LGBT POV

(Editor’s note – I interviewed new LAPD Chief Charlie Beck last week for Frontiers In LA magazine with an eye to getting to know the man behind the badge. As a fan of former Chief Bill Bratton – who supported Beck over Assistant Chief and volunteer LGBT liaison Jim McDonnell – Beck also believes in Bratton’s famous “broken glass” and gang intervention policies.  But Bratton, like LA Sheriff Lee Baca, has a lesbian sister so there has been some sense that LA’s two top cops at least have some understanding of LGBT issues. We don’t know Beck, other than a few initially favorable comments after Beck was selected. However, if his meeting with me is any indication, he’s off to a good start as a promising LGBT ally. What a long way from Ed Davis and Daryl Gates. Beck is expected to receive unanimous confirmation from the LA City Council this morning. Here is my Frontiers story on the streets today.  - Karen Ocamb)

Charlie Beck is the real deal.  That’s the inexorable first impression of the new Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. His outstretched hand and direct, engaging eyes immediately make you feel that you’ve just arrived at his backyard barbecue, that you are equal to the man the mayor and the Los Angeles City Council selected to serve and protect the city and its people from crime.

Frontiers In LA interviewed Deputy Chief Beck, chief of detectives, prior to his full confirmation by the city council Nov. 17. His office in the new LAPD headquarters, which ironically reflects LA City Hall across the street, is a comfortable shrine to his family and to law enforcement, which he calls the “family business.” His father, sister, wife, daughter and son are all police professionals and their photos, with that of his mother, decorate his walls and consoles.

Beck also collects law enforcement memorabilia. Over his computer, he has a prized original pencil sketch of the Jack Webb-produced TV show “Adam 12” featuring LAPD officers Peter Malloy and Jim Reed. A glass display case behind his desk features a book by former Chief Bill Bratton, who favored Beck as his successor, and a Motorcross helmet – he is the current Police and Fire Motocross national champion. A bowl full of medals sits on a table with a sketch of a tricked-out LAPD Motorcross squad car.

On a console near the door, below a huge flat screen TV, is a 150-pound rectangle block of melted-down guns from a gun-buy-back program that netted 1,700 weapons last May.  On top of the block is an old police helmet with an old police holster.

Beck sits comfortably for the interview. The 56-year old Long Beach native understands that the LGBT community knows nothing about him and, given the tense history with the LAPD, he wants to put the community at ease.

The first question is de rigueur: do you believe LGBT people can chose their sexual orientation or is it innate.

“I think it’s innate,” Beck said. “People are born different,” including his three kids. “Sexual orientation is formed long before you have the ability to make a choice.  I’m heterosexual and I never made that choice.”

Beck noted that he has many friends and relatives who are gay, citing in particular a late uncle who was with his “life-mate” for 50 years.  “Imagine what they went through.”

Beck laughed when asked how he voted on Prop 8.  He thought about answering directly, then reconsidered. “I support gay marriage. I have no issue with it. It doesn’t bother me.”  He didn’t want to speculate on the motives of people who feel “the opposite way.”

Some LGBT LAPD-watchers wondered if Beck belonged to antigay Deputy Chief Mark Kroeker’s “God Squad” under Chief Daryl Gates, given Beck’s 32-year career with the LAPD. Beck seemed startled by the speculation. “I go to church for weddings and funerals,” he said, adding that he believes in spirituality. “I’m just a cop. I’m not a religious scholar. I’m down-to-earth.”

That “down-to-earth” authenticity was spontaneously on display during the Nov. 3 live broadcast when LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa introduced Beck as his choice to replace Bratton.

“He’s a man of character and integrity,” Villaraigosa said. “He’s a man who understands the past, a man who is an important part of the present and a man who will shape this department in the future.”

Beck said the LAPD, which just emerged from under the federal consent decree, has to “continue to be a constitutional entity that sees that its goal, its mission, is much more than just the inputs of policing. [The LAPD's] mission is to change communities…. It’s about making this a better place.”

Beck unabashedly choked up talking about his father, a retired LAPD deputy chief, and his son, who is about to graduate from the Police Academy. “That is the future of this organization and that is why I do this job.”

Asked if he was concerned about how his emotional moments might be perceived, Beck told Frontiers, “I’m plenty tough” and “very secure” – though “I prefer not to be [tough] if I don’t have to be.”

Beck repeatedly emphasizes community policing and wants to “decentralize” the LAPD and give them sufficient resources to “take ownership” of and find “solutions” to problems at the local level.

But there are not many visible openly gay LAPD officers (though Sgt. Stacey Simmons seems voluntarily ubiquitous). Would Beck consider a kind of LGBT affirmative action to ensure that the LAPD looks like the community it serves? Beck noted that it is unlawful to ask someone’s sexual orientation and that advancement is based on merit. But he said his staff “is a little bit of everything,” including gays, and he hopes that sets an example.

Beck also noted that the position of LGBT liaison “is going through a transition,” and while he cannot require that the liaison be openly gay, he said it is “logical” and the liaison “has to be someone the community is comfortable with.”

Additionally, if an LGBT person has a complaint, they should bring it to the liaison, the local precinct captain who is responsible for “fixing” problems – or Beck, himself. “I want to hear from people.” (Go here.)

Beck may well hear some of those complaints, given the findings of an independent investigation into what the LAPD used to call “racial profiling” – now called “biased policing,” that looked at officers accused of profiling people based on race, gender or sexual orientation, the LA Times reported Nov. 10. The investigation was ordered by the Police Commission after they “realized that at least since 2001, the department has dismissed all of the hundreds of allegations of profiling filed against officers each year,” The Times reported. Inspector General Andre Birotte is expected to take up the issue again in the next few months.

It will be important to watch how Beck, who is popular with both the rank and file and civil rights activists, handles this test. Beck said he intends to lead the LAPD based on these principles: “Cops count. Character counts. Do the right thing and you can be the difference.”

Beck may find support from the transgender community. According to Lt. Wes Buhrmester, the detective leading the investigation into the murder of transgender woman Paulina Ibarra in Hollywood last August, Beck was instrumental in moving the case forward.

Beck, Buhrmester told Frontiers, “instructed our Scientific Investigation Division to put the Ibarra case DNA analysis on the fast track, so we have him to directly thank for the result coming back at this relatively early juncture” – linking DNA evidence at the crime scene to a murder suspect. “Chief Beck was very aware of the interest in this case within the LGBT community, and the fact we had identified a person of interest, Jesus Catalan, due in whole to that particular community.”

And unlike Bratton, of whom Beck is a fan, the new LAPD Chief “absolutely” supports the Police Commission’s decision to severe ties with the Learning for Life Explorer program because of its association with the antigay Boy Scouts of America. “It should have happened a long time ago,” Beck said. “There is no place for groups that practice that kind of discrimination in today’s LAPD.” The program has long been used as an important recruitment tool.

Told that there is no plan to help openly LGBT youth adjust to the new non-biased LAPD-organized youth program, Beck told Lt. Fred Booker to create a new liaison position for an openly LGBT person with a background in youth services to find a solution.

Additionally, when told that LA Sheriff Lee Baca still supports the LFL Explorer Program, Beck said he would talk to his good friend Baca about it. Beck envisions the two youth programs playing competitive sports together.

LA Gay and Lesbian Center CEO says she intends to invite Beck to meet the LGBT community through a future town hall. But Beck already has fans in the LGBT community.

“I applaud the mayor’s selection of Charlie Beck to be the next chief of police.  I have had the opportunity to work with Chief Beck over the past several years and have found him to exemplify the best of the LAPD,” openly gay LA City Councilmember Bill Rosendahl told Frontiers. “He has both shaped and modeled reform of the LAPD and is a fierce advocate of community policing. He has a solid reputation for being open and inclusive, and I am confident he will be a friend to the LGBT community.”