Race, rivalries and turf - OPINION
It's not the gangs, it's the cops. L.A.'s law enforcement agencies should stop the playground antics.

by Dan Milchovich

EDITOR'S NOTE:  This OPINION piece also appeared in the LA Times.

July 2, 2008

Reading Charlie Beck's response to Sheriff Lee Baca's Op-Ed article, I had to wonder why an issue has to have two sides. Why does everything have to be subject to an opinion or a position? Law enforcement people are relatively consistent black-and-white thinkers. Right or wrong, guilty or not guilty, shoot or don't shoot. The reasoning is practical, efficient and, most important, it greatly simplifies the startling complexity of street policing, thus increasing the chances of staying alive.

But when it comes to making decisions in the law enforcement executive office, basic wiring tends to transfer voltage to the silly side. Add a dose of testosterone, a couple of pounds of ego, a dollop of bureaucracy, a touch of data, the aura of rock-star leadership and a whole lot of territorialism, and you get the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Drop a common issue between them and watch the wool fly while everyone else in the business of law enforcement rolls their eyes and awaits the fallout.

Southern California isn't big enough for both the LAPD and the Sheriff's Department. They are two fat guys rolling around on the buffet table pulling at the same pork chop.

The latest challenge facing these two behemoths is an interpretation of race-based crime involving gang members. Two of the largest law enforcement agencies in the country are publicly battling over what category to assign to crime when it involves people of different races. Two of the highest-paid law enforcement executives in the world are playing blind men to the elephant in the room, dithering over what to call the beast based on the part they happen to be touching. And now their command support are involved, expanding homegrown theories concerning the thought processes involved when a guy of one shade drops another guy of a different shade in the street.

Which, by the way, gives an interesting twist to the term "thought police."

The recent LAPD counterpunch (by Beck) to the Baca's response to the original LAPD declaration (by Chief William J. Bratton, that race had nothing to do with the violence) cleverly injected numbers into the debate, stressing that a careful analysis of homicides in that agency did not support the evaluation of the competing agency. The LAPD could have strengthened its conclusion by including analysis of other types of violent crime, which would have greatly expanded the sample and the likelihood that a pattern of significance would have emerged.

Aside from the benefit of a healthy competition between respected rivals, there exists a darker trait among cops and between cops of different agencies. It ranges from insignificant to toxic, depending upon history of leadership, organizational culture, proximity and a kind of juvenile jock elitism that stresses rivalry, appreciation and clout.

As an old-timer caught between the battling Goliaths for 30 years, I found some of the sniping representative of classic law enforcement humor, some of it contrived, much of it infantile and most of it distracting to both the public and other agencies.

I entered the Los Angeles Sheriff's Academy as the average 22-year-old airhead from an "outside agency," where I learned to be thrilled to be trained by the "best law enforcement agency in the world." Years later, at a multi-agency luncheon, I listened to an agitated LAPD command officer refer to his agency as the "best police department in the world." I counted over 50 different shoulder patches in that room.

Claims not being enough, the two best agencies in the world have had the time and resources to support competing reality shows and organized gladiator events. Officers and deputies not only risked their lives for the camera or trained recruits for the benefit of ratings, they actually punch each other into submission in front of their frenzied peers in the name of charity. Perhaps the more permanent, and cost effective, solution lies in getting Bratton and Baca to dance a few rounds for bragging rights to law enforcement sovereignty. The loser gets absorbed into the victor agency.

These issues are not confined to the LAPD and the Sheriff's Department. They are simply the biggest and best examples of our desire to excel being hijacked by motivations apart from our basic mission. Somehow, the cold steel of corporate ideology, the need to identify a competitive Mr. Bean to contrast to our proficient James Bond, has become the path to our basic mission. Unfortunately, when enough time and effort is expended on that path, the mission suffers.

As we continue the struggle to be recognized as a legitimate "profession," we must recognize and reexamine our pathological need to pander to political impulses. We must understand that feeding our compulsion to idealize ourselves at the expense of our peers only widens the gap between us and inhibits the cooperative effort that is required to address the law enforcement concerns of our communities. We could start by looking at ourselves through the eyes of the bad guys who prey on those communities.

They couldn't care less who has a better grip on the elephant. We shouldn't either.

Dan Milchovich is a retired captain with the Inglewood Police Department.