L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

Although he had concluded that firing Parker was simply too dangerous (politically and personally), Poulson was determined to restrain him. The mayor’s strategy for doing this was to appoint a Police Commission that “would not kowtow to Chief Parker but at the same time would support a clean city and law enforcement.” Since Bowron’s appointees had resigned, Poulson had a chance to appoint all five police commissioners. To head the commission, Poulson turned to his top assistant, attorney Jack Irwin. Other members included John Ferraro, a former USC All-American football star who was the son-in-law of state Sen. George Luckey, one of Poulson’s major Democratic backers. He also added Michael Kohn, a prominent Jewish lawyer, and Herbert Greenwood, an African American attorney who had worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. One member of the old commission, Emmett McGaughey, a former G-man-turned-advertising executive (who was also in Poulson’s church), agreed to stay on.

The message Poulson intended to send was clear: A new, more assertive Police Commission was taking over. But Poulson’s stern tone and high-powered appointments didn’t obscure an even more important fact: Chief Parker had just become the first police chief since 1913 to survive a change in administration. By not selecting his own candidate to be Los Angeles’s top cop, Poulson was in effect conceding that his police chief was too valuable to lose. The LAPD had just taken a huge step toward the kind of autonomy Bill Parker had long dreamed of.

Parker’s enemies warned the new mayor that he was making a mistake. Two weeks after Poulson was sworn in, former Police Commission member Hugh Irey published a two-part open letter to the new mayor in the Los Angeles Mirror. Its purpose, in the author’s words, was to present “irrefutable facts to show that it is physically impossible for the Police Commission—under the present system—to be more than a figurehead for the Chief of Police.” Irey described Parker as “probably the most powerful official in the city.” He insisted that his goal was not to attack Parker, whom he described as a man of integrity, but rather to offer a critique of a flawed system. But Irey did paint a disturbing portrait of the police department under the new chief. He called attention to the chief’s $85,000 “secret service fund.” He described how the commission was powerless to conduct its own investigation into brutality cases, lacking even the authority to review the material used by the chief to formulate the report he presented to the board on any given incident. In conclusion, Irey called for full-time, paid commissioners, with investigators drawn from the detectives’ bureau (which unlike the three other plainclothes units—Internal Affairs, intelligence, and administrative vice—did not work directly under Parker’s personal supervision).

“Until these recommendations … are put into effect the Los Angeles Police Commission will continue to be a mere figurehead and rubber stamp for the Chief of Police—one of the most powerful and autocratic officials in the city,” warned Irey.

Parker just scoffed.

“I’ve told the Police Commissioners repeatedly that anytime three of them are against me to let me know and I’ll retire,” he replied.

This was disingenuous. No Police Commission would ever act against the mayor on such an important issue, and Mayor Poulson had made it clear that he could not do without Parker. Irey’s warnings were ignored. No changes were made to the organization of the commission. The department would continue to be run as Parker’s personal fiefdom. Local observers marveled at Parker’s triumph.

“Hardly anyone likes Parker, a contentious, abrasive individual who will never give Dale Carnegie lessons on ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People,’” wrote the Los Angeles Daily News. Yet Parker had achieved something that his predecessors had not. He had become irreplaceable.

      POULSON HOPED that his Police Commission would be able to restrain Chief Parker. But the limitations of the commission’s structure and the dependencies on the department it fostered soon reasserted themselves. The commission met just one afternoon a week, typically for no more than an hour and a half. Most of its meetings were devoted to humdrum licensing tasks, okaying requests for parades, licensing pawnshops, vetting requests by churches to hold rummage sales, approving applications for dance halls. Its only staff were police department personnel. On those occasions when it did take up larger, policing issues, it relied on the police for guidance. Not surprisingly, the course of action it elected to pursue was almost always the one the department itself would have chosen.