Can a public safety officer be terminated for refusing to cooperate with an investigation conducted by an outside agency?

Defendants claim there is no need for statutory construction because the language is unambiguous, clear on its face, and applicable here. Plaintiffs disagree and proffer a more limited interpretation, which is also reasonable. They interpret the subdivision (i) exception as not applying to an administrative investigation (i.e., conducted by the employer) of criminal activities. This, they observe, is the type of investigation that occurred in Lybarger v. City of Los Angeles (1985) 40 Cal.3d 822, where a police officer's termination for refusing to cooperate in a police department investigation of alleged criminal activities was reversed for failure to give the admonitions required by subdivision (h) of section 3303. Plaintiffs urge a narrow interpretation of subdivision (i)'s criminal activity exception that would make it applicable only when an investigation is conducted by a separate agency completely outside the confines of the employing agency, such as occurred in People v. Velez, supra, 144 Cal.App.3d 558, where there was no involvement by the employer of the public safety officer who was interviewed by an outside agency. Plaintiffs urge a similar interpretation of the portion of section 3304 which authorizes the employer to (1) order its public safety officers to cooperate with other agencies involved in criminal investigations, and (2) to charge them with insubordination for failure to comply with such order. ( 3304, subd. (a).) If these provisions are not limited to investigations conducted by outside agencies that are substantially independent of the employer, plaintiffs maintain, they would effectively defeat the entire purpose of the Act. Their argument is persuasive. Almost every administrative investigation of alleged misconduct could be recast as a criminal investigation to avoid the requirements of the Act. Thus, we agree that the criminal investigations referred to in subdivision (i) of section 3303 and subdivision (a) of section 3304 must be ones conducted primarily by outside agencies without significant active involvement or assistance by the employer.⁶