New LAPD Digs, Old Name?

In 1950, William H. Parker was welcomed as just the kind of no-nonsense chief the Los Angeles Police Department needed after being rocked by disclosures that Hollywood vice cops were protecting prostitutes.

A war hero who believed cops shouldn’t even accept a free meal on their beat, Parker cleaned up the department, fostered its “Dragnet” image and went on to serve the longest tenure of any LAPD chief: 16 years.

So it was not surprising when city leaders put Parker’s name on the front of LAPD’s downtown headquarters when it opened a half-century ago. And now that the department plans to move to a new headquarters a block away, City Councilwoman Jan Perry expects the trademark to follow.

“The name Parker Center obviously has some historical significance and context,” said Perry, whose district includes much of downtown. “Unless there is some groundswell against it, I would expect to use the name on the new building.”

But some city leaders are suggesting that the future headquarters carry a different nameplate. Many believe that one of the most prominent structures in the Civic Center should reflect the LAPD of the future, not of the past.

Those officials and civil rights leaders say Parker’s tough, confrontational style of policing ran roughshod over the rights of minority communities.

“He is a negative symbol,” said the Rev. Jim Lawson, president of the Southern California chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “He is a symbol of the system of harassment we faced then, and that we continue to face.”

John Mack, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission and former head of the local branch of the Urban League, agreed that city officials should consider a different name.

“In the minds of many within the African American community he clearly was not only old-school but represented an oppressive kind of leadership that caused a tremendous amount of consternation,” Mack said.

Geraldine Washington, head of the local branch of the NAACP, said the building should just be called Los Angeles Police Department headquarters. Indeed, police buildings in New York City, Chicago and Houston are not named after anyone.

If a person’s name has to be used, Washington suggested Tom Bradley, the former mayor who began his city career with the LAPD.

Former Police Chief Ed Davis said Parker’s name was good enough for the current building and should be good enough for the new one.

“Chief Parker stood for honesty and integrity,” Davis said. “I would stand up for Bill. He was known for being steadfast and resolute about not allowing the left wing to take over the Police Department.”

Davis is fond of telling of his first meeting with Parker, when Davis was in a recruit class. Parker warned the young officers that if they gave in to corruption, they would get a one-way trip to San Quentin.

Former Deputy Chief Robert Vernon, who also supports keeping the name, credits Parker with cultivating a relationship with Hollywood, which portrayed the LAPD in a good light, most notably through the television series “Dragnet.”

“His contribution was discipline and integrity,” Vernon said. “He would probably not be a successful chief today with all the politics and political correctness, but I don’t think you can take away the major contributions he made.”

Jay Grodin, a prominent attorney and former police officer, said Parker “was a great visionary who brought professionalism to the LAPD.”

The naming of government buildings is often a tricky task, tied up in the sensitive issue of how history is interpreted.

There was some controversy when the state’s downtown office building was named for Ronald Reagan, but hardly a peep last week when the Los Angeles Parks Commission renamed the Van Ness Recreation Center in honor of civil rights attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.

At one point, some city officials tried to adopt a policy limiting the naming of buildings to people who had died, but that idea was scrapped.

In naming the current police headquarters after Parker, city officials cited his record of public service.

Parker joined the LAPD in 1927 and served 15 years before taking a leave to fight in World War II. He received a Silver Star in France, an Italian Star in Sardinia and a Purple Heart after being wounded during the Normandy invasion.

“After the war, Capt. Parker returned to the department, where he rapidly ascended through the ranks,” a Police Department biography said.

Parker is often credited with turning the LAPD into a modern department. Before he took over, an investigation found that vice officers were protecting prostitutes, including Hollywood madam Brenda Allen. That scandal led to the early retirement of Police Chief Clemence B. Horrall.

Parker “came in in 1950 when the department was in terrible shape,” said Raphael Sonenshein, a professor of political science at Cal State Fullerton who specializes in Los Angeles history. “The department’s ethics were questionable, and the public perception of the department was poor. He cleaned up the corruption in the department and improved its image.”

Imposing “authoritarian rule,” Parker insisted that the department be free from political interference, so the city’s elected officials gave him broad leeway to make changes, Sonenshein said. He began using scientific methods to measure the department’s productivity.

Parker was rumored to have amassed files on many of the city’s politicians, which some say explained why the council let him run the LAPD without interference.

To keep officers from engaging in illicit activity, including accepting free meals and services while on their beats, Parker emphasized policing by patrol car.

“One of the things he wanted to avoid was police officers getting too close to the neighborhoods,” Sonenshein said. “The downside is officers became more remote from the community.”

Lawson said the new approach led to different problems.

“William Parker was someone responsible for making the LAPD efficient, but that often meant the treatment of people of color went unexamined,” Lawson said.

Critics of Parker say he will forever be known as the chief in charge when tensions between law enforcement and African American residents touched off the Watts riots in 1965. The riots lasted a week and left 34 people dead and more than 600 buildings damaged or destroyed.

Parker, who died in office of a heart attack a year after the riots, failed to see the simmering anger over heavy-handed police tactics, critics say.

“I don’t think he is a proper role model,” said Rudy Acuna, a professor of Chicano studies at Cal State Northridge and an author of books and articles about the Parker-led LAPD.

After the riots, Gov. Pat Brown asked John A. McCone, former director of the CIA, to chair a commission looking into the cause of the unrest. The panel held hearings at which more than 70 people complained about police brutality.

“The bitter criticism we have heard evidences a deep and long-standing schism between a substantial portion of the Negro community and the Police Department,” the McCone Commission report concluded.

It had a mixed judgment of Parker.

“Chief of Police Parker appears to be the focal point of the criticism within the Negro community,” the report said. “He is a man distrusted by most Negroes, and they carefully analyze for possible anti-Negro meaning almost every action he takes and every statement he makes.... However, Chief Parker’s statements to us and collateral evidence such as his record of fairness to Negro officers are inconsistent with his having such an attitude.”

The commission report concluded: “Despite the depth of the feeling against Chief Parker expressed to us by so many witnesses, he is recognized, even by many of his most vocal critics, as a capable chief who directs an efficient police force that serves well this entire community.”

Acuna said Parker was no more popular in the Latino community.

He cited controversial comments made by Parker over the years, including a statement in 1960 to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Acuna said that in talking about people from Mexico, Parker told the panel: “Some of these people were here before we were, but some are not far removed from the wild tribes of the district of the inner mountains of Mexico.”

Acuna said keeping Parker’s name on a new police headquarters would be rubbing salt in the wounds of those who have fought to make the force more sensitive to, and reflective of, the city’s diversity.

Councilman Herb Wesson, an African American, said he does not have strong feelings either way, but supports considering a new name for the building.

“That name is from an old regime, an old mind-set, old beliefs,” Wesson said.

“My mind-set would be as we are looking forward, maybe with new vision for the Police Department, new diversity, you may want to look at something in a name that is futuristic,” he said.

The Police Commission has the authority to name police facilities, although the City Council has the ultimate say if it disagrees. Mack said he would make his concerns known.

“It’s maybe a good idea to revisit the name from the standpoint that this Los Angeles Police Department under Chief [William] Bratton’s leadership is much more enlightened,” Mack said.