LAPD officers near MacArthur Park on May Day 2008, a year after the Melee. Photo by Tom Andrews.

All the police officers accused of using excessive force in the 2007 May Day protests will keep their jobs, the LA Times reported this morning:

Of the four officers Bratton sent to the boards, one received an official reprimand for being guilty of unauthorized force but was found not guilty of misleading statements. A second officer charged with seven incidents of unauthorized force was found guilty of two of them and given a 12-day suspension. A third officer was found guilty of unauthorized force, conduct unbecoming an officer and misleading statements and given a 20-day suspension. A fourth officer was found guilty of two of seven counts of unauthorized force and received an official reprimand. Citing police personnel privacy rules, the department has not named the officers. Deputy Chief Mark Perez reported the panels’ decisions to the Police Commission. He said that officers repeatedly defended themselves by citing a “lack of training.” An internal investigation into the incident that left more than 200 demonstrators and journalists reporting injuries blamed poor leadership, overly aggressive tactics and lack of training.

Since both the investigators and the officers mentioned “a lack of training,” I asked a spokesperson at the LAPD what sort of new training will be given to officers who work with large crowd-disperal situations. I’m told it will take 10 days to get a response.