NEWS ANALYSIS : Chief Faces High Expectations

As he begins his tenure as police chief, Willie L. Williams must overcome two sets of very different attitudes:

Inside the Los Angeles Police Department--anxiety and suspicion.

Outside--extraordinarily high expectations.

Inside, there are not only broad fears of unknown changes, but wild rumors, including one that he might even redesign the LAPD badge.

Outside, the hopes have been running high since his appointment 10 weeks ago, when some city officials speculated--quite wrongly, it turned out--that the mere promise of his arrival might be enough to head off any civil unrest after the Rodney G. King beating trial. Members of one community group cried “hallelujah!” when he paid a visit.

“People are expecting him to perform magic overnight,” said Police Commission Vice President Jesse A. Brewer, who was instrumental in bringing Williams from Philadelphia.

Brewer worries how those expectations will withstand real-life budget shortages--which loomed over Williams’ inauguration ceremonies Tuesday--or his first real-life crisis, perhaps a controversial officer-involved shooting that doesn’t lend itself to quick, easy answers.

“The pressure would be for him to do something about it right away,” Brewer said, noting that any chief executive would have to play “right down the middle.”

His response to any such crisis will be scrutinized not only by the community but by the demoralized rank-and-file of his department.

“He can’t afford to be the ‘Hallelujah Chief,”’ said Wendell Phillips, president of the influential California Council of Police and Sheriffs. “I think he has to make a statement pretty fast, ‘I’m a cop first.’ ”

Not surprisingly, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing most LAPD officers, plans to quickly put Williams to the test. In a provocative tactic, however, the league has decided to test him through cooperation--not confrontation.

League President Bill Violante said union officials will offer their help implementing “a tremendous amount” of the recommendations made by the Christopher Commission, which investigated the LAPD after the King beating.

Violante rattled off proposals favored by the union: psychological counseling services, stress reduction programs, cultural sensitivity sessions, seminars for officers assigned to “field train” younger colleagues, and “patrol incentives” so officers don’t flee the tough jobs that are “the backbone of any police organization.”

But there’s a kicker--such programs cost money. Not enough money.

So at a time when the LAPD is experiencing retirements at record rates--215 so far this year--amid rampant “police-bashing” and demands that officers do “more with less,” Violante poses the challenge to the new chief in the simplest of terms:

“Put your money where your mouth is.”

Tuesday’s events highlighted just how difficult that may be.

At his first news conference as chief, Williams noted somberly that “Los Angeles has one of the smallest ratios of officers to citizens” and vowed to “fight very publicly and loudly about any (staffing) cuts.” The best he could do was promise to hold the line, with no prospect of extra resources for the ambitious community policing programs that were the cornerstone of his selection.

Mayor Tom Bradley, meanwhile, left little doubt that doing more with less will continue to be the mandate for the LAPD. “No,” the mayor said, “I cannot assure any (city) department that there will not be further cuts.”

Brewer, a former LAPD assistant chief , believes Williams should use his “honeymoon time with the political Establishment” to wring more dollars out of it.

“He has to take that risk. . . . If he sees a need for additional equipment or personnel, he has to say that,” Brewer said. “Otherwise he’s going to lose credibility.”

But others suggest it is self-defeating to put your political benefactors on the spot.

“It’s absolutely essential that he balance the realities of the political environment and the budget,” said Larry Kramer, a former LAPD narcotics supervisor who last year was named police chief in Colorado Springs--and promptly was directed to trim his budget 10%.

Sheriff Sherman Block, whose is struggling to cut his own budget, has sympathy for Williams’ predicament.

“From what I’ve seen, he’s off to a good start. But, early on, is there a chance he may have created some unreal expectations? Sure,” Block said. Part of the problem, he argues, is the public’s overblown notions about what any police agency can accomplish.

“(There’s) failure on the part of many people to recognize that law enforcement is part of a system of last resort,” Block said. “When we are called into action, that means there are a whole series of institutional or societal failures.”

Williams, who started in law enforcement as a “squirrel chaser,” a park guard, is hardly naive about the competing pressures on police leaders.

After he was named commissioner in Philadelphia in 1988, he issued a directive requiring officers to wear bulletproof vests, figuring no one would object to a plan to save lives. “I thought they would say, ‘What took you so long?’ ” he recalled later.

The local police union challenged Williams’ authority to tell them what to wear.

“Things you say or do that have the most innocent intent can become departmentwide or citywide issues,” he said.

But Williams did not enter office in Philadelphia with the expectations projected on him in Los Angeles, where he promoted himself during the fierce competition for the chief’s job as an “agent for change.”

Indeed, the quest for such a post is much like a political campaign, and the politicking doesn’t end on Inauguration Day--especially for an outsider.

Few understand what Williams faces better than New York City Police Commissioner Lee P. Brown, who previously headed the Houston Police Department, where an old-line police force was in conflict with minority communities. “They didn’t welcome me with open arms,” Brown said. “I was the first one ever from outside of Texas and an African-American as well.”

Within the department, the resistance was never overt--you don’t openly snub the general of your army--but Brown sensed “a little reluctance to help” at staff meetings. So he began making the rounds, attending roll calls and doing “ride-alongs” with officers until the silence broke.

Brown was equally active outside the department, meeting with civic clubs, business organizations, religious groups, “any organized group that invited me.”

Williams is expected to be just such a peripatetic presence in Los Angeles, having already committed to regular meetings with, among others, the Police Protective League.

No chief these days needs be reminded of the power of police unions. The state Legislature is considering a bill pushed by the unions to modify the ground rules for internal police investigations--one of the issues spotlighted by the Christopher Commission.

Already passed by the Assembly, the bill would entitle accused officers to see all the evidence against them before they are interviewed by Internal Affairs investigators. Phillips, the chief lobbyist for the measure, called it “a basic due process right.” But Costa Mesa Police Chief Dave Snowden, head of the California Police Chiefs Assn., said “it would really hinder law enforcement’s ability to police ourselves.”

Leaders of both sides urge Williams to steer clear of such messy legislative battles at first.

A more immediate worry of the police union is that Williams, in the current fiscal environment, will succumb to political pressures and “play a shell game” to create the impression of hundreds more officers on the street.

“They act like there’s a lot of people inside they can magically put on the street,” Violante said. “(But) it’s not going to be so easy to have these community based policing programs. . . . You’ve got to have the bodies to put there.”

But even while the budget woes loom, some changes can come without a price.

“An organization,” Block said, “somehow takes on a flavor or character like the individual who heads it.”

Along these lines, few doubt the low-key Williams will send a different message than the competitive, in-your-face Daryl F. Gates.

Outside, he began that process Tuesday, with an amiable suggestion that citizens “turn to a Los Angeles police officer and smile.”

Inside, the new chief will have to put his department at ease, according to Phillips. Officers, he said, need to feel comfortable once again about doing their jobs, even if it means using force.

“If I was Willie Williams,” he said, “the first message I would send to my troops is everybody’s got a clean slate, including me. And how you write on that slate is up to you. I know when you do your job it involves making decisions and sometimes mistakes will be made . . . (but) if you were doing the best you know how, you won’t have a better friend.” Friend or not, from this day on people will be analyzing everything from Williams’ musical critiques to his waistline.

Among the questions posed Tuesday was one seeking his thoughts on the rap song, “Cop Killer,” by Ice-T. “A disgrace,” he said.

And there have been private comments about whether one element of the old LAPD ethos will wear off on the portly Williams.

When, insiders wonder, will he join the joggers?

A New Chief Takes Helm A sampling of quotes from Willie L. Williams during his swearing-in and news conference :

“We in Los Angeles cannot begin the healing and the stabilization process until and when we make peace with ourselves and each other. As Martin Luther King once said, true peace is not merely the absence of tension. It is the presence of justice.”

“I will fight very publicly and loudly about any cuts in the Police Department.”

“Within the ranks of the Los Angeles Department, those of us who lead this organization must stop groping for that last slice of the pie while the rest of the organization goes hungry. We who lead must stop rocking the ship and steer the ship and see it through some very difficult and troubled waters that lie just ahead.”

“I will meet and talk with anyone on any issue. . . . I’ll talk to anyone who is in a position of leadership, whether they are in a gang or across the street from my office downtown if it will improve our ability to provide services.”

“To a lot of officers in this department, it appeared when they spoke up, when they criticized, they weren’t heard from again. If it’s true or not, it’s up to me as chief to publicly say that’s not going to occur. If it’s not occurring, then great. If it did occur, we have to stop it.”

“We start out recognizing that we are a city of differences, but that we don’t let those differences tear us apart. . . . Before you start talking about making changes--whether in the department and city government and in service delivery to the citizens--we have to recognize the imperfections in ourselves and begin by dealing with them.”

“To the citizens of Los Angeles, as your police chief I will be your spokesperson as well as your protector.”