Bratton Warns Officers to Get With His Program

Warning that he will have “very little patience” with those who do not back his vision for the Los Angeles Police Department, William J. Bratton said Friday that he already has picked his command staff from within the LAPD ranks and plans to have the new team in place within two weeks of being sworn in as chief.

On his second whirlwind day since Mayor James K. Hahn named him to head the LAPD, Bratton drew clear lines for the 9,000 officers who will be under his command if he is confirmed by the City Council in a vote that could come as soon as next week.

His template for change, he reiterated, will be the federal consent decree that the city signed last year after the U.S. Department of Justice concluded that the LAPD had for years been engaging in a “pattern or practice” of civil rights violations.

“If you don’t embrace [the decree], if you aren’t prepared to embrace it, put your retirement papers in, because you won’t be part of my command staff driving change in this department,” he said in an interview with The Times.

Bratton, the tough-talking former head of police in New York City and his hometown of Boston, continued a hectic pace of public and private appearances Friday, accompanied by Hahn--as he has been since his selection was formally announced Thursday. On Day Two, he sharpened his criticism of the department even as he continued to express respect for its men and women and gratitude for the chance to take command.

“This is an underperforming department,” he said. “They know it. You know it.”

Bratton, 54, laid out an aggressive schedule of reform for a department known for its hostility toward outsiders and resistance to change. His initial assessment of the department’s strengths and weaknesses will be on the mayor’s desk in 60 days, Bratton said.

In blunt comments about the current state of police work in Los Angeles, he eviscerated whole sections of the LAPD, dubbing the crime-tracking computer system “a joke” and criticizing the department’s “shotgun approach” to training.

Bratton, who said he grew to love Los Angeles during the time he spent here as part of the federal monitoring team for the consent decree, nonetheless had harsh words about the city, saying that its homeless and graffiti problems are the worst he’s seen.

But he expressed confidence in his ability to effect change. He said that he had never failed at a job and that he wouldn’t fail now. “This department needs to clearly understand there’s a new sheriff in town,” he said.

Bratton outlined a plan for a re-engineered LAPD made up of 18 divisions that essentially operate as distinct police departments commanded by captains under orders to respond to community needs.

“This stuff is going to happen--boom, boom, boom,” he said.

Bratton said crime reduction in the city will be driven by an updated version of the system he put in place in New York City during the mid-1990s that will help the various divisions work together in targeting problem areas. Known as CompStat, that system relied on computer-generated crime data to guide police response efforts throughout New York City.

He said a system modeled on that approach and currently used in Los Angeles “has evolved into a bunch of people sitting around the table shooting the breeze.”

Used properly, Bratton said, computer data can provide clear indications of who is performing well and allow personnel to be deployed swiftly to crime hot spots.

He also argued that the consent decree should dictate the technology used by the department, showing the public that it is getting a professional force, not officers who practice brutality or racism.

In addition to rapid street-by-street crime statistics, Bratton said, he will rely on his team of top aides to direct departmental change.

“I’ll be bringing in very few outsiders, initially, because I don’t need them,” he said. “There’s a lot of talent in this organization.

“I have a very good understanding of who’s who. I’ve been here for a year. It’s what I do. I’m very good at it in terms of picking up personnel,” he said.

Bratton named several current LAPD leaders he highly respects, although he declined to specify which positions he has in mind for them.

He called his longtime friend Jim McDonnell, special assistant to the chief of police, “an extraordinary person” and praised a 100-page “plan of action” McDonnell had drafted for the department.

Bratton also singled out Deputy Chief David Kalish, who heads operations for the West Bureau; Sharon Papa, the LAPD’s ombudsman; and Cmdr. George Gascon, head of the LAPD’s training group. All three unsuccessfully applied for the chief’s post.

Bratton said that the city’s budget crunch has made resources scarce and that bringing the force up from about 9,000 officers to the more than 10,000 authorized would not be possible in the short term.

Hahn, during the Times interview, said he too would like to see additional officers on the street, and he’s prepared to find a way to authorize more overtime if necessary. But the mayor said he is eager to see what Bratton’s planned “top down” assessment of the department concludes about staffing. Hahn said one of the reasons he chose Bratton was his history of achieving success without adding staff.

Bratton said it is a formula that will work again.

“I need to find where the missing in action are, where the conscientious objectors are,” he said.

He said he will rely on his staff to re-energize demoralized rank-and-file officers. “Once they’re in charge, they are the ones that are going to be able to open those closet doors and [say], ‘There’s where you have been for the last five years. Haven’t seen you. Come on back in. Let’s get back into the game.’ ”

Bratton said he will demand cooperation between specialized units that should be working together on related problems, such as gangs, drugs, petty crime and graffiti.

“The LAPD has been fighting those problems independently, separately. There is no organized crime strategy in the LAPD that I can find after a year,” he said. “There’s an organization that is policing this city as it did in the ‘60s.”

Within Parker Center, tensions ran high Friday as ranking commanders and others pondered their fate--even as some veterans of the force said that much of what Bratton said rings true.

“We are so far behind the curve. It’s embarrassing,” said one command officer, who asked not to be identified. “The question is, what does he mean when he says he’ll shuffle the deck?”

Others said Bratton will need Hahn’s support to ensure that the department gets more leeway to fill empty jobs in specific divisions.

“I am down 25 people in this division, and we cannot promote people from elsewhere to fill those positions,” said Capt. Sharyn Buck, who oversees the Juvenile Division. “It’s hard to investigate crimes when you don’t have the bodies.”

“Many of the changes [Bratton] plans have long been needed,” Buck said.