Race Is Just Part of the Parks Equation

I was standing next to Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden on Tuesday when he went on and on about how shocked and appalled he was that Mayor Jim Hahn gave thumbs down to Police Chief Bernard Parks.

“It’s an insult to my community,” Holden promised, and I’m sure he had to be right, because, Lord knows, the entire African American community thinks with one mind.

I was shocked too, but not by Hahn. I was shocked that Holden would show his face in public six weeks after the Ethics Commission fingered him for 31 campaign violations.

I would have suspected that such a rip-off, with penalties that could run as high as $155,000, might constitute an insult to Holden’s community.

But I’m still learning.

As you know by now, there’s some talk of recall because of Mayor Hahn’s bar mitzvah moment Tuesday, in which he kicked off Black History Month by telling Parks to get lost. Very smooth on the timing. I can’t wait to see what Latino Hahn wrestles to the ground to ring in Cinco de Mayo.

The idea of a recall, by the way, is fine by me. I like the sound of revolution now and then, but we ought to broaden the focus.

Why not recall Holden, or does everyone in the “community” think it’s fine for him to thumb his nose at campaign law every time he runs for reelection? Why not recall City Council President Alex Padilla, who got smacked with $79,000 in fines last month for his own campaign violations?

“A recall is certainly something that has to be discussed by the leadership of the black community,” U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters said about Hahn.

I trust that Maxine Waters knows what she’s talking about, but the turnout at a protest rally in Leimert Park on Wednesday night suggests otherwise. Only about 50 people showed up to chant, “Hey hey, ho ho, Mayor Hahn has got to go.”

(Just as an aside, the mayor is not the Cat in a Hat, so let’s work on a better verse for the next rally.)

I’m wondering if Holden and Waters really represent the communities they claim to. Here they are blowing their horns, but there appears to be no army falling in line behind them. Maybe people are smarter than their leaders give them credit for.

In the past week, I’ve made three visits to the East L.A. home of a family that’s been devastated by a tragedy that’s become too familiar.

A father and his two stepsons, working as unarmed security guards, saw a gangbanger spray-painting a wall in South-Central Los Angeles and tried to stop him. He turned on them with a semiautomatic rifle, killing 18-year-old Luis Gamez and critically wounding his 21-year-old brother, Oscar.

The detective on the case tells me it was one of 13 homicides in the 77th Street Division in January alone.

Is anyone shocked by that?

Is anyone appalled at the spreading stain of blood?

Does anyone think maybe the leadership ought to have a discussion?

We’re three months away from the 10-year anniversary of rioting after the acquittal of Rodney King’s posse.

The last thing we need is for professional agitators to rally support for themselves by framing Hahn’s difference with Parks entirely in racial terms.

Thankfully there have been other voices in the African American community. People like civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who saw Hahn’s move as a matter of policy rather than race.

It doesn’t help that the predominantly white Police Protective League, with nothing but shades of pale on its board of directors, has saddled up and ridden hard after two black chiefs in a row. There’s not a doubt in my head that some of those cowboys just can’t stomach being told what to do by a black boss.

“It would be a mistake to ignore racism in the LAPD in understanding why there’s opposition to Parks,” says USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky. “There’s a long history of racism in the department. But it would also be a mistake to attribute all this to racism and ignore the complaints against Parks from officers of all races.”

But I don’t think the union had much to do with Hahn’s decision, which was made without racial motivation.

For Parks’ defenders, I’d like to point out that you can be a strict disciplinarian and still be a lousy manager. You can be a man of honor and integrity and still fail as a leader.

That’s the Bernie Parks story.

“The irony,” says Chemerinsky, “is that if Parks were of a different race and had this record on police reform, the African American community would almost certainly be calling for his ouster.”

There’s a stink in this department that goes back decades, and the only way to get it out is to open the windows and let the wind blow through.

Black, white, magenta, it doesn’t matter who follows, as long as he isn’t from within.

Nobody who came up through the muck of the LAPD has any idea what fresh air smells like.

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Steve Lopez writes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at steve.lopez@ latimes.com.