Yagman Comments on Rampart

Re “Blame Parks for Rampart Scandal,” by Stephen Yagman, Commentary, April 12: LAPD Chief Bernard Parks is responsible for the public’s faith in the department. After the Christopher Commission report, LAPD senior lead officers in their community liaison positions were there to help with the healing process. Senior leads brought us together, helped return our faith in the department and gave us familiarity, continuity and trust. Since communities have lost touch with their senior leads, we’ve been thrown back 20 years to cops on one side and citizens on the other.

Kudos to L.A. Councilman Joel Wachs for his motion to fully reinstate senior lead officers. Allow senior leads to do a job that Chief Parks alone cannot accomplish--restore faith and help the communities heal. Our family is proud to support the rank-and-file officers of the LAPD. As for Chief Parks, he has decimated Neighborhood Watch; and when Yagman is right, he’s right.

PAUL and SANDRA MUNZ

Neighborhood Watch

North Hollywood

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If Yagman means to imply that I am now, or have ever been, an uncritical apologist for police misconduct, then nothing could be further from the truth. In nearly two decades of service on the Los Angeles City Council, my outspoken criticism of police abuses is a matter of public record. My campaign against police intelligence abuses earned me the lasting enmity of former Chief Daryl Gates. My efforts to curb the use of the deadly carotid artery chokehold prompted the then-president of the City Council to revoke my chairmanship of the Police, Fire and Public Safety Committee. As a long-time chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee, I did indeed help oversee many of the lawsuits that Yagman and others brought against the city--and always, I was determined to hold the LAPD and the city attorney to the highest standard of accountability.

Yagman has gone so far as to personally sue me and other current and former city officials, including former Mayor Tom Bradley, without success. Each one of his suits has been summarily tossed out of court.

ZEV YAROSLAVSKY

L.A. County Supervisor