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DEPARTMENTS
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Black Leaders Still Wary of New L.A. Police Chief
by Betty Pleasant
Special to the NNPA from WAVE Community Newspapers
LOS ANGELES (NNPA)—African-American leaders remain wary of new Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, even after their first major meeting with the chief—and in the wake of the departure of the only two blacks in the LAPD’s top leadership positions.
As the leaders of several prominent Black groups came out of their first meeting with the new chief recently with the same wariness they had when they went in, an unabashed foe of Bratton’s denounced the sudden flight of the only high ranking African-Americans in the police department.
About 200 Black leaders gathered at the Urban League for an early morning meeting with Bratton on the concerns of the African-American community.
Later that afternoon, Councilman Nate Holden held a City Hall news conference to decry the absence of Black officers on Bratton’s transition team and the announcement that Asst. Chief J.I. Davis and Deputy Chief Willie Pannell, the LAPD’s top African-Americans, will retire soon. The next day, Bratton announced the promotions of three commanders to assistant and deputy chief positions, none of whom are African-American.
Davis, an LAPD officer for 36 years, is in charge of operations at the Headquarters Bureau. Pannell, who has been on the force for 34 years, heads operations at the South Bureau. Holden, the only councilman to vote against Bratton’s confirmation as police chief, said he questions the policy of the police department regarding high-ranking minority officers.
“Is the new leadership forcing these experienced officers to leave?” Holden asked. “The city cannot afford to lose this kind of experience and institutional knowledge of the LAPD,” the councilman continued.
“When Davis and Pannell leave, there won’t be any African-Americans at the top and there are none available to ascend to the top. What will the command staff look like?” Holden asked. “Like it did in the 1940s and ’50s,” he answered. “This exodus of Black officers is alarming and should be watched.”
The issue of Davis’ and Pannell’s pending retirement was broached at the Urban League meeting, about which Bratton insisted he is “committed to diversity at the police command level.” He said he will seek input from Urban League President John Mack and others attending the meeting about providing African-American leadership in the LAPD.
Mack said that while the issue of Black leadership in the LAPD “is our highest priority,” the group of Black leaders met with the chief to ensure a balance is struck between the community’s need to be protected from crime and “the demand that young African-American males are not brutalized by an occupying force in our neighborhoods.”
Bratton ventured into hostile territory and met with a formidable group: He met in the heart of Bernard Parksland—the 8th Council District—with the very people who spearheaded the acrimonious no-holds-barred fight earlier this year against Mayor Jim Hahn, the Police Protective League and the Police Commission to retain Bernard Parks as LAPD chief. Everyone in that meeting wanted Parks to be police chief and holds Hahn responsible for that not being so. Bratton faced the toughest audience this city could possibly muster.
While Mack declared the meeting with Bratton—which included civil rights, political, religious and business leaders—“a good beginning,” Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who arrived late and left early, said Bratton talks too much and needs to listen.
“He has gargantuan confidence, and I think he has underestimated the challenge of Los Angeles,” Ridley-Thomas said. “The job he has can prove daunting, and as he knows, police chiefs are expendable.”
Brotherhood Crusade President Danny Bakewell was not particularly impressed with Bratton either.
“He talks a good game and I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt,” Bakewell said. “But it’s not about what he says, but what he does and how he does it.”
The Rev. Chip Murray, First AME’s senior pastor, summed up his encounter with the new chief: “It’s all about his job performance. We will keep our eyes on it.”
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