Police Commission OKs Second Term For LAPD Chief Charlie Beck

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The Police Commission voted Tuesday to reappoint LAPD Chief Charlie Beck to a second term.

The five-member panel voted 4-1 in favor of a final five-year term despite recent allegations involving disciplinary matters and the inaccurate reporting of crime statistics.

KNX 1070's Jon Baird reports Robert Saltzman - the Commission's longest-serving member and the only member of the panel who predates Mayor Eric Garcetti - casted the dissenting vote.

Saltzman said he believes the department needs fresh leadership, saying Beck was not as open about sharing information with the commission as his predecessor, William Bratton.

"The Department would be served with new executive leadership," said Saltzman.

While other commissioners conceded that there were areas in which Beck could make improvements, Police Commission President Steve Soboroff said the "positives far outweigh the negatives."

The vote marked only the third time in LAPD history that the Police Commission has actually voted on a police chief's request for a second term, CBS2's Louisa Hodge reported.

Beck is accused of intervening in a disciplinary case involving a sergeant who allegedly had an improper relationship with his daughter, Officer Brandi Pearson.

He was also involved in the $6,000 purchase of a horse Pearson owned, a matter in which he initially denied.

"I make hundreds of decisions every year and everybody is not going to like every one," Beck said.

A recent LA Times investigation suggests that the LAPD misreported crimes, classifying 1,200 aggravated assaults as misdemeanors instead of felonies.

The public was welcomed to comment on Beck's potential second term prior to the Commission's vote.

Beck, who was first appointed as chief of the 10,000-officer department in November 2009, sat down with KCAL9's Dave Bryan after hearing the remarks.

Promising changes within the LAPD, he said: "You're gonna see a police department that is much more focused on the reality of transparency, making sure that things are actually as transparent as we can make them within the law. You're gonna see a police department that works on making sure that discipline is balanced within its ranks."

Beck also said he thinks it's "imperative" to make discipline fair within the department and to foster better communication with the Commission.

"It is incumbent on me to be the communicator, and I will be, and I have been, and I've been working on that and I'll continue to work on it," he said.

The lawman also recognized recent controversies were fueled by their personal nature, and critiqued his own handling of cases involving his daughter.

"Unfortunately at a point it did [become personal]. And a chief should be able to separate himself from that, but I was a father a long time before I was a chief," he told Bryan.

"Certain folks began to attack my daughter with outright lies and unjustified statements. I became angry, as any father would. And I wish I would've controlled myself better," he said.

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