L.A.’s New Top Cop: ‘Conservative’ on Crime, ‘Progressive’ in His Policing?
From 1980 through 1992, a period that saw the explosion of violence attendant to the rise of street gangs and the crack cocaine trade, the city of Los Angeles averaged a horrific 881 murders per year. (By comparison, the city saw 381 murders in 2008 and, if current trends continue, there will be even fewer this year.) Yet through that same 13-year period, the LAPD never had more than 8,400 officers, with the number often dipping below 7,000.
Today there are about 10,000 officers on the job in Los Angeles, and though the city’s population has increased by nearly a million since 1980, the level of violent crime is less than half of what it was then. The number of police officers a city maintains and how they are deployed are political decisions, yet the failure of the LAPD to combat the rise in crime through the ‘80s is most often blamed on Daryl Gates, who served as chief of police from 1978 to 1992. It was the city government, not the police chief, that failed to fund an adequate response to the violent crime epidemic of the ‘80s and early ‘90s.
Gates is regarded as particularly villainous at the Los Angeles Times, with whose editors he sparred throughout his tenure, and on whom the Times continues to heap unwarranted scorn. In his Nov. 15 piece on Beck, for example, Joel Rubin wrote of the LAPD of the late ‘70s. “It was a time of flux,” wrote Rubin, “as Chief Ed Davis stepped down and Daryl F. Gates, a hard-line LAPD veteran, took over. Davis had flirted with the idea that police should build close ties with the communities they serve, but under Gates the department shifted back to an entrenched, paramilitary mentality.”
On this point Rubin has apparently adopted the blame-Gates ethos so prevalent at the Times and failed to do the necessary reporting. The facts are these: As an assistant chief under Davis, Gates implemented what was known as the Basic Car program, an early form of community policing in which designated officers served as community liaisons. When he became chief, Gates continued the program even as it met with resistance from then-Mayor Tom Bradley and members of the city council, who viewed these police officers as threats to their political power. It was these officers, after all, who were the most accessible representatives of city government, and they often instructed L.A. residents on how to demand improved service from their elected officials, instructions which very often included exhortations to raise hell with those who promised the world when they ran for office but, once elected, delivered little.
As one who lived through this municipal tug of war and recalls it well, I can say that Bradley was every bit as intransigent as Gates was accused of being, yet whenever the long-simmering feud between the two men is discussed in the L.A. Times, the blame for it is invariably placed solely on Gates. And, as Charlie Beck would surely recall, it was hard to emphasize community relations while we were racing from one shooting call to the next, as officers are seldom required to do today even in L.A.’s most violent neighborhoods.
But there is trouble ahead. In January, budget cuts will force the California Department of Corrections to release up to 30,000 “low-risk” prison inmates (as if there were such a thing), the greatest share of whom will return to the Los Angeles neighborhoods where they were arrested. And the city’s budget is no less bleak: though the LAPD has expanded to 10,000 officers in recent years it will grow no further, and the elimination of cash overtime in favor of compensatory time off will result in a net loss of hundreds of officers on the streets.
Charlie Beck might be as evolved and progressive as they come, but the combination of more criminals and fewer cops will pose a challenge for him. If he and the LAPD fail to meet it, Los Angeles might be in for more of those dark days.
I used to live in LA and still have a passing interest on what goes on out there. While I’ve seen no proof, I can’t believe LA would appoint a non-black as CoP. Is Beck black or white?
Thank you for having written this Jack Dunphy. You always write well and are an excellent essayist. Here’s hoping that your readership and influence grows.
Ask any former CHP about the dark days of LAPD . If you didn’t have at least a beat down on a minority to hide , you could not be trusted . Police committing homicides were not at all rare .
Nat Turner, “chippie”?, is, by his own statement, either a liar or a criminal.
If he has all this wonderful evidence of homicides, assaults, etc., on minority persons by LAPD officers, why has he never reported even one such instance?
And, Chippies are citation writers, not real cops. In terms of TV personas, they are only Eric Estradas; not Jack Webbs.
In LA there is a thin Blue line which separates the good folks from the bad guys. Libel, slander, denigrate that Line, and you create a jungle of criminal chaos. And the next time you really need a cop, you might as well call a hippie.
When you pin on that tin target, and set out to “protect and serve”, you expect to have to bang it out with the perps. But the slimeballs who will really do you in are those who lie about you, institute false charges, demean you continually, hoping to structure that demonic chaos of which they are so fond. Punks who love to make accusations they cannot begin to prove.
Cop-haters, in love with every known perversion.
1. NCBob:
I used to live in LA and still have a passing interest on what goes on out there. While I’ve seen no proof, I can’t believe LA would appoint a non-black as CoP. Is Beck black or white?
He’s white. This is why I found the whole process somewhat amazing: all *3* of the final candidates for the position were white guys, even the unfortunately named Michael Moore. As an aside, when I first heard Michael Moore was going to be LAPD chief, my reaction was that his only qualification was an obvious ability to consume donuts.
So when I saw the list of final candidates, saw the choice, and watched a black police commission head (John Mack) and a Latino mayor (Villaraigosa) praise this white guy, I felt that the selection process must have been less political than it has been in the past. Bratton was obviously chosen for unusual skills (as “Dunphy” notes) and he performed as expected.
As for the police committing homicides comment, I’m sure it happened a few times, but I doubt it was that widespread. Even back then people would get caught, and with the advances in science we do occasionally catch criminals years, even decades after their crimes. A guy was busted not too long ago for killing two cops in 1957; LAPD recently arrested one of their own art theft detectives, because she allegedly killed a romantic rival two decades or so ago. If it had been widespread, there would be lots of people (or cops) getting arrested now…
Beck is white, but his moustache is 100% Mexican-American.
A complete farce that we now know what makes for effective policing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, but won’t practice effective policing because it “discriminates.”
Good analysis and gloomy – but probably accurate – prognostication. Best wishes to CB, his mustache and his troops. And who could ever rely on chippies to hold a perimeter? They might miss their latte reservation.
Good analysis Jack. I’m a 19-yr veteran and we can handle the challenge of more crooks on the streets if the “kids” (young cops with less than 5 yrs on the Dept.) can handle it. Most of them are great kids who are going to have great careers. Some of them need to make another career choice, because they suck at this one. They’re accustomed to a slower pace of work. When the call load picks up (as it inevitably will) they’ll have to work harder and faster. Those who enjoy hard work will adjust and those who don’t will stand there with a confused “What the hell just happened? look on their faces.
If you are a middleclass person still living in LA,or any third world city in the USA,you deserve what they get by way of libtard govt.
With the selection of Charlie Beck, it suggests merit may actually have a place in government today, at least with this highly visible political appointment. His competence and adoration for the officers, organization, and community are genuine and I believe without self-service in mind. With a fiscal crisis, more cops, and less crime than in the last fifty years, it suggests that his challenges with only increase with each day at the helm. One cannot please all of the people all of the time, but he can please the community and his organization with continuing to act with integrity, transparency, and above all – Leadership! Good luck!
Where liberalism lives, things die. Los Angeles is obviously no exception.
Say goodnight, Mr. Beck.