If the mayor actually is interested in the LAPD's "central story," if he really wants to discuss its real history, the fact of the matter is that it's been like one of those old good-cop/bad-cop routines. On the one hand, there are the Randal Simmonses and the overwhelming majority of good police officers who go about day after day performing dangerous and unforgiving work in a quietly decent, and sometimes heroic, fashion. On the other hand, there are the corrupt, brutal and racist cops -- a small group, to be sure -- whose regular disgrace of their badge was unfortunately tolerated by the honest majority and overlooked by a cynical command staff and a city government that didn't really care about the quality of policing as long as it was cheap and had quick response times.
Our pandering mayor
As a longtime civil libertarian and former president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which helped lay the legal groundwork for the consent decree, Villaraigosa knows all this. So, what's behind his reckless comments?
Maybe he just has lousy speechwriters? Unlikely. Pandering is the more likely explanation. The mayor has been taking a battering from the Police Protective League over new financial disclosure regulations required by the consent decree. Maybe he thought that denigrating the agreement in front of all those blue shirts would win over some of his critics.
Lots of luck on that one.
Perhaps the mayor simply hoped to demonstrate that he really is a "friend to the department." After all, the ongoing reduction in crime in L.A. is one of the few unambiguous achievements of a mayoral administration that seems to generate more unfinished initiatives than an ADD clinic.
That's Bratton's doing, of course, and one of the things Villaraigosa doesn't want anyone to remember is that he didn't bring the chief here. His predecessor, James Hahn, did -- and took a political hit for doing it that probably cost him his job.
If Bratton leaves to take a job in a Clinton or an Obama administration, as many believe is possible, it would be convenient for Villaraigosa to campaign on the departed chief's accomplishments.
Whatever his motives, the mayor's remarks at Randal Simmons' funeral mark a rhetorical low point in an administration that seems increasingly adrift.
