Tension Builds in Latest Police Drama: Who’ll Lead LAPD?

This search for a new chief of the LAPD, one of the most notorious departments in the history of guns and badges, is getting more entertaining by the day.

Author James Ellroy, who wrote “L.A. Confidential,” has cast his vote for a guy who was barely on the radar screen (see LAPD Capt. James McDonnell).

Superstar scribe Tom Wolfe once called another candidate “a cop’s cop,” and--who would have thunk it?--”an intellectual” (see ex-Philadelphia Commissioner John Timoney, who worked in the New York precinct featured in Wolfe’s “Bonfire of the Vanities”).

And law professor Erwin Chemerinsky was knocked out by yet a third candidate, but poses a question Joe Friday never would have asked: “Is L.A. ready for a gay, Jewish police chief?” (see LAPD Deputy Chief David Kalish).

See what I mean? This sort of headhunting can be a dull enterprise in other locales, but we’ve got drama and suspense under a bright September sun.

The bravest thing Jim Hahn has done so far as mayor of Los Angeles was get rid of LAPD Chief Bernard Parks. But that was the easy part.

Now the mayor, and the Police Commission, which will narrow the field of candidates from 13 to three, have to figure out which one can rescue us from a history of corruption scandals, sinking morale and nationally televised batting practice.

Do we stick with one of the six current LAPD officials on the theory that a cranky rank and file will torpedo any outsider?

Do we go with one of two former LAPD officials on the theory that what’s needed is an outsider who knows the city and the department?

Or do we pick one of the five outsiders on the theory that only a fresh breeze can deodorize the place?

The Hahn crew seems to have a crush on Philadelphia’s Timoney, as do a lot of people in and out of law enforcement. Hahn sent a lieutenant to the City of Brotherly Love to ask questions about the ex-chief, who is now in private security.

The mayor didn’t return my call, so I’m not sure he’s heard about the Timoney blunder.

First the good news from Philadelphia:

Timoney--who once lectured a college class on Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”--took over a backward Philadelphia Police Department in 1998 and began to clean house.

The Ireland-born cop, who was part of New York’s legendary crackdown on crime in the mid-1990s, became an overnight rock star in Philadelphia, patrolling the streets on his bicycle. During the Republican National Convention, he cold-cocked a demonstrator who was trying to overturn a police car.

But Timoney, a reformer in many ways despite charges that he had been too protective of gung-ho cops in New York, had struck out in one of his first moves in Philadelphia. When the local Inquirer dug up the case and decorated its front page with the details last year, it was the beginning of the end for Timoney.

One night in 1998, a prominent Philadelphia homicide cop got blitzed, plowed into another car and kept on going, inflated air bag and all. The whole affair was covered up by cops, then investigated internally, and the disciplinary action fell to Timoney.

Arrest and prosecution? Dismissal? Demotion?

No. A 20-day suspension.

When the story broke last year, Timoney defended his decision until the mayor cracked down on him in public. The drunken cop was later fired and indicted.

When I talked to Timoney Tuesday by phone, he admitted he made a mistake.

“It was just a bad call on my part,” he said, explaining that it was one of 500 carry-over cases from the previous administration, and he didn’t pay close enough attention.

When I asked L.A. Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook if he knew about Timoney’s bad call, he didn’t answer. Instead, he lectured me about how I was the guy who first told him about Timoney when Parks was dumped. “This was your candidate,” he said.

At least I bothered to check him out. Do I have to do everything for these guys?

They might be better off without Timoney, anyway. The man’s got charisma and personality, and Hahn would be standing in his shadow by Christmas.

Still, it’d be nice to have a chief who can point out to the LAPD that “Crime and Punishment” was not the Rodney King story.

Besides, the insider candidates have all the baggage that comes with being insiders, and the two former insiders have their problems, too. One’s got some deadly-force issues in his community (see Chief Art Lopez in Oxnard), and the other spewed anti-gay nonsense (see Chief Mark Kroeker in Portland).

Chemerinsky, the USC law professor who’s teaching at Duke University this semester, said he doesn’t think it much matters whether Hahn picks an insider or outsider. What’s more important is finding the candidate with the best plan to overhaul the culture of the LAPD, open the force up to outside review, dole out disciplinary action with greater consistency, and rally cops out of their funk.

Chemerinsky says three of the candidates currently with the LAPD called him this summer to share their plans and get his feedback.

“Two were really impressive,” he says, withholding their names. “But I was extremely impressed by Kalish in terms of his commitment to reform, his recognition of the problems, and his having a detailed agenda. It was one of those breakfast meetings that keeps going on and on, because he had an extremely specific level of detail.”

With Kalish, who came out about his homosexuality this summer, you sort of get an insider who’s out, which might be better than an outsider who wants in.

Is L.A. ready for it?

The fact that we’re asking tells you we’ve come a long way since Daryl Gates.

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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com.