Finding Answers for Bernard Parks

When I recently questioned the accuracy of Los Angeles crime statistics, I also alluded to “ethical lapses of (LAPD chiefs) Willie Williams and Bernard Parks.”

As if this story and this $15 million dollar verdict wasn’t enough, I received this note from Councilmember Parks’ Office the following day:

----Original message----
To: CaliforniaConservative.org
Subject: CaliforniaConservative.org - Contact Form
From: Office of Councilmember Bernard C. Parks<Councilmember.Parks@lacity.org>
Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 11:11:19 -0500

Office of Councilmember Bernard C. Parks wrote:

We read Clark Baker's story "LAPD Explains the Numbers" and we were particularly interested to know what "ethical lapses" he was referring to when he mentioned Councilmember Parks.

Website: LAPD Explains the Numbers
IP: 75.49.108.66

My first thought was, “Why is he asking me?” I'm sure no one knows Parks’ deficiencies better than he does, unless some undiagnosed pathology prevents him from understanding the difference between right and wrong. So before he asks for the definition of the word IS…

Ethical Lapses

The law is well settled that confession of a defendant induced by fear of personal injury or hope of personal benefit held out by anyone in authority is not admissible in evidence.

Confessions as Evidence
Chief McKenna
Waltham, Mass., 1910

Although the $15 million dollar verdict against the City of Los Angeles did not single out Bernard Parks, he was the chief who pressured the malicious prosecutions of Officer Paul Harper and Sergeants Edward Ortiz, and Brian Liddy during the Rampart Scandal.Parks admitted as much in this interview:

Even if the jury rejected (the case), it was worth the whole exercise of sitting those people through a criminal process, because they had violated their oath to that degree…

(Parks)… had to lead it for the officers in this department to know that it was not going to accept, or it was intolerable to allow officers to participate in this activity. It was important that the community saw that the police department was willing to do its job…

Ethical cops and prosecutors don’t charge individuals when the entire case rests on the uncorroborated statements from untested felons. Rafael Perez, who could have spent decades in prison, was offered five years to implicate other officers. No corroborative evidence existed against those officers, and Perez failed five consecutive polygraph tests while implicating them.

I understood Parks’ reasoning: The Rampart criminals were black and all had ties to criminal gangsters and the hip-hop culture. Several LAPD investigators had been reassigned after refusing to doctor questionable backgrounds of black police applicants. Since the 1980s, LA’s leftists had judged candidates by the color of their skin and not the content of their character. As an ambitious political animal, Parks wasn't motivated to expose the liberal politics that led to the hiring of bad cops.

This is not to say that white or black officers are all good or bad. But affirmative action hurts good officers of color as well. Veteran cops expect that white male officers, who are hired despite the existence of anti-white racial barriers, are more likely to possess skills and values that their counterparts may not. Because of these hurtles, blacks and women are often expected to work harder to prove they bring more to the LAPD than their complexions and reproductive organs. If high standards were placed on all candidates, race would become irrelevant.

The protection of marginal or criminal black LAPD officers was quietly understood during that period. In 1991, I offered tape-recorded evidence to a black supervisor that would have proven civil rights violations committed by a black officer. The supervisor allowed the accused officer to destroy the evidence and, when I refused repeated warnings to drop my complaint, I received an admonishment for the most minor complaint I had reported. The black supervisor was later charged with thirty unrelated acts of dereliction and misconduct. He quit the LAPD and was later hired by another LA area police agency.

So cops weren’t surprised when black officers were accused of committing bank robberies, trafficking cocaine, and shooting innocent people. Parks couldn’t make it look like a hiring problem, so he sprinkled the scandal with convenient white and Latino officers. He also used other inconsequential incidents to purge the LAPD of dozens of excellent officers under the pretext of “police reform.” He ruined the lives and careers of many good officers for personal political gain. I retired from the LAPD after only twenty years, largely because of the kind of racial politics that Parks had engaged in, and that commissions and politicians demanded.

As if to prove Parks’ bias against white and Latino officers, consider his treatment of other black LAPD employees.

Internet searches on terms like Bernard Parks, cocaine, and Moore deliver MANY links, including this one by LAPD insider Jack Dunphy, who describes Parks’ association with former Deputy Chief Maurice Moore:

In December 1999, while still chief of the LAPD, Parks was informed by the FBI that Moore, at that time a deputy chief for the department, was suspected of involvement in a large-scale cocaine distribution ring. Moore's son, a convicted drug dealer, continued operating his enterprise from inside prison, and Moore was suspected of laundering money for him through sham real estate deals and other such chicanery. Despite this revelation, Parks allowed Moore to continue in his duties with the department and retire quietly in January 2002.

The Associated Press reported that Moore’s son was in federal prison for smuggling a half-ton of cocaine, and that his drug dealing had continued in prison.

In one of the transactions, (Deputy Chief Moore) purchased an apartment building in Los Angeles in 1992. Seven years later, as Kevin Moore was about to plead guilty to money laundering, he claimed the apartment building belonged to him.

The other deal involves a house in Cheviot Hills that was transferred into Maurice Moore’s name on July 7, 1992. The house was deeded to him by Cheryl Frazier, whose sister, Anna Moore, was married to Kevin Moore and participated in his drug and money-laundering enterprises.

In a 1999 plea agreement to money laundering in connection with prison orchestrated drug dealing, Kevin Moore agreed to turn over $1 million in drug profits to the government, and in return, prosecutors agreed not to seize the two properties.

A year earlier, Parks’ then-37-year-old daughter Michelle, also an LAPD employee, was arrested while driving a car used in the alleged sale of 20 grams of cocaine to Las Vegas Police. There was no word on why the allegations against her were also dropped.

Rumor’s about Michelle Parks became even more bizarre when LAPD Detective Wayne Caffey testified that, in 1996, he saw a photograph of someone identified as Michelle Parks in the company of convicted Rampart officers Rafael Perez and David Mack. The photo was found during a raid of a South LA gang member.

If Parks’ message was to clean up corruption in the LAPD, it’s hard to imagine how he could turn a blind eye toward black employees and corrupt black administrators who he promoted and worked with. And how could residents or cops have confidence in a police department operated by money-launderers and their apologists? Instead of holding these people accountable, LA politicians hire lawyers and appoint commissions to create the perception of reform. Why should taxpayers have any confidence in politicians, their lawyers, or the East Coast chiefs they hire?

Lowered Standards

One retired deputy chief explained that during the 1980s, a quagmire of quota systems resulted in lower standards for “physical capability, intellectual capacity, and personal character… The result was that many incapable or mediocre recruits – even significant numbers with criminal links or gang associations – were accepted into the department.”

In the same article, The American Enterprise reported:

A scholarly study published in April 2000 in the professional journal Economic Inquiry found that aggressive "affirmative action" hiring raised crime rates in many parts of the U.S… Economist John Lott found that quotas requiring more black and minority police officers clearly increase crime rates. When affirmative action rules take over, he reports, the standards on physical strength tests, mental aptitude tests, and other forms of screening are lowered…

Professor Lott’s findings were consistent with empiricle observations of me and my peers. LAPD training experts say that the Los Angeles Police Academy can no longer reliably be used as ‘a de-selector’ (of bad candidates).Ibid:

"I had mediocre trainees, some just plain incompetent. They were giving us trash. I finally transferred out because I didn't want to go out in the field with these kids anymore,” explained retired LAPD training officer Jim Peasha.

When he got a bad minority recruit, Peasha couldn't drum him or her out, no matter what. “I had some fantastic minority recruits. One black kid was the best I ever had. But I also had one guy who I knew was on drugs and I couldn't get him out. He wound up getting caught working as a guard at a rock [cocaine] house. An off-duty cop!"

While the Chief of Police has no control over federal Consent Decrees, a chief has a moral obligation to explain to taxpayers what they’re paying for if others do not. Unless voters and taxpayers are informed, they can’t force their elected officials and courts to end what has proven to be a bad idea.

Parks’ silence conflicts with LAPD policy:

LAPD Manual Section 115.95:

… Above all, the police officer must be consistently open, honest and trustful in all matters. A combination of honesty and openness will effectively develop respect in the community for the police and make it possible for citizens to come to them with problems and information. Where this trust does not exist because of a lack of honesty or openness, the channels of communication between the police and the public are clogged and the police must desperately struggle on alone.

It’s one thing for the federal courts to force good cops to work with armed felons and gang members in the spirit of diversity, but the former chief and now-city council member also has a responsibility to tell the public what they’re paying for, and a responsibility to warn naïve police recruits what kind of officers they might be forced to work with. Parks’ continued silence in these and other issues violates his fiduciary responsibility and public trust.

After seven years of unpaid suspension, the LAPD has not yet asked Sergeant Edward Ortiz to return to work. A jury unanimously awarded Ortiz $5 million for malicious prosecution, and neither Parks nor LA’s current East Coast chief have found any evidence of misconduct on Sergeant Ortiz’ part. How much longer must he wait before Parks admits his errors? Sergeant Ortiz didn’t violate the public trust – Parks, and now Bratton, did.

Decades ago, the LAPD was awash with applications from top candidates from all over the United States. I applied from Calcutta, India, three years before they hired me. East Coast cops used to say, if you want your pension, keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told – if you want to chase criminals, go to Los Angeles.

Today, the LAPD is run by an East Coast cop, and taxpayers must offer a million dollars in hiring bonuses because veteran police officers are reluctant to encourage their children, and other qualified candidates, to work under these conditions. Until City officials acknowledge and reform ALL of their misguided policies, the LAPD can never reform. Indeed, the LAPD is gaining the effectiveness of LA’s public schools, and the efficiency of public transportation. Lying to taxpayers and voters might make them feel better about crime, politicians, and taxes, but it doesn’t improve inefficiency - it only buries old lies more deeply.


Being Above Reproach

Before I joined the LAPD in 1980, I served 3½ years of my Marine Corps tour overseas. During that period, I was issued a top secret clearance and assigned to diplomatic posts in India and Central America.

As an official representative of the United States, I was required to conduct myself at all times in a manner “above reproach.” This means that doing the right thing wasn’t enough. The mere appearance of misconduct or unethical behavior could jeopardize my assignment and career, even if my actions were appropriate.

LAPD Manual Section 210.20:

The public demands that the integrity of its law enforcement officers be above reproach, and the dishonesty of a single officer may impair public confidence and cast suspicion upon the entire Department… An officer must scrupulously avoid any conduct which might compromise the integrity of himself, his/her fellow officers, or the Department.

LAPD Manual Section 210.35:

… Since the conduct of officers, on- or off-duty, may reflect directly upon the Department, officers must at all times conduct themselves in a manner which does not bring discredit to themselves, the Department, or the City.

Although Parks and I are no longer subject to the LAPD Manual, we still have an obligation to be honest with the public. In light of the many reports and rumors that Parks should have clarified throughout his service as a senior LAPD official and city council member, he still has an obligation to taxpayers to come clean and answer lingering questions.

In light of the compassion Parks showed to retired Deputy Chief Maurice Moore, it’s hard to imagine why Sergeant Edward Ortiz is still suspended without pay, despite a jury having found City of Los Angeles guilty of malicious prosecution. If it were my decision, I would return Sergeant Ortiz to full duty, return his back pay, issue a public apology, and offer him a position at the Police Academy to train young officers in the politics of policing. And if he didn’t take the spot, I would.

Police officers have a responsibility to remain “above reproach.” Parks continues to fail in that responsibility, thereby discrediting himself, his City Council peers, and the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department.