LOS ANGELES — Two decades ago, the Los Angeles Police Department faced a defining moment, as crime ticked upward, a massive corruption scandal smoldered and a federal judge pushed to correct the department's long history of civil rights violations.
A central preoccupation of L.A. politics in 2002 became: Should Chief Bernard C. Parks get a second five-year term? Or should the department be handed to a new leader?
Mayor James K. Hahn and his civilian Police Commission, headed by businessman Rick Caruso, decided to end Parks' nearly four-decade career with the LAPD and to replace him with former New York Police Department leader William J. Bratton.
