Race to Succeed LAPD Chief Off to Early Start

Standing before a packed audience of 700 top officials in Southern California politics and law enforcement, Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Bernard C. Parks, his voice low and suggestive, proclaimed that effective police departments need just one thing: “leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership.”

The audience--which included key members of the LAPD, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI, not to mention the Police Commission, City Council and mayor’s office--burst into applause at the veiled reference to Police Chief Willie L. Williams, whose leadership of the Police Department has been under fire in some quarters.

They clapped and cheered just as loudly when Parks insisted that the event, called to inaugurate him as president of the Peace Officers Assn. of Los Angeles County, was “an installation, not a coronation. It’s not a coronation yet,” he emphasized.

Absent that night was Williams, who by skipping his deputy’s party missed that not so thinly disguised declaration of Parks’ candidacy for his job. And though he was miles away, Williams hardly needed reminding that the race to succeed him has begun.

For months, Mayor Richard Riordan’s dissatisfaction with Williams’ performance has been one of the city’s worst-kept secrets, and rumors of possible successors daily engross the city’s power structure and transfix the LAPD. Despite that, Williams has told confidants that he believes his troubles--which include a since-overturned reprimand for allegedly lying to the Police Commission, critical performance evaluations, questions about the pace of LAPD reform and an aborted attempt to sue the city for $10 million after The Times published excerpts from his personnel files--at last are behind him. The chief, who still enjoys strong community support, says he believes that he will get a second five-year term.

“I wouldn’t have signed up,” Williams said, “if I wasn’t here to stay.”

But the persistent criticism has persuaded some other observers that Williams’ reappointment is unlikely. Riordan aides, LAPD insiders, union leaders and at least some police commissioners are unimpressed with the chief’s work. His City Council support also is soft.

With many in and around the LAPD convinced that Williams’ days as chief are numbered, Police Department and city leaders have begun contemplating possible successors, a process that even with almost a year to go is creating tension at Parker Center and City Hall, where some officials discuss the topic openly but others are wary of even mentioning it for fear of the potential public fallout. So far, the most informed musings center around two leading contenders and five others:

The front-runners are Parks, who oversees LAPD special investigations, and Deputy Chief Mark Kroeker, commanding officer of the department’s South Bureau.

The rest of the field: Former Deputy Chief William Rathburn, who heads the security force for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games; Deputy Chief David J. Gascon, who leads the LAPD’s expansion efforts; former Deputy Chief Larry Fetters, who also is working on the Olympic effort; Lee Baca, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s chief; and New York Police Commissioner William Bratton.

Combined, those seven men bring a range of backgrounds to the table, but all have at least two things in common: They have spent their lives in law enforcement, and they have made Williams even more determined to stay.

“It’s natural to want to be a chief,” Williams said. “I wanted to be the commissioner in Philadelphia as I moved closer to the top. . . . But I’ve got a five-year term. I plan on being appointed to a second five-year term.”

Nevertheless, emotions already are on the rise, factions are gathering behind the leading contenders and the uncertainty extends far beyond the Police Department. Some City Council members are reluctant to be seen with leading candidates because they might appear disloyal to Williams or partial to a possible competitor. Inside the Police Department, the factionalism is even stronger; employees at all levels are captivated by the question of who will guide them and in what direction, and Williams bristles that the topic has become so widely discussed.

“It’s . . . extremely disconcerting to the people who live and work in this community and especially to my people,” Williams said last week. “It’s not fair to them.”

The Front-Runners

Of all the potential successors to Williams, Parks and Kroeker by far are the most prominently discussed.

Both are 52, and they grew up in the Police Department together, sometimes as rivals, more recently as mutual admirers. They are very different men, one black, one white; one raised Catholic, the other brought up in a Mennonite family.

Parks is feared as a disciplinarian and revered for his encyclopedic knowledge of policing and the LAPD. Kroeker is admired for his deft community skills and for the strong support that he has built in the San Fernando Valley and South Los Angeles. A few question Kroeker’s toughness; some wonder whether Parks is too openly ambitious.

According to sources, Kroeker has impressed Riordan and some police commissioners with his easygoing manner and his devotion to community policing.

“If there’s been any community-oriented policing in this city in recent years,” said former Chief Daryl F. Gates, whose policing philosophies differ from Kroeker’s in many respects, “it’s been done by Mark Kroeker, not Willie Williams.”

Kroeker studiously avoids commenting on the chief’s performance, but Williams has been less circumspect. The chief, according to sources, has derided his deputy in meetings with the mayor and other city officials, implying that Kroeker’s achievements are overblown--a habit that has made some officials uncomfortable and deepened their distrust of Williams.

Parks’ relationships with the mayor and chief are no less complicated. In 1994, while Parks was in Berlin for a law enforcement conference, Williams decided to demote him from the No. 2 LAPD job. The demotion effectively severed their working relationship, and associates say Parks also was miffed that Riordan did not intercede.

Nevertheless, Riordan aides say the mayor likes Parks and respects his knowledge of the LAPD, a feeling shared by Police Commission members as well. In addition, Parks has many City Council backers, who rose to his defense when Williams demoted him.

One sign of the breadth of Parks’ appeal: The honorary chairmen for his recent installation included former Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Robert Philibosian, a staunch conservative, and Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, one of the region’s most outspoken liberals.

But while Parks and Kroeker each have strong support, they also have detractors. Some question Kroeker’s association with Robert Vernon, a former LAPD assistant chief who some suggested had shown favoritism to underlings who shared his Christian convictions. (Kroeker’s supporters, including one prominent official who tangled with Vernon, say that linking him with Vernon’s record is at best guilt by association and at worst outright bigotry. Kroeker declines to comment.)

Parks, meanwhile, is perceived by some critics as deeply embittered by his demotion and as courting the chief’s job too openly. His allusions to Williams during the recent dinner, for instance, troubled some members of the council, Police Commission and others.

“That’s the kind of thing that gets Bernie in trouble,” said one person who attended the dinner. “He makes his displeasure with Williams too well-known.”

The Second Tier

Beyond Parks and Kroeker, two other potential candidates bring long experience with the LAPD and recent contact with its white-hot political core.

Fetters, who retired from the LAPD in 1994 after 31 years, played a key role in drafting the department’s police expansion plan. His successor, Gascon, has led the department’s efforts to live up to that document.

Because LAPD expansion is the centerpiece of Riordan’s administration, Gascon and Fetters are used to operating in the spotlight, their efforts closely watched by City Hall insiders. Both have earned followings: Some police commissioners and Riordan administration members expressed dismay when Fetters left for Atlanta, where he is helping to coordinate security efforts for the Summer Olympics.

Echoing the views of several observers, one admirer described Fetters as “a thinker, not just a field general.”

Since Fetters left for Atlanta, some Los Angeles officials have become disenchanted with some aspects of the plan that he helped to draft. Some worry that it adopted unrealistic expectations for lowering attrition.

Partly as a result, much of the credit for boosting the Police Department’s expansion has fallen to Gascon, whose aggressive efforts to increase hiring have helped compensate for the higher than expected attrition numbers.

That has raised Gascon’s stature, but questions remain. Some city officials wonder whether his rapid rise through the top LAPD ranks has seasoned him sufficiently for the top job.

“He’s a good officer and a solid guy,” said one influential local leader. “It’s just a question of whether he’s ready.”

Still, Gascon brings long field experience as well as some weighty department commands. Among other things, he led the LAPD’s crash course in riot training in advance of the second round of Rodney G. King verdicts, and he served as the department’s chief spokesman during the caldron of the O.J. Simpson case.

In addition, Gascon--like one other possible candidate on the list--offers city leaders a tantalizing bit of symbolism: If he were made chief, he would be the first Latino ever to head the LAPD.

As with some of the other candidates, however, passing him over might mean losing him for good. Gascon keeps a tally on his office wall of the days remaining until he can retire with 25 years on the job. As of today, the tally stands at 19 days--and counting.

Insiders vs. Outsiders

Most policymakers believe that it would be a mistake to go outside the Police Department this time. That does not rule out the two outsiders whose names are sometimes mentioned, Baca and Bratton, but it makes their selection far more problematic.

Williams has acknowledged that his ability to take control of the LAPD was hampered by his lack of background in the department, though detractors say he has exaggerated the extent of the resistance that he met to justify not having achieved more as chief. Even his critics acknowledge that it takes time to adjust to LAPD traditions and Los Angeles politics.

“I think it’s relatively important that we get an insider next time,” said one City Hall official who could play a role in picking the next chief. “Coming off this experiment and coming off the fact that morale is so low, it will take someone with real knowledge of the Police Department and real appreciation for the city.”

For the next chief to come from the outside, police and city officials would have to be persuaded that the person could quickly take control of the department. Bratton’s enormous success in doing just that in New York--crime has dropped to the lowest levels in a generation under the leadership of the Boston-born cop--could ease some of those fears. Likewise, Baca’s background in Los Angeles law enforcement, even though with the Sheriff’s Department rather than the LAPD, might reassure those worried about his adjustment time.

If he were considered for the LAPD post, it would not be the first time for Bratton, who pulled out early from the campaign to succeed Gates. Instead, he was selected to head the NYPD, the nation’s largest police department, and he has emerged as arguably the country’s most praised police chief.

Baca, meanwhile, is active in police officer associations and wins some praise for his work at the Sheriff’s Department--though many observers accuse him of being more interested in politics than police work.

Told that some officials believe he might be a viable candidate to succeed Williams, Baca said he felt that his academic and police background would suit him well at the helm of the LAPD. Baca, the only potential Williams successor willing to discuss his prospects in this article, described himself as a “renaissance person” who “would bring a sense of hope and change” to the department.

And though he conceded that it would be difficult for an outsider to run the LAPD, Baca added: “It will be hard for an insider too, because the department has runaway problems.”

The Wild Card

If Baca and Bratton are the race’s longshots, Rathburn is its wild card.

Certainly, no one can fault his timing: He retired two days before officers beat King and plunged the department into years of turmoil.

More recently, Rathburn’s name has surfaced in a wave of news reports suggesting that he already had been tapped to succeed Williams. In most respects, those reports were wrong: Sources say no job has been offered to Rathburn because there is no job to offer.

But the reports reflect a growing problem for Williams, the steady erosion of his support that has fueled speculation about his successor. In assessing Williams’ support, much attention has focused on Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who has repeatedly pledged his support for Williams. But associates of the councilman--an influential leader of the city’s governing body--say he has privately criticized the chief’s performance.

Ridley-Thomas denies that, insisting that anyone who says he does not support Williams has intentionally misinterpreted comments by him. “I want to repudiate those claims,” he said. “They are factually incorrect. They are false. They have to be categorically denied. . . . The chief’s cadre of critics, you can’t put me in that category.”

The councilman added that any speculation about successors to Williams is unfair to the chief and destabilizes the Police Department.

“There is no vacancy, so there can be no race,” he said. “We’re talking about whether there is a position that is available. I know of no such vacancy.”

Although Ridley-Thomas opted out of the discussion, he has long been a friend and admirer of Rathburn, in part because of the role that Rathburn played in investigating the murder of Ridley-Thomas’ brother.

According to people familiar with the case, Ridley-Thomas’ brother had been killed years earlier in a brutal homicide, and the LAPD had been unable to find the culprit. The matter had been largely forgotten, but once Rathburn took over South Bureau, he redoubled the department’s commitment to the investigation.

No suspect ever was arrested, but Rathburn’s commitment to following up the case’s loose ends--and candor about his findings--impressed Ridley-Thomas. Other South Los Angeles leaders echo Ridley-Thomas’ praise for the former South Bureau chief known throughout Parker Center for his community skills--and for the fact that he and his wife have raised a pair of tigers named Rani and Raji.

Rathburn was tapped by Gates in the early 1980s to head the security efforts for the Summer Olympics, an experience that made him a natural to move to Atlanta after serving a stint as the Dallas police chief.

“When the Atlanta people called me, I told them: ‘There are two people in the United States who can do that job, and I don’t want it,’ ” Gates said.

But if Rathburn enjoys the rare position of being applauded by both Gates and Ridley-Thomas, he also has the handicap of having been outside Los Angeles for nearly five years. Those have been tumultuous times for the LAPD, and some question whether his LAPD experience would be especially relevant today.

Still, some observers believe that Rathburn could emerge as a viable compromise candidate, particularly if Ridley-Thomas and other council members balk at Kroeker.

Rathburn, flattered but guarded, demurs.

“Speculating on who may or may not replace Chief Williams is at best premature and at worst detrimental,” an aide to Rathburn said. “He [Rathburn] thinks Chief Williams should be given every opportunity to succeed.”

The Question of Race

No informed observer of the LAPD believes that the decision about who should serve the next five-year term can be made without serious consideration of its racial implications. Williams is the first African American to head the Police Department, and failing to reappoint him could raise the specter of racism in a city that can barely afford such a controversy.

The most obvious way to avoid a racial brawl over the LAPD succession, most observers agree, would be to turn to a qualified black candidate. In this case, that would almost certainly mean Parks, the only African American prominently discussed in the informal lists of potential chiefs.

But appointing Rathburn might do the trick too if Ridley-Thomas, who is black, would publicly endorse that selection.

For his part, Kroeker enjoys support from many community groups in South Los Angeles, which could help him ride out any such controversy. And he or the other white candidates might be able to defuse community or political anger if they were to appoint Parks or other prominent blacks to top LAPD staff jobs.

Finally, there are two Latino potential candidates, Gascon and Baca. No Latino has ever headed the LAPD, so appointment of either of those two would represent a step as historic in its own way as was Williams’ appointment in 1992.

As city leaders ponder those possibilities, most admit they cannot predict exactly how the debate will be resolved. Racial politics are delicate and complicated, and for every official who warns that minority communities will need strong assurances that racism is not at work in evaluating Williams, another insists race cannot be allowed to dominate the discussion.

“To put somebody in that job because of the color of his skin would be ridiculous,” said retired Chief Edward Davis, whose advice is widely sought by city leaders and who supports Parks for the top LAPD job. “What the city needs to consider is a person’s willingness to explore new ideas and to apply those new ideas to a problem. That’s paramount. That’s what will get the city of Los Angeles a quality chief of police.”

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How L.A. Picks a Chief

Police Chief Willie L. Williams, who took over the LAPD in June 1992, has until Dec. 31 of this year to tell the city’s Board of Police Commissioners that he wants a second five-year term.

The commission then has three months to review his application. It must respond to Williams no later than March 31, 1997. If the commission sticks with him, Williams would remain in office to serve a second and final term, which would expire in 2002. If not, Williams could serve out the end of this term, or the commission could buy out the balance of his contract and replace him with an interim chief.

Many observers believe that if the commission decides to dump Williams and turn to an interim chief, it should be someone with no designs on the top job. Assistant Chief Bayan Lewis, one of the LAPD’s most senior and well-liked leaders, is sometimes mentioned in that vein.

Whatever the commission’s decision, it can be overturned by the City Council if 10 members vote to review it. In this case, Williams could appeal to the council if the commission elected not to renew his contract, but it would require 10 votes for him to prevail. That is exactly what happened last year, when the commission reprimanded Williams for lying about accepting free accommodations in Las Vegas. The reprimand was upheld by Mayor Richard Riordan but overturned by the council, which voted 14 to 0 to strike down the reprimand without reviewing the facts of the case.

The council also could review the commission’s choice of a new chief. Again, 10 votes are enough to block the commission’s pick. But the council cannot name its own candidate; under the City Charter, it is limited to reviewing the names selected by the commission.