LOS ANGELES — Former New York City police commissioner William Bratton has been selected as the new chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, city officials said Wednesday.
Bratton beat out Oxnard chief Art Lopez and former Philadelphia chief John Timoney to lead the 9,000-officer LAPD. He will take over a police force that confronts low morale, the aftermath of a corruption scandal and rising crime.
Many in the police department also were hoping an insider would be s have been told that Bratton will be named as chief tomorrow,” City Council member Jack Weiss said. “It is a positive step forward for the city of Los Angeles.”
Bratton’s selection was expected to be formally announced Thursday by Mayor James Hahn at a press conference in the city’s San Fernando Valley, where a secession movement on the November ballot has been partly driven by concerns over rising crime.
Hahn’s choice must be confirmed by a majority vote of the 15-member City Council.
Bratton, 54, was police commissioner in New York from 1994-1996 before resigning under pressure from then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Prior to that he led the New York City Transit Police and the Boston Police Department.
“The mayor spoke to him this morning, Bratton agreed to take the job and the mayor said that after interviewing all three candidates the choice is very clear,” a Hahn spokesperson said.
“The mayor called him the best candidate for police chief in America.”
Hahn had called the decision his most important since becoming mayor.
The search for a new chief started after the Police Commission voted 4-1 in April against giving Chief Bernard Parks a second five-year term. Parks was an insider who instituted some reforms but was viewed by the rank-and-file as an overly rigid disciplinarian.
He failed to get Hahn’s support in his bid for another term as chief and is now running for a seat on the City Council.
Parks suffered the fallout of a corruption scandal at the department’s Rampart division in which officers allegedly planted evidence, lied and in some cases shot innocent people. Charges against about 100 inmates were dropped as a result.
Since November 2000, the LAPD has operated under a federal consent decree implemented after Justice Department lawyers found what they described as a pattern of civil rights violations dating back decades.
The most notorious was the 1991 beating of black motorist Rodney King which led to devastating riots when the four white officers involved were acquitted of most charges. Parks was the second of two chiefs hired to salvage the department’s reputation.
Bratton, a Boston native who joined the police department there in 1970, was recognized for advocating community policing and reorganizing the New York Police Department.
New York City’s crime declined sharply while he was commissioner. Serious felonies dropped 33 percent and the murder rate was cut in half. Crime declined in other major cities, but not as much as in New York.
Erwin Chemerinsky, a law professor at the University of Southern California who has been active in police reform movements, praised the selection of Bratton.
“What the mayor has done is pick somebody who has a track record of success in turning around departments, in lowering crime rates and boosting morale of the troops,” Chemerinsky said. “If somebody can do it, this is the right person for the job.”
But many council members and many LAPD officers favored Lopez, the only Hispanic candidate and the only LAPD veteran to make the top three.
The last outsider to run the LAPD was former Philadelphia police commissioner Willie Williams, who took over in 1992 and lasted for one five-year term that was widely viewed as a failure.
Councilman Dennis Zine backed Lopez, but said Bratton’s selection was not a surprise.
“The Police Commission was clearly sending out a message that they wanted a new direction and reform in the LAPD,” Zine said.