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"There has to be hope in a community, and I think we have that now," says Helen Coleman, who has lived in the 77th for 35 years and works for a local nonprofit organization, trying to bring businesses and leisure facilities for kids to the neighborhood. She says new injunctions against gangsters gathering in public have reduced the number of them hanging out on the streets--and the resulting shootings she used to hear. She has seen relations between the police and the community improve too, and she says Bratton deserves a lot of the credit for that. "The vibes I'm getting from the officers at the 77th--it's like the whole atmosphere is changing for the better."
The cops from the 77th station feel the change too. "Bratton promoted kick-ass take-names people--no more touchy-feely stuff," says Officer Perry Griffith, who has been in the L.A.P.D. for 14 years. "Before, the cops were just not getting out on the streets, and the bad guys knew that." Now, he says, cops have been told not to turn a blind eye when their authority is challenged. "We had someone tell a police officer, 'I'll kill you,' last week in front of a group of people," says Griffith. "Now he is in jail. Before, they would have just told him to go back into the house."
The danger, of course, is that the cops will become too assertive and stray back into the brutal behavior that plagued the L.A.P.D. in the past. Bratton has repeatedly said his cops may not "break the law to enforce the law," but complaints against officers are 4.5% higher than they were in 2002. That merely indicates that his men are doing their job, the chief argues, and he points out that there has been a 28% increase in shots fired at officers in the same period. "The gang bangers don't like the game being taken to them, and they are hitting back," says Bratton.
The single biggest gripe that cops had about the pre-Bratton era was the proliferation of citizens' complaints that blocked promotions and pay increases, even though many claims turned out to be frivolous. So Bratton has moved quickly to simplify the complaint process. Now a division captain can decide whether or not a charge is unfounded, rather than send every file downtown for a lengthy investigation that could last for months. "I feel I am O.K. to do my job again," says Griffith.
In 2003 Griffith's job included fielding complaints from neighbors about drug dealing out of a house seven blocks from the police station. The house had a shed in the back where, they said, crack was sold, and over the summer there were two murders nearby that Griffith thought were linked to the drug trade. He went to the city attorney and the DEA, had some covert surveillance put on the house, served several search warrants and finally found the evidence he needed to evict the drug dealers and send at least three of the ringleaders to jail. After Griffith executed one search warrant, an occupant of the house filed a complaint against him, alleging improper treatment of a female and undue harassment in the course of the search. The complaint remains in his personnel file, but Griffith was quickly cleared of any wrongdoing. "In the old days, that would have counted against me," he says.