LAPD past, future collide as new HQ name is sought

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LOS ANGELES – The most prominent feature of the new Police Department headquarters rising in downtown Los Angeles is its broad glass facade — a promise of transparency by a force with a reputation for resisting public scrutiny.

But that promise is being blurred, say some critics, by a city councilman's effort to name the new building after Police Chief William H. Parker, who headed the department in the 1950s and 1960s when it was known for secrecy and racial insensitivity.

Councilman Bernard Parks, who was police chief from 1997 until 2002, wants to transfer the Parker Center nameplate from the LAPD's decrepit old digs to the gleaming 10-story, $437 million building being built a block away.

Parks sees it as an issue of consistency, and thinks changing a name on such a public edifice would be a disservice.

"What are we saying to the legacy of the people and the family members — that your name or your family member is on Velcro and we'll just move it (off) whenever there's another special interest group that shows up?" Parks, who is black, asked at a City Council meeting Wednesday

The City Council referred Parks' effort to a committee. That panel also will discuss proposals to name the new headquarters after former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, or to call it the Los Angeles Police Memorial Administration Building in recognition of officers who died in the line of duty.

Current Police Chief William Bratton believes the new building deserves a new name.

"I think it would be a mistake to burden the future of that building and the current future men and women of the department with the controversial legacy of the past," he said at the council meeting.

Civil rights leaders say Parker was heavy-handed and racially insensitive when he was chief from 1950 to 1966.

"During his era, there was discrimination, racism and police brutality at very high levels in their relationship with communities of color," said the Rev. Eric P. Lee, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles.

"Some people may argue that keeping the name maintains consistency and continuity in the Police Department. That's exactly what we don't need," Lee said.

Defenders credit Parker with transforming the LAPD from a corrupt and inefficient agency to one noted for professionalism and discipline.

Parker coined the term "Thin Blue Line" for his vision of the force as the only thing standing between an ordered society and potential chaos.

But his insistence on order and control also infected the department's relationship with the communities it policed, said Raphael Sonenshein, a California State University, Fullerton political science professor and author of "Politics in Black and White: Race and Power in Los Angeles."

"Clearly he came in with a kind of military model, and the advantage of this meant officers getting in shape and being well-groomed professionals," Sonenshein said. "But also a military model in a civilian environment has a lot of disadvantages."

Parker's comment about the cause of the 1965 Watts riot, in which more than 30 people were killed, was condemned as racially insensitive.

The riot began, he said, when "one person threw a rock and then, like monkeys in a zoo, others started throwing rocks."

Supporters of Parker point out that Bradley advanced to the rank of lieutenant in Parker's police force, becoming the highest-ranking black police officer at the time.

Parks also began his LAPD career when Parker was chief, and many of the civil rights leaders who oppose naming the new building for Parker are longtime supporters of Parks.

Problems for the LAPD weren't limited to Parker's tenure. During the term of Chief Daryl Gates, the acquittals of four officers in the beating of Rodney King sparked the 1992 riots that killed 55 people and caused $1 billion in property damage.

In the late 1990s, an LAPD anti-gang unit was the focus of allegations that officers framed and beat innocent people. The Rampart corruption scandal led to the reversal of more than 100 convictions tainted by police misconduct. Parks was chief when those allegations were investigated.

Under Bratton, the LAPD's demographic makeup has changed so it more closely mirror the city's population, and a $35 million computer system was set up to track civilian complaints against officers.

Officials hope that features of the new headquarters building — including an adjacent public park and a ground-level restaurant where civilians can interact with officers — will make the department less foreboding.

"You've got a tremendous amount of glass," said Thom Brennan, commander of the LAPD's facilities management division. "Its design speaks out to the community that we are an open organization."
 
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