Houston Police Chief to Retire Amid Controversies

Police Chief Clarence Bradford, beset by a series of embarrassments including a troubled crime lab and his own indictment on perjury charges, announced Friday that he would retire in September.

Bradford, a lawyer who rose from the ranks to become chief in 1996, said his decision to retire was motivated by a desire to spend more time with his wife, who is expecting their first child.

“This isn’t quitting. This isn’t resigning. This is retiring from a wonderful career ... and to get ready for Cole,” Bradford said, referring to his yet-to-be-born son.

Bradford, 47, brushed aside suggestions that controversies during his tenure forced him to step down after 24 years with the Houston Police Department. “This is a matter of reprioritization of time,” he said.

“There are many, many things I have done very well ... and there are some things I’ve missed the ball on,” Bradford said.

Bradford’s troubles began in 1998 after the shooting death of a resident during a botched drug raid and revelations that hundreds of police searches had been performed without warrants. Last summer, another raid -- ostensibly a crackdown on street racing -- resulted in the mass arrest of 278 people, many of whom were innocent bystanders. All charges were later dropped.

Last September, Bradford was indicted for lying under oath about using a profanity while addressing a subordinate. A state judge later dismissed the charge, citing lack of evidence.

In January, the department shut down its DNA crime lab after investigators uncovered a slew of problems, from a leaky roof that might have contaminated evidence to faulty test procedures that might have implicated the wrong person. Hundreds of criminal cases are now under review.

Most recently, several officers in the department were arrested on allegations of demanding protection money from cantina owners and giving advance notice of prostitution raids.

City Council member Mark Goldberg said it was not clear that the police department’s problems were “100% the chief of police’s fault. However, as with any management position, the buck stops with him.”

Some civic leaders suggested that Bradford was, in part, a victim of politics. With a heated mayoral election looming, demands for change at the top of the police department would be inevitable, they said.

Bradford’s retirement saves the city from “a lot of acrimony and a drawn-out battle,” said City Council member Carroll G. Robinson. “Bradford did the right and generous thing.”

Robinson said that although Bradford’s tenure may have been marked by conflict, “we do not have a bad police department compared to what we had in the past. There was a time when we were finding people’s bodies floating in the bayous. We’d wake up in the morning worried about who the police department had killed.”

Houston Mayor Lee Brown said he has not decided who will be named interim chief. Brown was Houston’s first African American police chief, and Bradford is the second.

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Times staff writer Scott Gold contributed to this report.