CNN.com
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is scheduled to name the city’s next police chief Tuesday.
Villaraigosa will announce his choice from three top candidates, all members of the Los Angeles Police Department -- Deputy Chief Charles Beck, First Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell and Deputy Chief Michel Moore.
“Choosing the next chief of police is the single most important decision I will make for the remainder of my term as mayor,” Villaraigosa said in a news release last week.
“This process will be comprehensive and thorough, I will move expeditiously, but will take all the time I need to make the very best decision for the people of Los Angeles.”
The next police chief will replace William Bratton, who recently stepped down.
Bratton imposed a sweeping overhaul of his scandal-battered department after taking office in 2002. He said in August that he planned to resign and take a job training police in developing nations. His resignation was effective Saturday.
Bratton took over when the department was under federal oversight, reeling from a major corruption investigation and with a long-standing reputation for brutality toward minorities.
Villaraigosa said Bratton has left behind a department “no longer bound by the misdeeds of the past.”
“Because of him, Los Angeles is the safest it’s been in more than half a century,” Villaraigosa said. “He’s leaving Los Angeles a stronger city, a more united city, a safer city.”
Bratton’s tenure was not entirely without controversy.
Police came under harsh criticism for their chaotic breakup of a May 2007 immigration reform rally when officers attacked demonstrators and journalists. An investigation blamed a “command and control breakdown” on the part of senior officers, resulting in the demotion of a division commander and the reassignment of his second in command.
Bratton has accepted a job with the Virginia-based corporate security firm Altegrity Inc. He will lead a new division that is focused on training police and law enforcement officials in “post-conflict nations,” teaching what he called “lessons learned in Los Angeles and New York.”
“When you love what you do, when you love the people you get to do it with, when you love where you do it, there is never a good time to leave,” Bratton said. “But there is a right time.”
Bratton came to Los Angeles after stints as the top police official in New York and in his native Boston, Massachusetts.
Copyright 2009 CNN.com