The next chief of the Los Angeles Police Department will have to be a turnaround wizard. But they're unlikely to deliver what a turnaround chief needs on day one: a PET scan of the Los Angeles Police Department's deep problems.
The city's Police Commission tapped 28-year LAPD veteran Dominic Choi to take the reins when Chief Michel Moore retires at the end of February. As several LAPD insiders have noted, Choi is a member of the current administration and an ally of Moore. He is more likely to maintain the LAPD's controversial status quo than to inspect its internal turmoil.
This means Mayor Karen Bass is unlikely to see a competent assessment of the deeper challenges awaiting a new permanent chief, which will only make it more difficult for her to choose the right candidate.
For more than 35 years, as a civil rights attorney, I have sued, investigated, worked with, and observed the Los Angeles Police Department. Having dealt with nine LAPD chiefs, dozens of command staff and officers, more than 30 commission members, four inspectors general, and six Los Angeles mayors, I have seen the best and the worst of the department.
I wish I could say that in 2024, the LAPD was on the right path. Can't.
As this newspaper has documented, the department has been rocked by misconduct and leadership scandals in recent years, since its faulty response to the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter protests, to Record awards to civilians for police abuses.to accusations of sexism and misogyny in the ranks and in promotions, to Recent claims of theft and other types of corruption among gang unit officers..
Many officers have described problems to me that include “kill the messenger” management that overrides bad news, as well as dangerous oversight failures, diluted police standards, and gaps in police knowledge.
As serious as these claims are, there is another serious issue that goes to the heart of public trust. Many black officers maintain that the LAPD's current leadership has repeatedly failed to defuse the resurgence of anti-black racism in the ranks. As an African American veteran with More than 22 years as a department supervisor summed it up for me in 2023:
“We're back to where it was after Rodney King: stale and hostile. Black officers feel insecure. … I've heard racist comments like 'We should do like old times and attack them with K-9s.' But now it's worse, because it's not just MAGA targets; There is also a faction of anti-black Latino officers.”
Qualitative, although preliminary, studies by independent researchers suggest that this view requires examination.
A 2022 “work climate” study, conducted by the UCLA Anderson School of Management for all city agencies, found that Black and Asian LAPD workers, and those with liberal political attitudes, reported “comparatively negative” evaluations ” from your workplace. Researchers tell me that in focus groups and interviews, black officers cited a racially hostile work climate that exposed them to questions about their loyalty, challenges to their authority, and even expressions of racial hatred. Worse than the racial transgressions was the refusal of his supervisors and top LAPD leaders to address his plight because doing so would damage morale.
In 2020, the Hydra Foundation, an international first-responder consulting group, evaluated racial views in a specialized division of the LAPD. He found officers’ responses “surprisingly defensive” and “dismissive,” and noted “an unhealthy antagonism” to questions related to systemic or implicit bias. The consultants concluded that there was “an urgent need for education about different forms of racism” and recommended hiring experts who know how to overcome binary racial thinking.
That same year, in a survey conducted by the Oscar Joel Bryant Foundation, which represents Black LAPD officers, a majority of members surveyed said they had seen comments from anti-Black and anti-Black Lives Matter colleagues on social media. from LAPD, including jokes about George Floyd. police murder. Officers reported that the department's response was to hold small “talk sessions” that a deputy chief led to exclude race because it was “too divisive” and “would hurt morale.”
The LAPD is not alone in failing to counter growing bias in its ranks. In 2022, the California State Auditor found evidence in five other California urban police agencies of officer bias and “hateful statements” toward people of color, immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ+ community. The auditor concluded that the state's law enforcement agencies have inadequate safeguards against such attitudes and an inability to investigate or address them.
I am in contact with countless LAPD officers. In my experience, the vast majority of the LAPD does not share these toxic attitudes. What is needed is leadership willing to expertly collaborate with the corrosive factions that do so.
Mayor Bass and the Police Commission must appoint a permanent LAPD chief who has the courage, strategic knowledge, and intrahuman IQ to eliminate bias from the department and build a culture of safety and dignity for all officers. Instead of a status quo transition at the LAPD, the city needs an analysis of the police department's deepest flaws, so that information can inform the selection of the next chief.
Make no mistake, today's LAPD is not your grandfather's police department. It improved in the wake of the Christopher Commission investigation into the 1992 civil unrest and advanced significantly during the federal consent decree imposed after the Rampart gang unit corruption scandal and under the leadership of bosses William J. Bratton and Charlie Beck.
But 33 years after the Rodney King beating, the Los Angeles Police Department is not where it should be. Let's hope a new boss can do better.
Attorney Connie Rice, a member of President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, led the high-profile panel that reviewed the Los Angeles Police Department's response to the Rampart scandal.
