View From the ‘Outsider’ : Ex-Philadelphia Chief Looks Back on 3 Years as LAPD’s Top Cop

April 16 will mark the three-year anniversary of the announcement that Willie L. Williams would become chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. Until then, Williams had spent his entire career in Philadelphia, starting as a park guard 33 years ago and becoming commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department (the equivalent of chief) in June, 1988.

Williams came to Los Angeles heralded by city officials as the man with the answers, the calming presence who would help quiet the turbulence churned by the riots of 1992 and by Williams’ predecessor as chief in Los Angeles, Daryl F. Gates.

But Williams has had to negotiate some choppy surf of his own: an investigation into allegations of misconduct; accusations from some quarters that his vaunted community-based policing philosophy has been a bust so far in Los Angeles; and rumblings of sinking morale among the rank and file women and men in blue.

The following interview with Williams was conducted by the Associated Press.

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Q. If you knew then what you know now, would you still have taken the job?

A. Probably. (Laughing) I’d probably do a few things differently. I don’t know anyone that can be a mind reader. But I knew there were challenges when I came in. I knew there were challenges around Rodney King and the Christopher Commission. I applied for the job, and I accepted it. Two weeks later, we had the riots. (Williams actually began his duties after Gates finally stepped down on June 28, 1992.)

Q. Did you think about saying no then?

A. No, no, oh no. I knew there wasn’t going to be any honeymoon. I always laugh when people say, “Jeez, you know, these last six months, the honeymoon’s over.” I say, “I never had a honeymoon.”

My first charge was to get the community to support the police and get ourselves ready for the (federal) King and Denny trials. Because everybody said when the next riot’s going to occur. They didn’t say if . So we retrained all police officers in seven months so we didn’t have any more Florence and Normandies (the flash-point intersection of the 1992 riots).

Q. Do you watch the O.J. Simpson trial every day?

A. No. I don’t get a chance to watch it. . . . My normal workday is 12 or 13 hours. I have three-times-a-week briefings on what was said, or what came up in the trial. . . . I don’t have time to sit down and watch the trial.

My wife and I took our first cruise ever, last winter. I’m in the Caribbean and I flip on CNN in my cabin and there’s O.J. Simpson and a summary of the day’s trial. So, the coverage and its impact on the department has been disproportionate to its importance.

Q. Why don’t (officers who complain about Williams) cut you more slack?

A. I think because the little group that you hear complaining . . . now they’ll complain to you, they’ll complain to the police commission, they’ll complain to the folks at City Hall. . . . They don’t like the idea of an outside chief.

Q. Where are you taking the department?

A. We have to understand that we work for, and must work with, the community. Some of our people don’t like the idea that we have to stand as equals with men and women in our neighborhoods. And this has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. . . . You have to take off your bars and stars and function as a group of equals. That’s disconcerting to a lot of traditional police officers who have spent 20 or 30 years doing things one way.