Los Angeles police chief occupies the position in a period of uncertainty and controversial signals

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Jim McDonel is a police officer.

It’s no surprise. After all New Police Department Head in Los AngelesOne of the most legendary, imitating and criticizing the country’s public security agencies, dragnet and destroyed by It burns a native kingS

But not all chiefs of the Los Angeles Police Department are police officers in the background. Bill Braton, chief between 2002 and 2009, was a political leader formed in the implementation of the law, but this distinguished himself primarily to his area of ​​the city’s power structure. Willie Williams, who chaired the department between 1992 and 1997, was a uniform organizer of the community qualified with the public, but less with the base.

McDonel is different. He has risen in the ranks of the department and knows his customs and combinations, which are at least as important as to direct him as an understanding of ideas for reform or political relations. Beyond this experience, he is also the head of the Long Beach Police Department and Sheriff of Los Angeles County. So, although it is a Lapd creature, he is also a scientist of this.

He is a police officer. When talking about the priorities of the department, he does not immediately talk about budgets or reforms. He talks about reducing crime, improving public security and improving the perception of crime by the public. It refers to its agents as “police”. And he speaks with a sense of history and perspective: today Los Angeles is much more conventional than the city that patrolled when he was a young agent (and that I covered when I was a young journalist), a fact that is often lost in the midst of political campaigns and the strict demands of paralyzing or reorganization of police.

“Every crime is too much,” he admitted in a recent interview. “But we are in a relatively good situation.”

McDonel takes command of the Los Angeles Police Department at a time of uncertainty. The city was not facing a criminal crisis, as in the 1990s, when the killings exceed 1000 years, and violent crimes were the order of the day. However, this is not a period of inaction, but more contradictory signals.

The killings decrease to 2024.Like most violent crimes. However, crimes against property decreased slightly during the first months of 2025, but they stubbornly oppose police efforts in recent years, according to police.

McDonel will have to make sense of this complex panorama, realizing that crimes against the property have a way to transform themselves into violence if not controlled. This observation, the nucleus of The theory of “Broken Windows” by James Q. WilsonHe runs many police departments, including LAPD, towards the historical restoration of security in US cities.

But the victories must be repeated again and again. In police, we should not fall into self -management.

Although McDonel focuses on crime, he faces the most difficult tasks to prepare angels for the 2028 Olympics, respond to the lack of housing on the streets, Restoration of police morality And they patrol the neighborhoods devastated by the fire of the Pacific Palisades. Each of these tasks would be a difficult task for the police chief; All at the same time emphasized the whole department.

However, it is optimistic. McDonel said the fires had provided an intensive course of cooperation between agencies and that they asked police and firefighters’ staff to coordinate their work with that of the Ministry of Water and Energy and others. The city’s emergency center was activated by Mayor Karen Bass in the early hours of the fire, and the Los Angeles police department put a tactical signal (a state of increased deployment, during which the shifts were stopped and the holidays were canceled) for a month. He was exhausting, McDonel said, but also instructive.

“I consider it valuable,” he said, as he creates lines of communication and confidence that are essential for the work of homeless people and will be useful for developing security plans for the World Cup and the Olympics, among other events nearby. “Everything will really be a matter of relationships.”

Nothing happens in the Los Angeles Police Department, without employees wishing to fulfill the mission, and McDonel, echoing the bass, emphasizes morality and recruitment as the main elements for the success of the department.

“Everyone has problems with staffing,” he said, and is right. After the murder of George Floyd and the national rejection that generates this act, it was It is difficult to persuade young people to join the police forcesWhere they should expect to be considered and subject to high standards for professional behavior.

In a sense, this is useful: it eliminates possible agents who are attracted to work for the opportunity to carry weapons and send people, but also deprive police agencies, including police station in Los Angeles, to quality candidates who are simply not ready to support the shortcomings of work.

“Everything will really be a matter of relationships.”

Jim McDonel, chief of Police in Los Angeles

McDonel said he hoped to make it clear that Lapd supports their agents, that young people can go to the department to protect and serve, and can rely on the support of the department when they do their work in good faith. The main complaint you have heard about morality, said McDonell, is the fear that the Lapd disciplinary system is unfair, which allows frivolous or malicious complaints to continue.

To deal with this problem, he suggests that the complaints be reviewed quickly, in which the accusation can be easily checked (for example, comparing it to the body of the body’s camera). If the prosecution is of excessive use of force and the chamber, it denies, the complaint can be rejected without extensive examination and without having to leave the agent on the bench.

“We have to be more reasonable,” McDonel said. The city must require “a high level of accountability … but it can be proven that it has not happened at all, it must be justified.”

This time it carries risks. Too far, to calm the police and to assure you that the department will support them can encourage a violation. Agents who hit King, for example, insisted during two criminal trials that they simply applied the policies and practices of the Los Angeles police department regarding the use of force.

But not all slopes are slippery and it makes sense to reject the accusations that are obviously false. If McDonnell can develop a system to turn off these cases early, you can lift morality and help recruiting staff without reaching the extreme of undermining accountability.

Combating crime, prepare for the international scenario, domestic people and restoration of the city: It’s a lot to driveS McDonnell Sabe.

Only a police officer will sometimes serve.

This opinion article was originally published by CalmattersS