Deputy L. A. Police Chief Roasted for Retiring as Bureaucrat in Blue

Retiring Deputy Police Chief Daniel R. Sullivan wore a dark, three-piece suit and a huge, white corsage to a roast in his honor Saturday night at the Los Angeles Police Academy in Elysian Park.

In other words, he was asking for trouble.

“Did you see the way he’s dressed tonight?” said Joe Gunn, a Hollywood High classmate of Sullivan’s who retired from the force in 1979 to work as a television writer and producer. “All he needs to do is put a lily in his hand and you can lay him in a casket.”

Gunn served as master of ceremonies for the event, at which about 325 friends and fellow officers honored the outspoken and sometimes controversial police official who resigned as the Police Department’s highest-ranking officer in the San Fernando Valley. As their way of saying goodby, the roasters honored Sullivan with enough good-natured, blue barbs to fill a Lenny Bruce joke book.

One ‘Friend’ Absent

Unfortunately, a female “friend” Sullivan met while working vice couldn’t attend the event.

“Bunny Easter would have been here,” said J. J. Knott, a former LAPD officer, “but she’s doing 90 days.”

And speaking of books, roaster and acting LAPD Cmdr. Keith Allen found a lot of fodder in a manual Sullivan wrote titled, “Criminal Investigations Standards.”

“Listen to this,” Allen told the gathering, supposedly reading from the manual. “In the investigative or investigatory process, or procedure . . . in order to ascertain or determine the root causes, or underlining reasons for a criminal action, or enterprise which has occurred, or happened, or taken place . . .”

Allen looked up from the text.

“Ya know,” he said. “There’s an awful lot of filler in this book.”

Sullivan worked in administrative posts for most of his 25-year career, yet maintained a reputation for being a “street cop” at heart. Still, he took a lot of good-natured ribbing for his lack of investigative experience.

Joining Detective Agency

Gunn noted that Sullivan is leaving the force to work for Paul Chamberlain International, a detective agency that Sullivan said takes on “high-level investigations” and has several foreign clients. Gunn was skeptical.

“Paul Chamberlain was here earlier tonight but some sirens went by and he left,” Gunn said. “Danny didn’t, though. His contract only calls for police cars and choo-choo trains.”

Former Cmdr. William Burke predicted that Sullivan will end up “going door-to-door on Wilshire Boulevard, saying, ‘Help me. I need an investigation.’ ”

Police Chief Daryl F. Gates allowed for some sentimentality.

“If I could convince him to stay, I would,” Gates said. “I really believe he could be chief of police someday and do an outstanding job. Danny Sullivan is leaving, and I’m sorry.”

Sullivan, 47, has at times lashed out at the City Council, the justice system and the Police Commission, which he claimed was composed of “meddlers.” He also took a shot at wealthy Westside residents, characterizing them as selfish individuals who would relish the chance to build walls around their homes and not “let anybody in that’s brown or black.”

When he was reassigned to the San Fernando Valley in 1982, he established a 15-member undercover team known as the Cobra Corps to handle investigations too big for separate LAPD divisions. He also created a police task force to set up sobriety checkpoints throughout the San Fernando Valley.

Found Answers Quickly

“He could arrive at solutions to problems much more quickly than a lot of people,” Gates said. “And he was never afraid to speak his mind. Often, the things he said were controversial. He said them because they needed to be said, and I respected him for it.”

Sullivan didn’t say anything controversial Saturday night.

People often attend social functions not because they want to, but because they feel obligated, Sullivan said.

“But not tonight,” he said. “Everybody is here because they want to be here, and that makes me feel good.

“It’s been a great privilege being an L. A. police officer,” Sullivan said. “I will always be an L. A. police officer.”