Features

LOS ANGELES – William J. Bratton was sworn in Friday as the city’s new police chief, with a mandate to reform the corruption-tinged department and a goal of eliminating graffiti and minor offenses as a way of preventing more serious crimes. 

The former New York police commissioner took his oath of office from City Clerk J. Michael Carey and then shook hands with Mayor Kenneth Hahn in a brief private ceremony in Hahn’s office. Bratton and Hahn then headed for Lake Arrowhead to attend an emergency management workshop. 

A public swearing-in ceremony will be held Monday at the Police Academy. 

Bratton, 55, will serve a five-year term. He said he will move quickly to name three assistant chiefs. 

Bratton has promised to work with the mayor on reforms, increase recruiting and implement community policing policies, something past chiefs have resisted. He also has said he wants to reduce top-down management and give more authority to the LAPD’s 18 division commanders. 

Bratton subscribes to what has been called the “broken-window” theory of policing that holds elimination of minor crimes prevents larger ones. 

The city’s 54th police chief said he believes fighting graffiti will reduce the city’s rising crime rate. 

“I hate it with a passion,” he said. 

Allowing gang members and graffiti crews to deface communities is “effectively surrendering the authority of government to them,” Bratton told the Los Angeles Times. “You cannot let them control your streets. If they’re trying to do it by marking the streets with graffiti, then get rid of it.” 

When Bratton ran the New York Police Department from 1994 to 1996 that city’s murder rate was cut in half and serious felonies dropped 33 percent.