SAVANNAH, GA. — Michael Berkow arrived here from the Los Angeles Police Department as a sort of first-round draft pick -- a potential superstar police chief for a mid-size city struggling with crime.
He brought an impressive resume: deputy chief of the LAPD professional standards bureau; former chief in Irvine; degrees in law and management; experience in Somalia and Haiti; friend of LAPD Chief William J. Bratton.
But locals have learned that Berkow also brought baggage -- a lawsuit and a backstory involving his sex life. This is a city that appreciates a good scandal (it was the setting for "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," John Berendt's bestselling account of a 1981 society slaying), but Berkow's problems are causing more headaches than titillation. Most of all, this is a city that wants a chief with full focus on its violent crime.
"I was really excited -- his resume seemed really good," said Gary Hall, 50, the owner of a cafe in the city's historic district. "Now look at all of his problems."
"We have great expectations for what this chief can do for us," said R.E. Abolt, the Chatham County manager. "But there's this passion not to lose focus. The rest of this seems almost like a sideshow."
In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles and reported last month, a female LAPD officer accused Berkow of promoting women who had sex with him, an allegation Berkow's lawyer says is baseless. In a recently unsealed deposition, Berkow revealed he had a three-year affair with a female sergeant in his division, but Berkow has maintained that it was not a breach of professional standards.
He has also pledged to keep his commitments to his new city.
"I intend to keep working hard; I intend to remain focused on crime-fighting here," he wrote in a recent e-mail to the approximately 600 officers on the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department. "I hope you will all stick with me."
The job promised to be a challenge even without the distractions. Savannah, a picturesque, Colonial-era city with a vibrant port and tourism industry, has long struggled with entrenched poverty and crime.
Serious crimes have decreased more than 23% since 2001, but there were still about 11,130 such crimes in 2006 in the city and unincorporated county, which have a population of 200,000.
Concerns about crime were heightened on New Year's Day 2006, when Jennifer Ross, a 19-year-old debutante from a prominent white family, died after being gunned down in a botched robbery attempt by a group of black men.
