Well, Let’s Hope It Works

In politics--and indeed in life, period--sometimes the only options on the table are bad ones. Then the desperate task is to choose the one that is the least abominable. Well, that appears to have been the situation the City Council faced when it took up the snarly, ugly, unfortunate issue of the police chief versus the Police Commission.

So from that perspective, it’s understandable that the council decided to wash its hands of the question of whether Chief Willie L. Williams lied to the commission about a Las Vegas trip. In effect, the council appeared to walk away from the substance of the quarrel: It would not even look at the file that contained the commission’s official reprimand.

Instead the council decided simply to vaporize the reprimand and in the process seek to quell the controversy. Will the ploy work? It’s unclear, for by overturning the commission’s written and officially confidential reprimand (leaked to the press by someone), the council may have failed to clear the air, clear the chief or, in the final analysis, uphold the City Charter’s principle of commission oversight of the Police Department.

The council sought to put an unpleasant mess behind us. Indeed, everyone would like to be done with this dispute. The question now is whether the council, by avoiding the substance of the allegation, can achieve that goal. For the move left the public, not to mention LAPD rank and file, in the dark as to whether the chief actually lied to the commission or is, as he asserted from the outset, the victim of a misunderstanding. Lying is a serious allegation when it is made against a law enforcement officer. That is precisely why Williams went to such lengths to fight the reprimand.

Now that the council has made its decision, the best thing that can be hoped for is that all the parties involved can move forward. That is what the city needs and what most people want. We just hope that the well has not been poisoned. So much vital police work remains to be done.