[Guest post by Jack Dunphy]

Sunday’s L.A. Times features a profile on my boss, LAPD Chief William Bratton. I’m quoted in the piece, but due to the limitations of space most of what I told Times writer Joel Rubin didn’t make it into the story. Presented below is the complete Q and A, with Rubin’s questions in italics.

There is little debate among people I’ve talked with that the chief should be credited for putting in place a COMPSTAT/accountability system that has had a large and positive impact on crime numbers. Do you agree? If not, why?

I would give COMPSTAT partial credit for the drop in crime. But COMPSTAT would be useless if we didn’t have the cops to address the problems it identifies. The LAPD is up to nearly 10,000 officers now, so we have the manpower to devote to addressing crime trends rather than simply answering radio calls. Like any chief executive, a police chief should ultimately be judged by how well his organization fulfills its mission. It is undeniable that the LAPD is in far better shape today than when Bratton arrived. Recruitment and retention are up while crime is down, the exact opposite of the state of affairs when Parks was chief.

For rank and file officers, do you think the day to day job differs dramatically from what it was 8 or so years ago, in terms of what is expected of them, how they are held accountable for their performance etc? If so, how?

Things are marginally different in that there is a bit more accountability on individual officers. There are systems in place today that measure each officer’s performance. This can be a blessing and a curse, as there are those in positions of responsibility who have trouble seeing beyond the raw numbers produced by TEAMS II (the officer-tracking database). The irony is that TEAMS II generates a lot of paperwork that keeps supervisors in front of a computer rather than out in the field. Technology can never make up for good leadership, and the guy with the highest “recap” isn’t necessarily the best cop.

Do you think that a new LAPD officer with a few years on the force is substantially different in his/her sense of mission/approach to the job than more veteran officers who came up under different chiefs? How so?

The great majority of the patrol force has less than eight or so years on the job, so Bratton is the only chief most of them have known. That’s certainly the case in the area where I work. But I don’t think Bratton has put a personal stamp on the LAPD in the sense that one can say it’s “his” department. Most cops see him as remote and aloof, more concerned with his political ties and his next job than he is with his cops. He was hailed as a hero when he arrived, but he certainly isn’t regarded that way any longer.

I think cops are fundamentally the same from generation to generation. We do some things differently from the way we did them when I was new on the job more than twenty years ago, but most of the differences lie in advances in technology rather than any change in the cops themselves.

Do officers feel like they get a better/worse/equal shake now on discipline issues than they did under Parks? What are the changes to the discipline system that have made things better/worse?

Most of the excesses we saw under Parks’s disciplinary system have been corrected, but not all. The department stills spends an inordinate amount of time and energy investigating complaints that are plainly absurd. And officers on the street are fearful of becoming involved in the next politically charged incident. John Hatfield, the officer who struck car thief Stanley Miller with a flashlight at the end of a pursuit a few years ago, was fired not because what he did was so egregious (Miller wasn’t injured) but rather because he embarrassed Bratton and angered some politicians who influenced the investigation. John Mack, at the time still with the Urban League, pronounced Steve Garcia (the officer who shot Devin Brown) guilty when the investigation was barely underway, yet he still was appointed to the police commission and didn’t have the decency to recuse himself from deliberation on the shooting (a fact your newspaper ignored). And now we have the MacArthur Park fiasco, on which the department devoted 12,000 hours of investigative time. Not to excuse some of the things that happened that day, but imagine how many unsolved murders might have been cleared if we could have committed that level of effort to them.

Do officers feel like Bratton has their back, for lack of better way of putting it?

They most definitely do not think Bratton has their back. Bratton came to town with a lot of political capital, but he’s been unwilling to spend even a bit of it in defense of his cops. Recall the time, early in his tenure, when he said, “Control your kids,” when talking about the gang problem. That shouldn’t have been seen as all that controversial, yet it appeared to us that he was taken to Villaraigosa’s woodshed after that, and he’s been as meek as a little lamb ever since.

What is the biggest positive imprint Bratton has made on department? Biggest negative imprint?

His biggest positive imprint was getting us out of the tailspin we were in under Parks. You might hear cops complaining about Bratton, but you won’t find any who wish Parks was still the chief.

As for a negative imprint, I think it’s the apparent wholesale sellout of the LAPD to the mayor’s office. Bratton hitched his wagon to Villaraigosa, who hitched his own to Hillary Clinton. That didn’t work out for them, but we’ll see where they go next.

Assuming he stays for the remainder of this term, what would you like to see Bratton focus on?

I’d like to see him stay in Los Angeles for thirty consecutive days for once in his life, but I don’t think he can do it. I’d like to see him display some genuine empathy for the cops who have worked so hard to deliver the numbers that make him look good, but I’m not holding my breath for that, either. I honestly don’t think he has it in him.

Is there such a thing, as far as you can tell, as a consensus among officers about Bratton? If so, what is it?

It’s widely believed that he’s more concerned with his own celebrity and political future than he is with his own cops. I wish he’d put as much energy into condemning criminals as he does into criticizing his cops. When he leaves, whenever that day comes, it won’t be celebrated like when Parks was ousted, but it won’t be lamented, either.

What five words would you use to describe Bratton?

Intelligent, arrogant, aloof, self-absorbed, political.