LOS ANGELES, April 16 (UPI) -- Police Chief Bernard Parks addressed the Los Angeles City Council in soft, measured tones Tuesday, but his lengthy dissertation on why he should be given a second term in office was steeped in a bitter denouncement of what he felt was the sacrificing of his job as political payback by the city's new mayor.
Parks spoke for more than two hours in an attempt to convince 10 of the 15 members of the council to vote to override last week's decision by the Police Commission -- whose members are appointed by the mayor -- not to grant him a second term in office.
The vote will be taken Wednesday.
Fighting what most city hall observers have said is an uphill battle, Parks told the packed council chambers that that he was being railroaded out of office by a commission that had ignored a steep reduction in the city's crime rate during his five years in office, and instead focused on personality issues that had irritated the leadership of the police officers' union.
"You, as council members, in the future will have to make some important determinations," Parks said in his written remarks. "How many lives should be lost to accommodate a police union as payback for an endorsement, and to accommodate the small number of community activists who want the Police Department at their beck and call?"
"The true question is how much emphasis does the city of Los Angeles place on the value of life over political agendas?" Parks continued.
The council listened politely as Parks' supporters gave occasional standing ovations and onlookers stood in line outside the council chambers waiting for the next vacant seat in the gallery.
The crowd was not as large as had been expected. A loudspeaker broadcast the proceedings to an empty plaza outside city hall. A dozen mounted police officers idled in the saddle as their horses nibbled at the lawn.
It was not known when the council would vote on the matter.
Parks, 58, a career LAPD officer, has strong support among fellow African Americans who believe he has made great strides in ending what they see as a long history of overly aggressive and disrespectful behavior by police officers assigned to minority neighborhoods. While the commission's 4-1 vote last week not to renew Parks was not seen as racially motivated, Parks' supporters characterized it as a crass political move by Mayor James Hahn.
Although he has strongly denied engineering Parks' pending departure in August, Hahn appoints the members of the Police Commission and had publicly stated after the election that he felt Parks should be replaced. The mayor, a former city attorney, has characterized Parks as being stubborn and unwilling to be a team player.
Nevertheless, Hahn did receive a major endorsement in last year's election from the Police Protective League, whose leadership has accused Parks of instituting an often-uneven disciplinary policy and taking other actions that have scuttled morale and triggered an exodus of experienced officers.
Recent media reports in Los Angeles have included statements from LAPD officers in the field bemoaning new regulations instituted in the name of police reform that they say have reduced their effectiveness. Officers told the Los Angeles Daily News last weekend that the "Rampart rules" were weakening the LAPD at a time when dozens of hard-core gang members were being paroled into the city every week.
In his testimony, Parks called into question a $3.5 million payment the city made to the PPL earlier this year. The chief suggested that the money bankrolled a PPL television ad campaign that called for his resignation, a charge the president of the PPL, Mitzi Grasso, strongly denied.
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Grasso said the money was used to defend officers in civil lawsuits and was part of the labor contract between the city and the union.
"They were payments made according to the contract as agreed to with the city and which the LAPD signed off on," said Grasso.
Parks has consistently stated that the PPL had blown the morale issue out of proportion, and countered the Police Commission's concerns about a recent rise in crime as being out of context.
He told the City Council that crime during his tenure had fallen to a 30-year low, and that even with the recent rise in the crime rate, the numbers were still the lowest they had been in 25 years.
"Nor did they (the commission) attempt to reconcile their conclusions with performance reviews that consistently stated that I was exceeding all expectations," Parks said.
Several members of the City Council have indicated in recent days they were inclined to let Parks say his piece, but were unlikely to give him the 10 votes required to remove the political hot potato from the Police Commission's jurisdiction.
Councilman Hal Bernson candidly told television station KCLA Tuesday that no one was looking forward to making the call on the emotional issue.
"I would imagine," he said, "that the last thing most of us wanted was for this to wind up in our laps."
