MAILANDER’S LA - I'm spiking a column I'd like to write. I'd like to write about what a loony pledge it was for LAPD to get to 10,000 cops in a hurry anyway, and how once pressured to do it (former Chief) Bratton was precisely the worst guy to administrate it, a ruthless security manager for whom stats were the perfect equivalent of both fighting crime and recruiting.
And I'm spiking what I am hopeless to observe: that Christopher Dorner was one of the earliest made cops from the first wave hired under Villaraigosa-Bratton.
Why would I spike this, rather than flesh it out? Because I heard the Mayor say early this morning that he was "not interested" in any criticism about the way Dorner's case was handled, he was a murderer and that was that.
And indeed that will be that in this city.
Dorner was a coward who, as soon as he declared war on LAPD, fled out of its reach, to snipe from a distance--sniping is the ultimate expression of cowardice.
And I understand his period at the Academy was indicative of a man who should not have been hired, but there was political pressure to add to the ranks, to make good on the Mayor's pledge.
And I also understand that the cases may appear trumped up against Dorner as a cop because the force knew from the start that they had made a mistake.
So what's the point, if the Mayor's "not interested" in Dorner's case--in opening any case?
In 2006, nobody was interested in the too-hasty recruitment of such a man either, not Villaraigosa, not Bratton, not Council.
(Joseph Mailander is a writer, an LA observer and a contributor to CityWatch. He is also the author of Days Change at Night: LA's Decade of Decline, 2003-2013. Mailander blogs at www.josephmailander.com.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 14
Pub: Feb 15, 2013
