In the weeks leading up to the tepid re-election of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa last month, Bill Bratton, the statistics-driven chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, appeared on TV in a political advertisement paid for by the Villaraigosa campaign. He cited a seemingly amazing figure about this city’s livability.
“Crime is down to levels of the 1950s,” said a confident-looking Bratton, who wore a black jacket and dark tie as he sat in an office conference room with downtown views.
Flashing across the screen as he delivered the line with his heavy Boston accent was a Los Angeles Daily News headline from early 2008 borrowed by the Villaraigosa campaign to further emphasize the chief’s claim. It read in bold, black letters: “Safest streets since ’56.”
...Bratton, though, remains not just unapologetic about all this spin but defiant.
“It’s common practice with statistics to go back and match it against the lowest point in time,” said Bratton during a 45-minute interview with L.A. Weekly. “The public gets it, the criminologists don’t. Once again, who in hell cares? Nobody’s listening to them anyway. I’m a practitioner. I get the job done. They can write from now to Doomsday; none of them are getting anything done. Most of them don’t even get out of their offices to see what the real world looks like. I live in the real world.”
But for Bratton, that world seems steeped in politics and political spin, a bit more every day.
