Breakfast with the Chief

Chief William Bratton has been making the rounds for a series of good bye meetings and celebrations. (“Bill’s Good Bye Tour” is how one of his command staff described it to me yesterday, with a friendly roll of the eyes.)

On Wednesday one such event was held by Los Angeles Magazine at the Foundry on Melrose. LA Mag editor Mary Melton hosted around 30 people for breakfast, including LA Observed’s Kevin Roderick, blogger Mikey Kaus, former City councilman Jack Weiss, former LA Mag editor, Kit Rachlis, former LA Times Managing Editor Janet Clayton (now chief of Think Cure!), LA Times cop and crime writer, Joel Rubin, KPCC’s Frank Stoltze …and me—among others.

After a certain amount of meeting and greeting and some star gazing at Bratton (still, after all this time) everyone settled down to hear Melton interview the Chief.

As you can see, I’ve posted the interview here in four parts.

(Apologies for the jiggles and occasional odd framing. I need to remember to bring my little portable tripod.)

IN PART ONE….

Bratton talks about that the things he found surprising about Los Angeles when he first showed up here—and how resistant the rank-an-file was to his initial cultural changes, and about the destructive legacy of former LAPD Chief Bill Parker’s Thin Blue Line.

IN PART TWO….

Bratton talks about changing the leadership in the department in order to begin to change the culture of the LAPD.

He also talks about his most recent fights with the city council, and about what every murder costs the city in economic losses. (Hint: A lot.) In his advice to his successor, he quotes Winston Churchill: “never give up, never give up, never give up.”

IN PART THREE…..

He talks angrily about the Council snatching the trash fee revenues that he says were supposed to be allocated to the LAPD to put more cops on the street, and about those three recently-indicted officers.

He also talks about what he would do differently if he could, and why he doesn’t feel guilty for leaving the department at such a dicey time.

(Read on, there’s lots more after the jump.)

FINALLY, IN PART FOUR…

He talks about the importance of cities “to our culture and democracy” and about influence of media and his amazement that “some guy sitting in the basement in his underwear with his blog can have so much impact on your life.” (At this, many eyes swiveled toward Roderick.)

My video card was full at around the 30-minute mark. After that, Bratton talked about his frustration at the way the power in the city, rather than residing with the mayor, is split up between the city council, the board of supervisors, and, frankly, the Los Angeles County School District (which has a budget, by the way, as large or greater than that of the city). He touched briefly on the subject of Rio getting the Olympics, and talked about his pride in the new police headquarters. (He had personally moved in the day before.)

There were also some questions from the crowd and perhaps the…uh….liveliest answer was in response to Janet Clayton who asked what advice he had for his successor for dealing with Councilman Bernard Parks.

“We had one direct contretemps,” Bratton said. “I made it clear that I was the Chief of Police and he was not.” (much laughter from the crowd).

Bratton admitted that Parks had been obstructive. “[Parks’] style is that he’s micro, micro manager,” said Bratton. “It slows down city government. Look,” he said, “hire your department heads, give them a budget, and get the hell of the way. Then, if you don’t like what they’re doing, get rid of them.”

And what did he want to be known for when he left?

“Improving race relations,” he said.

It is a statement I know he means sincerely. When I first interviewed Bill Bratton during the beginning couple of months of his tenure, one of the most intriguing things he said during our two-part sit down was that he believed that law enforcement was uniquely positioned to make a positive difference in improving race relations in this country. It was something he very much hoped to be able to do in Los Angeles during his time as chief, he said.

Bratton articulated the concept at more length and better than I have here. I remember, at the time, I thought it quite an original thought and potentially prescient. I told him so. That was, I believe, the first time he’d floated the idea publicly.

Now, all these years later, while there is still a long way to go with issues of race in our city, Bill Bratton has made a significant difference to Los Angeles—in that, and a great many other ways.

No he isn’t perfect. Nobody is. And, yes, he has an ego the size of Wyoming.

But I, for one, will really miss him.