“They’re not serious about discipline for one of the most serious things police can do — shoot somebody, take human lives,” said Samuel Walker, a retired professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and an expert in police accountability. Discipline “sends a message down the chain of command, to the rank-and-file, that there are consequences for your actions.”

Less than one-third of Los Angeles officers received suspensions, despite the commission ruling their shooting incidents violated department policy or veered from training protocols. Rather, officers typically received a written reprimand or no penalty at all. Over the eight years, only two officers out of 75 were fired.

Defenders of light discipline say Chief Charlie Beck tries to mold officers who make honest mistakes, and that it’s unwise to draw conclusions from discipline data because each shooting is unique. Even a reprimand, they add, can keep an officer from getting promoted. Beck, through a spokesman, declined to be interviewed.

“You have to look at each individual case,” said Craig Lally, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League. “Some of those might have been a minor violation of tactics.”

Most of the reprimands were issued for officers who made tactical errors only — instances when the Police Commission disapproved of actions leading up to a shooting. Officers should be judged for these crucial moments, experts say, when de-escalation is still an option.

“Not all shooting incidents are split-second decisions,” Walker said. “They’re scenarios that play out over time.”

Beck favored reprimands after he took office in late 2009, especially one kind that warned of strict discipline if an officer reoffended. But he was criticized for his leniency and the Police Protective League filed a lawsuit in 2012 challenging such “conditional official reprimands.”

In the past three years of shooting cases, Beck has issued many more suspensions.

From January 2013 through the third quarter of 2015, Beck handed out 13 suspensions for deficient shooting incidents, including those in the Garrett case. In his previous three years, he issued just two.

Out of 24 suspensions during the eight years of data, the median suspension was six days.

Suspended officers can still collect pay through their union’s insurance.