Scapegoating as Reform

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan has sent a disturbing and unmistakable message to those most interested in real police reform and to those who want to prevent a repeat of the Police Department’s Rampart corruption scandal. Riordan recently boosted the salary of Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, who has resisted reforms that make the LAPD more publicly accountable; on Monday, the mayor fired Police Commission President Gerald L. Chaleff, who has pushed for those reforms.

Riordan last week was critical of the department’s leadership, saying in a speech at the LAPD’s Rampart Division that he had challenged “the law enforcement bureaucracy” to address morale, recruiting and community policing but that crime had jumped 12% and arrests were down 19%. Fair enough. But how can anyone talk credibly about LAPD leadership accountability and omit the police chief? Does anyone really believe that the part-time Police Commission president alone determines leadership of the department?

Chief Parks opposed having a strong inspector general over the department, said last year that most of the 1991 Christopher Commission reforms were already in place and lobbied hard against the federal consent decree that settled a suit against the department in 2000.

Chaleff, by contrast, supported the inspector general’s conclusion that the 1999 LAPD shooting of a frail homeless woman was wrongful and out of policy, and he was moving forward on recommendations to strengthen civilian oversight of the department.

Chaleff, who could get bogged down in detail and sometimes, ironically, worked too hard to be a Riordan team player, is no superhero. But Riordan’s actions have set back the cause of cleaning up the LAPD. The mayor’s firing of Chaleff, less than five months before a new mayor will take office and appoint a new Police Commission, looks very much like a search for a scapegoat for the department’s ills--and for a Police Commission composed of yes men and yes women.