Advice to the New Guy From an Old Hand

Dear Bernie:

I read in the morning paper that you are going to be our next chief of police. Congratulations. You’ve done it on merit, and your long years of study and hard work have paid off. From your old coach, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Remember, in a police department, no one knows what’s happening except the officers on the beat. Listen to them. I spent one afternoon a week for eight and a half years listening to a cross-section of senior lead officers, who met with me and my three assistant chiefs. We asked them questions and listened, and we made changes right then and there when they were indicated.

Organization is your most important first step. I put 65 lieutenants in 65 neighborhoods to supervise all the police functions in those neighborhoods. It was called team policing. I could feel the touch of the reins in my hands. The way the department is organized now, you can’t place responsibility for crime in any area. It isn’t the captain or the day lieutenant or a night lieutenant or the morning lieutenant. No one is in charge and has responsibility.

Remember our vertical staff meetings, where we had a meeting of one officer, one sergeant, one lieutenant, one commander, one deputy chief, to discuss problems? No one can perfectly penetrate a hierarchy from above. Listening in a vertical staff meeting allows you to repair problems.

Remember, too, the principles of the police department; the first of these is reverence for the law. In other words, the police can’t break the laws to enforce them. Use your position as a bully pulpit and preach these principles to every officer at every opportunity.

You might now think you are the boss, but wow, do you have bosses! One mayor, five commissioners, 15 council members and more than 3 million members of the public all have a justified concern with your department’s performance. Listen, listen, listen. Serving the public is a big job.

Have an open press policy, wherein any officer having knowledge of a situation can answer the press, rather than having to go through a spokesperson for the chief. The news media can be a big pain on occasions, but they are our entree to the public, and the public must be informed.

Bernie, talk to the people--I know you will do a good job at that--and listen to them. I even used to do periodic polls.

My last advice, Bernie, is that you always remember that while you are very bright, in the aggregate there is more brightness below you in the hierarchy. Give them lots of credit. You can get a lot done if you don’t care who gets the credit.

You have to do all of this in your own style, and I am sure you will do the greatest job yet of any chief of the LAPD.

Go get ‘em, tiger.

Your former coach,

Ed