LAPD Chief William J. Bratton Begins Second 5-Year Term

Chief Brattons Reappointment podcast

Los Angeles: Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton made Department history today as he became the first Chief to be sworn in to serve a second term under the new term limits set in 1992 by City Charter Amendment F.  Chief Bratton also becomes the first Chief of the LAPD to serve consecutive back-to-back terms.   The Chief was sworn in for his second 5-year term during a public ceremony at the Elysian Park Academy.

Chief Bratton became the 54th Chief of Police of the Los Angeles Police Department on October 25, 2002.  Under his leadership, and thanks to the hard work of the men and women of the LAPD, Los Angeles has seen historic crime reductions.  From the day of Chief Bratton’s first swearing in through October 23, 2007, homicides are down 36%, while total Part I crimes are down 31%.  The current crime rate in the City is lower than it has been at any time since the 1950's. Additionally, Chief Bratton has directed a major reform of the Department, helping to change the insular culture of the rank-and-file and deliver a level of transparency to the public that is unprecedented in LAPD history. Chief Bratton has also achieved near-complete compliance with the Federal Consent Decree, implemented the use of modern technology in fighting crime and positioned the LAPD as a leader in terrorism prevention and preparedness.

"For the last five years, Chief Bratton has served the people of Los Angeles with honor, integrity and professionalism while achieving a level of success unrivaled anywhere in the nation," said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.  "Bill Bratton is the finest police chief in the nation, and the residents of Los Angeles are fortunate to have him for another five years."

Police Commission President Anthony Pacheco said of Bratton’s swearing in, “I am very proud to be part of this day when my fellow Police Commissioners and I give the City of Los Angeles another five years with the leading law enforcement professional in this country. Chief Bratton’s accomplishments in the past five years are nothing short of outstanding, and there is no doubt, under his leadership, the next five years will be a turning point for public safety in our City.”

Dignitaries present at today’s ceremony included Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Police Commissioners Anthony Pacheco, John Mack, Shelley Freeman, Andrea Ordin and Alan Skobin, former Police Commission President Rick Caruso, members of the Los Angeles City Council, elected officials including California State Attorney General Jerry Brown, numerous community leaders, the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department, and family and friends of Chief Bratton.

Los Angeles Times on Chief Brattons Reappointment

Daily News on Chief Brattons Reappointment

Comments

[EL TECOLOTE]

How many LAPD Officers and Detectives were asked if they had any confidence in Bratton's management style?

If the NY style of policing is so great in LA, then why not go a step further. Get rid of the Police League and bring in the Teamsters for contract negotiations.

One of the most corrupt LAPD personnel was DC Michael Berkow. A hand-picked selection by Bratton,"part of the inner circle."

[Ed O'Shea]

Here is a great article yet again, by Jack Dunphy! Enjoy!

Bratton Takes the Blame
But he expects no consequences for it.

By Jack Dunphy

In the October 15 Wall Street Journal, writer Carol Hymowitz described how the insular cultures at the top of many large corporations can be harmful to their bottom line. The article, “Sometimes, Moving Up Makes It Harder to See What Goes On Below,” began as follows:
Executives know success in business depends on identifying and fixing problems before they become crises. It is the most basic rule in management: No matter how smart your strategies seem on paper, if you don't know how they're being executed and whether there are urgent problems, you won't be successful.

The higher executives climb, the less likely they are to know what is and isn't working at their companies. Many are surrounded by yes people who filter information; others dismiss or ignore bearers of bad news.

Hymowitz’s article — copyright laws be damned — should be photocopied by the ream and distributed widely in the Los Angeles Police Department, for you would be hard pressed to find a culture more stubbornly insular than the one at the top of the LAPD. For proof of this, look no further than the department’s recently released report on the various breakdowns and missteps that led to all that unpleasantness at MacArthur Park last May 1 (previously discussed here, here, and here). The report, with its executive summary and various appendices and addenda, runs to more than 120 pages, but only an insomniac in search of relief should trouble himself to wade into it. Besides, the report is perhaps just as instructive for what it doesn’t say as for what it does.

To no one’s surprise, the report assigns the greatest share of the blame for what happened to now-retired Deputy Chief Cayler Carter, the senior LAPD officer at the park on May 1. Immediately after the incident, LAPD Chief William Bratton demoted Carter to the rank of commander and ordered him assigned to home. This effectively ended Carter’s career, all but forcing him to retire rather than endure the further indignities that surely would have awaited him had he remained with the department.

Wearing a slightly smaller set of horns is Commander Louis Gray, who was Carter’s second-in-command in the LAPD’s Central Bureau. Bratton does not have the legal authority to demote Gray as he did to Carter, but he removed him from his position and installed him in a do-nothing job at headquarters. (LAPD staff officers, i.e. commanders, deputy chiefs, and assistant chiefs, can be promoted or demoted within those ranks at the pleasure of the chief of police, but they cannot be demoted to captain or below absent a sustained allegation of misconduct.)

In for lesser degrees of blame are Captains John Egan and Tom McDonald, the commanding officers of Rampart Division, within whose boundaries MacArthur Park is located. To summarize the report, when trouble started at the park there was confusion as to just who was in charge of the hundreds of assembled officers. There were conflicting radio transmissions and long periods of frustrating silence from those in charge when officers on the line began to be pelted with rocks and other projectiles. No one in command seemed willing to make a decision, either to remove the officers from danger or take action against the lawbreakers.

As I’ve seen on any number of occasions over the course of my career, the LAPD brass tends to ignore trouble in the hope it will somehow stop on its own, then, when it becomes impossible to ignore, overreact to it. And this is where the report, for all its detail and blame-laying, fails to address a glaring defect within the LAPD, one that may well result in a breakdown similar to that seen at MacArthur Park. The report goes into great detail as to the responsibilities of an “incident commander” at the scene of events such as occurred at the park on May 1. What the report does not mention, but what is well known to even the greenest rookie in the LAPD, is that only a handful of officers in the department at the rank of captain or above have the necessary skills, experience, and leadership ability to fulfill that role. Most of them, sadly, don’t have the first idea about what to do when things turn ugly and the bottles start flying. You see, the path to the higher ranks within the LAPD does not wind through assignments where one gains experience in the more unpleasant aspects of police work. In fact, having spent too much time on the streets is usually seen as a career-killer if one hopes to promote beyond the rank of lieutenant. Instead, those who spend time in internal affairs and other administrative jobs are the ones most often rewarded with spots at the top of the promotional lists. And, having achieved their exalted positions, they then presume to know all there is to know about what happens on the street. This only leads to a police-related version of the corporate dysfunction Hymowitz cited in her Wall Street Journal article.

The MacArthur Park report should also be viewed for its unstated but nonetheless obvious political context. The incident began, you’ll recall, as a protest march for the rights of illegal aliens, a cause very much endorsed by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and virtually the entire city council. At the press conference announcing the report’s release, Chief Bratton placed the entire blame for the melee on the LAPD. “I, as chief of police, regret deeply that this occurred on my watch,” Bratton told reporters (link requires free registration). “I accept full responsibility for it occurring on my watch.”

Receiving only passing notice in the report is the fact that the march itself, unlike the one that ended peacefully in downtown L.A. earlier the same day, had been denied a police commission permit. Despite this, neither the march’s organizers nor the marchers themselves, who repeatedly broke the law by blocking streets, came in for any criticism from Bratton or anyone else in L.A. city government. Illegal aliens, it would seem, are the new protected class here in Los Angeles, not only exempt from the law but even from criticism.

Also unwritten in the report, but plainly obvious to LAPD watchers, is the groundwork it lays for the coming decision on who will succeed Bratton as police chief, either when his term expires in 2012 or when he moves on to some other job before then. Former Assistant Chief George Gascon, now the chief of police in Mesa, Ariz., in singled out in the report for canceling crowd-control training for those officers most involved in the melee. Gascon is said to be interested in returning to the LAPD as chief, but standing in his way is current Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger, who has made his aspirations to succeed Bratton very clear. Despite having chain-of-command authority over Carter, Gray, and all the others saddled with the blame in the report, Paysinger comes out pretty well unscathed.

Finally, Bratton’s ostensibly noble acceptance of responsibility rings hollow. The incident occurred when the L.A. police commission was set to reappoint him to a second five-year term as chief. They postponed the decision for several weeks so as to appear deliberative, but even during that period there was never any doubt that Bratton would be retained. Still, Bratton waited until he was safely reappointed to release the report and don the sack cloth and ashes. Yes, he accepted responsibility, but no, he does not expect any consequences for having done so.

— Jack Dunphy is an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department. "Jack Dunphy" is the author's nom de cyber. The opinions expressed are his own and almost certainly do not reflect those of the LAPD management.

[BOOMER]

Sly Stallone, Angie Dickinson, James Caan, are these the Chief's guests or the missus ? I'm sure they have the old man's blackberry number for QUICKER police response....

Man I hope Hillary gets elected, this is getting real old. I'd rather see Gascon back, even though he's no better, but atleast he went thru our academy..

[Inside the LAPD]

So who is responsible for the individual actions of some of the officers? Why did they knock over media personnel, why use their batons on people who already lying on the ground. 140 plus projectiles fired into a crowd...Responsiblity starts with the individual officer. Yes their were mistakes by management, but their were equally the same amount by overzealous officers. The motto is "protect and to serve" it is an awesome responsiblity to live up to.

[The one who knows..]

Inside the LAPD? The motto is "To protect and serve". I think your an outsider looking in. I'd rather have an overzealous officer than an officer that has to be pushed to do the job. I dont think you've ever stood on a skirmish line before, have you? The officers that have to deal with the everyday situations will continue to do so. And you'll continue to SIT and watch........KJC625.

[Inside LAPD]

kjc625, Overzealous is one thing, knocking down women and children and destroying property is another. I have been on the Department long enough to live through the Hollywood Burglary Scandal, 84 Olympics, and numerous demonstrations. Think what you want frankly I don't care - some of the force used on May Day was inappropriate.

[Richard davis]

Regarding the May 1st demonstration....

Why did the media ignore requests by police to move out of the way?

Why did certain members of the media actualy move in front of an oncoming skirmish line and refuse to move?

Why did the media decide to become the story instead of cover it?

Why has no one laid any public blame for the media's decision to ignore common sense?

Has anyone thoght about these quaestions? If so please respond. I and many would be interested in eharing what the public thinks about the media's responsability (if any) in this incident.

Was the media at least partialy to blame?