LAPD’s Parks Ready to Sit in Hot Seat Again

It is such a time-worn concept of talk radio and yet, suddenly, it seems new again: Bring on a top government official--say, a mayor or a police chief--and have host and listeners fire questions to their hearts’ content.

Now comes the refinement. The guest appears on a monthly basis.

Last February, all-news station KFWB-AM (980) debuted Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan on the third Wednesday of every month in the 10 a.m. hour, hosted by morning-drive anchor Kathleen Sullivan. When Riordan went on vacation in August, Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks filled in.

On Jan. 19, Parks got his own forum with Larry Elder during Elder’s KABC-AM (790) afternoon-drive show. In a less-structured arrangement, Parks returns to Elder’s show Tuesday at 4 p.m.

With the Rampart Division corruption scandal unfolding, the crisis figured prominently in the January discussion, and will be revisited next week. Thus far, 20 officers have been relieved of duty or are otherwise gone in connection with the scandal, while more than 30 criminal convictions have been overturned in the wake of police misconduct.

The Rampart controversy is sure to be top of mind again with listeners as estimates of the probable cost to the city of lawsuits coming out of the crisis continued to rise this week. “That’s an obvious topic,” Elder said in an interview.

Of last month’s first session with Parks, which Elder expects to continue roughly once a month: “I got a lot of e-mail from cops and non-cops. For my entire program, when I come home at night, I get 50 to 100 e-mails. For me to get 30 to 40 for one hour is substantial.

“As soon as I teased [Parks’ appearance] the hour before,” Elder added, “the phones lit up, and that’s unusual. It’s pretty obvious that people are concerned about how the investigation is going, what the significance of the investigation is, and other aspects of the police department.”

KABC assistant program director Erik Braverman, who came up with the idea of pairing Parks and Elder, and broached it to Parks at a lunch at the station late last year, noted: “I walked into the studio with him, and the phone lines were ringing so hard they were practically levitating.”

With KABC’s target age demographic at 35 to 54--skewing a bit older than the usual 25 to 54--the Parks-Elder duo was a natural. “We felt that the overwhelming majority of people in that demographic would care about issues of the police force,” Braverman said.

“It’s open season, and there’s no agenda,” said Elder of the ground rules for the Parks sessions. Elder is a nonpracticing lawyer and self-described libertarian who has been at KABC for six years. “Anybody who wants to talk about anything--whether it’s recruiting [or] failure to promote, based on the perception that the department is seeking diversity instead of quality--he’s willing to take them on.”

Making Himself Available to the Public

Since he became police chief in August 1997, Parks has phoned Elder’s show several times and had sat in once before.

“The chief feels it’s absolutely critical that he make himself available to the public directly,” Commander David J. Kalish, department spokesman, said. “He does a number of interviews on television . . . but this is particularly important because it’s interactive. It allows people to call in directly and ask the chief questions, and oftentimes tough questions. . . . I know it sounds corny [but] it enhances democracy.

“You’re not only talking to an external audience,” he added, “you’re talking to an internal audience because a lot of the officers like to listen, and they like to call in or have their friends call in.”

Or spouses.

A caller named Dewey, who identified himself as the husband of an LAPD officer--”I won’t say where and I won’t say who she is”--essentially asked why the department sweats the small stuff, investigating what he deemed minor complaints, such as putting on handcuffs too tightly, instead of concentrating on the big picture like Rampart.

Parks replied that it was an internal police investigation that identified ex-officer Rafael Perez, now a police informant and the linchpin in the scandal. The system worked, Parks said. “It identified [stolen] narcotics that had been removed and not returned. The investigation identified Perez.”

Parks went on to say that the complaint system exists “for the community to have confidence that they can express their grievances to the department and we’ll investigate. . . .”

Elder said he told Parks in advance that Rampart would come up, along with various aspects of the gun issue, which they had argued about before. Elder said he opposes the banning of Saturday-night specials. Parks pointed out laconically that it’s now state law.

They also tangled on the matter of granting permits for citizens to carry concealed weapons, which Parks opposes. Elder promises he will return to the gun issue.

Sometimes the Exchange Gets Heated

Elder did not reveal beforehand that he would bring up “DWB”-- the acronym for “Driving While Black.” But racial profiling proved to be one of the more engaging portions of the show. Consider this exchange between Elder and Parks:

“Chief, virtually everybody I know who’s black has said that he or she has been stopped and treated unfairly . . . and the feeling is--it’s overwhelming, Chief--that people sometimes are stopped simply because they’re black, [and] they’re driving a nice car in a predominantly white and affluent area.”

“We also have those similar complaints in the Hispanic community [and] the Asian community,” Parks replied. “And very recently, we received a complaint in the city where two Caucasian individuals were stopped in Rampart and believed they were stopped in a drug area because they were white.”

He said each complaint needs to be evaluated.

“What do you say to people like Chris Darden?” countered Elder, referring to the former assistant district attorney who had been part of the O.J. Simpson prosecution team. He noted that Darden had a press conference “alongside the ACLU and both of them urged that you record stops by race and both said DWB is rampant . . . and Darden even talked about personal experiences where he thought he was stopped because he was black.”

People who believe they are inappropriately stopped should make a complaint, Parks advised. “And that will hopefully reduce the perception about these issues.”

“So DWB, Chief, is a perception and not a reality?” asked Elder.

“It’s a perception in many regards . . ., “ Parks said. “If you had the officers there, and they gave you their side of the story, you might have a different opinion about whether it was driving while black or driving while something else.”

Afterward, how did Parks react to the show? “He felt it was positive,” Kalish said. “It wasn’t filtered through print or a commentator. He was able to speak directly from the heart.”

“He did fine,” offered Elder. “He’s an officer-politician. He’s smart, he’s articulate, he’s careful. It’s hard to pin him down.”

And did he change Elder’s mind on anything? Elder laughed heartily. “No, of course not. And unfortunately I didn’t change his. But the day is young.”

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* “The Larry Elder Show” can be heard weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on KABC-AM (790). Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks will be Elder’s guest Tuesday at 4 p.m.