Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said Wednesday she intends to select the city's next police chief by the end of the month, but for now she declined to name the finalists who were sent to her office two weeks ago.
Bass said he had not yet interviewed any of the finalists sent to him by the Police Commission, the five-person civilian body that oversees the Los Angeles Police Department.
The names were quietly communicated to Bass on Aug. 21, the day the commission concluded its final interviews with several finalists behind closed doors. The commissioners have declined to reveal the identities of the front-runners, reflecting the secrecy that has surrounded much of the search process. The circle of people who have been briefed on the final list of candidates appears to be quite small, with even top LAPD officials and longtime consultants said to have been kept in the dark.
The finalists will now compete to replace former Chief Michel Moore, who unexpectedly retired in February after five and a half years on the job. The months-long search to find his successor has created a palpable air of anticipation within the nation's third-largest police force.
Speaking to The Times on Wednesday, Bass said he had not yet “spoken to any of the candidates, so I don't know how they feel” about being publicly identified.
“I don’t plan to do that right now, but I do plan to make a decision in September,” Bass said. “I think the question is whether those people would like their names released. I think I have to be sensitive to that.”
Asked if he would give a breakdown of whether the finalists were insiders, outsiders or a mix of both, Bass simply replied: “No.”
Bass followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, Eric Garcetti, who also broke precedent by withholding the names of finalists during the chief's last search in 2018.
Bass did, however, lay out some of his priorities for the next chief, which included: boosting officer morale, which is “extremely low”; expanding the department’s much-hyped Community Safety Partnership program; and overhauling a discipline system that has been criticized by officers for favoring senior officers.
“I’m looking for a leader who will bring about meaningful change within the department,” he said. “I think the issue of morale is really critical; my concern, of course, is the interaction of law enforcement with communities, and it’s pretty hard to have positive interaction if morale is really low.”
Under city charter, the commission must select three finalists for Bass to consider. But if the mayor is not satisfied with the choices, she can ask commissioners to submit additional names or continue the search independently. Whoever she chooses must be confirmed by the full City Council.
The job of chief of the Los Angeles Police Department is widely considered one of the most difficult to fill in law enforcement. The department is a massive, multi-billion dollar organization with more than 10,000 employees and is under intense scrutiny.
Whoever gets the job, experts said, must have a solid understanding of its operating practices and how the LAPD has evolved over its long history, including during its time under a federal consent decree. That person will also be asked to balance demands that are often at odds: Although violent crime numbers have begun to stabilize, with the exception of robberies, anxiety about public safety remains high among many Angelenos. The number of police shootings has also risen, raising concerns at the commission. And any new leader — particularly an outsider — will be expected to learn quickly and hit the ground running.
The new chief will also have to understand and respond to the sometimes competing interests of the police union, politicians and community groups. He is also expected to address staffing issues, at a time when the enormous security challenges of the World Cup and Olympics loom on the horizon.
A survey of Los Angeles residents conducted by Loyola Marymount University showed greater satisfaction with the LAPD's overall performance than in recent years, even as segments of the black and Latino population see disparities in the way the department polices them.
The selection of the city's next police chief is one of the most closely watched decisions made by any mayor.
Over the past few months, Bass and the commissioners have embarked on an “extensive outreach process with officers, the community, crime survivors, community interventionists, faith leaders, neighborhood leaders and business leaders to get their perspectives” on what they want to see in the next chief. He said he hoped to release some of the feedback he received during the listening tour later this week.
She said she was surprised by the overall response she received from rank-and-file officers, who unlike other recent chief searches, seemed to openly favor an outside chief.
“I expected officers to be very entrenched in an internal candidate, and that was not the case,” he said. “I would say the main concern from the officers’ perspective is their morale, and I thought that was going to be because of the community’s perception of law enforcement — that’s true — but what was more significant was the low morale because of the internal workings of the LAPD.”
During community forums, many attendees pushed for the selection of an insider who was attuned to policing in a city as vast and diverse as Los Angeles.
Bass said it was critical for the next chief to address one of the officers' main complaints: the view that the department's much-criticized disciplinary system has created a double standard for high-ranking officers.
“People felt that number one was a disconnect between command and the rank and file, and number two that leads to problems in terms of discipline,” he said.
Earlier this year, Bass vetoed a referendum proposal that, among other things, would have allowed the police chief to fire officers immediately for certain misconduct. Under the current system, a chief can only recommend firing an officer, who then has the right to a military-style tribunal known as a board of rights.
He said the RAND Corporation, a global policy think tank, has been hired to conduct a top-down review of the department's management. Another consulting firm is conducting its own survey of department staff, while the police union is planning to release the results of its own survey.
The Police Commission said there were at least 25 applicants for the position, but did not give an exact number.
Among the outside executives who received second interviews, according to the sources, were Jim McDonnell, a former deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and former Los Angeles County sheriff; former Houston and Miami chief Art Acevedo; and Robert Arcos, a former deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department who works for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.
Those entries, confirmed by multiple sources, add another dynamic to what many consider an open race to be the city's next police chief.
The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the powerful bargaining body for the city's rank-and-file officers, has not publicly endorsed either candidate.
