Mayoral Hopefuls Split on Support for Police Chief

Faced with the double whammy last week of jurors convicting Los Angeles police officers and legal experts finding deep problems with the LAPD itself, the field of mayoral candidates split decisively over who is best suited to oversee the city’s Police Department and whether Chief Bernard C. Parks is to blame for the current crisis.

Of the six leading candidates for mayor, three--U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra, City Atty. James Hahn and Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa--said last week that if they had to decide today, they would reappoint Parks to a second five-year term when the chief’s term expires in 2002. The three others--State Controller Kathleen Connell, businessman Steve Soboroff and Councilman Joel Wachs--were significantly more circumspect, suggesting by their answers that they view the chief far less favorably.

Villaraigosa warned that without rapid progress toward reform, the Los Angeles Police Department may soon require a civilian review board to take over discipline of police. Hahn said the report highlights the need for the city to make at least some of its police commissioners full-time officials. Becerra subjected the recommendations to a detailed, section-by-section review, focusing particularly on proposals regarding police discipline and community policing, while warning that police morale needs quick attention. Wachs and Soboroff found some faults with the report, echoed the concerns about morale and cautioned that the city not be distracted from fighting crime as it cracks down on police abuse.

Connell saw in the week’s events proof that the city leadership--from the mayor to the Police Commission to the city attorney, council and chief--have utterly failed.

“Those of us on the outside are hoarse from screaming,” she said. “This is horrific.”

When the next mayor takes office in July, he or she will face few challenges more demanding than untangling the LAPD, which will be under federal mandate to reform, and pressure to fight a surge in crime. Recognizing that reality, the mayoral candidates, interviewed separately last week, leaped at the latest developments. Their responses offered defining, sometimes paradoxical, insights into their different backgrounds and approaches.

Unmentioned by the candidates but clearly lurking in the background to their remarks is another political tension. The city’s police union, often considered a potent political force, has made its unhappiness with Parks abundantly clear; any candidate who hopes to win the union’s support will have to tread carefully on the question of what to do with Parks.

Finally, the news of the convictions and the findings of the report brought some of the first sparks into what has generally been a congenial campaign.

Connell, for instance, pounced on the new report’s findings that long-touted problems at the LAPD continue to exist even after nearly a decade of civic hand-wringing.

“This is an outrage,” she said. “It’s a disgrace.”

Of her opponents--particularly Hahn and Wachs, who have served in city government for that entire period--she said the questions are: “What did they know? When did they know it? And why didn’t they do anything about it?”

Soboroff was similarly dismissive of those two officials, who most observers regard as the front-runners at this early stage of a campaign whose election day is in April 2001.

“These guys, after Rodney King, had their chance,” Soboroff said. “And they failed. Now, they’re coming back and saying: ‘Trust me.’ I do not believe that they deserve another chance.”

Soboroff and Connell accused their rivals of failing to heed warning signs in the reams of lawsuits brought against police over the years--as city attorney, Hahn and his staff have represented the police in those suits, while Wachs, as a council member, has reviewed them in the course of considering settlement offers. Rather than sound public alarm, the two have postured, their rivals suggested.

“Joel Wachs gives more press conferences than I take showers,” Soboroff said. “Where has been the press conference on these problems?”

Hahn and Wachs called the challenges to their work unfair, and retorted by accusing their opponents of trying to exploit an already difficult situation.

“Lawyers are not responsible for the actions of their clients,” Hahn said of the police officers that the lawyers on his staff represent in court. “I certainly hope that’s not the standard now.”

Wachs noted that he has long been an advocate of LAPD reform.

“I have been critical of the police settlements,” he said. “One of the things I have been advocating is that these discussions be held in public session. The public has a right to know.”

In addition to raising tempers in the campaign, the report joined and separated candidates in strange bedfellow combinations.

Soboroff, for instance, showed little enthusiasm for reappointing Parks, even though Soboroff is running with the endorsement and support of Mayor Richard Riordan, Parks’ most steadfast backer. Soboroff also performed a delicate balancing act in his attempt to blame the city leadership for the failings detailed by the new Rampart report. He chastised Wachs and Hahn in that regard, but, unlike Connell, exempted Riordan for the failure of reform over a period in which Riordan has been mayor virtually the entire time.

Although Soboroff declined to say whether he would reappoint Parks if elected, he said he would make that decision based on two criteria: police morale and crime. Over the past year, crime has begun to rise in Los Angeles after years of steady decline. Police morale, according to the new report and an earlier UCLA study on the same subject, is perilously low, in large part because of changes to the disciplinary system under Parks.

“In the next 18 months . . . as I move to implement the reform measures,” Soboroff said, “those two things have to change. That’s a nonstarter with me.”

Hahn, by contrast, is seen by Riordan as the race’s least attractive candidate--the two men engaged in a spirited one-on-one argument last week after Hahn criticized Riordan’s record in minority communities--and yet he joined with Becerra and Villaraigosa in praising the chief.

“He’s a tough manager. He gets things done,” Hahn said of Parks. “I’ve had my differences of opinion with him, but he’s doing the job. If I had to make the decision today, I’d reappoint him.”

Of the candidates who voiced support for the chief, Villaraigosa struck the most cautious line, emphasizing that he does not have to make a decision today about Parks’ future. Like Hahn and Becerra, Villaraigosa stressed that he will decide whether to reappoint Parks largely based on whether the chief moves decisively to implement the recently approved consent decree with the federal government.

Becerra echoed that sentiment, but spoke more enthusiastically about Parks’ work so far. “This chief has the right vision,” he said, adding that the new report, particularly in its sections on the need to embrace community policing, “truly puts the chief on notice.”

Among the other pivotal issues raised by the new report is the question of how to bolster the LAPD’s civilian oversight, a challenge that has eluded public officials in Los Angeles for 35 years.

Like the Christopher Commission in 1991, the Rampart Independent Review Panel, headed by lawyer Richard Drooyan, concluded that the Police Commission needs more staff and resources. It also called for enhancing the power of the commission’s inspector general, a position created in response to the Christopher Commission’s work.

The Rampart panel added, however, that it believes the time has come to make the presidency and vice presidency of the Police Commission full-time jobs with salaries equivalent to that of the chief. The rest of the commissioners should receive paychecks of $25,000 or so annually, the report added.

Together, that comes to a tab of about $400,000 a year, though none of the candidates cited that expense as a major obstacle.

Hahn has indicated support for making at least one commission post a full-time job, so he welcomed the report’s recommendation on that topic. Connell and Soboroff were noncommittal, focusing on the duties and powers of the commission rather than on the hours expected of its members.

Wachs and Villaraigosa expressed misgivings about the proposal, citing similar reasons. Villaraigosa worried that it did not go far enough--he favors making all five seats full-time jobs, while Wachs questioned what it would do to the dynamics of the commission to have some full-time members and some part-time ones.

“I’m afraid that’s a quick and easy answer that doesn’t address the problem,” he said. “If two are full time, then what happens to the other three? Who is going to listen to them? It’s easier to have all five full-time people than just two.”

Becerra focused on how to convince residents and taxpayers of the need to pay for one or more full-time commissioners, but said he believed the city would come to see the wisdom of it.

“It’s an investment,” he said. “If you’re truly going to make this [the commission] a robust body . . . you’re going to need to make an investment in it.”

The cost of failure, he added, is today’s LAPD--one of lawsuits, scandals and police officers found guilty of crimes.

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Staff writer Tina Daunt contributed to this story.