by Erica Werner, Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The city’s police union vowed Friday to fight Police Chief Bernard Parks’ reappointment with a $1.5 million media campaign to “educate the public” about him.
The chief’s backers, who include many prominent black leaders, reaffirmed their support for Parks, setting up what could be a nasty political battle with the union, whose leadership is all white.
“It is political in a way that could be very ugly, to the extent that his most outspoken supporters are African Americans, and the Police Protective League is his most vehement critic,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a University of Southern California law professor. “I think there is reason for concern this could be very racially divisive.”
Parks, who is black, announced Thursday he will seek a second five-year term as chief. The civilian Police Commission has until mid-May to decide whether to give him one.
Union members have praised Parks’ honesty and work ethic but have vehemently attacked him as an arbitrary disciplinarian whose unjustly harsh policies have caused low department morale, high attrition and endangered public safety.
Civil rights advocates praise Parks for making the city’s minority neighborhoods safe again. Although it rose slightly last year, crime has plummeted overall since Parks, 58, became chief in 1997.
Caught in the middle is Mayor James Hahn, who is white but whose core base of supporters includes the city’s black community. Also supporting Hahn in last year’s mayoral election was the police union.
The mayor is keeping his views on Parks to himself for now, but will make them known to the Police Commission “at the appropriate time,” spokeswoman Julie Wong said Friday. Hahn appoints the commission’s five members.
The city charter limits a chief to two five-year terms. If the commission rejects Parks’ bid for a second term, the vote could be reversed by the City Council.
The 8,300-member police union issued a no-confidence vote against Parks last month, with 93 percent of those who cast ballots opposing him.
“We’ve made a number of good-faith attempts to work with him and he’s rejected every solution, every suggestion,” Police Protective League President Mitzi Grasso said Friday. “He’s cut off communications. He just will not collaborate.”
Parks declined to comment Friday on the union’s campaign against him. But he told KABC-TV that the no-confidence vote didn’t concern him.
“I don’t pay any attention to the vote,” he said. “I think the union historically, all unions, have used that ploy as a negotiating tool. They want another chief of police. They don’t want to be held accountable
Grasso said the union’s anti-Parks campaign will involve radio and television ads, direct mailings and other tactics. She said the union is also receiving help from about two dozen retired Los Angeles police officers who are lobbying city officials for Parks’ ouster.
The chief’s supporters denounced the effort.
“This is extraordinary, it is completely irresponsible, and it foments the kind of conflict that we can hardly afford in this city,” said Mark Ridley-Thomas, one of three black City Council members. “It is my view that the Police Protective League is widening the gap between the African-American community and police officers.”
He declined to go as far as saying the union’s tactics were racially motivated.
“I don’t need to make any such charges,” he said. “I think it speaks for itself. The historical lack of diversity in the Police Protective League speaks for itself.”
Grasso denied any racial motivation.
“It’s about leadership,” she said. “It’s not about anything else.”