SHEER MURDER: TOUGH TALK FROM AMERICA'S TOP COP
Police Chief William Bratton, who worked miracles on New York's crime problems in the mid-1990s, has now taken on America's new murder capital, the City of Angels. With Britain also under siege, he talks about gun and gang violence both sides of the pond. Sue Russell reports.

While Britain reeled from the brutal drive-by shooting deaths of two teenage girls in Birmingham on New Year's Day, there was also senseless bloodshed 6,000 miles away in Los Angeles. Pearline La Porte, a pregnant 21-year old, was executed in yet another drive-by shooting while simply standing by her car. Because Pearline's 7 month old fetus also died, police ruled it a double homicide. The glaring difference? Worn down by decades of gun and gang violence, Los Angelenos are appalled but not shocked.

While the Hollywood glitterati swanks it up in Beverly Hills, Bel-Air and Malibu, the blood-stained streets of gang-infested areas just a few miles away are regularly battered by pointless and horrific killings. In November, fiery headlines shouted out the horror:16 homicides in 5 days. Clive Jordan Jr., a much-loved 14-year old with no gang affiliation and college aspirations, was one—gunned down outside a doughnut shop. The human cost is the same anywhere in the world. Clive had just written to a local college asking how much books would cost so that he could start saving up. He didn't want his mum to have to pay for everything. The stories are enough to make strong cops anywhere weep.

Enter William Bratton, 55, the Los Angeles Police Department's new Police Chief and America's self-proclaimed "Top Cop" who famously slashed New York crime rates in the mid-90s. Gangs are now Bratton's most pressing (and stubborn) problem. LA is home to over 120,000 gang members; around 1/8th of America's gangbangers. And no sooner was he sworn in in October than the city's tinderbox areas seemed to roll out the welcome mat, exploding with a new rash of bloodshed and violence. 'Us' and 'them' attitudes also prevail across the racial divide with the vast majority of gang members black or hispanic. And understandably, frustrated gang-area residents tired of ducking bullets don't trust the police to protect them. Bratton will have to get results fast to win them over.

Then, Bratton's idea of fun is, "To turn around organizations, reinvigorate them and get them back into the success column." Can he do it in LA, a city that despite Britain's gun crime wave still has almost ten times the annual gun deaths of either England or France? It's a tall order. With 660 murders in 2002, the Chief, who has moved into upscale Brentwood, won't have much time to sun himself on Malibu beach or clink champagne glasses with celebrities. The dapper Bratton, whose 1998 autobiography was entitled, Turnaround: How America's Top Cop Reversed The Crime Epidemic, is certainly at ease with them. (One NY nickname was Broadway Bill.) Yet he's got real street cop credibility—and he'll need it.

Whereas London has 25,000 police officers, New Yorkers have almost twice as many policemen per capita. LA is not so fortunate. It has 466 sq. miles to NYC's 309 sq. miles for the five boroughs. It has just 9,000 officers to New York's 38-39,000. There are 3.8 million Angelenos with one cop for every 409 of them, to 8 million New Yorkers with one cop for every 209. The good guys are outmanned.

And if Britain, where handgun ownership was totally banned in 1998, has growing problems with illegal weapons, the US is past the point of no return. Nevertheless, Britain, and London in particular, has seen a frightening rise in gangland shootings. 2000-2001 statistics show guns used in over 7,350 crimes across Britain; an 8% increase from 1999-2000. Carjackings are up. Scotland Yard's figures show that London street crime is far worse than New York's.

Yet looking into his crystal ball, Chief Bratton still sees Britain in a relatively good position as long as it takes some hard stands, and he doesn't expect to see British police carrying guns.

"The British officers have made it abundantly clear that they don't want firearms," he notes, citing the Police Federation's 1998 survey in which 4 out of 5 were against carrying weapons. "They realize that being armed would only lead to an escalation of the use of firearms. Britain is in an enviable position—unlike the U.S. where it's way beyond that and where there are far too many guns and far too many laws allowing for guns.

"In the UK, the only mistake is in the courts not backing up the officers by inflicting very harsh punishments on those who do break the law and use firearms. The problem is not with the police but with the law."

Detective Paul Glascow, a 34-year LAPD veteran with 20 years specializing in gang crimes, is one of many men Bratton is counting on. Glascow echoes his boss's call for stiff punishments for gangbangers found guilty of crimes. The benefit is two-fold. "So much of the gang violence is by repeat offenders," Glascow points out. "So if we can curtail that we can certainly curtail the problem. These are issues the Chief is really aware of." And getting the hard-core gangbangers off the streets long term also means less reasons for citizens to live in fear.

Bratton's New York triumph owed much to 'targeted policing' and the introduction of 'CompStats'. These detailed, computerized crime analyses reviewed twice weekly at H.Q. were a revelation. They showed, for instance, that 28% of the Queens borough officers hadn't arrested anyone in six months. 'CompStats' also made the police force very fluid, so extra officers could quickly be re-deployed where most needed.

In LA, the CAL GANG programme also uses a computerized database, this time of gangbanger information. Known gang members are stopped, interviewed and closely tracked with their street names and distinguishing tattoos documented along with their rap sheets.

DISARM (Developing Increased Safety Through Arms Recovery Management) is another programme using probation and parole officers to heighten intelligence and help get guns off the streets. Gang members on probation can be searched at any time and the programme has been successful at recovering illegal weapons.

Famous for his zero-tolerance policing, Bratton, a super-confident, tough-talking, no-frills Bostonian, isn't one for shadowy half-way measures. As New York's Police Commissioner in 1994, he subscribed to the 'broken windows theory'. Set forth in James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling's 1982 article, it held that cracking down on two-bit nuisance crimes made serious crime rates plummet. The idea is that minor 'quality of life' crimes lead to disorder and an atmosphere of neglect that results in more fear, less confidence in police, and finally to violent criminals thinking that they can run rampant unchecked.

Bratton first successfully employed these tactics in 1990 as the city's Transit Police Chief. He targeted turnstile jumpers and sent undercover cops onto trains. Transit crime plunged almost overnight. Between '94 and '96, he focused on 'quality of life' crimes like graffiti vandalism, aggressive panhandling, public drunkenness and urination (what cops called the "piss and beer" strategy").

New York hit its top murder rate of 2,262 in the early '90s. By 1997, the body count fell below 800. Suddenly the "Bad Apple" was drawing more tourists, businesses and residents. His glorious success notwithstanding, Bratton resigned. (Reportedly due to a clash of the titan egos—apparently, ex-New York Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, didn't like his Police Chief stealing his thunder.)

Bratton then flourished in the public sector, making over $500,00 a year as a security consultant (with The Bratton Group), a lecturer and a director on three corporate boards. He also consulted to Transport for London. But once a cop, always a cop. He yearned for more action and when troubled Los Angeles came calling, was ripe for the picking.

"I missed being in a position to create change, to have an impact on people's lives," confesses Bratton, whose new job pays $239,000. "Los Angeles provided me a perfect opportunity because there was an organization in crisis."

And why mess with success? Much of Bratton's strategy involves custom tailoring his New York techniques for LA and within days, he had declared war on graffiti.

"A lynchpin strategy will be quality of life issues," he says. "In New York, graffiti was primarily vandalism. In LA, a significant, if not the largest, percentage, is generated by the gangs. So by going after graffiti we'll also go after the gangs. You end up also physically changing the appearance of the city and dealing with both the reality and the perception."

Bratton believes that in the past, Britain has been slow to act on what he warned were big red flags. A year ago, after meeting Home Secretary David Blunkett, he said: "If we don't deal with quality-of-life offences, then we're going to have zero impact on serious crimes. We now understand that there is no such thing as a victimless crime. Society is a victim."

"I've pointed it out time and again when I visit London," he now says bluntly. "The amount of graffiti that you've now started to see on historic monuments and public transit are signs of crimes that your police forces have been unwilling to focus on until recently, not appreciating that they do as much damage as serious crime.

"I also don't buy the excuse that, 'We're too busy and have too few police to focus on those little issues.' You don't see me in LA, with one of the smallest police forces per capita in the US, saying we're too busy to deal with those little things! I understand the importance of the little things."

In Hollywood, he faces particular pressure to quickly clean the city's dirty face.

"Despite the very high crime rates, much is in confined areas that most business people and tourists would never see," he notes. "But the image that's projected in the national and international media is of Los Angeles now having the highest number of murders.

"It's very similar to what's going on now in London, which for years was perceived to be - and in reality was - one of the safest cities. Now that is very different. You now have a higher property crime rate, for example, than the city of New York."

53% of L.A.'s homicides are believed gang-related (that's actually down from 60% in 2001). In November, the Chief swiftly moved 300 extra officers into the trouble zones. He went to black churches and communities, saying the streets could only become safer if residents and police work together. He's named a special gang czar and is calling for federal prosecutors to help by using anti-racketeering and tax evasion laws against gang members as they were used against the Mafia.

"Mafia crime families were no more initimidating or impactful than the gangs of Los Angeles," he says, noting that, "They also don't kill fifty people a month."

LA's gang culture is deeply entrenched. Hispanic gangs date back many decades and are considered the traditional gangs. They began innocently enough with folk congregating in the barrios, their safe havens. There were also white gangs, West Side Story-style hot rodders. But as criminal activity rose, such congregating made other residents nervous. Then, by the late 70s and early 80s, black gangs had come to the fore with a slightly different agenda. Turf wars increased the violence. "Respect" killings, new to Britain, became old news in LA with teenagers dying for "dissing" one another.

If hispanic gangs are family-oriented and often five or six generations old, black gangs, "Were always money-oriented," says Glascow.

"All the shootings revolve around territory—more territory, more money." Bratton sees the multi-generational aspect of gangs as a key factor.

"Each successive generation is less focused on values and self-control," he says. "And that manifests itself in the total lack of respect that you find for values. Gangs are the problem that's causing the vast majority of fear and negative perceptions of Los Angeles, and a significant percentage of the actual violence. The department has very ineffective strategies for dealing with that principal cancer that causes so many of the other cancers that we see—the narcotics, the gun problems and violence."

One of the few rays of hope is CLEAR, the Pacific Division's successful Community Law Enforcement and Recovery programme which puts gang investigators, probation officers and prosecutors who are savvy about the dangers facing potential witnesses, all under one roof. Intelligence is markedly better. Reserve officers also work with gang youths to try to get them off the downward slope. More officers on "foot beats," staying put in a neighbourhood and getting on first-name terms with the locals also helps locals start to trust that police will be there to help. No-one is denying the dangers facing those who testify against the most hardened criminals.

"But we must intervene," says Det. Glascow, speaking of residents as well as law enforcement. "Intervention is a major issue—intervention and prevention."

Longterm, this approach will cut down on incarceration rates so frightened locals and crime witnesses must be urged off the sidelines. The witness protection programme is an option for those whose lives are threatened. With CLEAR, however, violent crime rates dropped for two consecutive years while still rising in other divisions.

Bratton would be a real hero if he could short circuit the rising murder rate and he certainly thinks he can improve it. "The police can be a significant catalyst as we were in New York City," he says. Under Bratton and Giuliani, petty criminals were picked up, checked out and often found guilty of more serious crimes like gun possession. Yet not everyone was enamoured with 'zero tolerance' because falling crime rates brought more incarceration and more accusations of police brutality. Some British critics of 'zero tolerance' fear it stirs up racial problems.

Unfazed, Bratton is calling for more officers fast in LA and suggests Britain do likewise since in New York, getting the extra manpower really accelerated results.

"You'd got the double impact of laws that had not been enforced coupled with 40,000 officers enforcing them," he explains, "so you were very quickly able to achieve what Malcolm Gladwell writes about, the 'Tipping Point'. You had enough critical mass to effect change very quickly. But the police are only part of the solution."

Bratton is relying on his LA champion, Mayor Jim Hahn, to bring on board business and political folk to help improve after-school programmes.

"Dealing with this gang culture means you're also going to have to deal with the school system," he explains. "So many of these kids never get a chance to get away from the culture. They have it on the streets and in the schools. "

Detective Glascow repeatedly emphasizes that you've got to get the message through to children as young as ten to twelve years old.

"You've got to let them know that gangs are not the way to go," he explains, "and it definitely leads to a having a terrible life, death and destruction. It starts when they're babies, in elementary school, and in adolescence. You have to tell them there is nothing positive about gangs and the end result is, you could get yourself killed."

Police and parents alike must de-glamourize the idea of guns and gangs, get rid of the idea that it's a cool family to join which is what often hooks kids.

"They all first thought it was so good being involved with gangs," says Glascow. "It got them so much notoriety. Whether it was bad or good, people paid attention to them. But we have to show children that this is not an attractive group to be with."

Some police programmes have even taken high-risk youths to the coroner's office to literally view the lifeless corpses of casualties in the drug war. Scared straight tactics. But Glascow stresses the simple need for parental supervision to keep kids on the right track.

"Many, but not all, gang kids come from broken homes," he notes. And parents need to wake up to warning signs like gang tattoos, including covert ones tucked in the webbing between the fingers, for instance. Girls are not exempt either. Gangbangers' girlfriends will proudly wear their guys' tattoos but they also carry weapons in their underwear and drive getaway cars.

Naturally, Chief Bratton doesn't minimize LA's challenges. How could he? They go beyond gangs. The LAPD's famous shield has been tarnished by allegations of police brutality and 1999's Rampart Division corruption scandal. (Involving travesties like planted evidence and falsified testimony, it resulted in around 100 criminal convictions being overturned.) Damage control on the LAPD's credibility and the many good officers' seriously-hammered morale are other priorities.

Bratton, who thinks, and often talks, like a businessman expects his strong leadership to quickly improve morale and up recruitment. There will be no pushing the department's problems under the rug.

"You acknowledge that you do have a lot of good people that are unfortunately lumped in with the bad," he says. "And you clearly indicate that when you speak about the bad you are not speaking about all the good officers. With improved morale comes re-energizing, and with that re-energizing comes more productivity, and with that productivity comes more success."

New York was clever, Bratton believes. Once its crime began negatively affecting tourism and jobs, and residents began fleeing the city, in came the cavalry.

"New York," he explains, "made an investment that many other American cities including Los Angeles, and indeed Britain, have not been willing to make in understanding that hiring more police, properly training them and properly focusing them, is an investment that pays multiple dividends.

"New York invested probably $3-400,000,000 initially to hire 7,000 more police. But then it got an economy that brought in another 8,000,000 tourists, and that brought back the 300,000 jobs that left. Those 300,000 jobs paid taxes far in excess of the $300,000,000 paid to police."

In his eyes, American cities and many international ones just don't get it.

"They've failed to understand that the first obligation of government is public safety, and the first priority should be investment there," he says. Properly used, those resources, "Can have multiple benefits on the economy, public state of mind, number of jobs created and taxes paid."

Other hot-button issues Bratton faces? Cutting back on dangerous police car chases highlighted by wall-to-wall TV coverage. Shockingly, a baby recently lost an arm after a suspect in a car chase ploughed into an innocent family's car.

"It's damned if you do, damned if you don't," says Bratton, asking what would happen if the California Highway Patrol didn't intercede when a car is weaving in and out of freeway traffic at 90 m.p.h., endangering others?

"I'm sorry," he says, "it's just a fact of life that you've got all these nitwits out there with no respect for other people. And police are charged with enforcing the law. If the courts would get a lot tougher, maybe we'd have a few less of these characters playing bumper cars on the freeway."

This past week, though, he spearheaded new regulations restricting police car chases to circumstances where a more serious felony has been committed or a suspected drunk driver could endanger the public.

Bratton, whose fourth wife, Court TV anchorwoman, Rikki Klieman, is giving up her job to follow him west, began as a beat cop in Boston at age 23. Growing up, his TV diet was filled with images of the fine, brave men of the LAPD courtesy of 'Dragnet' and 'Adam-12'. Now he's running the show and the buck stops with him, but he's happy.

"Since my youngest memory, I always wanted to be a police officer," he says. "And I've had a very good life in that respect. I've had that opportunity, plus some…"

Sunday Express, 2003
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