plenty of officers present; sergeant should have designated hitters and tasers and swarmers. Also believes that there were too many young officers present; the Department as a whole is too young and inexperienced; situations can spin out of control very easily when the people involved have too little experience to draw on. 20. CITIZEN COMPLAINTS: [Did not discuss.] 21. INTERNAL DISCIPLINE: [Did not discuss.] 22. PROMOTION: You must be "inside" to promote; you do not get promoted if you stay in the field; the higher-ups look down on patrol [Huebner 009] 4 . . CONflDfNTIAL officers; she has been passed over for senior lead spots in her own division because she "couldn't write as well as insiders"; particularly for lead spots, the criteria should not relate to writing but to field performance; now all promotions are tied to writing and paperpushing. 23. ASSIGNMENTS/TRANSFERS: [Did not discuss.] 24. COMMUNITY POLICING I COMMUNITY RELATIONS: [See# 15 above.] 25. GAYS/LESBIANS: Has had one lesbian partner; sexual orientation was not an issue. Has had one gay partner; he was even "ruder" to gays in the field than the straight cops; when she asked why he harassed other gays, he stated that he had to keep others from suspecting that he was gay. Is "very repulsed" by homosexuality personally; once beat up a lesbian who made a pass at her; nevertheless, has no objection ~ to gays/lesbians being cops; believes that sexual orientation is not an issue, as long as gays/lesbians do not "hit on" other officers; has seen that gays/lesbians can make excellent cops; believes that ability to do the job should be the primary focus of hiring. Does not believe in actively recruiting gays/lesbians because she sees no good recruiting "sources"; would not want recruiting in gay bars or sex magazines; does believe in actively recruiting racial minorities because good sources exist, such as black colleges; wants the best possible people on the force; believes that the key to getting good people on the force is recruiting from "quality pools" of interested people; sees most organized gay groups as disreputable. 26. WOMEN: She quickly established herself as a strong and competent officer; has not been personally affected by any gender discrimination; she believes she is viewed as a skilled officer rather than as a women. Believes that she is "sexist" herself; believes that most women should not be cops because they are not aggressive and strong enough; that is just a fact of socialization in our society; no amount or kind of training will reverse that fact. [Huebner 009] 5 t - C0NflDfNTl4L Wilshire was a test case for female officers, so there are lots of them there; she only knows of 4 who are strong officers; the rest are deficient. Females join the Department for the wrong reasons; they do not want to be cops in the field; they want to promote inside as quickly as possible and get behind a desk; women do in fact promote very quickly; most of them have virtually no field experience yet they end up "running things." 27. RACIAL MINORITIES: [Did not discuss.] 28. ATTITUDES/OPINIONS RE L.A.P.D.: Very happy being a police officer; believes that Gates has been a good Chief and is in touch with the field; stated in strong terms that she supports Gates because he spent time in the field; stated in stronger terms that she despises the Police Commission because it tries to dictate to officers how to act when the Commissioners have never been near the field. 29.- REFORM SUGGESTIONS: (a) Restructure promotions and rewards to keep good officers in the field; patrol is the backbone of the Department but gets nothing but disrespect. (b) Make field experience a primary requirement for promotion; field experience should be what counts; paperpushing time should not count; to be promoted to sergeant, should have a minimum of 3-5 years real field time. [Other suggestions set forth under various issue headings above.] 30. CODE OF SILENCE: Believes that many officers cover for each other; she would report, and has reported, serious officer misconduct; believes in keeping the force clean; does not believe in making ~ big deal over small problems. 50. MISCELLANEOUS: Has had personal conduct with Bob Vernon; thinks he is an "idiot" who tries to impose his religion on those around him; she believes that she was passed over for a promotion because Vernon interceded against her with the selecting lieutenant; she believes that she ran afoul of Vernon prior to that time when she grieved [Huebner 009] 6 CONflDfNTIAL a complaint made against her (she stated that she preferred not to talk about the complaint; stated that we could find it in her personnel jacket). [Huebner 009] 7
Object Description
Title | LAPD interviews #3(b) (2 of 2), 1991 May-June |
Description | Los Angeles Police Department interviews #3(b) (2 of 2), 1991 May 31 - June 19. PART OF A SERIES: Materials in the series fall into one of several categories related to the Independent Commission's work product: (1) Commission meeting materials, which include meeting agendas, work plans, memoranda, and articles about police misconduct that were circulated and reviewed during the Commission's internal meetings; (2) public correspondence, which includes citizen complaints against the LAPD in the form of written testimony, articles, and an audio cassette tape, as well as letters drafted by citizens in support of the LAPD; (3) summaries of interviews held with LAPD officers regarding Departmental procedures and relations; (4) public meeting materials, which include transcripts, supplementary documents, and witness statements that were reviewed at the Commission's public meetings; (5) press releases related to the formation and work product of the Commission; and (6) miscellaneous materials reviewed by the Commission during its study, including LAPD personnel and training manuals, a memorandum of understanding, and messages from the LAPD's Mobile Digital Terminal (MDT) system. |
Coverage date | 1991-05-31/1991-06-19 |
Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California |
Date created | 1991-05-31/1991-06-19 |
Type | texts |
Format | 213 p. |
Format (aat) | transcriptions (documents) |
Format (imt) | application/pdf |
Language | English |
Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
Part of collection | Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department, 1991 |
Series | Independent Commission File List |
File | Los Angeles Police Department Interviews |
Box and folder | box 24, folder 14 |
Provenance | The collection was given to the University of Southern California on July 31, 1991. |
Rights | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Manuscripts Librarian. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained. |
Physical access | Contact: Special Collections, Doheny Memorial Library, Libraries, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189; specol@dots.usc.edu |
Repository name | USC Libraries Special Collections |
Repository address | Doheny Memorial Library, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189 |
Repository email | specol@dots.usc.edu |
Filename | indep-box24-14 |
Description
Title | Huebner FTO interview 009, 1991-06-11 |
Description | Huebner FTO interviews - Huebner 009 White female from Wilshire division |
Coverage date | 1991-06-11 |
Date created | 1991-06-11 |
Type | texts |
Format | 7 p. |
Format (aat) | transcriptions (documents) |
Format (imt) | application/pdf |
Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
Series | Independent Commission File List |
File | Los Angeles Police Department Interviews |
Box and folder | box 24, folder 14, item 21 |
Physical access | Contact: Special Collections, Doheny Memorial Library, Libraries, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189; specol@dots.usc.edu |
Full text | ,, • • • la. NAME OF INTERVIEWER: lb. DATE OF INTERVIEW: le. LENGTH OF INTERVIEW: ld. NOTES: Huebner June 11, 1991 approx. 2-1/4 hours 2. I.D. CODE: Huebner 009 3. ,S.E.X: Female 4. ~: White 5. ~= 6. DIVISION: Wilshire 7. CQRRENT BANK/ASSIGNHENT: PJ/FTO; Wilshire 8. MISC. PERSONAL 8ACKGRQUNP: 9. MISC. L.A.P.p. BACKGROUHP: [Huebner 009] 1 . CONffDfNTIAL CONflDtNTIAL 10. FIELD TRAINING -- SELECTION OF F.T.O.s: She became an FTO before the hiring "binge"; at that time she believes her captain was looking for FTOs with (a) maturity, (b) a strong work ethic, and (c) the ability to process paperwork correctly and quickly. Now there are no standards; with the hiring binge, they just needed warm bodies; officers are promoted to P3/FTO positions far too quickly; the temporary FTO spots are a joke; this has led to the P3/FTO stripes meaning nothing; the abandoning of standards is not tactically sound; has created a dangerous situation in the field; the trainers don't know what they are doing themselves. Because of her maturity and prior experience, she was actually assigned to a probationer just 2 months after she came off probation herself; even then the Department was short-handed, and she had impressed her superiors enough to be assigned to training duties; thinks this was too quick, even though she was experienced and capable; believes 4 to 5 years experience should be the minimum requirement. 11. FIELD TRAINING -- TRAINING OF F.T.O.s: Went to FTO school before becoming a P3 but long after she had been training probationers; her biggest complaint about FTO school r was that it did not teach training techniques; too much emphasis on paperwork. 12. FIELD TRAINING -- MISCONDUCT BY I DISCIPLINE OF F.T.O.s: [Nothing noteworthy discussed.] 13. FIELD TRAINING -- EVALUATION OF F.T.O.s' PERFORMANCE: Evaluation is built into the regular officer evaluations; no special boxes or sections for FTO performance; no added emphasis in the evaluation on teaching skills or communications skills; informally, FTOs seem to be judged by how well their probationers succeed. 14. FIELD TRAINING -- ASSIGNMENT($) TO PROBATIONERS: At Wilshire, FTOs have some say over which probationers they are assigned; FTOs can request certain probationers; she often asks for reassignment to a probationer she had previously (she likes to see how they have developed over the intervening months). She is a strong personality; is known to work well with Hispanic males, despite their hyper-macho attitudes; therefore often gets assigned to Hispanic males. [Huebner 009] 2 CONflDfNTIAL 15. FIELD TRAINING -- RELATIONSHIP WITH/ TRAINING OF PROBATIONERS: For the first 2 weeks or so, probationers are a liability to the team; during that period she takes the lead and has them simply observe and "get the feel" of the job; she gradually starts backing out and letting the probationer take the lead in situations; is very strict re reports, tactics, and safety; not afraid to reprimand and yell at probationers; never berates probationers in public or in front of other officers; does not like the fact that many FTOs do yell at probationers in front of others; she believes this does lasting damage to self-confidence. Emphasizes courtesy and positive interaction with citizens; she finds this part of the FTO job to be the most difficult because the Academy does not teach you how to talk to people; this is the Academy's biggest failure; most probationers just read from the "scripts" and never crack a smile in dealing with citizens. 16. FIELD TRAINING -- EVALUATION OF PROBATIONERS: The evaluation forms do contain boxes for rating the probationer's relations with (a) citizens, (b) other officers, ( c) sergeants, and ( d) other racial groups; she takes these ratings very seriously; many FTOs do not take them seriously. She often gives probationers low ratings; many probationersw should never have made it to the field; the Academy no longer even pretends to screen people out; the Department expects the FTOs to do the screening, but that is difficult to do; difficult to accumulate the documentation necessary to terminate a probationer. She had one particularly horrendous probationer who was incompetent, insubordinate, and a "coward" in the field; she wrote him up for every little thing and "went to bat" to get him terminated; he was not terminated. 17. ROLL CALL TRAINING: [Did not discuss.] 18. USE OF FORCE: Believes it was a big mistake to outlaw the choke hold; people are afraid to use the carotid now that it is classified as a deadly force response -- why use it when you could use the gun instead. Another mistake is training cops to use the baton at the first sign of trouble; kicking can be very effective; she has used kicks to immobilize many suspects; kicks are allowed and can be used with particular effectiveness by females; recruits are not trained to use kicks. [Huebner 009] 3 . . CONflDtNTIAL Wrestling is not taught at the Academy anymore; wrestling and swarming are effective control techniques and should be relied on more heavily; recruits should be taught to wrestle and swarm until it is second nature; recruits now tend to be afraid to use their bodies to subdue suspects; they are not trained to do anything but shoot and thump with the stick. Women can swarm as well as men; she has used her body to subdue suspects -- usually by jumping on their backs until they get tired and fall down. 19. RODNEY KING INCIDENT: She has worked with one of the officers involved in the beating (Powell); although he is aggressive, she does not think that he is the type to beat suspects without cause. Believes that the officers involved did exactly what they are trained to do -- do not "tie up" with the suspect and keep going/hitting until all resistance ceases; up to the last few baton strokes, the actions were in policy (hit, back up to observe compliance, hit, back up, hit, back up, etc., until resistance ceases). The last few strokes were too much; believes that adrenaline rush took control. Sees a major problem with the sergeant's performance; he should have ordered a swarm when King first went to his knees and the "hitters" backed up; King was vulnerable at that point and could have been easily subdued by a swarm without endangering the officers; the sergeant also got too involved; should not have done the tasing himself; there were plenty of officers present; sergeant should have designated hitters and tasers and swarmers. Also believes that there were too many young officers present; the Department as a whole is too young and inexperienced; situations can spin out of control very easily when the people involved have too little experience to draw on. 20. CITIZEN COMPLAINTS: [Did not discuss.] 21. INTERNAL DISCIPLINE: [Did not discuss.] 22. PROMOTION: You must be "inside" to promote; you do not get promoted if you stay in the field; the higher-ups look down on patrol [Huebner 009] 4 . . CONflDfNTIAL officers; she has been passed over for senior lead spots in her own division because she "couldn't write as well as insiders"; particularly for lead spots, the criteria should not relate to writing but to field performance; now all promotions are tied to writing and paperpushing. 23. ASSIGNMENTS/TRANSFERS: [Did not discuss.] 24. COMMUNITY POLICING I COMMUNITY RELATIONS: [See# 15 above.] 25. GAYS/LESBIANS: Has had one lesbian partner; sexual orientation was not an issue. Has had one gay partner; he was even "ruder" to gays in the field than the straight cops; when she asked why he harassed other gays, he stated that he had to keep others from suspecting that he was gay. Is "very repulsed" by homosexuality personally; once beat up a lesbian who made a pass at her; nevertheless, has no objection ~ to gays/lesbians being cops; believes that sexual orientation is not an issue, as long as gays/lesbians do not "hit on" other officers; has seen that gays/lesbians can make excellent cops; believes that ability to do the job should be the primary focus of hiring. Does not believe in actively recruiting gays/lesbians because she sees no good recruiting "sources"; would not want recruiting in gay bars or sex magazines; does believe in actively recruiting racial minorities because good sources exist, such as black colleges; wants the best possible people on the force; believes that the key to getting good people on the force is recruiting from "quality pools" of interested people; sees most organized gay groups as disreputable. 26. WOMEN: She quickly established herself as a strong and competent officer; has not been personally affected by any gender discrimination; she believes she is viewed as a skilled officer rather than as a women. Believes that she is "sexist" herself; believes that most women should not be cops because they are not aggressive and strong enough; that is just a fact of socialization in our society; no amount or kind of training will reverse that fact. [Huebner 009] 5 t - C0NflDfNTl4L Wilshire was a test case for female officers, so there are lots of them there; she only knows of 4 who are strong officers; the rest are deficient. Females join the Department for the wrong reasons; they do not want to be cops in the field; they want to promote inside as quickly as possible and get behind a desk; women do in fact promote very quickly; most of them have virtually no field experience yet they end up "running things." 27. RACIAL MINORITIES: [Did not discuss.] 28. ATTITUDES/OPINIONS RE L.A.P.D.: Very happy being a police officer; believes that Gates has been a good Chief and is in touch with the field; stated in strong terms that she supports Gates because he spent time in the field; stated in stronger terms that she despises the Police Commission because it tries to dictate to officers how to act when the Commissioners have never been near the field. 29.- REFORM SUGGESTIONS: (a) Restructure promotions and rewards to keep good officers in the field; patrol is the backbone of the Department but gets nothing but disrespect. (b) Make field experience a primary requirement for promotion; field experience should be what counts; paperpushing time should not count; to be promoted to sergeant, should have a minimum of 3-5 years real field time. [Other suggestions set forth under various issue headings above.] 30. CODE OF SILENCE: Believes that many officers cover for each other; she would report, and has reported, serious officer misconduct; believes in keeping the force clean; does not believe in making ~ big deal over small problems. 50. MISCELLANEOUS: Has had personal conduct with Bob Vernon; thinks he is an "idiot" who tries to impose his religion on those around him; she believes that she was passed over for a promotion because Vernon interceded against her with the selecting lieutenant; she believes that she ran afoul of Vernon prior to that time when she grieved [Huebner 009] 6 CONflDfNTIAL a complaint made against her (she stated that she preferred not to talk about the complaint; stated that we could find it in her personnel jacket). [Huebner 009] 7 |
Filename | indep-box24-14-21.pdf |
Archival file | Volume81/indep-box24-14-21.pdf |