Identity Politics Brushed Aside in LAPD Chief Selection
Deputy Chief Charlie Beck was one of the most qualified people vying for the position.
The waiting and speculation are over: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has selected Deputy Chief Charlie Beck to succeed William Bratton as chief of the LAPD.
Beck, 56, is a 32-year veteran of the department, and he was rumored to be the front-runner for the job ever since Bratton announced in August that he would be stepping down with three years remaining on his five-year contract. But even though Beck was believed to have the job in the bag, having received Bratton’s non-public endorsement as well as that of many business and community leaders, for those of us near the bottom of the LAPD’s chain of command there was nonetheless an element of suspense leading up to Tuesday’s official announcement.
Beck was one of three finalists for the job, the other two being Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell, who served as Bratton’s second in command, and Deputy Chief Michel Moore, the commanding officer of department operations in the San Fernando Valley (not to be confused with the similarly named rotund purveyor of pseudo-documentaries). Several other high-ranking LAPD officers and two police chiefs from other cities had applied for the job, but they all were eliminated through a winnowing process that included an initial screen-down by the city’s personnel department and a series of interviews with the five civilian police commissioners. Finally, Mayor Villaraigosa interviewed each of the three finalists twice over the the last week, signaling what may have been genuine indecision but, depending on whose account you believe, may instead have been a pretense of objectivity for a decision actually made long ago.
But no matter, for from the day Bratton announced he was pulling up stakes and heading back to New York, it was felt throughout the LAPD that if his successor was anyone other than Beck or McDonnell the rank and file would have viewed the selection process with suspicion. Both are well respected in the department, bringing them in sharp distinction from nearly all of their peers. But popularity with the troops has been known to be a hindrance to advancement within the LAPD. In 1997, for example, Bernard Parks was selected over Mark Kroeker, who was favored by an overwhelming majority of the rank and file. Parks’s tenure was a disaster, marked by scandal, plummeting morale, and rising crime, and one assumes Villaraigosa gave Beck’s reputation within the department as much weight as he did his various endorsements.
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“Jack Dunphy” is the pseudonym of an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. The opinions expressed are his own and almost certainly do not reflect those of the LAPD management.
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22 Comments
1. Tex Expatriate:Congratulations, Jack. That your mayor would do anything right is amazing.
Nov 5, 2009 - 9:19 am 2. Tim in Philly:Seriously? I am supposed to thing that because most of the rank and file of the LAPD like this guy he is good? Hey great, most of the guys in one of the most corrupt so-called law enforcement agencies in American history love the new chief. Man am I glad I don’t live in LA.
Nov 5, 2009 - 9:59 am 3. oldusedcop:By now, most of the LA media, and very likely national media as well, have dissected the Beck appointment, praising it as a great choice, which it is. However, the local purveyors of what they choose to call journalism continue in the delusion they know something of substance about law enforcement in general, and LAPD in particular. It’s even more amusing that Tim in Philly would feel qualified to label LAPD as corrupt, considering that he lives in the area known nationally as Filthadelphia. The only corruption scandal in LA was created by a coalition of unknowing news hawks, self-serving political hacks, and incompetent feeders at the public trough. Tex Expatriate has it right. It’s more than amazing that the hormonal Mayor could, or would, choose the best of the best.
Nov 5, 2009 - 11:05 am 4. DavidN:I don’t live in LA; I’m in a suburb. I do pay attention however to what goes on in the city, the politics of mayoral choices and the police chief. It looks like “Tim in Philly” and “oldusedcop” are happily mistaken. Beck appears to have been chosen for his qualifications, alone.
LAPD has had a troubled past for a long time, but its modern history really stems from the Rodney King tape, the riots, and their aftermath. Then-chief Darryl Gates was popular with the rank-and-file, but a favorite target of the ACLU and other community activists. When he left office, the choice was pretty openly restricted to blacks, to allay the concerns of the black community locally, upset by the King beating and the subsequent verdicts that absolved the officers involved.
Gates’ successor, then, was Willy Williams, if memory serves correctly a Police Commissioner from Philly. He was ineffectual, something of a buffoon, and at times downright incompetent. Towards the end of his 5-year term, he was found to have accepted an inappropriate gift (his wife was offered, and accepted, a free hotel room in Vegas for a weekend), and he compounded the error by attempting to conceal this from the Police Commission. The punishment for this was very light (the city was still reeling from the riots, and it was felt that any real punishment wouldn’t be taken well by the black community). So Williams left, and was replaced by Bernard Parks.
Parks was at times (at least apparently) more competent than Williams. He’s at least a local, so he knows the town and the community. He spent a large part of his career at LAPD working in the Internal Affairs Division, which makes him unpopular with the rank and file, but given the riots (just a few years back) that wasn’t seen as exactly a bad thing at the time. Unfortunately, his administration of the department wasn’t as hawkeyed as we would have liked, and the Rampart police scandal blew up in his face, further tarnishing the reputation of the department. Richard Riordan’s successor as mayor, Jim Hahn, decided to replace Parks (and perhaps doomed his own chances for reelection in the process) but directed the selection process that led to the hiring of Bill Bratton.
I’m not on the same page as Mr. Dunphy re Bratton, though I too had my issues with the latest chief. I think that the non-violent approach to things (which he seemed to champion pretty much exclusively) can have its advantages, but also disadvantages. However, Dunphy’s right: Bratton took a demoralized department, and revitalized it from the ground up. He leaves the situation a whole lot better off than it was when he started.
Now we get Beck. I’m not an LAPD insider, so I can’t differentiate between the three candidates who were finalists (other than to initially assert that Michael Moore is only qualified to be a police officer based on an ability to consume donuts…until I realized this is a different Michael Moore) but I did notice one thing right off: all three are white guys. I have no doubt that there are minorities of one sort or another who are qualified to be Chief of the LAPD. I’d be happiest, however, if we chose the person best qualified for the job, not the person of the right color or gender. The head of our police commission, John Mack, is black. The mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, is famously the first Hispanic mayor of the city in 150 years or so. If *they* narrowed the list of candidates down to three, and all three are white, they *must* have been very impressive candidates. It looks as if Antonio and his allies decided to go with competence over political correctness (something most of us never expected). Frankly, I’m pretty happy.
Nov 5, 2009 - 11:54 am 5. Tim in Philly:Living in Filthadelphia I feel eminently qualified to remark on corruption. I see it every freakin’ day. So the Rampart division fiasco was created by the news hawks. OJ, Rodney King. Weren’t a bunch of LAPD’s finest just arrested for running a drug stealing operation? And just so you know Philly is called filthadelphia because it is dirty and the people here are slobs. It is also called Killadelphia because we have alot of homicides, most unsolved by Phily’s finest. And the LAPD has a rep for racism and corruption going back to at least the ’40’s. So come off your high horse oldusedcop. How many bribes went to pad your pension?
Nov 5, 2009 - 12:02 pm 6. NahnCee:1. He looks like Tom Selleck. Movie star looks in Hollywood — quelle surprise.
2. Was he or was he not one of the candidates present at the loudly-announced gang bust a couple of weeks ago? I’ve sort of been watching the news but haven’t seen any names named about that incident.
Nov 5, 2009 - 12:40 pm 7. paul_unalaska:I’m with Tim in Philly on this one. LA and its PD is a stain on the law enforcement community as a whole. need proof? Look at the L.A. Times Homicide map and tell me otherwise.
L.A.’s been a mess for how long.. and their answer? Elect Villaraigosa to ‘clean up’ the city.. brilliant move
Yeah, living in Santa Barbara I never grew tired of hearing on the radio L.A. boasting of it being a ‘Sanctuary City’ with Latino folks and Villaraigosa being the voices for the ad.
With S.F. toting its ‘Sanctuary City’ status as well.. with Santa Barbara and hundreds of other cities in between.. where does that leave the rest of the state?
It doesn’t matter if Jesus, Allah were dual Police Chiefs.. with the political power calling the shots.. the City of Angels will always be a joke..
As the band Tool sings in their song ‘Aenema’, ‘Let em swim.. let ‘em swim..
Nov 5, 2009 - 2:08 pm 8. whiskey:The LAPD was notoriously corrupt during the 1920’s-1930’s (including the Frank Shaw era). Under Chief Parker, the LAPD underwent serious reform, becoming the professional force shown on “Dragnet” (an exaggeration but broadly reflective on the dispassionate professional attitude) in the post-War era up through the late 1960’s. The 1970’s and 1980’s had a direct conflict between the forces of PC/Multiculturalism and aggressive non-White political leaders wanting not much policing in fairly criminal populations (Black and Hispanic) as crime rates exploded predictably in single-mother, illegitimate communities.
The Rampart Scandal was partially driven by PC/Multiculturalism. The LAPD could not recruit qualified, non-criminal background Blacks and Hispanics so standards were relaxed — and voila Rafael Perez, a former gang member and leader of the corrupt Rampart gang, who avoided scrutiny for years due to being non-White.
Fact: White officers are rarely corrupt, though they may have negative (and perhaps, accurate) views of non-White communities in general. This is balanced by the PC/Multicultural forces that severely punish any perceived infraction against PC/Multicultural rules by White cops. Middle class White guys shockingly act like … Middle Class White guys. The pool for non-corrupt, professional non-White officers is vanishingly small — there are few Middle Class Black/Hispanic potential recruits, making the choice of PC/Multiculturalism INEVITABLY one for corruption.
There is no free lunch. A mostly White, non-PC/Multicultural force can be largely professional and non-corrupt, but it will not be “diverse.” A “diverse” force WILL BE BY THE NATURE OF WHO IT RECRUITS, corrupt beyond measure. There simply are not enough Middle Class non-Whites in LA’s metro area to have any other outcome.
Villaraigosa must fear that a “diverse” candidate would have crime exploding on his watch, eroding any aspirations he has for Governor or other offices.
Nov 5, 2009 - 2:16 pm 9. AD:As I seem to remember it, Bill Parker (who was hired to clean-up the “Chinatown/Mulholland Falls/LA Confidential” reputation of the LAPD) recreated one of the finest PD’s in modern American history – one that was looked to by its’ brothers throughout the U.S. as a leading voice in law-enforcement. Handing a cop a bribe (the twenty folded under your license) was a recipe for a trip to the holding tank for arraignment for “Attempting to bribe a public official”, and Parker showed he meant it by having his IA troops attempt to bribe cops in traffic stops.
Nov 5, 2009 - 2:42 pm 10. arhooley:Williams (who came up through the Philly park or school police, not the regular department until he got into leadership, was a complete disaster, not even being able to pass the Police Officers Standards and Training (POST) test that is required for any sworn officer in CA. Without that certification, he had no authority to carry a gun, and the Police Commission had to issue him a license to carry (one of the noted few individuals in L.A. so licensed).
Tim must be a relative.
Jack, please keep posting. The only other news I think I can trust about LA politics is from John and Ken.
Nov 5, 2009 - 3:56 pm 11. Bill Gannon:Congrats, Jack, on getting a chief you can stand behind. Now please make sure he doesn’t spend his off-duty time driving a glitzy sports car. [That goes waaaay back]. Tim in Philly seems to prefer a force with about 40% clean cops – Philly – to LA’s 80%. Oh, well, he knows his own capacity for putting up with corruption, so he pays his money and stays on the least coast.
Stay safe out there.
Nov 5, 2009 - 11:41 pm 12. the friendly grizzly:oldusecop: just curious. How long have you been retired?
Are you old enough to be one of the cops standing on the sidewalk in front of Fairfax High, screaming faux-German “raus! raus!”-like commands at the Jewish school kids? You know: the ones that were the children of holocaust survivors? (I saw you or your brethren doing it; I went there).
Nov 6, 2009 - 3:32 am 13. urbanleftbehind:Mr. Beck must be thinking “getting the tan and grooming the mustache paid off!!! – all I needed was the banda suit if there was a third interview.”
Nov 6, 2009 - 7:00 am 14. Ed O'Shea:Hey Tim in Philly, why don’t you go suck start a cheese steak sandwich, topped with some broken glass and road salt, you stain. Then go S#!t in your fist! Philly is curruopt because a bunch of bed wetting, currupt Democrats have been running that city for far to long! Frank Rizzo probably humped Philly’s old lady, and now he hates cops. Don’t go away mad, jag-off, just go away!
Nov 6, 2009 - 9:25 am 15. Tim Mayhugh:Hey Ed O’Shea, At least I know who my mother was you in-bred slack-jawed ass huffer. I don’t hate cops. I hate bad cops. Unfortunately that is most of them. Check out David Codrea’s “Only Ones” file to get a taste of how the blue clad scum “protect & serve” the citizens of our nation.
Nov 6, 2009 - 9:53 am 16. Tim in Philly:Also for your information Ed, Philly has been boted for corruption since Lincoln was president. It was also run by republicas from 1890ish until 1940ish when people finally got tired of the scumbag republicans and replaced them with scumbag democrats. Try learning a little history. I know it must be hard to learn anything when you have a pin-head, but at least try.
Nov 6, 2009 - 9:56 am 17. DavidN:Tim in Philly:
The Rampart police scandal was a mess in various ways. There are various versions of what happened, essentially depending on your point of view. Police critics believed that the cops were killing innocent civilians, and framing them for drug crimes they didn’t commit. The problem, however, is that the whole thing stemmed from the arrest of one dirty cop, who had about 5 kilos of cocaine in the trunk of his car. He immediately began to assert that every arrest he’d made, and many made by other cops in his precinct, were deliberate frames or rigged with phony warrants and the like. Ultimately, one or two of his colleagues were arrested, but several others were exonerated. I know someone who worked with one of them, and my friend assures me the guy isn’t dirty. It appears as if the original dirty cop was just talking to try and reduce his own sentence (successfully: last I heard the local DA was trying to get him out of jail for “time served”).
Nov 6, 2009 - 8:46 pm 18. irwin Copper:For some, cops will do no right and that is their belief. That’s a fine point of view for the paranoid cop hater, but one that is not firmly based in reality, at least not in Los Angeles. Too bad the comments are not about the subject of the article instead of petty, uninformed bias back and forth. The LA Times and the ACLU are hardly organizations one should reference when attempting to sway an audience that is interested in unbiased fact, not innuendo and half-truths.
Nov 7, 2009 - 9:00 am 19. Gernot:I retired from LAPD Rampart Division in the 80’s. At that time it was the best division in the city. The so called Rampart scandal was caused by one individual officer, and a Chief of Police who chose to believe a convicted felon over his own officers. A few officers involved with Perez were convicted of some infractions, but he was the only one who went to jail. Bernard Parks was the worst possible choice to be Chief of Police, the Commission could have selected. It is noteworthy that blacks comprise only 7% of L.A.’s population, but seemed to require the city to have two black chiefs of police. Politics do indeed make strange bedfellows. I know Charly Beck and he will make a great Chief. I agree that Bratton was good for the Department.
Nov 9, 2009 - 1:21 pm 20. 426:Funny how when you have three candidates that are White, no one claims it’s identity politics, but if a Hispanic, Black, or even a female was selected, you guys would be screaming they were selected because of their race, gender, etc. Has it occurred to you that maybe the three finalist where their because of their race. California is still predominately White and the mayor (who is eyeing a run for higher political office) knows he needs whites in order to win. Beck has little education and is chief of one of the largest departments in the U.S, but you’re telling me this was not about who’s buddy with who and not about pleasing the majority group.
Nov 9, 2009 - 10:03 pm 21. 426:I meant there.
Nov 9, 2009 - 10:04 pm 22. 426:So Gernot are you saying that a Black person can’t be chief just based on their qualifications? And to think you were once a police officer patrolling and making decisions that affect the lives of Blacks. Scary!
Nov 9, 2009 - 10:07 pm