(PHOTO NOTE: A bunch of people posted rainbow-over-Los Angeles photos Monday on Facebook. This one is by my friend, photographer Anne Fishbein. She ran out and snapped it while she had turkey soup cooking in the kitchen.)

Monday night, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck sat down at the LA Times for a Q & A session. Video of the event will be available shortly, but until then, by far the most entertaining account of the event is from LA Times crime reporter Richard Winton’s Twitter updates.

(UPDATE: The video was promised. But it still ain’t there. Keep you eye on this spot. If I see it, I’ll post it.)

(Winton, who goes by the handle, LACrimes, is a champion Twitterer.)

The Tweets are as follows:

1. Lapd chief Beck says there is projected to be about 300 homicides this year-still too many-but 19% than 2008

2. New lapd chief charlie beck more willing to say other influences on crime than predecessor Bill Bratton.

3. Stations aren’t unstaffed but they are staffed at the danger level, lapd chief charlie beck. He plans to put more resources to line offcers

4. Chief Charlie Beck says the use of force was clearly out of policy in rodney king beating. Charges yes. .Prison time “not sure abt that.

5. Chief Charlie Beck says he is a product of the lapd change. The dept use to police over the city than w the city.

6. New LAPD is about policing with people than over people, says LAPD Chief Charlie Beck at LA Times forum

7.Policing is about the entire community policing itself, says new LAPD Chief Charlie Beck at LAT chief forum at latimes.com

8. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck at LA Times forum says he guesses 13 to 17% of crime related to illegal immigrants. He supports special order 40.

9. Lapd Chief Charlie Beck says to do the policing he would like to do 12000 officers would be ideal. But he knows he isn’t abt to get that

10. New lapd Chief Charlie Beck says he won’t endorse candidates. Bill Bratton endorsed candidates and angered some.

11. Chief Charlie Beck tells LA Times forum his goal is to create an organization who success is not dependent on the leader.

12. Lapd chief charlie beck says of new lapd hq art “just glad it is on the times side of the building” the the art was dubbed cow splats

.

And the logical last and pièce de résistance Tweet:

13. When Edtr Jim Newton joked with Chief Charlie Beck that there are journalists sme lke to see in prison, Beck replied “where is Winton.”

So there you have it: Chief Charlie Beck in a lucky 13 Tweets—1820 characters or under.

And while we’re on the subject, here is that must-have book for your Christmas stocking. It is called, in all seriousness, Twitterature: The World’s Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less, by LA writer David Rensin’s son Emmitt Rensin. David has just Tweeted that you should buy this book, 1. because it’s funny, and 2. because it’ll help pay for his son’s college education.

Below you’ll find the release that announces the latest round of musical chairs going on at the LAPD, as Chief Charlie Beck continues with his reorganization.

Other than the very depressing site of seeing Sharon Papa’s name being snatched away from the role of Assistant Chief to the position of Assistant Commander in the Valley Bureau (likely meaning around a $60 K pay cut), there are no monster surprises.

Since this is all being closely watched, (by those of us who watch such things, anyway) certainly as time goes along there will be more opinions surfacing—both praise and otherwise.

Right now, however, most on the list are getting good reviews.

Here’s the official statement:

Chief Beck Names Three New Commanders and Continues Reorganization

Los Angeles: Today, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck announced that Captains Blake Chow, Bob Green and Mike Moriarty will each be promoted to the rank of Commander.

In addition to the new members of his leadership team, Chief Beck revealed the next phase in his effort to reorganize the Police Department for efficiency and effectiveness. The following changes, subject to budgetary review and approval, will be effective January 3, 2010.

Office of Operations

• Commander Dave Doan will become the Assistant to the Director, Office of Operations.

• Captain Blake Chow will be promoted to the rank of Commander and will become the Assistant Commanding Officer, Operations- Central Bureau.

• Captain Bob Green will be promoted to the rank of Commander and will become the Assistant Commanding Officer, Operations- South Bureau.

• Commander Andrew Smith will become the Assistant Commanding Officer, Operations- West Bureau.

• Commander Sharon Papa will become an Assistant Commanding Officer, Operations- Valley Bureau.

• Commander Jorge Villegas will remain an Assistant Commanding Officer, Operations- Valley Bureau.

More after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been madly editing and grading around a zillion pages of student papers (and will be doing so through next Friday), thus I’m a bit slow in posting the list of command staff that new Chief of Police Charlie Beck announced yesterday after noon.

The complete text of Beck’s announcement is at the end of the post. But Joel Rubin’s article in Tuesday’s LA Times gets to a lot of the issues that have the city’s police watchers talking.

Here are some clips [Bracketed italics are mine]:

Less than a week after taking over the Los Angeles Police Department, Chief Charlie Beck announced a shake-up in the department’s command staff, including the demotion of two of the LAPD’s highest-ranking officials and promotion of several others.

Beck, who was confirmed as chief by the City Council last Tuesday, promoted Deputy Chief Michel Moore to become one of the LAPD’s three assistant chiefs and assigned him to a newly created post in charge of Special Services…. [NOTE: THERE USED TO BE TWO Assistant Chiefs under Bratton.]

In his new post, Moore will oversee an array of specialized operations that, until now, have been run separately, including the agency’s Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau, the elite Metropolitan Division and the Detective Bureau.

To make room for Moore, Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell, who for several years has been the second-highest-ranking person in the department, dropped one rank to deputy chief and will take on a new position as chief of detectives.

[This is a significant series of moves. For example, the new arrangement makes Moore the boss of McDonnell, among other people, which is a little weird. McDonnell has been a very highly regarded Assistant Chief of some sort or another for seven years. Now he goes a rung down to become a Deputy Chief of Detectives. But instead of reporting directly to the Chief of Police as Beck did when Bratton put him in the same position, he reports to Mike Moore, the guy who's been Deputy Chief in the Valley, and the other member of the threesome who were all vying for the department's top job. it's fine, I guess, but weird.

On the other hand, although I've not confirmed this with McDonnell, I've heard that he wanted a position in which he was commanding troops, in other words, something more on-the-ground rather than simply managerial, as that kind of post was the element that his already full CV has somewhat lacked. There are only a few possible jobs that would have allowed him this kind of troop command---one of them the Chief oF Detectives position. But nearly all those jobs required a drop down a rank to Deputy Chief.

Yes, I know this sounds like angels....pins...dancing. Or an irritatingly insider drama with more characters than a Russian novel. But, as with the formation of a presidential cabinet---albeit on a far smaller scale---in forming the LAPD command staff, it is exactly this kind of minutiae that could eventually matter.

In any case, out of Bratton's original 10th floor configuration, Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger is about the only one left in place, as well he should have been. But the new arrangement significantly carves away at his power, which is likely not accidental. ]

In the most dramatic move, Beck demoted Assistant Chief Sharon Papa, who has run the Support Services Bureau, down two levels to the rank of commander….

Papa was replaced with Deputy Chief Sandy Jo MacArthur, who is well-liked, was a Bratton favorite, and one of the people whom, all those betting on Beck’s inner circle command staff, had listed as a sure thing.

But Papa was very, very well-liked too, so….

Anyway, there’s more here.

And there will be more still to come.

ONE MORE NOTE: With rare exceptions, Bill Bratton surrounded himself with the strongest people available, not necessarily the ones who were his closest friends.

But of course Bratton was an outsider, thus he did not come to the department with close friendships.

In constrast, Charlie Beck has spent a lifetime at the LAPD and has, naturally, forged strong personal ties.

How those personal ties affect his ongoing and crucial shaping of the department’s command staff is something that many in the city are watching, and will continue to watch, with a great deal of interest.

Okay, here’s the actual Beck memo:

Read the rest of this entry »

So ….when you are a brand new chief of police how do you gain the respect and professional devotion of your newly acquired troops?

What unmistakable signal can you give that will communicate to your officers that you have their best interests in mind?

One method is to give all the cops a gift-–something they really, really want.

Newly-sworn Chief of Police Charlie Beck had his first official staff meeting at the LAPD’s recently completed headquarters on Wednesday. Everyone from captain’s rank and above was asked to attend.

Most of the meeting reportedly fell into the realm of what was expected. Beck talked about how he respected all the other contenders for chief, how crime and community patrol are his priorities and how he is going to push resources away from centralization and out to the divisions. His vision is to “make what Bratton started our destiny.” In other words, he will keep crime down, keep the counter terrorism bureau healthy, and will further transform the LAPD culture from the roots up while honoring what was started with the federal consent decree.

He will also be doing some reorganization in January, he said, and asked for input from those in the room.

And then he gave everyone a gift.

He told the officers that, when in uniform, cops would no longer have to wear ties with their long-sleeved dress shirts.

Everyone was thrilled.

“The big news for the rank and file,” one insider told me in an email. “New rule -long sleeve shirts with no ties ………hooray!”

One of the first chiefs to recognize the importance of giving department members this sort of psychological cadeau was Daryl Gates who told his troops that, except on formal occasions, officers no longer had to wear the traditional LAPD billed hat when on the job.

Gates told Patt Morrison that the hat business (and the fact that he made it the fashion for LAPD brass to wear plain blue uniforms, even for dress, instead of the gold braid covered parade get-ups that had previously been required) was something he was ” really proud of…”

When I was assistant chief in operations,” he said,” I’d roll up on a call and I’d see these officers run back to the car and put their hats on: Hats are part of the uniform. These poor officers were diverting their attention from the incident because they’re concerned about not wearing their hats. So when I became chief, I said the hats go.”

Willie Williams, who was quite unpopular with the rank and file, cemented the cops’ antipathy for him with what one might call an anti gift. I’ve had any number of officers tell me about their irritation regarding Williams’ insistence that they make a large, very un-So-Cal, and rather expensive jacket, a required part of their sartorial accouterments. (Cops groused to me privately that they were convinced Williams only chose the coat because it better covered his formidable girth.)

“What Gates and now Beck did may sound small,” said one of my department sources, “but it’s actually a big deal, because it says to the officers, ‘I get it. I get what you deal with, day to day. I get what’s important to you.’” All of which goes a long way in winning loyalty.

Good move, Chief Beck. Sometimes it really is all about the accessories (metaphorically speaking).

Yesterday I linked to Kevin Grant’s Neon Tommy story about new LA Weekly editor-in-chief, Drex Heikes and his plans to bring the paper back to strength and relevance.

Last night, as I reread Kevin’s piece I got to thinking about what has become so bothersome about the existing LA Weekly in the last few years.

Certainly, it still has Jonathan Gold’s wonderful reviews, and Christine Pelisek is still doing truly fine crime reporting. (Although, Christine, is it really necessary to refer to some of LA’s less affluent neighborhoods as the city’s “badlands?” A small point, admittedly, but that and the use of diseases to describe certain elements in LA’s population could go, trust me.)

And the new guy, Dennis Romero, seem to be doing a lively job his daily news blogging. I miss Steve Mikulan’s intelligent take on things, but okay, we’ve got Dennis now. And he’s got his good qualities too.

He had, for example, a nicely grumpy take this week on the city council’s inability to regulate marijuana dispensaries after two years, contrasted with their quick passage of a regulation banning cat declawing. (I’m personally against cat declawing too, but really. Priorities, people.)

But here’s the problem. Too often I catch the Weekly writing things that are either cringe-makingly slanted, or demonstrably untrue. One example of the former was the Weekly’s hit piece on Bill Bratton that ran last spring..

Then more recently, Romero wrote a small news feature on the new chief of police, Charlie Beck, that was littered with unsupported insinuations and outright falsehoods.

POLICE CHIEFS AND POODLES

The piece led with the suggestion that Beck was being trotted around like the mayor’s “poodle” to the four regional meet-and-greets that he and Villaraigosa did in South Los Angeles, Van Nuys, El Sereno, and the Westside. Student reporters from my USC class went to two of the four events and found them jammed with community members, and described Beck as very responsive to the questions and comments of residents who seemed thriller to have a chance to check out the new (nearly) chief.

But, sure, yeah, Antonio had his own political reasons for trotting out the likable Beck in advance of Beck’s confirmation by the City Council. And, okay, if one wishes to write a snarky story to point that out, why not?

IT WAS MIDWAY THROUGH THE SAME STORY THAT ROMERO WENT OFF THE RAILS.

After the snark about Beck being the mayor’s fancy dog (which is reasonably preposterous, but whatever) Romero went a lot farther.

He wrote that Beck was a forced choice who was jammed down the collective throat of an unhappy police commission by the mayor (along with Bill Bratton) who was determined to have Charlie Beck and no one but Charlie Beck as his chief.

….a backroom process that was so rapid and, perhaps, so prejudiced toward the man backed by Bratton that few outsiders applied for what is the brass ring of the police world.

Romero quotes blogger and former LA Daily News editor, Ron Kaye, as saying: “….it was always a done deal. There wasn’t any real process or search that was conducted.” (On his own blog Kaye goes further and quotes anonymous sources as saying that Beck wasn’t even on the list of the commission’s original three finalists at all, and that the commission had to rejigger the list of three to add Beck so as not to anger the mayor.)

Romero followed up with how…”…it is widely known now that the Police Commission was irritated when Villaraigosa undercut it by publicly announcing during the summer that a chief would be chosen by the fall, making it all but impossible politically for the Police Commission to launch a serious nationwide search that takes months…

In that the position of chief of police has a strong affect on the city’s health and well being, if the mayor had completely compromised the selection process that would be in important thing on which to report.

If it happened to be true.

SOURCES ANYONE?

Since I’d followed the selection process closely, some might say….um…obsessively, and Romero and Kaye’s reporting didn’t jibe with anything I heard, I figured I’d simply do a bit of fact checking.

Although, I had plenty of inside sources, I had not talked to anybody on the police commission.

I called Alan Skobin, one of the five police commissioners who were given the task of narrowing the 13 semi-finalist candidates given them by the city’s personnel chief (whose team had winnowed the field from the original 24 applicants).

In other words, Skobin was one of those five-some of folks whom Romero and the Weekly said had been force-fed Beck, and who were “widely known” to be damned unhappy that their search process was amputated, and who may not have wanted Beck on their list of three finalists at all.

I noted that Romero had briefly quoted Skobin, meaning he too had spoken to him. So maybe Skobin knew the inside dirt that I had somehow missed.

THE COMMISSIONER SPEAKS

Skobin and I spoke for about a half hour during which time we chatted in dept about all of the Weekly’s points—about the pressure, the truncated search time, and so on.

Skobin—an attorney and the Vice President of Galpin Motors—is a very bright, mild-mannered man, but he was clearly exasperated about what the Weekly had inferred.

“That’s absolutely not true,” he said—and he had told the Weekly as much as well.

“I was there. I was one of the five people in the room for every discussion! We didn’t have any pressure from the mayor. He kept his hands completely off and let us do our job. In fact I even thanked him for it.” Skobin paused to look for the right words. “Honestly, Celeste, we felt good at the end because we felt the process really worked. I know my fellow commissioners. And I really feel that everyone had an open mind. There was an incredibly diverse pool of very credible, capable candidates. And we worked to make sure that everyone had an even playing field.”

Skobin said a lot more and in greater detail. But that’s the bottom line of it.

About the accusation that there wasn’t a proper search, Skobin laughed. “Look,” he said, Bill Bratton was the highest profile police chief in the nation. When he resigned it was national news. “We paid for a small search and certainly had ads in all the proper places.” But what serious candidate wouldn’t know the job was open, Skobin said. “We didn’t feel in was necessary to spend $100 thousand more of the tax payers’ money to pay some executive search company. Why would we? Everyone knew this job was open.”

Moreover, according to Skobin, although there was there was the general belief that, unlike when Bratton was selected, the time was likely ripe for a homegrown candidate, the process still welcomed all comers.

The Weekly, however, insisted otherwise. As further proof that the fix was in, Romero wrote ominously that “….such big-gun names as San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon and Miami Police Chief John Timoney did not turn up as finalists. The process was seen by some as a mayoral ramrod down the public’s throat of Bratton’s favorite soldier.”

Let’s see. Hmmmm. Maybe it’s a mayoral a conspiracy. Or…..maybe Gascon and Timoney weren’t on the list of finalists because they didn’t apply for the job?

I knew the answer to the question from my own sources, but I asked Skobin anyway.

“Timoney didn’t apply to my knowledge. We certainly never saw him.”

And Gascon?

George Gascon is the LAPD’s former Assistant Chief who had since taken over as chief of police in Mesa, Arizona and then had been sworn in as San Francisco’s new chief on the day that Bratton formally announced his resignation.

Skobin laughed again. “I know George didn’t apply because he announced as much publicly. It was in all the papers.”

Right. A fact that I knew because I know Gascon. But also information which Romero or his editor Jill Stewart could have acquired with a 30-second with Google search.

But really, why let facts get in the way when you’ve got a mayor to slam.

EVERYONE IS NOT ENTITLED TO HIS OWN FACTS

For the record, yes, Bratton made it known that Beck was his preference, plus Connie Rice and Jeff Carr (the mayor’s former gang guy, now chief of staff) were actively and forcefully lobbying for Charlie Beck who was also their pick to click.

But by every single credible insider account, the mayor liked Beck a lot, but was dithering right up until the last minute BECAUSE HE DIDN’T LIKE BEING PRESSURED.

“I know for a fact he was still deciding up until the last minute,” said Skobin.

I do too.

And so to counter those sources and to bolster their assertions the Weekly had…..?

No one. Not a soul on the record. Or off the record for that matter.

Evidently Romero was able to intuit that these things were “widely known”.….. by “many”…. and also by “some City Hall critics.”

Okay, to be fair, the Weekly also had Ron Kaye—editor turned pundit, who on his own blog had the purported conspiracy so muddled that he couldn’t even get the number of semi-finalists sent to the police commission right, and gleefully reported as valid every crackpot rumor he could get his hands on, no matter how easily dispelled.

SO WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT THIS?

Why does this matter? After all the LA Weekly is perfectly free to opine however much it wants about Antonio Villaraigosa and any other public figure.

It is a newspaper’s job—it is its sacred task, if you will—to hold public figures accountable.

(And Villaraigosa assuredly has a list of things that require some accounting. [see above post])

A news outlet is not, however, free to manufacture its own facts in order to do so.

If a paper shaves the dice on the truth when it is convenient—even if the untruths are the inside-baseballish sort of things most people would not catch, and even fewer would care all that much about—then we cannot trust what that paper says on anything.

And that, my dear friends, matters very much.

A FRIENDLY NOTE TO DREX HEIKES:

Drex, I know your work well and I don’t think for a minute that you would willingly co-sign on this kind of shoddy, deliberately mendacious behavior. But it has happened more than a few times at the paper whose helm you are now commanding, and this time it happened under your watch.

So it is you who needs to fix it. We are counting on you.

The LA Weekly once mattered.

It would be nice if it mattered again.

An hour and a half into a meeting that started at 8:30 a.m. or so, and after much self-congratulatory pontificating (on the part of the council members, that is) the Los Angeles City Council has confirmed Charlie Beck as the 55th Chief of the LAPD.

Congratulations Chief Charlie.

We are utterly delighted to have you at the helm of our city’s police department.

[insert sound of loud applause.]

THE MATTER OF JUDGE MANUEL L. REAL

His reversal rate is estimated to be 10 times the average for sitting federal judges.

He has had ten cases outright snatched away from him by appeals courts.

In 2006, there was serious talk of impeaching him.

The Judicial Council of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has examined 89 cases in which his conduct was challenged.

He has been exhibit A in the ongoing discussion about whether federal judges need better oversight.

Now, this past Friday, U.S. Judge Manuel Real was sharply rebuked by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for his bizarre and unaccountably high-handed handling of yet another case.

While he has his supporters, he has a long list of critics, including a string of prominent attorneys and some legal scholars have said publicly that, if Judge Real takes a dislike to one’s case or one’s client, it is extreme difficult to get a fair trial in his court.

Having observed his behavior twice close-up during the last two bail hearings for Alex Sanchez, I can fully understand the concern about his impartiality. It is not that he is overly conservative or overly liberal on the law. It is more that he seems often to make up his mind on things whimsically, facts and due process be damned, and then will skew the proceedings to match his personal view—all of which is pretty much what his critics describe as well.

U.S. District Court judges, like Real, are appointed for life, as a way of protecting judicial independence. It takes just short of an act of God to remove them, an arrangement that also has its distinct downsides.

As it stands now, Judge Manuel Real will be the one to preside over Sanchez’ trial.

In the meantime, Alex Sanchez’ attorney has filed an appeal with the 9th Circuit of Real’s decision not to grant Sanchez bail.

CHARLIE BECK’S AH-HA MOMENT

Joel Rubin has an interesting and thoughtful story in Sunday’s LA Times about the evolution of soon-to-be LAPD Chief Charlie Beck’s view of policing. Some of it we already know, some is new. But Rubin has re-contextualized the facts of Beck’s philosophic journey in a way that makes for a good an informative read.

NOTE: In a separate story, the Times also reports on some old unproved allegations of mismanagement when he was a board member of the Los Angeles Police Relief Association.

OHIO’S (AND TED STRICKLAND’S) CLEMENCY PROBLEM

According to the Columbus Dispatch, Governor Ted Strickland has 712 pending clemency applications sitting on his desk (metaphorically speaking. I am assuming all 712 aren’t, literally on his desk). Some date back to 2005.

The problem is not that Governor Strickland turns down clemency requests with great abandon (or that he grants them with that same abandon). The problem is that the governor of Ohio does nothing. He just lets the requests sit. And sit.

As its case in point, the Dispatch cites the story of a former business man with no previous adult criminal record, now a prisoner for a decade, Bradley Tapp, whom the Ohio parole board recently unanimously recommended for release. The board also recommended Tapp for executive clemency in 2008. Even the judge who sentenced Tapp to fourteen years in prison for his angry, drunken, violent assault on two neighbors in 1999, has signed an affidavit saying his own decision was too harsh.

Anyway, whatever the merits, or lack thereof of each individual case, one cannot help but wonder why Strickland continues to fail to make decisions on these 712 lives.

ONLY DISCONNECT: ONE MAN’S TALE OF DIGITAL HUNTER-GATHERING

This essay isn’t in the least social justice-y. But it was in Sunday’s NY times Magazine, and it’s very smart and funny and you should read it. (Really.)

It’s about giving up one’s Internet connection. Sort of. It is written by one of my Bennington pals, Wyatt Mason, who is ridiculously brainy, but who also (thankfully) has a silly side.

GRANDSTANDING OVER BLOCKING HELP FOR VETS WITH LONG TERM HEALTH CARE NEEDS

The first paragraph of Monday’s NY Times Op Ed explains the issue very plainly.

A creative plan to help wounded veterans and their exhausted families adapt to the strain of long-term home care is on the brink of bipartisan approval — but for the familiar obstructionism of Senator Tom Coburn. This is one of the most deplorable displays by the lawmaker-physician, an Oklahoma Republican who relishes playing the self-styled budget hawk by putting attention-grabbing holds on crucial legislation.

Read the rest.

MEDICAL MARIJUANA—GOOD SENSE AND NONSENSE

Today, Monday, a joint session of the City Council’s Public Safety and Planning and Land
Use committees will talk over (likely endlessly, if the past is any bellwether) an ordinance that would outlaw most of the medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles.

Under the proposed ordinance, medical marijuana “collectives’‘ would be allowed to grow pot for members with serious illnesses, but could not sell marijuana for a profit, and collectives could have no more than five pounds of dried pot or 100 plants at any given time.

MEANWHILE, in West Hollywood, reports the LA Times’ John Hoeffell, the We Ho city council has been rigorously and appropriately regulating marijuana dispensaries for years, and everything has worked out fine for all concerned without the kind of draconian restrictions the LA City Council is now about to contemplate.

PHOTO NOTE: All the roses in these occasional “Fresh picks’ or “Monday picks’ photos are taken in my garden. In the case, the rose is a classic yellow tea called Midas Touch

CHARLIE BECK & THE COUNCIL

Monday, Chief of Police designate Charlie Beck will go before the City Council’s Public Safety committee as the first step of his confirmation process.

So far it’s mostly been love and kisses from the council. Greig Smith, the Public Safety committee’s chairman, has said that he is “…confident that Deputy Chief Beck will be an excellent chief, and will build on the great strides that Los Angeles has seen in reducing crime and making the city safer under Chief Bill Bratton.”

Yep. Now let’s get him confirmed so that he can go to work.

CHARLIE BECK & HIS NEWLY BADGED KID

This past Friday morning, Charlie Beck pinned a badge on his son who will graduate from the police academy in one month. (Evidently the badge ceremony takes place around four weeks before one becomes a full fledged cop.)

DowntownNews photographer, Gary Leonard, happened to be there at the ceremony and snapped some photos.

SCOTUS & LWOP KIDS MONDAY

The two, much-awaited Supreme Court cases having to do with juvenile life sentences will begin Monday.

Bill Mears of CNN.com has some interesting perspectives on the issue.

Lyle Denniston at SCOTUS BLOG has an excellent analysis.

The NY Times has this editorial.

When I got home late last night, instead of posting, I’m afraid I collapsed into a useless puddle of exhaustion And am at UCI all day today. But a couple of things before I go.

First, everyone in LA (or who who cares about LA, or who once ever even vaguely drove through LA on their way to Las Vegas) must, of course, listen to the interview with outgoing chief, Bill Bratton, by Stephen Colbert.

Colbert asked: How hard was it to transition from one police stereotype in one city to another police stereotype in another city?

Bratton didn’t miss a beat: “From Jack Webb in Los Angeles to Andy Sipowetz in New York…?”

Anyway, it’s short and fun to watch. (McGruff the Crime Dog is mentioned)

Colbert: Why don’t you just become chief of police everywhere?

Bratton: “That’s what I’m trying to do with my new job.”

Speaking of new jobs, on Thursday, our new, nearly-chief-of-police Charlie Beck was on Patt Morrison’s show.

It’s a lovely interview. He sounds excellent. Beck talks again about how he will be “roots up” not “top down.” Bratton brought a lot of change to the department.

“Now it’s time to move those changes deeper down in the organization.” Yep. All true.

But much more—too much for me to randomly quote here and do it justice. Just listen.

But, while we’re on the subject, why is he still our new not-quite chief? Why in the world can’t the city council just confirm him over lunch today?

ONE MORE THING…. Kevin Roderick’s LA Observed segment on KCRW airs this afternoon. It isn’t up yet, but check back later as he’s going to be talking about Charlie Beck.

(How do I know this? A. Because Kevin’s a pal, and B. because called me for a Beck-related chat on Thursday.)

Most who closely tracked the selection of, at first, 13-candidates, then three finalists, and finally Deputy Chief Charlie Beck as the yet-to-be confirmed new chief of the LAPD, have likely read the article by Joel Rubin and Phil Willon in Wednesday morning’s paper, an account of the last minute wrestling match that went on inside the mayor’s office before Antonio Villaraigosa actually settled on Beck as his choice.

To summarize: Rubin and Willon write that the mayor felt intolerably pushed to choose Beck, because Charlie Beck had been Bratton’s choice. The recently departed chief had done a lot of lobbying in Beck’s behalf—some felt to an unseemly degree. Plus there was a cadre of others in and around city hall who were also pushing hard for the personable Deputy Chief.

Understandably irked at the efforts to box him into a choice that might or might not be his own, Antonio rebelled and, even though he actually liked Beck a lot, strongly considered going other directions. In fact, at the last minute, according to the Times the mayor was still dithering over whether to choose Charlie or the Valley Bureau’s deputy chief, Michel Moore.

Rubin and Willon write:

Though many had anointed Beck early on as the favorite to win the job, the outcome behind closed doors, where decisions were actually made, could easily have been different.

Of course, the glaringly ironic thing about this statement is the fact that chief among those “many” who most energetically and publicly “anointed” Beck was the LA Times.

NOTE: Before I get a slew of corrective emails, let me quickly state that I am not suggesting that anyone at the LA Times was campaigning for Charlie Beck. But I am saying they appeared to buy into the spin that was coming both from certain LAPD types and a small cadre in and around the mayor’s office, all of whom had a strong investment in Charlie being the choice.

The upshot was that, in addition to the behind the scenes pressure squeezing the mayor, the city’s main newspaper was yammering that the selection of Beck was nearly a foregone conclusion.

Which was not exactly helpful.

(It was also unhelpful when, the day after the Police Commission’s three finalists were announced, the Times ran an editorial that opined..“The commission has done its job well in winnowing out many less-qualified candidates.”

Dear LA Times: Really? Okay, so by “less-qualified candidates” did you mean Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger, the guy who was head of operations during the recent drop in crime, so is credited by most as having a big part in that downturn in crime stats? Or maybe you just meant Assistant Chief Sharon Papa, the first woman in department history to be promoted to that title, and the former Chief of Police for the MTA?

I hate to be picky, but what exactly are you people smoking over there when you write stuff like that?)

Anyway, so back to the mayor’s decision-making process. What seems to be true is that, at the last minute, Villaraigosa genuinely wobbled over his choice.

On Sunday night when AV moved his announcement back a day, from Monday morning to Tuesday morning even people like me assumed that the selection had been firmed up over the weekend, that Beck would be the new chief, and that the delay was merely stagecraft.

We assumed wrong. I now know from my own sources that, on Monday, the mayor was back on the fence again and phoning around to get a few more eleventh hour reads on the candidates.

Then on Monday afternoon, there was a sudden blast of rumors coming out of city hall that all bets were off—and that now AV was leaning toward Michel Moore.

Deputy Chief Moore had been the guy out of the three who—despite his capabilities and his impressive resume—was deemed to be the least likely of the finalists to emerge in the lead simply because, in addition to Bratton and others pushing Beck, a lot of the law enforcement community—inside and outside the LAPD— strongly favored Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell, who was also ultra experienced and supremely capable.

By early evening, some of the most ardent Beck supporters were in a flaming panic. The mayor was definitely going for Moore, they said.

Finally, sometime after 9 p.m. the gossip drums grew eerily silent.

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