Brian Buchner
Brian Buchner is a Special Investigator with the Los Angeles Police Commission, Office of the Inspector General (OIG), where he is assigned to the Use of Force Section. In that capacity, he oversees the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) investigations into the Department’s most critical incidents, including officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths. Previously, Mr. Buchner was assigned to the Complaint Section, where he was primarily responsible for the intake and review of complaint investigations into allegations of misconduct by LAPD sworn and civilian employees.
Prior to joining the OIG in the Fall of 2007, Mr. Buchner was the Policing Specialist at the Police Assessment Resource Center (PARC) in Los Angeles, California, where he assisted Merrick Bobb, Special Counsel to the County of Los Angeles and PARC’s Executive Director, in monitoring and critically reviewing the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Mr. Buchner also analyzed police policies and practices as well as models of civilian oversight around the United States. With support from a private foundation and the United States Department of Justice, he studied police-complaint mediation programs and police-community relations, and co-authored published reports on the findings. In 2000, Mr. Buchner was a seasonal police officer in the Ocean City, Maryland Police Department.
Mr. Buchner received his M.A. degree from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and his B.S. degree, cum laude, from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. He graduated from the criminal justice data analysis workshop at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan and has taught statistics to undergraduate criminal justice students.
Since 2005, Mr. Buchner has been a commissioner on the City of Santa Monica Social Services Commission. He has previously served on the Board of Directors of the Young Nonprofits Professionals Network, a national coalition of over 10,000 young professionals in the nonprofit sector, and is an active volunteer in the Santa Monica and greater Los Angeles communities. Mr. Buchner is also a Certified Law Enforcement Auditor by the International Law Enforcement Auditors Association.
Mr. Buchner has been an active member of the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) in various ways since 2004. Most recently, he founded, helps coordinate and participates in NACOLE’s Professional Mentoring Program. Mr. Buchner has spoken about policing and police oversight issues in a variety of forums, including panels hosted by NACOLE, the University of California-Los Angeles, the American Society of Criminology and the Homicide Research Working Group.
