Ex-New York Police Official to Head Los Angeles Force
By JOHN M. BRODER

Oct 2, 2002 (NY Times) (Los Angeles)

William J. Bratton, the former police commissioner of New York who claimed credit for the city's dramatic drop in crime in the mid-90's, has been chosen as the next police chief in Los Angeles, officials in the mayor's office said late today.

The outspoken Mr. Bratton, who ran New York's police department for 27 months from 1994 to 1996 until he was forced out by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, promised in interviews with Mayor James K. Hahn and other city leaders that he would cut Los Angeles's rising crime rate and improve morale in the city's dispirited and distrusted police ranks.

Mr. Bratton's brash promise, as well as his documented crime-fighting record in New York and Boston, tipped the scales in a competitive three-way contest for the chief's job, city officials said. He beat out his former deputy chief in New York, John F. Timoney, who went on to become police chief of Philadelphia, and Art Lopez, a 27-year veteran of the Los Angeles department who is now police chief in Oxnard, Calif.

Neither Mr. Hahn nor Mr. Bratton were available to comment on the selection, which is to be announced Thursday morning at the North Hollywood police station. But Mr. Hahn spent much of the day on the telephone informing city leaders of his choice and securing their pledges to work with the new chief.

The selection must be ratified by the 15-member City Council within 45 days. Alex Padilla, the council president, said Mr. Bratton would face tough hearings, but other city officials said his confirmation was all but assured.

"This is the most important decision the mayor will likely make in his administration, and it will be just as significant for the council," Mr. Padilla said. "We are not just going to rubber-stamp it."

Mr. Padilla said that he would have preferred the selection of Mr. Lopez, because he believed that only someone with an insider's knowledge of the Los Angeles department could achieve the reforms it needed.

But Rick Caruso, chairman of the civilian police commission that recommended the three finalists to Mayor Hahn, said Mr. Bratton was the best candidate of the dozens the commission interviewed.

"I've got to give Jim Hahn credit," Mr. Caruso said. "He made a tough choice, and he made the right choice in the best interests of the city."

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing 9,000 uniformed officers, issued a terse and cautious statement. Union leaders had earlier expressed disappointment that no current member of the department made the list of finalists.

"We're looking forward to working with the mayor's selection and to help the new chief achieve success like some of the successes he has achieved in New York City," said Peter Repovich, the union's director.

The police chief's job opened up after Mr. Hahn refused to reappoint Chief Bernard Parks to a second five-year term earlier this year. Martin Pomeroy has served as the interim chief since last spring.

Mr. Bratton, 54, openly campaigned for the Los Angeles job, distributing press clippings and copies of his 1998 book "Turnaround: How America's Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic," to city officials and reporters. He resigned from a board of federal monitors of the Los Angeles Police Department to make himself a candidate for the post.

Mr. Bratton faces a rising crime rate across the city and a department more than 1,000 officers short of authorized strength. The mayor has assured him that he will be given the resources to hire, train and equip hundreds of new officers immediately and the autonomy to remake the department into a more efficient and law-abiding force, officials said.

As many as eight of the department's top command positions are vacant. The civilian police commission has assured Mr. Bratton that he will be able to circumvent seniority and civil service rules to bring in a new leadership team, advisers to the commission said.

Mr. Bratton is widely respected among criminal justice experts for his successes in rapidly reducing New York's rampant street crime after becoming commissioner in early 1994. He is an advocate of "community policing," an approach that puts more officers on the street and tries to integrate the police into the daily lives of residents rather than merely responding to calls for help.

In New York, he began a system of tracking crimes block by block on a computer, then flooding the high-crime zones with officers until the crime rate dropped. He achieved sharp reductions in street crime using the method, which he has said he will try to institute in Los Angeles.

Mayor Giuliani forced Mr. Bratton's resignation in March 1996 after raising questions about his book contract and about luxury travel financed by friends and associates. At the time, Mr. Bratton was a nationally known crime fighter whose popularity in opinion polls exceeded that of any New York official, including Mr. Giuliani.

In his book, Mr. Bratton described his tortured relationship with Mr. Giuliani and made it clear he did not intend for his police work to end in New York.

The next act is here in Los Angeles. While his credentials were universally praised during the selection process, many people expressed doubt that Mayor Hahn, as low key as Mr. Bratton is flamboyant, would pick such a high-profile chief.

City Councilman Eric Garcetti praised Mr. Hahn for the selection, but warned that it remained to be seen whether the two men could forge a relationship.

Mr. Garcetti also said that Mr. Bratton faced a set of department challenges. The city's rising crime rate has resisted previous efforts, and the department's morale has been damaged by a decade of scandals, beginning with the beating of Rodney King and the response to the riots that followed.

Police morale is low and the department is having some difficulty recruiting and retaining officers. The city's ethnic and racial diversity has also presented a huge challenge.

Joe Domanick, author of "To Protect and Serve: The L.A.P.D.'s Century of War in the City of Dreams," applauded the mayor's choice, saying it was time for an accomplished outsider to come in and clean house.

"This is really extraordinary and something that's been a half-century in coming," said Mr. Domanick, a senior fellow at the Institute for Justice and Journalism at the University of Southern California. "Bratton's biggest task now is taking on the command staff and dealing with their resistance and hostility. He has to get them if not to embrace him, at least to grudgingly go along with what he needs to do."