Compton Suspends 4 Officers Over Protest

An ongoing power struggle between the Compton police force and Mayor Omar Bradley took a new turn Wednesday when the city announced suspensions of at least four officers for their alleged disruption of Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

Tensions between Compton officers and the city’s leadership have been simmering since August, when Police Chief Hourie Taylor and Capt. Percy Perrodin were abruptly dismissed without public explanation. Last month, the Compton Police Officers Assn. responded with a vote of no confidence in the mayor and city manager. And now, the city has commissioned a study into disbanding the department and contracting instead with the county Sheriff’s Department.

At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, those tensions boiled over after about 10 police officers arrived while the meeting was in progress. According to Det. Ed Aguirre, one of the suspended officers, they came after hearing that the mayor had made disparaging remarks about the department.

Aguirre said they also heard there were 30 to 40 men in the audience who appeared to be bodyguards for Mayor Bradley. When a police officer flashed a camera at them, a heated confrontation ensued.

“That’s when it got crazy,” said Aguirre, president of the Compton Police Officers Assn. The bodyguards “immediately surrounded us. They were using racial slurs, they were using profanity, they were trying to provoke us into a fight.”

The mayor’s office had a different explanation of Tuesday’s events. At a news conference in front of City Hall on Wednesday, city spokesman Frank Wheaton said police officers were responsible for the disruption, and that they had ignored the mayor’s demands to withdraw. He also said the men in the audience were not bodyguards but simply Bradley’s private supporters.

“There are no personal bodyguards paid for by the city or anyone else,” Wheaton said. “The mayor had personal supporters that may have appeared to be bodyguards.”

Wheaton said that Bradley has been the target of numerous personal threats by police officers, and that the city is in fact considering the possibility of paid bodyguards.

When asked exactly what violation the suspended officers had committed, Wheaton said, “Any kind of disruption in a City Council meeting is prohibited . . . [Bradley] asked the officers to withdraw once the confrontation started--they did not.”

Once the meeting was disrupted, acting Police Chief Ramon Allen ordered the officers out of the room. According to Aguirre, several of the men he believed to be bodyguards fled when squad cars pulled up outside.

“People took off running,” he said. “The only time people run is when they have drugs, they have guns, or they have warrants.”

Wheaton said that six or seven of the police officers who attended the meeting had been identified, and that four were being placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation.

He attributed the police action Tuesday to a “few dissident members . . . who seem to have a vendetta against the mayor.”

Bradley, meanwhile, used Wednesday’s news conference to criticize police for their inability to stem Compton’s crime rate. “It’s a shame that while our detectives were here last night, there were people being killed,” he said. “If you ask the citizens if there is too much crime in Compton, they will say to a man and a woman, yes. [Police] should be busy trying to solve crimes, rather than play politics.”

Bradley, who is the target of a recall effort, said he’s been subject to numerous threats, including police officers’ shouting abuses at him while he was driving, cutting him off and telling members of his family that “they were going to get me.”

Aguirre expressed doubt about those allegations. “If that was true, those officers would be on administrative leave,” he said.