Los Angeles' newest idol

AND the new Los Angeles Idol is ... Charlie Beck! Congratulations, Beck. Yes, this is one of those rare grateful/hopeful columns I feel obligated to crank out every six months.

[Valley Cynic]

While your optimism is to be admired, it will be "Sorry, Charlie."

Beck is Villaraigosa's "pocket person", will never stand up to him and when you get your show back, you will be battling him more fiercly than you battled Bratton over Special Order 40.

BTW, crime hasn't gone down! They cooked the books to make it look like it went down, and deliberately left areas out of the posted report. But you know that as well as I do, so enjoy your optimism for as long as it lasts, because -- unfortunately -- it won't be for long.

[Able Baker]

LA radio sucks without Doug.

[Lost Listener]

Doug brought me to LA Daily News - any L.A. radio stations looking to increase their followers???? Bring Doug on board.

[Jen]

I agree. We miss you, Doug!

[SFCOSMO]

Ditto to all who miss you!

[Bureaucratic Mess]

With support from Tony VivaLaRaza, the LA City Clowncil, "community leaders," and the city unions ... I'm afraid that I don't hold out much hope for Beck at all. He sounds like too much of an insider.

[Joe6P]

Beck is pretty much Tony V-proof AND Council proof, he'll be his own man. After 32 years on the force, doing his job quietly in the ranks until the last few years when he's had quite an eduction at the side of Bratton who gave him high-profile jobs, he really does seem to know both sides.

Of course the council will try to boss him around - they're the ones who threw their weight around at Bratton so he HAD to be tough and sometimes brash (NEVER a bully, save that for the uncouth nobody from nowhere in the ca job). Smith told this paper he was upset about Bratton's "ego" because he had his own opinion about not letting rent-a-cops wear LAPD uniform and had the nerve to want the trash fee hikes promised for cops and public safety to go WHERE promised. While Smith and Parks denied the promise and claimed the money was supposed to go to offset trash pickup all along to Cover their behinds from Budget Committee being asleep at the switch for years. Perry wanting more cops in her district but voting to cut the total, telling Bratton to dump the 12/3 work schedule to suit herself. Koretz the new guy doing the Police Union's bidding, telling Bratton he could make do with 500 cops less than the min. 10,000 Bratton knew he needed. For a start.

Zine cooking up all kinds of new laws and "motion" named after himself, like the paparazzi law that would have favored movie stars giving them a private hotline to LAPD to act as security detail. To his "motion" to revise SO40.(Sorry, you're wrong on that - we don't want LAPD acting as immigration scouts, looking for illegals, just to report them to ICE when they're caught breaking the law. They're stretched too thin as it is.

AND that big PR stink you made over the Shaws and Balognas, bringing them to the doorstep of Jack Weiss along with your fellow am radio ranter You-Know-Who, was sadly ignorant. The killer of Jamiel Shaw Jr., Espinoza, was released from L A COUNTY jail by Lee Baca and DA Steve Cooley's people, as all prisoners are treated except those held in local JAIL short-term for booking.

You got the WRONG jurisdiction, City instead of County, WRONG guy in Weiss, just so you could try to pin that one on the mayor. Beck said as much to the Times - these are almost always county/fed immigration issues. Take it up with Baca and your good friends Cooley and the Nooch from pedro. You even put poor Mrs. Balogna from SAN FRANCISCO on Weiss's doorstep for your media citcus. Of COURSE Zine the media-uh, hound, tried to capitalize on it for his friend FALSEtanich, and tried to TEACH BRATTON the law, but you're too smart to have fallen for it.

You're overall right on this one, otherwise. Beck wants to continue Bratton's policies but give more local authority to division commanders. Good luck!

[Geoff]

Insightful. I never had thought about, "The chief sets a tone that not only impacts crime, but can heal or open racial wounds, establish or destroy ties to communities in crisis, inspire or destroy morale for the incredible men and women who are charged with policing this enormous and complex city. " It's true.

Great articles.

[agree with Joe6P]

Geoff is right to catch that particular part. BUT that's an argument FOR Bratton having interpreted and used SO40 as he did. NOT as a club and threat which, if used by the people Doug supported, Walter Moore/ David Berger and their soulmate FalseTanich, WOULD reverse the healing and "open racial wounds," reverse not establish the fragile establishment of "ties to communities in crisis," and destroy not "inspire morale for the incredible men and women who are charged with policing this enormous and complex city."

Listen to the wisdom of your own words, Doug, and dump the dark glasses which you wore in the past.

I say this as someone who believes in enforcing the laws against illegal immigration and know that our government, Republicans AND Democrats over the decades, have totally failed to deal with the problem and have left us with tens of millions of people who have not come here under the same legal conditins that the rest of our ancestors did. Conflating legal and illegal immigration is WRONG, a PC insult. But blaming all of this on SO40 and certain city officials for political grandstanding is just wacky on many levels and would reverse the very deep changes you so eloquently note.

[a proud immigrant]

why is mess such a cynic? did she not get breast fed

unions rejoice

[Noteworthy]

a proud immigrant wrote:

why is mess such a cynic? did she not get breast fed
unions rejoice

"A proud immigrant". I assume that means you are here legally?

[Bureaucratic Mess]

a proud immigrant wrote:

why is mess such a cynic? did she not get breast fed
unions rejoice

I'm not a cynic, I'm a realist. I, and many others, are finally completely fed up with government employee breast feeding -- as you suck on the teets of our public treasury. Deal with it.

[Landofnorain]

BM doesn't have a job worth mentioning apparently. No one in his or her estimation is worth anything to anyone. I'de be very curious to know what valuable service BM provides society that he can criticize a chief of police as sucking on the public teat. BM must be a pretty important person to make such claims!
Sometime the answer is the market BM, other times it is public service. Markets will not provide police services, schools, or all the public infrastructure necessary to a developed productive first world society. Without all these services, your much vaunted private sector could not function. Oh, by the way, most of us would rather have a government that is more stable and long lived than is typical of business. Tell us BM just how many firms that were in the Fortune 500 in 1960 still exist. Not too many. Tell us all what the average five year success rate is for new businesses. Pretty small, is it not? So maybe running government like a business is not such a good idea? I'm just saying pal. The US Government has outlasted pretty much any business in this nation, and in the world. Someone is doing something right.