Chief Parks’ Supporters Should Back Off

In the weeks since Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn made his announcement opposing another term for LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks, black leaders have stepped up attacks on Hahn, apparently to great effect. While Hahn, as the city’s top elected official, had a right to say what he thought about Parks, a recent Los Angeles Times Poll demonstrated the high price the mayor paid. Hahn has suffered severe political damage overall, and he has torpedoed his standing among blacks in particular.

Despite the politics, though, the bottom-line question remains: Does Parks meet the standards of the Police Commission?

Black leaders, if they sincerely want to help Parks, now must stop their bashing of Hahn and the Police Commission and present a credible case that Parks measures up to the commission’s performance requirements.

They can point to several pluses.

Parks has been complimented by an independent monitor--who is overseeing a Justice Department-imposed consent decree--for installing a computer system to track problem officers, for initiating a system to compile statistics on possible LAPD racial profiling, for aggressively investigating the use of deadly force by officers and for establishing a comprehensive procedure to investigate civilian complaints of officer misconduct.

Parks has significantly increased the hiring and promotion of minorities and women within the department, and he has eliminated the open warfare that raged between former LAPD Chiefs Daryl Gates and Willie Williams and the mayor and the City Council.

Black leaders also must not ignore the spurt in crime and homicides, the claim that Parks disciplines those he dislikes but promotes those he favors and the gutting of the senior lead officer program, which many consider the heart of community policing.

Hahn and the Police Protective League claim that Parks’ failings in these areas have driven down morale and chased good officers out of the department.

Even if the Police Commission ultimately agrees that Parks is the right man for the job, black leaders still should insist that Parks finish the tasks of reforming and improving police performance.

This requires that he give full cooperation to the inspector general in investigating his handling of officer-involved shootings and civilian complaints.

Also, Parks must continue to improve officer tactics to minimize the risk of future outrages like the fatal shootings of Margaret Laverne Mitchell, a middle-age homeless woman who allegedly threatened a police officer with a screwdriver during an altercation over a shopping cart, and actor Anthony Dwain Lee, shot when he allegedly brandished a toy gun at an officer during a Halloween party.

Parks should publicly announce a timetable for completing the remainder of the Christopher Commission reforms.

And he should develop a comprehensive community policing training plan that fully involves command and rank-and-file officers in community policing.

Finally, the department needs to recruit and retain officers without compromising standards, and the senior lead officer program must be fully implemented.

Black leaders have dug a deep line in the sand on Parks.

Yet if they continue to beat up on Hahn and the Police Commission before the panel has said or done anything about Parks, they risk burying themselves in that sand along with the mayor.

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Earl Ofari Hutchinson is the author of “The Crisis in Black and Black” (Middle Passage Press, 1998). E-mail: ehutchi344@aol .com.