Bratton announces Sergio Diaz as Central Division Replacement

In the midst of the storm, Bratton has made an inspired choice in naming Commander Sergio Diaz as the new head of Central Bureau of the LAPD, replacing disciplined Dep. Chief Caylor Carter. At the risk of sounding like the paid shill in the audience, let me say that Diaz is one of the smartest, most ethical, best respected, calmest and most humanistic people in the whole damned department. But, as he’s not an ambitious self promoter, he tends to fly under the press radar so, outside of the LAPD world, few have noticed him.

Here’s his official bio, but it doesn’t capture the man.

I first got to know Sergio when I was reporting on the department’s training division for the LA Weekly in the summer of 2002. [Here’s that link.] I was asked to report specifically on what training was doing to get the department’s officers to behave…well….better, post Rodney King and the Consent Decree. Sergio was, at the time, the head of the police recruit training academy.

I went into the research with what can be charitably called a bad attitude. Yet, after bungee-cording myself to poor Sergio’s ankle for a month or so, both with constant phone calls, and by following him and his staff around at the academy, I gradually developed a different view of what was genuinely possible at the LAPD. It required, of course, that the steering wheel be yanked away from the Command and Control Freaks then at Parker Center and given to the smart men and women whom, I was surprised to find, were quietly making small, enlightened changes at the department while no one seemed to notice. They did so in spite of the management-at-the-time of Bernard Parks, which was anything but enlightened. (Like Daryl Gates before him. Sorry, but Willie Williams doesn’t count. He was the if-you’d-blinked-you-would’a-missed-him chief who left few marks after his departure, positive or negative).

To give some idea of the kind of person Central will be getting, here are some Sergio Diaz quotes from his Cop Academy period:

Diaz on other law-enforcement models he likes:

“The Canadian Mounted Police have an academy that is entirely scenario-based.” The idea, he said, is to create critical thinkers, not just tactical experts, people who can not only shoot a gun brilliantly but who also know when to shoot the damn thing — and more important, when not to. “When recruits graduate from the RCMP they are more able to make mature, independent, humanistic judgments than recruits from elsewhere.”

On the role of training:

“Of course, training all by itself isn’t going to solve everything,” says Diaz. “It has to be part of a bigger system. The hope is that there would be an alignment throughout the department where everyone understood what’s important — which is the best possible delivery of police services to the public. We all say in our platitudes and our management principles that we work for the public, but we haven’t always behaved as if we mean it.”

[MORE SERGIO AFTER THE BREAK]

On necessary leadership qualities if the department is to change:

“You know, most of us are good soldiers,” he says finally. “We take our cue from the top. So if we’re serious about things like community policing, then the leaders of the LAPD have to show by word and deed that they really do want ä to work with the various communities, that they do want to listen to other people, so that the cop on the beat knows that it’s okay to open up to a more humanistic approach.”

On the inevitability of crisis:

In police work,” he says, “no matter how well we train people, no matter how well we monitor their behavior, the incident’s going to happen. Somebody’s going to shoot the guy with the toy gun. We’re always one radio call away from the next crisis.”

On earning the communities’ trust:

Diaz admits that the department is still far from such unquestioning community confidence. “But we have to get there.” And that will take the right chief, “someone who starts with the right premise,” says Diaz. “And the right premise isn’t ‘I know what’s best, and everyone else is an idiot.’ We need a chief who doesn’t deal with everyone but his friends in a disdainful and condescending way. It’s a tough job. But you only make it tougher if you refuse to work with people. For example, it’s dumb to pick fights with everyone in the press. That’s what this department has done for years. And it always makes us look like we’re hiding something.”

On the task of introducing the nuances of humanism into the black and white LAPD world:

“We select the most physically fit young people and teach them to shoot, drive a car fast, go over a wall and run a few blocks, put a lock on a person’s arm, look good in a uniform and be polite,” says Diaz. “And all that’s great. But in today’s world, our recruits need a more complex combination of qualities. Among other things, they need to know their own emotions and their own buttons. The last thing in the world we need is police who are not self-aware. We see where that has gotten us. We need somebody who can appreciate the shades of gray.”

In the black-and-white paramilitary world of the LAPD, the very concept of gray has traditionally been sacrilege. “But here’s the thing,” Diaz says. “We’re not the military. We treat our recruits in a rigid way, and yet we expect them to be humanistic and even innovative. In other words, we’re giving our recruits a mixed message. And frankly, this double-message issue permeates the department at all levels. It’s exactly what allowed officers to do the things that got us this consent decree.

“On the other hand,” Diaz says, “we’re not training people to be UPS drivers. We’re preparing them for a job where they may be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice. But, at age 47, I can tell you that it’s wise to lead your life acting as if everyone else is a human being…..”

Good luck, Sergio. Really.