Chief Parks Establishes Firm Hand in First 100 Days

As Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks marks his 100th day in office today, many city and community officials are crediting him with injecting a long-needed dose of leadership and vision into an organization that has seemingly lacked focus in recent years.

Since his inauguration ceremony Aug. 12, Parks has taken dramatic steps to reorganize the LAPD’s command structure, adopt a new style of policing that stresses accountability and reshaped the department’s community policing program to emphasize crime reduction.

Along the way, however, Parks’ honeymoon with rank-and-file officers and his relationship with some community groups has already begun to wear thin as a result of his willingness to make unpopular decisions on sticky issues.

Detractors say that potential morale problems within the department could affect the new chief’s goal to make Los Angeles the safest big city in America. Parks’ fans, including several former LAPD chiefs, counter that his take-charge attitude will lead the LAPD to an era of new glory.

“I’m impressed with his performance,” said Ed Davis, a former LAPD chief who is still a careful observer of the department. “It’s too early to write a history of him, but he seems to be doing very well. He has the potential to be the best police chief ever at the LAPD.”

In his 3 1/2 months on the job, Parks has emerged as a no-nonsense, politically savvy and hands-on chief. He has cultivated close working relationships with his commission bosses, some City Council members and the mayor who appointed him to the five-year post.

Yet, despite dutiful appearances at many community functions, the chief has chosen a somewhat lower-profile role for himself even as he works in one of the largest media markets in the world. It’s a calculated move, he said, to draw attention to the department’s accomplishments instead of his own.

“In an extremely short period of time, Chief Parks has given the command staff and rank and file a sense of direction with extraordinary precision,” said Police Commission President Edith Perez. “He has made it abundantly clear he has high standards and expectations of all LAPD employees.”

Parks’ brief tenure, however, has not been free of controversy.

When he declared that he would eliminate a flexible work schedule that was popular among officers because they worked only three days a week, rank-and-file officers bitterly protested. When he reassigned community liaison officers to patrol work, neighborhood leaders complained that vital community policing programs were being dismantled.

When he intervened to delay the serving of an arrest warrant against a suspended officer because he believed that the judge did not have all the facts, his actions caused a stir within the department and the Police Commission’s inspector general’s office. And when his chief competition for the chief’s job, Deputy Chief Mark Kroeker, quickly quit the department, some community leaders questioned whether Parks’ efforts to consolidate power resulted in the loss of a talented executive.

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To some, Parks’ style is confident and unapologetic; to others it is dictatorial, rigid and defensive.

“He has forgotten that he is an employee of the public and refuses to listen to the input from his employers,” said community activist Page Miller, who has quarreled with Parks over his reassignment of senior lead officers. “He’s more like a dictator. It’s important to have strong ideas and be a strong leader, but walking on the people who are under you, as well as the community you serve, is not a good way to start a relationship.”

Police union leaders said they feel the same way.

“What we’ve seen is what we’ve expected,” said Dave Hepburn, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League. “We’ve seen a real concentration of power in the chief’s office. He’s somewhat autocratic. . . . He is a strong leader, but he’s forgotten he needs to court the loyalty of the organization if he wants them to follow.”

Parks said he believes the union’s leaders don’t represent the views of the majority of LAPD officers. Nonetheless, he said, he is focused on making the right decisions, not just the popular ones.

Hepburn, who has confirmed that the union plans to protest Parks’ opposition to the compressed work schedules with “legal job actions,” said he has recently heard some officers hark back to the good old days--of last spring.

“There’s a lot of sentiment that maybe Chief Willie Williams wasn’t so bad,” he said.

That sentiment, however, is certainly not held by many among the LAPD’s command staff or at City Hall. After the ouster of Williams this year, city and community leaders hoped that the new chief would chart a new course for the department that would push forward on police reforms, community policing and crime reduction.

Some department observers said it is too early to judge the chief’s performance, particularly when it come to his commitment to police reforms.

“Right now it’s a bit premature,” said Carol Watson, a private attorney who is co-leader of Police Watch, a Los Angeles law enforcement watchdog group. “We’re certainly following what he does.”

City officials said that interim Police Chief Bayan Lewis provided an initial spark of leadership for the LAPD last summer and Parks has moved rapidly to transform the organization and regain its national stature.

Over the course of his first 100 days in office, Parks has launched a number of initiatives, including:

* Creating an ombudsman position aimed at resolving disputes among department employees before they escalate into formal complaints.

* Emphasizing programs to improve the mental and physical wellness of department employees, including proposals to increase the number of department psychologists and reward officers for achieving certain levels of fitness.

* Eliminating three assistant chief positions and flattening out the command structure to increase accountability and limiting the layers between patrol officers and the chief.

* Implementing a new policing style called “FASTRAC,” based on a successful New York City policing model that uses up-to-the-minute crime statistics to better identify problem areas and hold top department officials responsible for crime and management issues in their commands.

* Installing a “department commander” who is responsible for running the LAPD during the evenings and weekends when the chief is not in his office.

But most important to many city officials, community leaders and officers, Parks is focusing on the department’s main mission: fighting crime.

“He has lived up to our expectations,” said Joe Gunn, deputy city mayor who advises Mayor Richard Riordan on law enforcement issues. “The only concern we have for Chief Parks right now is that we’re afraid he’s going to wear himself out.”

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Parks, 53, who has earned a reputation as a tireless worker and stickler for details during his lengthy LAPD career, said his busy work schedule is not a problem, largely because he loves his job so much. Although his workaholic days don’t grind him down, some of his colleagues say they feel they are being pushed to perform like never before.

“He’s certainly raised the bar around here,” said Cmdr. Dave Kalish, the chief’s spokesman.

“I call him Mr. Whirlwind,” said Councilwoman Laura Chick, who heads the city’s Public Safety Committee and works closely with Parks on a number of issues. “He’s taken over at the right time after a period of treading water at the department. He’s clearly a man of action. . . . It’s hard keeping up with him.”

Her only complaint, she said, is that he packs so many events onto his calendar that he often shows up late to his appearances.

“We need to figure out how to get to 10 places all at the same time,” she said.

Others are concerned about his demeanor.

“He wants to make damn sure everyone knows he’s running the show,” said one City Hall source. “He needs to work on that. That attitude can get real old.”

Councilman Richard Alatorre said that although Parks is “bringing back a sense of professionalism to the department,” his clash with the rank and file over flexible work scheduling could lead to problems over the long haul.

“To me, if you don’t have the rank and file on your side you can be a good chief,” he said. “But . . . if you can avoid conflict, you avoid conflict.”

Such concerns are no problem, said former LAPD Chief Daryl F. Gates. “It’s clear he’s stepped in and taken charge. . . . He’s not out to win friends and influence people, he’s there to lead the department.”

In a recent interview at his sixth-floor office at Parker Center, Parks said he is pleased with the way his first 100 days have gone. He said his only misstep has been releasing a survey to department employees to gauge the problem of racism and sexism within the LAPD. Union officials, fearful that the survey might be used against the officers, complained and Parks recalled the survey.

Otherwise, Parks said, “everything is going according to plan.”

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Times staff writer Beth Shuster contributed to this story.