LAPD Chief Charlie Beck announced his retirement on Jan. 19, after more than 40 years on the force. Beck’s last day will be on June 27, his 65th birthday. How did Beck do as chief of one of the most emblematic police departments in the nation?
Beck’s tenure began in 2009 and spans a period from the federal consent decree authorized after the Rampart scandal, to the current-day push for progressive reforms around officer discipline and accountability.
Overall, L.A.’s historically low crime rates more or less held, and the chief also held the line on Special Order 40, the LAPD’s long-standing policy that prevents officers from questioning people for the sole purpose of determining their immigration status. Yet during Beck’s run, the release from the federal consent decree did little to affect the high number of police killings of civilians in L.A. Nor did the likelihood increase that an officer who is faulted by the civilian Police Commission for improper use of force winds up being punished.
Instead, Beck sought gradual reform of LAPD culture and policy, by emphasizing new training and the use of less lethal alternatives for force. City officials have acknowledged the reforms are a work in progress, and Beck’s successor will have to decide how far the department is willing to go to satisfy increasingly vocal calls for deeper reform.
Along the way, Beck had to navigate a political landscape changed utterly by a national upheaval over the police killings of unarmed black men and women. Thirty-eight men and women were killed by LAPD officers from 2015-2016, the most of any U.S. city during that time, according to data compiled by The Guardian. Since L.A. has a larger population than most of the cities on the list, it did not have the most shootings by police per capita, though it did rank above similar-sized cities like New York and Chicago.