Officers Choose Kroeker for Chief in Union Survey

Rank-and-file Los Angeles police officers responding to a union survey picked Deputy Chief Mark A. Kroeker as their top choice to succeed Daryl F. Gates, the president of the officers’ group said Thursday.

Kroeker, the top LAPD commander in the San Fernando Valley, was picked by 42% of officers who had a preference among the six finalists for the chief’s job, said Police Protective League President William Violante.

Deputy Chief Bernard C. Parks received 20% of the vote and Philadelphia Police Commissioner Willie L. Williams received 12.5%, finishing second and third, respectively, among the finalists, Violante said.

The informal poll was intended to gauge how front-line officers feel about the pivotal selection of Gates’ replacement after the Rodney G. King beating scandal, Violante said.

“We’ve been kicked in the pants for the last year,” he said. “It’s important to get pride back in the job. . . . A chief who connects and supports and respects his troops will receive the same from them.”

The union has not endorsed a candidate, Violante said, but the results will be forwarded to the Police Commission, which plans to choose a chief next month. Commissioners were interviewing finalists behind closed doors Thursday and were unavailable for comment.

The survey results are based on a 40% response from 7,771 ballots mailed to active LAPD officers this month, Violante said. He said the responses appeared to be ethnically and geographically balanced. He refused to release the vote count or other details of the balloting. As a result, it is not clear how the percentages were calculated, partly because nearly a quarter of the respondents said they had no opinion about the candidates or wanted “none of the above.”

Kroeker tied for fourth place in the scoring of the six finalists and is seen by some LAPD and City Hall sources as a long shot. But since taking over the area where the King beating occurred, he has been praised by community leaders and officers for working to rebuild the department’s image. Kroeker was not available for comment.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Division Chief Lee Baca, a Latino who failed to make the final list of candidates, was the choice of nearly one-third of the officers who responded, Violante said. Baca was included in the survey because he was challenging his exclusion when the survey was mailed. Baca’s appeal has been denied.