Latinos Come Into Their Own in the Contest to Lead the LAPD

Poor George Gascon can’t get a break.

An 18-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department and the head of the LAPD’s training group, Gascon is a dark-horse candidate to be the city’s next chief of police. And he’s managed to get some impressive endorsements. Unfortunately, Gascon often winds up getting confused with his better-known colleague, Deputy Chief David Gascon, who has also applied for the chief’s job.

It happened again last week, when the Los Angeles Daily News reported that George Gascon would be endorsed by the Oscar Joel Bryant Foundation, the organization of African American LAPD officers. The Daily News illustrated the story with a photo of David Gascon.

The Times committed a similar gaffe earlier this year, when George Gascon was singled out for praise in a commentary. An editor mistakenly assumed the writer had gotten the first name wrong for David Gascon, who is well known because of his years as head of the LAPD’s media relations unit.

Thankfully, George Gascon has a sense of humor and can laugh at such incidents--one reason why he merits serious consideration for the chief’s job.

Another unwritten qualification is a comfort level with L.A.’s ethnic politics, which have shifted dramatically in the last two decades. A city once so white and Protestant it could be lampooned as Nebraska-by-the-sea is now 50% Latino. A police chief, like any other politician, ignores this at his peril.

That sounds like political correctness, but it is also pragmatic. If a police force serves a population with many people who speak a different language or share other cultural traits, then it behooves that force to have plenty of officers who speak that language and understand that culture. Luckily, young Latinos are pursuing LAPD careers. Of 323 male and female recruits in training at the L.A. Police Academy, 156 are Latino. More than one-third of the new cops who will hit L.A.’s streets over the next few months are going to be Latino. This in a department that is already one-third Latino.

These young officers “are the future of the LAPD,” in the words of Art Placencia, the detective who heads the organization that represents 600 of LAPD’s Latino officers, La Ley. Rather than endorsing a specific candidate for chief, La Ley is pushing for a process that “will give fair and serious consideration” to any Latino candidate.

Thus far, besides George Gascon and David Gascon, the only other Latino candidate to publicly express an interest in the job is Oxnard Police Chief Art Lopez, who served 28 years with the LAPD before taking his current post in Ventura County. All told, 51 candidates have applied, and the Police Commission aims to have three finalists for Mayor James K. Hahn to consider by September.

La Ley’s stance is supported by other reputable Latino community organizations and by influential civic leaders. All have taken a keen interest in who gets the LAPD job because they believe that Latino candidates were slighted the last two times a chief was picked.

Ten years ago, when the late Mayor Tom Bradley chose Philadelphia’s Willie L. Williams to head the LAPD, Latinos were stunned that L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca, then a deputy chief in his department, was not a finalist.

That was in former Mayor Richard Riordan’s mind five years later when he ousted Williams in favor of Bernard C. Parks. Riordan clearly wanted Parks to be chief. But to keep that from being too obvious, the Riordan-appointed Police Commission put Sacramento Police Chief Arturo Venegas Jr. on its list of finalists. In fact, Venegas had little chance of getting the job. With so many Latinos watching--and remembering the racially tinged mayoral campaign that Hahn waged last year against Antonio Villaraigosa--Hahn is unlikely to try a similar ploy.

Still, while there are relatively few Latino candidates with the experience and qualifications to run a police department as large and complex as this city’s, the few who are interested in the job probably will get the fair consideration Latinos are demanding. Not just because they deserve the respect but because they are important role models for the many younger Latino officers who will someday surely aspire to lead the LAPD.

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Frank del Olmo is the associate editor of The Times.