..PARKS = LAPD Chief Steps Down Early

KCAL-TV Los Angeles ^ | 04/22/2002 | ALOHA RONNIE

[ALOHA RONNIE]

NEVER FORGET

...LAPD Chief BERNARD PARKS has just announced in a Los Angeles TV Press Conference at LAPD's Parker Center Headquarters that he is stepping down early as Police Chief, staying on only until an interim LAPD Chief can be appointed after he returns from a couple of days vaction. He stated that he is considering his future options in civilian life, including running for a Los Angeles City Council that fired him as LAPD Chief. He will NOT be suing the City of Los Angeles over his being fired.

...LAPD Chief BERNARD PARKS was fired for saying from beginning to end that LAPD Officer Morale DOES NOT MATTER ...when IT DOES.

NEVER FORGET

[Heyworth]

Well, you're right. The last decent chief we had was Gates. The guy was a little quirky, but I had a lot of respect for him. More importantly, his men did too

Maybe the men had respect for him, but as a public face of the department, he was a nightmare. When there was a spate of black men killed because of then-standard-policy chokeholds, he suggested in one interview that blacks had more crushable larynxes, and if that wasn't enough, he finished the sentence, "than normal people." He was also the living descendant of the old Chief Parker plan of holding down the city with a very minimal number of cops (1/10 NYCs?) by using massive response in place of community patrolling. But when the big crisis came, instead of responding with overwhelming force at ground zero of the riot, Florence and Normandie, he withdrew all the cops from the area. It wasn't the cops who rescued Reginald Denny from being beaten to death on live TV, it was a guy from the neighborhood who saw it on TV, then went out to stop it. The allegation at the time was that Gates was making a point about the Rodney King case; "If you don't like cops, see what happens when they aren't around." Yeah, that's a good chief.

I was here for the riots, and I watched as looters came around in groups, with trucks, three times to try to break into the appliance store four doors down from my apartment building. But before that I saw the way the cops interacted with the citizens they were supposed to "serve and protect," and it wasn't nice. I came from Chicago, and back there you wouldn't think twice about walking up to a cop and striking up a conversation. In L.A., no one does that. Everyone, even law-abiding people, fear the police here. And the ensuing scandals, particularly Rampart, have done nothing to change things.

What they really need to do here is hire lots and lots more cops, to really institute community based policing like they keep paying lip service to instead of actually doing. I live in the valley now, and I'm in favor of secession just because we'll get to create a new police force. (Well, there are other reasons, too.)

[Heyworth]

I exaggerated. L.A. has about half the cops, per capita, that NYC does--26 for every 10,000 people vs 53 in New York.

[DoughtyOne]

Good comments. I'll come back and address them later. I have to go out now.

[dpwiener]

While I agree that his tenure here in LA has been horrible, at least give him some credit for deciding not to sue the city for his own performance issues. At least that shows some tiny degree of character.

That's being overly generous. It merely shows that his legal position was so weak that even Gloria Allred had doubts that they could successfully extort a payoff from the city council and mayor. I thought Allred and Parks would try anyway.

Given Parks' surprising decision not to sue, his early resignation makes sense. For one thing, by forcing the city to scramble for an interim chief and speed up its selection timetable, it is a tiny bit of payback. (While it's amusing to contemplate the thought of suing Parks for breach of contract, from a political viewpoint it's absurd. After Los Angeles had unequivocally repudiated Parks' leadership, to say the city needs him so much it is willing to sue to keep him on the job for another four months would make a laughingstock out of city officials. And they're a big enough laughingstock as it is.) For another thing, Parks is trying to play the role of noble victim, leaving with his dignity intact so he can fight again some other day rather than being dragged out kicking and whinging.

If Parks had accepted the original decision with a stiff upper lip, that might have been evidence of character. This is just politics.

[monkeyshine]

Will he challenge Nate Holden's seat? That district is the only district that supported him.

Bye Bye Parks.

[monkeyshine]

Pay him not to sue? What grounds does he have to sue? He will receive a $200,000 per year pension for the rest of his life. He's not exactly going to suffer any economic harm. He'll draw that pension on top of his other pensions (police depts from other cities). These career pols always make out like bandits -- How many pensions does Bush Sr (Military, CIA, VP, President) and Clinton (Atty General, Gov, President) draw?

[monkeyshine]

Let put an Asian cop up there. Or a Jewish cop. We've got a Hispanic Sheriff, who's not exactly doing such a great job (not because of his ethnicity, mind you, but because he plays favorites with contributors (to issue CCWs, for example) and has squandered a lot of money on things like a new helicopter for him to fly in, while money allocated for a new crime lab (to prevent another OJ debacle) somehow "disappeared".

If we're going to play ethnic musical chairs in Los Angeles (which we always do), it's time to put some new ethnicities into these spots. Are there any Gay Asian Jewish women we can make top cop?

[FreePaul]

There is now an opening for another corrupt politician.

[HOYA97]

What about hiring the former Police Chief from NYC?

[DoughtyOne]

Somebody tie this guy down. LOL Well, my thought is that they should pick the best man for the job. If that's an asian person, I could care less.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Headline: "Parks Parks It"

[ALOHA RONNIE]

...Officers stayed away from or left the LAPD = PARKS...

[ALOHA RONNIE]

...And don't forget what our LAPD Protectors had to go thru during and after the infamous North Hollywood Bank Shootout 5 years ago.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

...You have made the Case against Chief PARKS perfectly...

[ALOHA RONNIE]

NEVER FORGET

...Remember when X-LAPD Chief PARKS bullied the Los Angeles City Council when he told them to their face last week that...

.."Lives will be lost in the City if I am forced to leave" ...???

...Can you imagine the kind of heat our LAPD Protectors were getting every day from this Bully up above...???

NEVER FORGET

[ALOHA RONNIE]

NEVER FORGET

...L.A. Mayor TOM BRADLEY personally instigated the Rodney King Riots after the Simi Valley acquittal when he got on all the Radios and TV's blaring out at the intersection of Florence and Normandie from the A-&- E Church saying:

"I am just OUTTRAGED at this Verdict ...and if I were you I would go out into the streets and demonstrate that Outrage for all to see"

...Minutes later this TV/Radio Show became Reality.

NEVER FORGET

[ALOHA RONNIE]

...In the RODNEY KING Incident ...we have seen only half the Tape. ...We NEVER saw RODNEY KING's high speed auto chase nor his exhibiting drugged up supernatural strength with his arresting LAPD Officers.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

...PARKS stated today that he is thinking of running in the 8th City Council District = MARK RIDLEY THOMAS Seat

[ALOHA RONNIE]

...PARKS was detested because he detested first...