L.A. council's Public Safety Committee confirms Beck's nomination for LAPD chief

The L.A. City Council's Public Safety Committee today unanimously confirmed Charlie Beck's nomination to be the next Los Angeles police chief.

The vote came after a hearing in which community leaders and council members praised Beck's work at the Los Angeles Police Department and called him the right man to take over the department right now.

Beck made his own presentation, saying his top goal was to extend the reforms begun by former Police Chief William J. Bratton and move them down into the rank and file of the department.

"Now is the time to push [the reforms] down into the patrol cars," Beck said, adding this effort would be the "hallmark of my leadership."

Council members said they have worked with Beck and have come to respect him.

"From the ground up, he has an understanding of what this job requires,"  Councilman Dennis Zine said. "From the command level, from the street level, he understands the demands and the issues. He is in a unique position for this job.”

Beck was selected by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to replace Bratton last week, and the pick has met with praise from both rank-and-file officers and civil-rights activists.

The committee hearing comes a few weeks before the full council is expected to vote on Beck's nomination on Nov. 17.

In an interview with Times reporters last week, Beck -- an LAPD veteran and current deputy chief --portrayed himself as a leader rooted by his ties to rank-and-file officers, as opposed to Bratton, who reformed the department by focusing on its upper echelon.

He said he would concentrate on continuing reforms Bratton introduced into the mind-set of the thousands of officers who are the heart of the organization.

Strategically, Beck said he planned to give greater authority to the captains who run the department's dozens of field stations. Currently, decisions on how to deploy a large segment of the department's force are made by commanders at the LAPD's headquarters. Field captains should have more discretion, Beck said.

Amid an ongoing debate over the size of the force and whether the city should continue to fund a push by the mayor to add 1,000 officers, Beck said he believed the current number of officers, which hovers near 10,000, should be viewed as "a floor, a basement." Any drop in numbers, he said, would make it difficult to continue with gains made under Bratton.

-- Joel Rubin

Photo: Charlie Beck appears today before the L.A. City Council's public safety committee. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times.

More breaking news in L.A. Now:

L.A. Marathon unveils Stadium to the Sea route

Poet on Roman Polanski's punishment: No Lakers or studio meetings

San Diego authorities seek bank robber

Pomona man arrested in fatal shooting may be linked to two other deaths [Updated]

Website offering looks at celebrity homes raises police concern, cited in 'bling ring' burglaries

Freight train derails near Union Station, disrupting several commuter lines

New lanes open on 405 Freeway through Westside

Magnet school deadline moved up for L.A. Unified

Mojave Desert helicopter crash victims were headed to Riverside show

Comments

[Joe6]

Of course this committee even Zine had to praise Beck, they'd have made fools of themselves otherwise with the city-wide popularity Beck enjoys. But wait a month or two after he's installed as Chief and they'll show their true stripes.

Zine kept trying to one-up Chief Bratton over everything from paparazzis to SO40 by coming up with his own "laws" and "motions" named after himself that were never needed, and belittled Bratton on late-night rightwing talk radio over his issues. Of course we know as he reminds us all the time that he was a former LAPD Sargeant, getting a huge pension for it too, but he never rose above Sargeant, "hit a ceiling" for reasons well-known which he'd rather not reveal. Then there's the other former cop who'se a reserve office Smith, a nice guy but also kept trying to micro-manage Bratton and battled him on the issue of movie security guards wearing LAPD uniforms, got angry that HE was the boss of Bratton and wanted to be listened to.

But Smith insists with Parks that the trash fees which were tripled specifically to hire and retain cops,, were never meant for anything but to offset cost of trash pick-up. Lame lie to cover the fact that these two who are also on the Budget Committee were asleep at the switch and now will take any money they can.

Bitter Bernie the former disastrous Chief didn't earn his name for nothing. Perry has wanted more cops in her district and wants them there 5 days a week instead of the 3/12 schedule but voted with the majority to cut total number of cops, Koretz new member of the committee ticking off Bratton by telling him he could make do just as well with 9500, good for Beck who already made it clear that the talked-about 10,000 is the basic minimum. The Police Union's heads would rather keep the force small than give up any salary or pensions, but now that they've agreed to a deal for this year I hope they can get on with working together and support Beck like they promised.

Beck's got to be prepared to stand his ground with this bunch. To continue reinforcing the good work of the Chief in the face of all these wanna-be micro-managers driven to try anything because of their egos and the budget crisis.

[MdW]

So it is written, so let it be done

[Darrin]

Well said, Joe.