October 28, 2009 | 9:25 pm

Memo to Chief Bartow

Posted by Jack Weiss

The Police Commission and the Mayor are reaching out as they consider possible finalists to succeed LAPD Chief Bill Bratton.  One person who should be on their call list but isn’t is Gene Bartow.

Bartow was a rising star in the collegiate basketball coaching ranks when he got the call in 1975 from J.D. Morgan to replace John Wooden at UCLA.

A look at the stats tells one story about Gene Bartow and the Bruins.  A record of 52-9 over two years.  Two consecutive conference titles.  A trip to the Final Four.

A look at the community’s response to Bartow—and Bartow’s subsequent reaction—tells a different story.  Hate mail on the Saturday sports page.  Alumni and player dissatisfaction.  Paranoia about physical threats (really).

As one of his former players said, ““A lot of people were ready to eat Bartow’s lunch. People had escaped reality at Pauley Pavilion for . . . years and when Bartow came in and let them down, it was a big letdown because the fans had a fickle, fake perception of reality.”

After only two years, Bartow fled Westwood.

Following Bill Bratton could be a lot like following John Wooden.  L.A. has gone without a major police scandal for several years and has seen steady, steep declines in crime under Bratton.  Sharp knives await any new Chief’s first, inevitable misstep.

Asking anyone to follow Wooden or Bratton may be an impossible task in the short-run, even though the leading contenders are experienced, well-versed in crime-fighting, and sensitive to issues of diverse communities.  So here are some tips for the next Chief that will serve him or her, and the City, in the long run:

Continue Bratton’s reforms and policies. In any transition at a public office, there is an understandable desire to institute change and impose one’s own stamp and style on the position.  Bratton certainly did that when he took over the LAPD seven years ago, just as Bernard Parks and Willie Williams had done before.  But Bratton’s policies and reforms have been working.  The new Chief needs to state clearly that he or she will implement Bratton’s initiatives, and immediately go on a broad tour of the City to assure the community of continuity, rather than change.  Express your individuality through your personality, not your policies.

Make hiring new cops a public priority. There has been a heated political battle over the past months about whether the City can afford to continue hiring new cops.  Of course City budget dollars are getting tighter, but the hiring of new cops has been the sine qua non of the department’s recent successes.  There will be political pressure on the new Chief immediately to back off.  Don’t—and announce this right away.  Being coy about the Department’s top issue will only lead to an erosion of your effectiveness and ultimately make the City less safe.

Put cops on the dots—not on the fifteenths.  The dirty little secret of L.A. politics has always been the more or less equal division of City resources into the fifteen Council districts despite the unequal division of needs.  I supported Chief Bratton when he moved cops out of my district and into higher-crime areas; the new Chief will find few, if any, Councilmembers receptive to this approach.  Make future deployment decisions on the basis of need and data only—not political pressure.  Explain to the public that fighting crime where it happens is essential to preventing its spread to lower-crime areas.  And if the public and the Council object, do it anyway.

Stand by programs that don’t have political support.  Bratton made homeland security a new priority, and the department’s current counterterror leaders, Deputy Chief Mike Downing and Commander Joan McNamara, are setting the national standard for local homeland security initiatives.  As unpopular as these important efforts have been, they are only bound to grow in unpopularity in the future.  Councilmembers will eye the 300 or so cops assigned to homeland security and seek their transfer to more immediate community functions.  Let me be direct—the new Chief needs to plan for an attack on Los Angeles during his or her tenure.  The new Chief can also explain that counterterror resources are useful in combating the spread of other sophisticated criminal enterprises such as the MS-13 gang.  A Chief who cuts corners on homeland security is not worthy of our trust.

Invest in technology—even when it forces hard choices.  DNA testing.  Video cameras in police cars.  Functional and interoperable communications equipment.  Technology is the law enforcement force multiplier of the future, but it lacks a constituency.  All the contenders for Chief profess to be in favor of these initiatives, but when push comes to shove, who will be willing to shift resources to needed new technologies?

Develop a close bond with the Inspector General.  It is an open secret in L.A. that current Inspector General Andre Birotte is likely soon to be moving on to a new post, which means that for the first time we will have a transition at Chief and I.G. simultaneously.  Bratton’s approach to the Department’s civilian watchdog was unusual—he was completely open to the office, even when it criticized him.  Sheriff Lee Baca has been similarly open to Mike Gennaco’s Office of Independent Review despite its frequent censure of that department.  Openness, though, is not mandated by law—so the new Chief will have to choose this type of relationship with the I.G.

Anticipate your first scandal.  Bad things happen to good police departments.  Assume that the next controversy will happen within your first year.  Deal with it when it happens by getting the facts out immediately and dispensing discipline rapidly up and down the chain of command.  There’s a reason everyone remembers Rampart and few remember MacArthur Park—one scandal was stonewalled and the other was transparent.

If there is a common thread that runs through these recommendations, it is that each will be unpopular with an important constituency.  That’s okay—the new Chief is fortunate to take office under a Police Commission that has consistently backed the department’s leadership when it has come under political attack.

Still, there will inevitably be times when the new Chief will feel like Gene Bartow and believe that the stats don’t justify the condemnation.  All I ask is that the new Chief earn his or her hate mail by making tough calls for public safety, not political popularity.

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