Mayor on the Spot

Meeting face to face with the dispirited members of the Los Angeles Police Department, Mayor Richard Riordan on Tuesday encouraged officers at the 77th Street Division to speak their minds.

They did, giving the mayor an earful:

“Most of the people in the office here . . . don’t feel supported,” one officer said.

“I don’t think that most of these officers feel supported by the chief,” said another. “The belief of this chief is, I think, ‘My way or the highway.’ ”

“There’s a reluctance to do these traffic stops because of the complaint system,” an area homicide detective chimed in, alleging that the result is emboldened gang members and a rising number of homicides in the division.

“If [former Officer Rafael] Perez’s word can let 100 people out of prison, but can put four police officers through what they’ve been through, what can we do?” still another officer asked. “What can we do?”

Riordan’s appearance at the 77th Street Division’s afternoon roll call reflects his desire to ameliorate the effects of last week’s difficult ride for the LAPD--a week in which jurors convicted three LAPD officers of lying and conspiracy and in which a panel of legal experts concluded that the Police Department suffers from poor morale, inadequate civilian oversight and a flawed disciplinary system, among other things.

Despite the burst of bad news, Riordan has attempted to sketch out the broad outlines of a reform blueprint. In essence, it combines implementing a recently crafted consent decree with the federal government on overhauling a number of internal LAPD systems with a redoubled pledge to address the department’s battered morale and struggling recruitment efforts.

City officials cannot tolerate the abuses that went on in the Rampart Division, Riordan said unequivocally. “At the same time,” he added, “don’t take your eye off the ball. Your main job is to keep this city safe.”

On Tuesday, Riordan talked a bit, but mostly he listened to the blast furnace of complaints from the several dozen officers who gathered in the division’s roll call room, filling the seats and lining the walls. Most of the discontent was expressed politely, but some officers did not conceal their unhappiness with Riordan.

One officer stood and said: “You’ve been the mayor almost seven years now. You’ve never been here before. Why do you come here now?”

In fact, Riordan has been to the 77th Street Division before--at least twice. The division has a new headquarters, which two years ago replaced one of the city’s most notoriously threadbare stations, a building so dilapidated that officials had lopped off the top floor for fear it would collapse in an earthquake. By comparison, the new station is clean and efficient, its lobby welcoming to visitors and its grounds built around a pleasant courtyard.

The officers inside, however, remain bitter and unhappy.

Over and over on Tuesday, officers said they were dismayed to see their colleagues leave the LAPD for better work in neighboring departments. They complained vigorously about what they see as an arbitrary and punitive disciplinary system brought in by Police Chief Bernard C. Parks. And they insisted that the city leadership has let them down, capitulating to political pressure for LAPD reform and implementing those changes without regard to their effect on rank-and-file officers.

“We don’t have a hard time saying no to police officers,” one officer said, standing just a few feet from the mayor. “We do have a hard time saying no to citizens.”

Although Riordan promised that Police Department morale was at “the top of my radar,” he did not renounce the LAPD’s disciplinary system or its chief. In fact, Riordan often has praised Parks’ reputation as a disciplinarian, noting with pride that the chief has fired more police officers than both his predecessors combined did over a much longer period.

Riordan also parted ways with officers who described last week’s criminal convictions of three former Rampart officers as unjust.

“I believe that there were officers in Rampart, more than you seem to believe, who were involved” in breaking the law, Riordan said. “We have a rule of law in this country. We have to obey the rule of law.”

Following his question-and-answer session with the 77th Division officers, Riordan cruised the neighborhoods around the station in a police car, accompanying Sgt. Bill Driver, a 28-year LAPD veteran.

As they surveyed the South-Central communities that surround the station--home to notorious street gangs, such as the Eight Tray Gangster Crips, the Rollin’ 60s and the Eight Tray Hoover Crips--Driver reflected on the fate of an area where he has worked, off and on, for more than a quarter-century. Crime today is far less intense than it was in the early 1990s, Driver said, but the last year or two have seen an alarming uptick.

At the Police Department, Driver said, new requirements for internal investigations force supervisors such as him to spend more time at their desks, less in the field. Three officers have quit in the past month from the afternoon shift alone, adding to the burdens of those who remain, he said.

“This is sad,” Riordan said wistfully at one scruffy intersection. “This street could be so beautiful.”

As Driver pulled his car to a stop on a residential street, a young man pulled alongside in a shiny Volkswagen bug.

“Hey, mayor,” he yelled with a wide smile. “You’re doing a great job.”