‘Process Was Flawed for Political Reasons’

Excerpts from LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks’ speech to the City Council on Tuesday:

You as council members and the [Police] Commission in the future will have to determine how many lives should be lost to accommodate a police union as payback for its endorsement of the mayor and to accommodate a small number of community activists who want the Police Department to be at their beck and call. The true question is how much emphasis is placed on the value of life over political agendas.

[Regarding discipline] In my opinion, the department has turned around roughly 50 years of institutional neglect within a very short time.

When you consider my meeting with the mayor in January in which he said that he had already secured the votes for both commission non-reappointment and for the appeal to this council, when you take into account [Police Commission President Rick] Caruso’s specific statements in front of 40 to 50 LAPD personnel, in which he admitted that he was a puppet for the mayor, and when you consider the transfer of city funds to the union to fight against my reappointment . . . it is apparent that this entire process was flawed for political reasons.

We can now see behind the scenes that there was never an intent for this to be merit-based. We can also see that the campaign against me and this department has been orchestrated by the Police Protective League in concert with the mayor’s office.