Could Another L.A. Police Chief Controversy Have Been Avoided? : PLATFORM

A divided Los Angeles City Council is considered likely this week to hear an appeal from Police Chief Willie Williams of a Police Commission reprimand concerning his truthfulness about accepting a free hotel room in Las Vegas. The reprimand is just part of the tensions between Williams and Mayor Richard Riordan, the Police Commission and now the City Council, tensions that have become common knowledge in police communities across the state and nationally. But even expert observers disagree widely on causes and cures. JIM BLAIR talked with former chiefs and other experts far and near about the controversy and its implications for Los Angeles. Chiefs from other California communities also discussed their own political situations.

JOSEPH WAMBAUGH

Former LAPD detective and author of police novels including “The Onion Field,” “The Golden Orange” and his most recent, “Finnegan’s Week.” Lives in San Diego County.

Removing civil service protection from the chief was a disaster, just a disaster. You could just predict what would follow and it has. The morale at LAPD is so incredibly bad that they print a page in the Blue Line [the police union newsletter] each month telling officers where they can get a lateral transfer to another department, what the pay scale is, and the headline on it is always the same--”The LAPD is a job, not a career.” That [would have been] a sacreligious statment in the old days of professionalism.

I feel the whole thing was a battle mainly between the Los Angeles Times and Daryl Gates. I don’t think it was ever a battle between The Times and the LAPD. And the Times’ position was that the protection he had from civil service, which was designed originally to insulate the chief from politics and political hacks appointing and removing a chief, had somehow corrupted the relationship in that the chief couldn’t be fired. That’s the way I read The Times’ position.

The original design, to put the chief in a civil service position, was the right choice. It’s just that Daryl Gates was so arrogant and so egocentric that he in a sense usurped his own position and that of any chiefs that would follow by saying “Nyah, nyah, you can’t get me--no matter what I say, no matter who I piss off.”

I was very sorry to see The Times take the bait and spearhead the move to remove civil service protection from chiefs of police on the theory that that would make the position less corrupt. That was the opposite of what happened.

I think what is important is that the chief of police is no longer independent; he is now beholden to political hacks. And so it follows, as night follows day, that the chief of police, whoever he is, will be a political hack and you’ll never again have an independent chief who doesn’t have to stick his finger in the wind every time something blows his way from City Hall.

TOM REDDIN

Former Los Angeles police chief, 1967-1969

I’m critical of the manner in which the chief is handling his particular problem. I think that with his announcing that he’s going to appeal to the City Council--which he’s legally entitled to do, there’s no argument there--this is going to cause a split on the City Council, and whether we like it or not the matter of racial lines, which is not the issue at all, will come up.

In addition to that, I’m critical because the police commission and the mayor have agreed that, based on an independent investigation, not by members of the police department, that the chief was guilty of not being truthful when he discussed the allegations of accepting free accommodations in Las Vegas.

I think it’s terrible that the chief’s action in going to the City Council is going to divide the council racially and it will cause a split in the police department. I think that his actions brings the department more deeply into the political scene.

I think that the chief is leading the department inexorably toward a vote of confidence from the Police Protective League, which could, either way it turns out, be devastating to certain portions of the city. And the chief, in his wish to protect his own reputation, is going to make a more difficult scene in Los Angeles.

PATRICK V. MURPHY

Director of police policy board, U.S. Conference of Mayors, former police chief or commisioner in New York, Washington, Detroit and Syracuse.

I’ve been in four cities and I’ve worked for four mayors. I testified before the Christopher Commission. I’m a firm believer in independence for a police chief and I had that independence serving under four mayors who appointed me. So I think that system works well as long as the appointing elected officer gives reasonable independence to the police chief. That does not mean the chief is unaccountable. He should be accountable to elected officials as well as the community.

On the other hand, I’m aware that in Los Angeles for about a half-century there have been chiefs with civil service tenure, and that may have some advantages. I think Chief [William] Parker [1950-1966] made an enormous contribution to the improvement of policing, but some chiefs under that system may become too independent, too unaccountable to any authority--either community or elected officials. I think some of Chief Gates’ behavior toward the end of his tenure, many of his public comments and the problems that resulted in the Rodney King horror story was an exampl’e.

I am very impressed by Chief Williams. I understand there’s been some internal resistance to his appointment, but I think he has done a remarkable job, from what I understand 2,500 miles away, in regaining community support for the department and its leadership.

I don’t live in Los Angeles and I cannot follow things on a daily basis, but I think many of his statements, his personality, his demeanor have been very positive and I certainly hope this tempest will go away and that Los Angeles will have the benefit of his leadership.

Other Police Chiefs

ANTHONY RIBERA

San Francisco

I have a somewhat unique situation in that our Mayor is our former chief of police who I’ve known for 27 years.

The chain of command in San Francisco is that the mayor appoints a board of police commissioners that I report directly to, and the mayor recommends the appointment of the chief of police to the police commission. So, in effect, I’m appointed by the mayor through the police commission [an arrangement similar to Los Angeles’]. I deal with the police commission every Wednesday night at a meeting at which they basically have to approve all my major policy decisions. My interaction with the mayor is on a pretty regular basis, certainly several times a week, but as I mentioned, the mayor, Frank Jordan, and I have been longtime friends and I don’t feel that I have been subjected to any political interference. [The San Francisco chief has no civil service protection.]

I think certainly in our structure here in San Francisco it would be very, very difficult for a chief to work for a mayor with whom he was philosophically incompatible or with whom he could not get along. One of the things that I did when I took over as chief of police in 1992 was move from a service orientation to a crime-control orientation, and the mayor strongly supported that move.

I’m not so sure that philosophy would be compatible with other politicians in San Francisco.

PAUL M. WALTERS

Santa Ana

The person who primarily deals with the city council is our city manager, so most of the department heads are buffered. Our charter’s very strong--anything that the city council wants done has to go through his office. So we don’t generally have conflicts where the council’s telling us one thing and the city manager something else. [The chief’s job does have civil service protection].

We spend a tremendous amount of time determining what the priorities of the city should be and looking at it from all perspectives and making what I would call fact-based decisions. It’s extremely interesting when you watch other communities and how many of the things I think could be corrected if only some of the right systems were put in place there--not necessarily the people but the systems they’re having to deal with.