Convention puts LAPD, chief in spotlight after years of trouble

By Tom Verdin, Associated Press, 08/10/00

LOS ANGELES -- The agency likely to attract the most attention during this week's Democratic convention is the one that has perhaps played the biggest role in defining the city's image in recent years.

The Los Angeles Police Department and its chief will be under intense scrutiny as thousands of demonstrators descend on the city for the convention that starts Monday. How the chief, his staff and the front-line officers respond could have the biggest repercussions on the force since it faced the 1992 riots that erupted after officers were acquitted in the first Rodney King beating trial.

"The city of Los Angeles and the police department are going to be on center stage," said Ted Hunt, president of the union that represents the 9,300 rank-and-file officers.

The department's chief, Bernard C. Parks, may receive the most attention.

The police union and city business owners have already criticized Parks' staff for its failure to immediately control rioters after the Lakers won the NBA championship in June. It was on his watch that police shot a homeless woman armed with a screw driver, and his administration has struggled to deal with one of the biggest police corruption scandals in city history.

Amid the turmoil and anxiety of the coming convention, the department also faces the threat of a federal consent decree if it fails to implement adequate reforms.

"Nobody's under the kind of scrutiny that we are under," Hunt said.

Parks, for his part, has said the department doesn't get enough credit for blowing the whistle on itself in bringing to light the corruption in its Rampart Division.

He fears the same mixed message during the convention, putting the department in a no-win situation: Officers will be criticized if protests get out of hand; if they don't, the department will be accused of unnecessarily whipping up public fear, he said.

Parks, a career policeman whose father was a 38-year LAPD veteran, was appointed to the post in 1997. His department has been planning for the convention since April 1999, recognizing the potential impact of the force's image and reputation.

"I think the pressures that we are involved in are probably self-imposed," said police Lt. Horace Frank, a department spokesman. "This is our moment to put Los Angeles and the LAPD on the top of the map, and we feel very confident in the plan that we have in place."

Not everyone seems to share that confidence.

Police officials say they were told that they won't be allowed to hold daily media briefings with the Democratic National Convention Committee at the convention site. The decision means that word of possible trouble with protests will be separate from briefings on activity inside the convention.

Some city officials are critical of aspects of the department's convention planning.

Working with other law enforcement agencies, the department created a wide security zone around the Staples Center convention site. Last month, however, a judge ruled the zone was too big, infringing on protesters' rights to convey their messages to convention delegates.

That decision forced the department to rewrite its plan and shrink the buffer zone.

"It seems that the planning on this is already being seen as less than perfect," City Councilwoman Laura Chick said. "This is way too late to be working out these details."

Chick and other officials, however, said it would take a monumental breakdown in public safety to call for any action against the 56-year-old chief. The civilian police commission has ultimate supervision of Parks, whose appointment will be reviewed in 2002.

"We're not anticipating the situation would ever reach that extreme," said attorney Dean Hansell, a police commission member.

EDITOR'S NOTE -- Associated Press Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch contributed to this story.