Column: ‘Patt Morrison Asks’: A podcast interview with LAPD Chief Charlie Beck

The year 2015 was not a red-letter year for police and some of the communities they serve. In city after city, the names of people killed by police or dying in custody were chanted like battle cries by protesters:  Eric Garner in New York, Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Laquan McDonald in Chicago, Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Ezell Ford in Los Angeles. Here in L.A., police shootings just about doubled from 2014, and crime rates rose after a years-long lull. Today Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck joins Mayor Eric Garcetti to talk about those crime rates. They’ll probably be asked as well about Islamic State terrorism in Southern California, and the chief’s recommendation of criminal charges against an officer who killed a homeless Venice man — news that emerged after this interview.

For a full transcript of this interview, click here.

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