Prior to May One, Chief Bratton’s contract renewal was all but a done deal. And then there was MacArthur Park. Now suddenly there are people calling for Bratton to be replaced.
Yes, what happened on May 1st is not a small problem, and it can’t be handled symptomatically.
But is it a reason to toss Bratton out?
Get real.
On a purely practical level, who exactly do the naysayers imagine would take his place? Is there some astonishing candidate for chief outside the department who is going to be LAPD’s savior?
Hardly.
So what about from inside the department? Who would the anti-Bratton folks choose to be chief instead?
Okay, just for discussion’s sake, let’s look at the four people most likely to be on the short list five years from now when Bratton is termed out. In no particular order, they are:
Up until this summer, when he left to become Chief of Police of Mesa, Arizona, Gascon was the LAPD’s Assistant Chief in charge of Operations—meaning he was the head crime fighting strategy guy. Gascon took the job in Mesa, specifically because he knew that he’d have a better shot at the LA’s chief job five years from now, if he’d already run another police department. Gascon is highly regarded by the rank and file, and is known for his ability to be innovative. Bratton still talks to him on a regular basis. If one was to lay Las Vegas odds on who would most likely to eventually replace Bratton, Gascon would arguably be the odds on favorite.
Yet there are other strong contenders.
Paysinger was a rising star as head of South Bureau, and when Bratton was looking for someone to promote to Assistant Chief/head of Operations when Gascon left for Mesa, Paysinger was a natural choice. Charismatic, and community-relations savvy, Paysinger is also loaded with ideas for both lowering crime, and improving department culture. In five years, he’ll be another strong candidate.
McDonnell is another who is highly regarded in the department, and a far-seeing reformist. As First Assistant Chief, McDonnell is chief of staff and second in command under Bratton; he’s also an obvious contender. He’s both a good politician able to deal with city leaders, and a smart, straight shooter who has intriguing ideas for departmental change, thus might one day make an excellent chief.
Deputy Chief Mike Moore is the head guy at the Valley Bureau and has probably done more than anyone in the department to pioneer creative community/police relations. He’s smart, well-liked, and, like the other three, has that mysterious thing they call “command presence.” Another interesting contender.
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Here’s the thing: These four (plus some I haven’t mentioned here, like Assistant Chief Sharon Papa) are all good people. With any luck, one of them will be chief in 2012. But, not now. At this moment in time, none has strengths that are worth derailing a second Bratton term. And not one of them has any kind of magic wand that’s going to make ongoing reform of the Los Angeles Police Department easier, less painstaking work.
Sorry.
Is Bill Bratton perfect? Of course not. But he’s made solid strides in bringing down crime and doing the fundamental, under-the-hood restructuring and cultural change that the LAPD has needed for decades.
Is there a lot more to do? Heck, yeah. And do we need to hold Bratton’s feet to the fire over the issues that showed so plainly and alarmingly on May First? Certainly. If we fail to do so, and fail to keep doing it, we aren’t holding up our part of the civic bargain.
But to suggest replacing Bratton at this juncture is simplistic, unrealistic and just plain dumb.
Mark Fuhrman for Chief!
Who are the people who want to toss Bratton out? and why would anyone listen to them?
Richard, Some of the grassroots leaders of various Latino community organizations like the LAPD Hispanic Forum have been saying on various media—and at the Police Commission meeting last week— that his contract shouldn’t be renewed. Also, people like Fabian Nunez have been making softer statements that amount to “maybe, maybe not.” But the latter statements are somewhat disingenuous. You know, political posturing.
I just find it irritating.
Last Sunday (not yesterday) the Times ran a should-we-or-shouldn’t-we feature, but thankfully the “shoulds” greatly outnumbered the “shouldn’ts.”
The ACLU and the union have been very quick to say that Bratton’s contract should be renewed.
In other words the sane ones want Bratton. I know that its all the rage to have ethnic solidarity but unless the “LAPD Hispanic Forum” (whatever or whoever they represent) has a candidate that we can discuss I think Villargosa and his commission have better things to do.
rlc wrote: In other words the sane ones want Bratton.
Who? Where? Oh, the ACLU? If the ACLU backs this guy, then that does it for me.
For people who were so quick to make changes and to get rid of officers simply implicated in the May Day Defense of Police incident, you people sure have reversed course to defend your guy.
Give him the same chances that he gave others.
It wasn’t Bratton out in the field making the bad decisions and all indications are that he wasn’t too pleased about what happened. He doesn’t have some sort of magical control over every officer in the department. It is certainly true that the character of an organization is forged from the top down, but Bratton hasn’t been there long enough for the Department to be the complete reflection of his sensitivities. If we got rid of every leader every time an organization made a mistake nothing would ever get done. If Bratton had pooh poohed this, or tried to make excuses, I would be extremely concerned. So far he seems to be reacting like a disappointed Chief. He should have the opportunity to show what effect he could have. It’s not like this happens every few months. He seems to have a lot going for him and as Celeste points out- is anybody else out there????
Joe Arpaio for Chief of LAPD
Joe Arpaio for LAPD Chief
As the current chief law enforcement officer for Maricopa county, he has been re-elected by a landslide for three straight terms.
Joe Arpaio has reduced crime with hard-hitting enforcement methods. His has involved the community by asking volunteers to serve. These volunteers, now have increased to 3000 members under Arpaio, which is the nation’s largest volunteer posse.
Posse men and women help in search and rescue and other traditional police work as well as in special operations like fighting prostitution, patrolling malls during holidays, and investigating animal cruelty complaints. The posse’s contributions are invaluable and essentially free to taxpayers.
Sheriff Arpaio has been profiled in over 2000 U.S. and foreign newspapers, magazines, and TV news programs. His leadership and the excellent work of his staff have catapulted the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office into the ranks of elite law enforcement agencies.
http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=1&id=30243
Of equal success and notoriety are his chain gangs, which contribute thousands of dollars of free labor to the community
When Bratton leaves, the last person you would want is Moore. He was at Rampart and pushed a massive investigatio of the Rampart bus incident. In short a few off duty cops and civillians were aboard and aparently a woman was convinved into short off a bit, in private. Moore went after three cops, without ANY evidence. Two years later the City paid out $900K in a lawsuit to those transferred/demoted employees. Total complete BS and everyone except Moore knew it. Just making a name for himself. . He has a hair trigger.
Mc Donnell is the clear favorite as you stated.
Pokey, I can’t see ol’ Joe doing all that well with the LAPD rank and file, or the city leaders, but maybe we could contract with him to take over the LA County jail system. I’m fond of (Sheriff) Baca personally, but his jails are a first class mess.
You’re joking, right?, about bringing in a certified lunatic like Joe Arpaio to run LAPD and I’m sure Celeste is kidding when she even suggests, in passing him running the jails.
Since Bratton is credited with the systems for area policing that lead to the dramatic reductions in crime in NYC (And got him fired for the trouble by a jealous and paranoid Guiliani) I think his record on law and order is just a little bit better.
Hi, Retired Cop. Interesting and informative stuff about Mike Moore. Thanks for commenting. I know Moore the least well of the four. I agree, Mc Donnell’s great. His proposal for reorganizing the department when he had his hat in the ring along with Bratton, was I thought terrific.
I also like Gascon a lot. You?
(I like Paysinger too, but obviously he’s far less experienced at the top brass level.)
And, yes, I am kidding about Joe. A. But not about the hideous mess the jails are in. I can’t say whether Pokey’s kidding, but I suspect he’s just….well….poking at us.
Gascon is a smart and savy guy, but hooked too tight to the latino organization. As an example I know first hand that he was involved in holding up lieutenant promotions a few years back waiting for the three whole scores to kick in and the feeding frenzy for everyone except whites and native americans if you are ready for that one. Someone that was about to be passed up did some checking. He found out that three openings were being sandbaged!!! In basically someones drawer, and Gascon is the guy responsible for overseeing fairness!! You figure out the rest, but the “investigator” kept plugging away and was promoted at the last minute before the frenzy. It had a very bad smell…
The city needs a chief that is smart, experienced and, not willing to sell their soul to every Johnny come lately political itiot. Mc Donnell is the guy. Let’s all wait and see.
And BTW, he is extremly well liked inside and respected. He is his own man.
And since I am in the mood today…Our new Dep. Chief Perez. Excellent choice. I know him very well. Honest, outgoing, and savy. If I were Bratton, this would have been my choice. Congrats to Sergio.
Ad for now Comander Carter. A sad issue. Another man I know personally for years. Can be very demanding but he gets results. I think when all of this washs out it will not amount to a great deal except for the contact with the press which i have an issue with. Lets remember almost everyone Metro pushed along was well warned, and many were agitators, hooded, or seeking ACLU lawsuit $$$. And as to the rubber and foam rounds, give me a break. Was was trained in those and got hit by one. Small mark that goes away in a day. Modern law enforcement uses many less than lethal devices that work well and are effective. During a serious confrontaion you do not throw out bannana peels.
No, I am not serious about replacing Bratton, but I would sure like to see someone take up a whip, drive out the corrupt politicians, ignore political correctness and return the government to the people.
Again, interesting stuff, Retired Cop. Keep it coming.
reasonable wrote: If we got rid of every leader every time an organization made a mistake nothing would ever get done.
I agree, so can we dispense with calls to impeach Bush and Cheney, demands that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resign, quit casting blame on Donald Rumsfeld for individual actions of soldiers breaking rules, and other such nonsense?
Not necessarily you, but the left needs some consistency in its values.
Woody is kidding us, right? I mean mr “Law and Order” can’t possibly want to coddle criminals who obstruct justice and turn the DOJ into the Party Political Police. Oh, why bother!
Lee Carter announced his retirement today. I know that he was in DROP and within a year or so of leaving anyway. Smart move for him, lets see if any one of the four investigations will ulitmately show that he was guilty of misconduct or not. My best info is that he did little if anything wrong.
Being demoted at that level is not a good sign. His departure is a loss as this is a highly skilled veteran and leader.
Time will tell if a decision he made, or one that was not properly executed by lower ranking individuals resulted in this current mess.
When a Chief of Police puts his political ambition ahead of his men, that’s not leadership, it’s self indulgence. To apply “discipline” to anyone prior to a complete investigation is ludicrous, not leadership. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out this his hasty move to demote Chief Carter was strictly political. Clearly, Mayor Villaraigosa is pulling the puppet strings. Leadership is earned. Deputy Chief Carter earned the respect of his men and women and he still has it. Chief Bratton cannot say the same.
I’ve only met Chief Carter briefly and can’t say I know him at all, so can’t judge based on my own experience. That’s why it’s so valuable to have both of your comments.
Feel free to make such comments on other more recent posts so that everyone makes sure to see them, as most won’t go back this far in the archive.
And please come back.
By the way, I notice Andy Smith has recently been named second in command at Central Bureau. He seems like a good guy—at least from the contact I’ve had with him.