A New In-Your-Face Face at Police Union

Bill Harkness talks macho. Bill Harkness looks macho. Bill Harkness is macho.

And he wants everyone to know it.

Sure, he’s got a delicate job now. As the newly elected president of the union representing Los Angeles police officers, he might be expected to make nice with politicians, to butter up reporters, to spin the news until his image glows. But he won’t. He can’t. It’s not his style.

They don’t call him In Your Face Bill for nothing.

Harkness’ ascent to the top post of the Police Protective League last week brought a more combative strut to a union already known for its aggressive tactics.

Council members--and some police officers--are anxiously sizing him up, wondering whether his big, brash mouth will help or hurt the Los Angeles Police Department. They credit Harkness’ blunt style with helping cinch a good four-year contract for rank-and-file officers that won overwhelming approval in voting Thursday and Friday. Yet his tendency to pop off with colorful insults makes even some of his closest buddies uneasy.

“He’s unpredictable,” one former supervisor said. “He could be dangerous.”

Setting himself at odds with the political establishment even before he moves into his new office, Harkness makes clear that he resents the civilian reformers and consultants trying to reshape the LAPD.

He wants to make the department great, but he wants to do it his way--which does not include meekly following the dictates of a bunch of lawyers or politicians who have never handcuffed a crook or shot a pistol in their lives.

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“Until they’ve been there and done that, I don’t put much credence in what they say,” Harkness explained.

True to form, when the Christopher Commission included him on a list of 44 problem officers because he racked up at least six complaints about him in four years, Harkness refused to cringe. He says none of the complaints turned out to be legitimate; all of them, he said, came from disgruntled motorists ticked off when he gave them traffic tickets or pulled them in for drunk driving.

“I’m not ashamed to be on [the list],” Harkness said, waving his arms and pumping his eyebrows in the style that prompted his second nickname, Mad Dog Bill. “I know what I’ve done in my career. Warren Christopher and his group of briefcase-carrying lawyers don’t know who Bill Harkness is.”

Those who do know Bill Harkness describe him with a few words, expressed in tones that waver among admiration, apprehension and awe. They call him tenacious. Driven. And above all, no-nonsense.

“If he ruffled feathers, that didn’t really bother him,” said Sgt. Dennis Zine, a member of the union’s board of directors.

Indeed, Harkness loves to jab anyone he disagrees with. Unprompted, he dissed an ACLU spokesman as a “liberal punk” in a recent interview. He even defended former Det. Mark Fuhrman’s racist diatribes--captured on tape and replayed in the O.J. Simpson trial--as understandable braggadocio designed to impress a listening screenwriter. “I’ve been single all my life,” he said. “I know what it’s like to chase the women.”

Perhaps Harkness’ most brutal rhetorical assault came during the tense negotiations for a police contract two years ago.

Ripping up a milder script that his fellow union board members had written for him, Harkness strode to the podium during a City Council meeting and all but challenged the politicians to a fistfight. Friends say he does not play politics well, but that day Harkness knew exactly how to work the system: He spat out a list of heinous crimes committed in various council members’ districts and accused them of acting like “cowardly ostriches” in refusing to grant police decent wages.

The two sides settled on a contract; council members say it was despite the outburst, Harkness says it was because of it.

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He still chortles about his tactic. Council members, however, remember the episode less fondly. So they were understandably wary when Harkness took over the union presidency just as fresh contract negotiations entered a final stage. Some also felt uneasy about the symbolism of a Christopher Commission “problem officer” representing more than 8,000 rank-and-file officers.

This time around, however, Harkness took a less confrontational approach. Council members praised his direct style--no games, no bluffs. In just one long negotiating session, the city and the union agreed on a four-year contract that will eventually raise police salaries 18%.

Harkness, 52, has already begun planning his next battles. He wants to institute a new schedule, under which officers would work three 12-hour days in a row, then enjoy a four-day weekend. He also hopes to amend the City Charter to bring back old-style police pension plans, which allow officers to retire with generous benefits after 20 years on the job.

Through these pocketbook issues, Harkness believes that he can revive sagging morale and make LAPD officers feel as though they really are Los Angeles’--heck, the entire nation’s--finest. He simply can’t comprehend why any other issue should take priority in this city. “What good are the libraries and the parks if they aren’t safe?” he asked.

Harkness’ fierce approach delights some officers, who say they are tired of watching the LAPD get kicked around by one critic after another.

“It’s kind of a cliche, but he’s got the right stuff,” said Officer George Maycott, a 23-year veteran who worked a motorcycle detail with Harkness for three years.

But others fret that Harkness might end up destroying the LAPD’s credibility with his bluster.

“The path he has chosen, obviously, is to agitate and aggravate people,” said Officer Danny Staggs, a 26-year veteran who served as president of the union in 1993-94. “The other path is to say, let’s be professional, let’s not air our laundry or make insults out in the open. . . . It’s going to be up to the police officers to tell the leadership which approach they want.”

That showdown may in fact come soon.

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Sources say proper procedures were not followed when the union’s nine directors picked Harkness for the presidency, replacing Cliff Ruff. Ruff would not comment on whether he will challenge Harkness’ elevation, but sources predicted a fight might be brewing.

Harkness, a 21-year veteran who lives in Valencia, coined the derogatory phrase “Willie-nocchio” to describe Chief Willie L. Williams as a lying puppet. But he would not comment in detail about whether he intends to use his new visibility to step up the union’s long-simmering dispute with Williams.

Instead, he talked of his stint as bodyguard for then-Gov. Ronald Reagan. He recounted his escapades in charming French chefs around town into making him his favorite dessert, chocolate souffle.

He mentioned, with sadness, the deaths he’s seen and the drunk drivers he despises. He described the telescope he built from scratch, the Corvettes he refinished, and his plans to craft a personal observatory for stargazing in the desert.

“The only thing I can’t do,” Harkness said, “is grow flowers.”