LA city officials, LAPD hold meeting on cadet scandal investigation

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- On the heels of two major scandals rocking the Los Angeles Police Department cadets, police commissioners met at police headquarters in downtown L.A. to talk about the program.

There was sharp criticism from many in the audience at Tuesday's police commission meeting on how LAPD Chief Charlie Beck is handling the cadet scandal.

Last week, one department officer was arrested for allegedly having sex with an underage cadet. She was among the seven cadets arrested for taking police equipment and cruisers.

The L.A. City Council wants an independent audit of all of the police department's youth programs and, in the meeting, the L.A. police commission said it wants its own investigation into the cadet program.

"(We want to) review the policies, procedures and guidelines that outline the responsibility of all of our department personnel, relative to interactions and relationships that they may have with our department cadets," said Matthew Johnson, commission president.

The commissioners also want a review of how the department recruits cadets, and procedures on how police equipment is checked out and checked in And how it's used.

Beck said he's already made changes to the program, including how officers interact with cadets.

"Limit one-on-one texting and those things, especially from folks that are outside of the chain of command of the cadet post," he said.

Officer Robert Cain is the officer accused of having sex with the cadet. He's not involved with the program, but he was in charge of equipment at the 77th Street Station, where the cadets involved in the scandal were stationed.

In a search of Cain's home, the department confirmed nearly 100 weapons were seized.

"Those weapons are being examined to see if they're legal in the state of California and I will report that there's some amount of them that we believe are not at this point," Beck added.