Best Police Chief: Parker, Davis, or Gates

[junkman18]

Originally Posted by greggd

Yea he did a great job with the riots. Really, jumped out there right away and took hold of the situation.

Maybe he was hoping they would burn the place down

[Charles]

Originally Posted by TheRealAngelion

You should come back.

I'm trying to cut my LA bashing by 3 db. We got a good thing going for us here in Colorado but I stay in tune with LA for fun. Our parents still live there and we're out to visit about four times per year. I still read just about every page of the World Champion LA Times daily especially the business and real estate sections. Still root for the LA teams.

[majoun]

Originally Posted by TheRealAngelion

It's still a great place to live - literally too.

You should come back.

In response to your OP, I don't think any of those chiefs were all that great for the city. They were all collectively responsible for creating and perpetuating the paramilitary, us vs. them, racist culture that plaqued the department for decades and which ultimately led to the demise of its image and standing in the community. I do think things have improved largely because of the federal consent decree, the findings of the Christopher Commission, and the reforms and innovations in policing that have been championed post LA Riots and Rampart scandal.

I agree with you. But of those three, Ed Davis was the least bad, because he at least started to move in the direction of community policing with programs which Gates dismantled.

However, all three have a lot to do with LA's current problems. Parker's preference for a small police department is the root of why the LAPD is so small. They ignored street gangs in favor of putting attention on an extremely overblown "Mafia" threat as well as gays, hippies, punk rockers, etc. And then when gang problems started affecting people beyond East LA, Downtown LA, or South Central to a greater extent, Gates reacted in an overblown militaristic manner that did nothing to keep down the gang problem or crime in general.

As for the best police chief LA's had, I'd say Bratton. (Honorable mention to August Vollmer, the longtime chief of the Berkeley PD who was chief of the LAPD briefly in the 1920s. He was so disgusted with department policies that he didn't last long and went back to Berkeley.)