LAPD figures show that Part 1 crime - the most serious, violent crimes - is
down 7.1 percent, homicides are on pace to fall under 300 for the year - the lowest level since 1967 - and gang crime is down more than 11 percent.
"This is not the right climate for crime to go down," Beck said. "Nobody thought we could do this. People feel disenfranchised and we are seeing crime go up in major cities like Chicago and New York, where homicides are out of control.
"But we have the support of the city and we are willing to change. We are not a perfect department, but we try to do better every day."
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has a history of being at odds with the LAPD, said it was pleased with Beck's efforts in reaching out to different groups and supporting transparency at the LAPD.
"However, Chief Beck must still confront long-standing problems that all too often have disproportionately affected low-income communities and people of color," said ACLU legal director Hector Villegas.
"While LAPD has improved its investigations of racial profiling complaints, the department has yet to adopt an early warning system that would help identify those officers who still engage in consistent patterns of racial profiling and ensure they receive needed training."
Beck refuted a recent report that the Department of Justice was concerned the department was using a racial profile system in enforcing the law.
"Last year, we had 216 complaints on use of force," Beck said. "We had 195,000 people who were arrested. We had more than 550,000 citations issued. Out of 800,000 cases, only 216 complaints."
Beck has been tested in several incidents.
There was wide community protest over a shooting in early September in the MacArthur Park area. Officers said they were forced to shoot and kill Manuel Jamines, a 37-year-old construction worker from Guatemala.
Police said Jamines was drunk and had thrown a knife at him.
To deal with the situation, Beck called a community meeting that drew an audience of 200 people in which he promised a full investigation.
"What Charlie Beck does is reach out to people," Villaraigosa said. "He is not afraid to engage people and to collaborate with them."
Villaraigosa said Beck did the same thing in resolving a backlog of DNA rape kits, by meeting with critics to develop procedures to deal with issues.
Beck, who was promoted to deputy chief under Bratton, has embraced many of his principles - particularly with the Compstat program that charts crimes - but also brought a perspective of what ordinary cops experience, said Paul Weber, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League.
"He has an institutional memory that Bratton didn't," Weber said. "When I would meet with Bratton, even as brilliant as he was, I would have to explain the history inside the LAPD. Charlie knows it."
"He grew up in the organization and he knows the cast of characters and the strengths and weaknesses of the organization."
As a result, Weber said officers are responding by giving more of their own time to cases, even with a contract in place that provides no pay increase.
"We have homicide detectives who are giving their own time to solve cases because they don't want it to go cold," Weber said. "It's amazing what people are doing to help solve crime."
Beck also has a much better relationship with City Council members than did Bratton - who was vocal in defense of his turf as police chief and was not shy in letting officials know he was in charge of the department.
"I think Charlie Beck has done all we asked him to do," said Councilman Bernard Parks, who was chief before Bratton and chairs the Budget and Finance Committee. "I have not seen him falter. What I appreciate is he is a steady hand. This whole issue of the budget, he understood what we were going through."
Councilman Dennis Zine, who serves on the Public Safety Committee and worked with Beck on the LAPD, gave him high marks.
"He is a cop," Zine said. "His heart and soul is with the people of Los Angeles. He has a son and daughter on the force and he is connected to the people."
Zine said he also sees differences from Bratton, with whom clashed.
"Charlie is not doing this for fame or fortune," Zine said. "He's doing it because he believes in being a cop."
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_16639135
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A proud Mrs. Beck pins Chief of Police stars on her husband, LAPD's Charlie Beck, one year ago.
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EDITORIAL
An LAPD to be proud of
Los Angeles Times
November 17, 2010
The relationship between Los Angeles city government and its Police Department once was distinctly destructive: City Hall starved the LAPD for resources but, by way of consolation, allowed its officers to do their work without much second-guessing.
The result was a kind of mutually assured destruction at the civic level, and the breaking point occurred in 1991 and 1992.
The beating of Rodney G. King inflamed an abused public, and the riots that erupted when the officers responsible were found not guilty highlighted both the fury toward the police and the LAPD's inability to respond.
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The bill for decades of neglect and indifference came due.
City Hall's relationship to the LAPD began to change with the election of Mayor Richard Riordan, and it has continued to improve, with some interruption, in the years since.
For his part, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has contributed mightily toward healing those old wounds, first by finding the money to expand the LAPD — though it remains just shy of his promised 10,000 officers — and then, a year ago this week, by hiring Charlie Beck as its chief.
Sound management and wise public investment have produced the opposite of what starvation and neglect once did. Crime has declined year after year, and continues to drop in 2010. Even as other big cities have seen increases, Los Angeles has reduced overall serious crimes by 7.2%, and homicides by more than 10%. If those trends continue through the end of this year, Los Angeles will complete 2010 with less than one murder a day. In the early 1990s, more than four times that many Angelenos were murdered. Not since the 1960s has Los Angeles been this free of crime.
Police work is never done, and the department continues to confront some stubborn reminders of its past. Just last week, The Times reported that the Justice Department is troubled by the LAPD's systems for investigating allegations of racial profiling. Beck and the city's Police Commission are right to take those admonitions seriously, but also right to place them in a larger context. As Beck pointed out, LAPD officers faced 216 allegations of profiling last year. Over the same period, officers made arrests, issued citations or impounded vehicles on 800,000 occasions. Racial profiling is destructive to public confidence in the police, and should be vigorously rooted out. Thankfully, it is at least rare.
Today, one year into Beck's tenure, Los Angeles is safer than it has been in decades. As a result, it is more inviting to tourists and business. Credit is due to Chief Beck, who has managed the department with skill, and to the mayor, who has found resources for the LAPD and defended them even in difficult economic times.
http://mobile.latimes.com/wap/news/text.jsp?sid=294&nid=29109553&cid=16704&scid=-1&ith=6&title=Opinion
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