L.A.’s New Top Cop: ‘Conservative’ on Crime, ‘Progressive’ in His Policing?
LAPD's new chief, Charlie Beck, was installed with a heavy dose of revisionist history that may not bode well for the future.
Last Tuesday, Charlie Beck was sworn in as the 55th chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. As I wrote two weeks ago, his selection by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was well received by rank-and-file officers, for unlike his predecessor William Bratton, who in 2002 was hired on as a turnaround artist to cure the dysfunction engendered by ten years of abysmally poor leadership, Beck, a 32-year veteran of the department, is a dyed-in-the-deep-blue-wool LAPD cop.
For all his many successes with the LAPD, Bratton remained an aloof and often absentee leader, spending large amounts of time away from the city and, while in town, preferring the company of celebrities and east-coast cronies to that of his own police officers. Visitors to Bratton’s office were often struck by the array of photographs on the walls in which Bratton was posed with this or that movie star, author, or politician. Conspicuously absent were pictures of Bratton with any actual police officers. It’s inconceivable that Charlie Beck would put up such a display to his own ego as he settles into his office at the new Police Administration Building in downtown Los Angeles.
Sadly, the celebration that has attended Beck’s installation as chief has not been without some revisionist history, some of it supplied by Beck himself. In the Nov. 15 Los Angeles Times, for example, writer Joel Rubin told of Beck’s “evolving philosophy of policing.” “In recent interviews and speeches,” Rubin wrote, “Beck has shied away from talking in detail about specific incidents he witnessed or took part in, but he has not tried to shun responsibility for being a part of the force during what he refers to as the ‘dark days.’”
From the perspective of one who serves in the lower ranks of the department, and has done so since those so-called dark days, it’s often interesting to note how people “evolve” as they ascend the LAPD’s career ladder. The higher one goes in the organization, the greater the temptation to hew to the city’s prevailing political climate. Antonio Villaraigosa, who before going into politics worked for the ACLU in Los Angeles, is famously liberal, so anyone who aspired to succeed William Bratton knew what script to follow. Beck played the game skillfully. “Charlie Beck is a conservative when it comes to criminals,” said Villaraigosa in introducing Beck as his choice for chief, “and a progressive in his policing.”
That dichotomy must have sounded good to the mayor’s speech writer and the mayor himself, but I’m still trying to figure out what it might mean.
To his great credit, Beck is one of the few staff officers in the department who seems unchanged from the time he was promoted to sergeant some 25 years ago. Unlike so many of his peers, and most unlike his predecessor, he still mixes easily with working cops. More importantly, having come from their ranks, he empathizes with them. But judging from Rubin’s piece in the L.A. Times, Beck seems to have bought into the fiction that the LAPD was little more than a cesspool of corruption and backward thinking prior to being reformed under the magical ministrations of William Bratton. Those may indeed have been dark days in the LAPD, but not necessarily for the reasons some would have you believe.
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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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12 Comments
1. NCBob:I used to live in LA and still have a passing interest on what goes on out there. While I’ve seen no proof, I can’t believe LA would appoint a non-black as CoP. Is Beck black or white?
Nov 23, 2009 - 7:35 am 2. Larry:Thank you for having written this Jack Dunphy. You always write well and are an excellent essayist. Here’s hoping that your readership and influence grows.
Nov 23, 2009 - 12:52 pm 3. nat turner:Ask any former CHP about the dark days of LAPD . If you didn’t have at least a beat down on a minority to hide , you could not be trusted . Police committing homicides were not at all rare .
Nov 23, 2009 - 12:56 pm 4. white tiger:Nat Turner, “chippie”?, is, by his own statement, either a liar or a criminal.
If he has all this wonderful evidence of homicides, assaults, etc., on minority persons by LAPD officers, why has he never reported even one such instance?
And, Chippies are citation writers, not real cops. In terms of TV personas, they are only Eric Estradas; not Jack Webbs.
In LA there is a thin Blue line which separates the good folks from the bad guys. Libel, slander, denigrate that Line, and you create a jungle of criminal chaos. And the next time you really need a cop, you might as well call a hippie.
Nov 23, 2009 - 2:16 pm 5. DavidN:When you pin on that tin target, and set out to “protect and serve”, you expect to have to bang it out with the perps. But the slimeballs who will really do you in are those who lie about you, institute false charges, demean you continually, hoping to structure that demonic chaos of which they are so fond. Punks who love to make accusations they cannot begin to prove.
Cop-haters, in love with every known perversion.
1. NCBob:
I used to live in LA and still have a passing interest on what goes on out there. While I’ve seen no proof, I can’t believe LA would appoint a non-black as CoP. Is Beck black or white?
He’s white. This is why I found the whole process somewhat amazing: all *3* of the final candidates for the position were white guys, even the unfortunately named Michael Moore. As an aside, when I first heard Michael Moore was going to be LAPD chief, my reaction was that his only qualification was an obvious ability to consume donuts.
So when I saw the list of final candidates, saw the choice, and watched a black police commission head (John Mack) and a Latino mayor (Villaraigosa) praise this white guy, I felt that the selection process must have been less political than it has been in the past. Bratton was obviously chosen for unusual skills (as “Dunphy” notes) and he performed as expected.
As for the police committing homicides comment, I’m sure it happened a few times, but I doubt it was that widespread. Even back then people would get caught, and with the advances in science we do occasionally catch criminals years, even decades after their crimes. A guy was busted not too long ago for killing two cops in 1957; LAPD recently arrested one of their own art theft detectives, because she allegedly killed a romantic rival two decades or so ago. If it had been widespread, there would be lots of people (or cops) getting arrested now…
Nov 23, 2009 - 2:32 pm 6. Elroy Fan:Beck is white, but his moustache is 100% Mexican-American.
Nov 23, 2009 - 6:01 pm 7. ricpic:A complete farce that we now know what makes for effective policing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, but won’t practice effective policing because it “discriminates.”
Nov 23, 2009 - 6:13 pm 8. Bill Gannon:Good analysis and gloomy – but probably accurate – prognostication. Best wishes to CB, his mustache and his troops. And who could ever rely on chippies to hold a perimeter? They might miss their latte reservation.
Nov 24, 2009 - 5:08 am 9. Jimmy:Good analysis Jack. I’m a 19-yr veteran and we can handle the challenge of more crooks on the streets if the “kids” (young cops with less than 5 yrs on the Dept.) can handle it. Most of them are great kids who are going to have great careers. Some of them need to make another career choice, because they suck at this one. They’re accustomed to a slower pace of work. When the call load picks up (as it inevitably will) they’ll have to work harder and faster. Those who enjoy hard work will adjust and those who don’t will stand there with a confused “What the hell just happened? look on their faces.
Nov 24, 2009 - 7:56 am 10. deguello:If you are a middleclass person still living in LA,or any third world city in the USA,you deserve what they get by way of libtard govt.
Nov 24, 2009 - 9:55 am 11. I. M. Copper:With the selection of Charlie Beck, it suggests merit may actually have a place in government today, at least with this highly visible political appointment. His competence and adoration for the officers, organization, and community are genuine and I believe without self-service in mind. With a fiscal crisis, more cops, and less crime than in the last fifty years, it suggests that his challenges with only increase with each day at the helm. One cannot please all of the people all of the time, but he can please the community and his organization with continuing to act with integrity, transparency, and above all – Leadership! Good luck!
Nov 24, 2009 - 12:57 pm 12. james:Where liberalism lives, things die. Los Angeles is obviously no exception.
Nov 25, 2009 - 9:55 amSay goodnight, Mr. Beck.