LAPD’s Cooke Will Retire at End of Year

A top Los Angles Police Department spokesman for the last 22 years said he will retire at the end of the year because, “Why not? There’s more to life than news.”

Lt. Dan Cooke, in charge of the day-to-day operations of the Press Relations Unit, said Saturday that he decided about two weeks ago to retire after his wife’s surgery and the funerals of two close friends, Times reporter Bill Farr and television producer Richard Levinson.

Cooke, who is known for his sense of humor, has been with the Police Department for 34 years. His assignment to the Press Relations Unit was supposed to be for two years, he said, but he enjoyed it so much he told then-Chief William Parker: “It took me two years to figure out what to do. It would take me another two years to figure out what to do about it.”

He has served as the department’s spokesman for some of the biggest stories of the last two decades: the Charles Manson murders, the Watts riots, the Robert F. Kennedy assassination, the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, the Patty Hearst case, the Hillside Strangler murders and comedian John Belushi’s death from a drug overdose.

As for as his retirement, he plans to golf, travel and work part time as a consultant for script writers. “I’ve been giving it to them for free all these years,” he said, “maybe now I can get paid for it.”