Criticism of Police Chief’s Car Choice
* Re “Williams’ Choice of Official Car Criticized,” April 30:
The controversy over the car selected by Chief Willie Williams suggests how little that people have to bicker over today.
Your article reflects the manufacturer’s suggested price ($27,300). I suspect the actual price paid was less; however, the difference between one car and another is a pittance compared to what the wasted time of the people raising the tempest is worth.
The chief’s car is every bit as important as the police cruisers that Williams has worked so hard to acquire. I would say that Williams’ selection of neckties is a more valid issue than his selection of cars.
MARSHALL KLINE
Los Angeles
* I am writing to add my condemnation to that the Police Commission is heaping upon Chief Williams in selecting a Chrysler New Yorker instead of a Ford Crown Victoria. Is the chief totally oblivious to the rivalry between our fair town and those accursed New Yorkers? In the immortal words of the Pace Picante Sauce Co., “New Yawhk Citee?” Had the chief any sensitivity at all, he would have chosen a Chevy Malibu.
Whatever happened to the good old days of Lt. Columbo, when Los Angeles police officers drove modest used cars of unknown vintage, but enormous character?
JULIUS L. LOESER
Pasadena
* Once again, The Times has placed the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department in proper perspective. On April 29, Southeast Division Officer Sean Mulford was shot protecting the community. On April 30, your Metro section ran a multicolor, multipage, multicolumn article on the type of car Chief Williams utilizes. The story about Officer Mulford received a single paragraph with a generic black-and-white photograph inside Metro. Much ado about car prices and politics, virtually nothing about Mulford and his family.
Fortunately, Mulford will re- cover from wounds inflicted by the suspect. Coping with the political reality that the lives of our employees are less newsworthy than the type of car the chief drives is a wound that will take far longer to heal.
CAPT. THOMAS W. LORENZEN
Chief Investigator
Internal Affairs Division, LAPD
