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Posted on 10/03/2002 6:23:46 AM PDT by GeneD
White smoke finally appeared over Los Angeles City Hall on Wednesday. At long last, habemus chiefam. Mayor James Hahn has chosen William Bratton to be the next chief of the LAPD, picking the former NYPD commissioner over the two other remaining candidates for the post, former Philadelphia police commissioner John Timoney and Oxnard, California police chief Art Lopez. The selection will be formally announced at a Thursday press conference, but, foreshadowing the reception Bratton can expect from some quarters, the carping has already begun. "[T]he Latino community overall is very disappointed," said city councilman Nick Pacheco, who had been lobbying for Lopez, ". . . [W]e're trying to figure out what the magic formula is to get a qualified Latino chief here in Los Angeles . . ."
Bratton can expect to hear plenty more of this in the coming days, for Pacheco's comments reflect the attitude that the LAPD, after two consecutive black chiefs, Bernard Parks most recently and Willie Williams before him, should now be commanded by a Latino. I certainly had my suspicions that Mayor Hahn, having disaffected his previously loyal black constituency by throwing Parks over the side, would seek to shore up his support among Latinos by selecting Lopez. But after years of slithering along as something of a political invertebrate, Hahn has lately developed a recognizable spine. Bratton had the most impressive curriculum vitae of the three candidates, but it comes at the price of a high profile, one that may overshadow the comparatively low-key mayor. As NYPD commissioner, Bratton feuded with then-mayor Rudy Giuliani, who few would describe as low key. Giuliani forced Bratton out of the job despite his dramatic success in reducing crime: During Bratton's two-year tenure in New York, homicides were cut in half and serious crime dropped by about a third.
Hahn surely had these figures in mind in making his selection, for though crime continues to fall across the country, the trend in Los Angeles is in the opposite direction. The thugs of L.A. have taken advantage of a demoralized LAPD, whose officers have been beaten down by five years of serving under the autocratic Bernard Parks. And it is dissatisfaction with the LAPD and its ineffectiveness in stopping crime that has helped to fuel secession movements in Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. If voters approve two initiatives in November, these communities will split off into independent cities and take a huge chunk of the L.A. tax base with them. Hahn does not want to be mayor of a disintegrating city, and by choosing Bratton as LAPD chief the mayor is sending a clear message to the voters a month before the election: Stick with us and we'll make this city safe again.
Predictably, Bratton's selection was greeted by the dissenting voice of another city councilman. Nate Holden, a man known more for the quantity of the words in his commentaries than for the wisdom contained therein, has promised to vote against accepting Bratton when the matter is brought before the city council next week. Speaking on Larry Elder's radio program Wednesday afternoon, Holden expressed the opinion that the council had been left out of the selection process, serving only as a "rubber stamp" to the decision made by the mayor and the police commission. Mr. Holden seems to have forgotten that the selection process just completed was one of several reforms enacted in the wake of the Rodney King episode, reforms that he himself pushed to implement. Holden also objected that he was not allowed to conduct a survey of rank-and-file officers as to which of the three candidates they favored. The councilman's sudden concern for the opinions of the rank-and-file must be viewed with some suspicion, given that it was he who lobbied to retain Bernard Parks in the face of a 94-percent disapproval vote from the membership of the police officers' union. Even more incredibly, Holden sought to discredit Bratton by invoking the memory of Boston's school-desegregation riots of 1974, at which time Bratton was a young street cop on the Boston Police Department. Fortunately, Holden is not taken seriously by most of his council colleagues — nor by anyone else outside his own district, for that matter — and Bratton should have no trouble sailing through the council vote.
Some of the news reports on Bratton's selection have mentioned the LAPD's history of hostility to "outsiders." Such talk is specious, given that before Willie Williams was brought in from Philadelphia in 1992, no outsider had commanded the LAPD in more than fifty years. And Willie Williams did not fail as chief because he was an outsider. He failed as chief because he was incompetent. (Passengers traveling through Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport should find little comfort in the knowledge that Williams is now in charge of security there.)
I'm certain either Art Lopez or John Timoney would have made an outstanding chief, but William Bratton's record made him the clear choice. Having spoken with a number of colleagues around the LAPD, I can report that the troops will welcome him and work hard for him. We're looking forward to fighting crime again.
— Jack Dunphy is an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department. "Jack Dunphy" is the author's nom de cyber. The opinions expressed are his own and almost certainly do not reflect those of the LAPD management.
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