Candidates on LAPD

* In all the squawking that has become the mayor’s race, every candidate has roughly the same policing plan: implement reform; improve recruiting and retention.

This plan defies logic. Who wants to stay in a department that is constantly being criticized and ostracized and “reformed”? If the department is in such desperate need of reform, why worry about keeping these awful officers around? If there are only a few “bad apples,” why are we reforming an entire department?

When will a candidate take a definitive stance? Crime is again on the rise. Officers are fleeing in droves. Recruits cannot be found. The “victims of Rampart” have been paid off and are now returning to jail for new violent crimes.

I will cast my vote for the candidate who makes retention the priority and regards reform as an internal problem, to be handled as tangential to the LAPD’s mission: fighting crime and protecting the good people of this town.

ROBERT PARRY

Venice