Yesterday, blogger Joe Scott, who also works for DA Steve Cooley, wrote that “Gnomes of Spring Street” have told him which three people are the finalists in the process to select a Chief of the LAPD to succeed Bill Bratton.
Then Scott names the three men who have generally been considered to be the most out in front of the front runners: Jim McDonnell, First Assistant Chief and Chief of Staff; Earl Paysinger, Assistant Chief in charge of operations; and Charlie Beck, Deputy Chief and Chief of Detectives.
Scott’s blog post was linked to and quoted from a lot yesterday.
Yet there are a few things that suggest he was rather hasty in posting his list.
1. For one thing, the LA police commission just began its interviews of the 12 pre-finalist finalists.
(At least we think there are 12 or around 12. Not even the finalists themselves were informed of the exact number. UPDATE: ABC7 says it’s 13. Eight being interviewed Wednesday, five Thursday. Along with other news crews, Channel 7 is camped outside the City Club on
Bunker Hill where the interviews are taking place.)
So if we are to believe Scott, the die is already cast, and the interviews are merely pro forma, which—by all accounts I’ve heard— is simply not true.
There are indeed some strong winds at the backs of each one of those three, and they could very easily be the triumvirate handed to the mayor in early November.
Chief of Detectives Charlie Beck is a cops-cop and the choice favored by the mayor’s chief of staff, Jeff Carr, and by Connie Rice. Beck has been Bratton’s pick as the Can-Do guy to solve such vexing problems as the rape kit backlog.
Jim McDonnell is at the top of a lot of lists, inside and outside the department. He is the skilled big picture theorist among the three, and is usually the name mentioned first by the uniforms on the street.
The well-liked former head of the department’s complicated South Bureau, during recent years, Earl Paysinger has been the man firmly in charge of operations during an extended period of dropping crime so commands much respect and has his own group of very strong supporters.
Yet to believe that anybody’s “gnomes” can predict all three as a lock at this point in the process is foolish. Plus it does not take into account all the various puzzle pieces that comprise the whole picture.
2. Look, for example, at the last shortlist for chief that an LA police commission sent to an LA mayor.
In the fall of 2002, when Bill Bratton was selected, his closest rivals from the department—people like George Gascon and Jim McDonnell— weren’t on the final list of three. Instead, the commission delivered along with Bratton’s resume, the stacked deck of Philadelphia’s former Chief John Timony and Oxnard Police Chief Art Lopez (a former LAPD deputy chief). The two were both capable men. In this situation, they were also ringers.
3. In the wide canvassing I’ve done in and around City Hall, and among the rank and file of the department, another of the names that continues to come up with frequency by street cops as one of the front-runners, is that of Assistant Chief Sharon Papa who, as the former chief of the MTA police, is the only person in the group to have had her own department to command. Do I think she’ll be the final pick? Probably not. At least, not this time. But could she be on the short list? Sure. Easily.
4. Finally, a dark horse in the mix is Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz. He was late to throw his name in, but during a short period he too has gathered a significant list of supporters from inside and outside the department. Given his depth and breadth of experience, and his performance as the problem solver head of Central Bureau (home of Avenues gang, et al), in many ways Diaz combines the main strengths of McDonnell and Beck, so cannot be crossed off either.
5. Given the talents of our homegrown candidates, the frequently expressed wishes of our very popular outgoing chief, and the unambiguous desires of the rank and file, the chances range from unlikely to impossible that Bratton’s replacement will be someone from outside the department. Yet an outsider could be among the three, just to show that the commission has fairly considered all comers.
So, yeah, the short list may, indeed, be made up of the three Scott mentions.
But I would energetically advise betting the ranch on it just yet.
PS: Joel Rubin has his own smart and well-reported take on the front runners, which is a must read on the topic.
He rightly mentions Deputy Chief Sandy Jo MacArthur, head of training division, as another dark horse. If I were to personally pick the person who has the best shot of being the department’s first woman chief, it would be MacArthur. Also, Rubin’s suggestion that the chief is quietly putting in a word for Beck is my read as well. And, the fact that the mayor put Connie Rice on his picking-the-chief advisory panel could be telling.
In short, there are very strong trends, but the jury’s still out.
PPS: The Alex Sanchez bail hearing post is still coming later.
It seems that LAPD leadership is being forced against their better judgment to side with the Gay / NAMLA lobby and cut ties with the Explorers (mostly Black and Latino Boys who aspire to become police officers) which is loosely related to the Boy Scouts of America.
Gays are statistically 100 times more likely to molest young boys than heterosexual men. Let me say it again – A Gay Scout Leader or Gay Priest is 100 times more likely to molest a young boy in their care as a heterosexual man.
Imagine that you have two drugs (A and B), both which can be equally beneficial, but one drug (drug B) causes cancer 100 times more often in the young children entrusted to your organization.
Even if drub B causes cancer in only a small percentage of boys it would be morally irresponsible for anyone to give it to a child, but this is exactly what is being demanded.
Let hope that new Chief has more sense.
Gays are statistically 100 times more likely to molest young boys than heterosexual men. Let me say it again – A Gay Scout Leader or Gay Priest is 100 times more likely to molest a young boy in their care as a heterosexual man.
What’s your source for that statement?
A heterosexual man is 1,000 times more likely to molest young girls than a gay man.
I thought the topic was next chief. Chief McDonnell has the support of the rank and file. He has worked in every area of LAPD. No one knows community policing better. Beck hasn’t been a Deputy Chief that long and many don’t think is experienced enough yet even though he has a lot of years on. Sergio Diaz made a crucial mistake going out and campaigning telling people to send letters to the Mayor before the personnel dept. finished their vetting. Diaz has only been a Deputy Chief 2 years. Many think he doesn’t have the experience and officers don’t know him well as the Assistant Chiefs. It will be interesting for sure
You must really be crafting that Alex Sanchez post.
If indeed, as one of your commenters posted, Judge Real ruled the good Father’s interpretation of the transcript irrelevant, then I’ll consider myself vindicated.
Please note where I’m coming from: I consider Alex Sanchez to be legally innocent until proven guilty. The charges against him are serious enough that I don’t think he deserves bail. It seems so far that the judge agrees. Alex does deserve a trial. A speedy one if he wants it. The government must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. (Note that’s “reasonable”–not “shadow of a doubt.”) Then and only then should Alex be locked up for good (if he’s found guilty).
These are legal terms. I, as a citizen not on the jury, am free to make up my own opinion about Alex. I do not, however, have the right to imprison him, control his freedom, etc. But I am free to form a personal opinion about him.
I understand where you’re coming from as a friend/supporter of Alex. You cannot believe this person is capable of this because you know him to have done good works in the past, because he’s likeable, because of whatever reason. As a friend, you don’t have to justify that.
But on this blog you are a journalist (at least I think that–maybe I’m interpreting your blog wrong). When you try to be Alex’s friend/advocate and a journalist covering this case, your credibility suffers on both sides.
So far you have not proven that the government is “out to get” Alex. That this is some kind of a vendetta.
Your main defense of him is that he just couldn’t have done this. You say for “many reasons” but don’t state what these are.
It would be more honest if you said something like: Look, I like the guy and I’m loyal to people I like and I’m going to stand by him through this. End of story.
No one would fault you for that (at least I wouldn’t). But to say he just couldn’t have done this seems intellectually dishonest. If you know enough about human nature, you know that it’s possible for almost anyone to do almost anything under the right circumstances.
For most people it’s not much of a stretch to imagine that a ruthless gangster-turned good guy could backslide into that life again. We are not talking about a choir boy turned killer here. We are talking about someone who WAS in a gang, a ruthless, deadly gang (that part is not in dispute), and left and is now is accused of being back in again. Regardless of what good he may have done while he was out, the fact that he may have returned is *not* that far fetched. This is not apples turned to oranges, this is a bad apple which the government is claiming has turned to bad again.
Still, the government *must* prove its case and the burden for proving his guilt is solely on the government.
CLF, I just didn’t have the time to do both late last night after I returned home from teaching and the LAPD/new chief post held the high card. (And the Sanchez bail hearing is a narrative that requires—yes—slightly more crafting.)
About Alex Sanchez, as you’ve said, I’ve made clear my personal feelings, thereby letting any reader know up front that I have a personal bias.
But as the LA Times has chosen to almost completely ignored this story, I also feel honor bound to cover it. Yet, if you go back, you’ll find that I am reporting almost entirely using a narrative form. I’m telling you the story as I see it—taking care to link liberally to the work of other good observers like my friend Tom Diaz, who—when this began anyway—has interpreted the case from the polar opposite perspective. He knows many of the crucial law enforcement players in the case, and has believed from the get-go that the likelihood is that Sanchez is guilty.
I speak regularly with others who come from that side of the fence about the Sanchez case and like issues. We often disagree, but we do our best to keep each other honest.
The advocacy journalism that I am practicing in this instance, has a long and honorable place news reporting—as long as one makes and keeps an honest contract with the reader.
Trust me when I tell you that certain LA Times editors have their own biases about the Sanchez story. At least I admit to mine.
Other supporters of Alex Sanchez have suggested a conspiracy. I have suggested no such thing. What I do believe and will continue to believe until and unless I am proven wrong, is that a very strong and entrenched bias (while we’re on the subject of biases) is at work in regard to the Sanchez case, and that this bias has strongly colored the prosecution’s view and treatment of evidence. To put it another way, I believe the feds have added two and two and gotten five.
The fact that Alex is a good and likable guy is not the issue for me. Because I have reported on LA gangs for 19 years as of this month, I know plenty of very charming, otherwise genuinely likable guys who are serving long—and righteously acquired—stretches in California state prisons.
Listen, there’ll be a trail in which we will all get to make up our minds along with the jury. Until then I’ll do my best to tell the story as honestly and fairly as I possibly can. I refuse, however, to impose a faux “objectivity” that I would find morally dishonest.
PS:
So far you have not proven that the government is “out to get†Alex. That this is some kind of a vendetta.
Your main defense of him is that he just couldn’t have done this.
And where exactly have I made these statements?
Ms. Fremon – If you really believe in your heart that Alex Sanchez is innocent, please be ready for a great dissapointment. He is going to serve federal time on this one.
The government’s case against Alex Sanchez has only touched on one incident where Sanchez fucked up and “got caught slipping”.
In reality, Alex Sanchez, while director of his organization was involved in major criminal gang conduct and illegal activities (all undercover). So, do not ever think that it was just this single incident – there were great many more.
For Sanchez’s supporters-specifically those blinded stupid politicans, you guys are so fortunate that the FBI and the LAPD do not have the brightest or smartest detectives in the world – they failed to obtain all the criminal acts that Sanchez has been involved in. They will get a conviction on Sanchez – but they are and continue to be laughing joke on investigations.
I’m sorry, Pokey but you need to show some evidence for that outrageous assertion (and the Gay/Nambla remark illustrates that you’re not so much concerned for the children as interested in defaming gays) that homosexuals are 100 times as likely to molest kids.
Mavis,
He’s got nothing. He’s just a bigot pulling numbers out of thin air.
Any of them except Moore. That guy (Moore) cannot even keep his zipper closed let alone be the Chief. Ask his ex-wife!
I say McDonald or Beck, these two men are stand up cops and will do right by the City. Diaz, would be the third chioce. The rest are very nice people, but mediocre at best.
Celeste, you claim you do not support a conspiracy theory.
Yet in your original post about Alex’s arrest
http://witnessla.com/page/2/?s=alex+sanchez&Submit=Go
you wrote:
“Alex is an excellent and great-hearted man who has made a big difference in many lives.”
Immediately following that you wrote:
“He was targeted by the LAPD for years (when he was just beginning his gang intervention work) and they never were able to find anything on him—although not for lack of trying.
Now the FBI—which has made a near industry of making Mara Salvatrucha into the ultimate gang monsters—are having a go at it.”
So to summarize: A. Alex is a great guy and B. The LAPD and FBI have been out to get him for many years. This is clearly the hypothesis you are setting up. If that’s not a conspiracy theory, I don’t know what is.
In a later update in that same post you wrote:
“With Alex Sanchez’s arrest…. I am—as are many people whom I know— praying that there is nothing that will stick. I don’t believe it, frankly. Alex is a good man.”
So again, your explanation for why he couldn’t have done is this is because he is a “good man.” (Btw, praying that “nothing will stick” is a curious turn of phrase for a person that you consider innocent.)
Even later in the same post you wrote:
“Civil rights lawyer and gang expert Connie Rice said anti-gang workers sometimes struggle to completely leave behind gang affiliations.
“The best ones are the ones who have completely gotten out of the life, but kept the relationships and still are respected,†she said. “But they are the exception and not the rule. Most of these guys are go-betweens, some act as buffers and some are still in the gang.â€
Rice said she had wondered about Sanchez because he had been absent from community meetings aimed at reducing MS-13 violence.
“The thing that makes it really complicated is that Alex did really good work,†she said. “He helped a lot of kids, put a lot of kids in school.—
And then you followed it up with, “For the record: I do not—repeat NOT-–agree with Connie on the above matter.”
Evidently, you don’t seem to believe that some of these gangsters could be playing both sides of the fence. So it doesn’t seem like there is *anything* that could convince you of Alex’s guilt. This is the point from which you start. And yet you call yourself a journalist.
We seem to have a different idea of what advocacy journalism is. (And btw, since when does reporting something in “narrative form” clear you of having to be an objective reporter?) As I see advocacy journalism, it is journalism that shines a spotlight on a subject. Not a biased, one-sided account of events that completely ignores any evidence which may be contrary to its hypothesis.
Look, do what you want to do. Support your friend Alex. Write about his bail hearings. But please, don’t call yourself a journalist. As a journalist, you don’t need to be a robot without feelings, emotions, biases. You can still be a human with biases, just KEEP THEM OUT OF YOUR STORIES.
As for the LA Times editors having biases, I don’t doubt it. All newspaper people do. I just don’t want to see those biases in print. (I do think the LA Times is showing a bias by *not* covering this story.)
If you want to really help Alex, why don’t you just stop calling yourself a “journalist” and start up a support site (or post on the sites that already exist), help raise more money for his defense, and use your connections to find him a better lawyer? As a friend, you would better serve him that way.
If Celeste is a journalist, I’m Chris Cringle. Alex Sanchez (a complete SAVAGE) is a POS Gangster, and the weapon of choice for MS-13 is a machete, not a pen or a type-writer. As far as I’m concerned Celeste and Alex can both go suck start a howitzer.
Celeste is such a “jounalist” doesn’t that imply that she can read? If so, perhaps she have someone read her the title of the topic here. Put down the tequilla Celeste and stop hating.
Billy: “As far as I’m concerned Celeste and Alex can both go suck start a howitzer.”
Charming.
And thank you CLF for your helpful and no doubt extremely knowledgeable advice as to what I should do with my career.
I’ll be sure to pass your advice along to the people who have given my journalism a very long list of local and national awards over the 30 years that I’ve been working as a journalist, the 20 or so different folks who have including my articles in anthologies and text books, my own book publishers, my literary agent, the six universities where I have either teaching appointments or where I regularly guest lecture, the non-profits that that have recruited me for grants and/or fellowships (for my journalism), plus the national writers organization where I serve on the board of directors, and the journalism organization where I was just this week asked to serve on the board of directors.
I imagine they’ll all find it helpful.
Oh, and did I mention the folks who work in and around law enforcement who think that Sanchez is likely guilty but who have repeatedly emailed to thank me for my reporting on this issue? They’ll find your career advice for me helpful too, I feel sure.
Celeste, Billy learned “that” in the 5th grade in a our one room school. He was fifteen at the time, and quite a bit taller than the rest of us. A real bully. I sure do apologize for him. Sorry.
Put down the tequilla Celeste and stop hating.
That self-awareness train rolls by and some just refuse to climb aboard
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