RIP, Breh had some tough assignments to handle and seemed to do good for the community
Willie L. Williams, Head of 2 Police Forces in Turmoil, Dies at 72
By BRUCE WEBER APRIL 28, 2016
Willie L. Williams in 1995 as the first black police chief in Los Angeles. He was also the first such leader in Philadelphia. Credit Nick Ut/Associated Press
Willie L. Williams, the first African-American to lead the police forces in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, cities in which hostilities between the police and black citizens had recently flared into violence, died on Tuesday at his home in Fayetteville, Ga. He was 72.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his sister-in-law Patricia Odoms.
Mr. Williams was a 28-year veteran of the Philadelphia force when he was named commissioner in 1988, three years after a house owned by a black militant group known as Move was bombed by the police, resulting in 11 deaths and leaving the neighborhood in ruins. The police force there had been known for corruption scandals and a history of brutality.
Mr. Williams’s tenure of three and a half years in Philadelphia was marked by relative peace. Embracing the concept of community policing, he was credited with hiring and promoting more women and minority group members and with restructuring the police department to add mini-stations and foot patrols.
A man of measured temperament, he was held in general esteem in Philadelphia neighborhoods where there was history of mutual disrespect among residents and the police. But he was lured away to Los Angeles — at more than twice his Philadelphia salary — in April 1992.
There, he replaced the combative chief Daryl F. Gates, who had presided over what many considered an arrogant, physically aggressive force that had been hostile to minority neighborhoods. In March 1991, Los Angeles officers were videotaped beating a motorist, Rodney G. King, as they arrested him and two passengers after a high-speed chase. Four of the officers were charged by the state with assault and use of excessive force under color of authority.
Mr. Williams was named the new chief the next spring, just as the trial was being held. Less than two weeks later, before he officially assumed his new post, the four officers were acquitted on just about all counts. (On one excessive-force count against one officer, the jury was hung.) The city erupted in six days of racial violence, and Mr. Gates and his force were widely criticized as being ineffective in their response.
Mr. Williams managed to calm the antagonism between the city, especially its black residents, and its police force. (It helped that in a subsequent trial in federal court, two officers in the King case were convicted of violating Mr. King’s civil rights, and they served time in prison.)
Mr. Williams addressed sexual harassment and discrimination on the force (he named the first female commander in department history), and was an advocate for reforms in police training and discipline laid out by a 1991 commission appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley after the King episode.
But over all, Mr. Williams had a rocky time of it in Los Angeles. Brought in as the anti-Gates, he was held in suspicion by many Gates loyalists in the department, who distrusted him as an outsider and, as some have charged, because he was black; many thought he was insufficiently supportive of the department during the investigation of the 1994 murders of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman and the subsequent trial of O. J. Simpson.
Mr. Williams also ran afoul of some Los Angeles business and political leaders, who found his management of the department slack. And he was frustrated by what he saw as the competing agendas of the City Council; the city’s Police Commission, a citizens’ board that oversees the department; and the mayor, Richard Riordan, who succeeded Mr. Bradley in 1993 and who clashed with Mr. Williams on expansion of the police force, among other issues.
Two years into Mr. Wiliams’s tenure, his leadership came under harsh criticism, which was exacerbated when a retired deputy chief raised questions about rumors of unethical actions. The Police Commission began an investigation into allegations that Mr. Williams and his family had used city cars, drivers and cellphones for private purposes and that he had improperly accepted free rooms at casino hotels in Las Vegas.
He denied any wrongdoing, but the commission members reprimanded him, saying he had been dishonest when he was asked if he had received free rooms at Caesars Palace. He left office in 1997 after serving a five-year term and was replaced by Bernard C. Parks.
Willie Lawrence Williams Jr. was born in Philadelphia on Oct. 1, 1943, the oldest of seven children of Willie Sr., who worked in a meatpacking plant, and the former Helen Stansbery. He attended local public schools and earned an associate degree in business administration from the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science. He joined the Philadelphia police force when he was 20.
He married Evelina Edwards, Ms. Odoms’s sister, in 1966. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his mother; two brothers, Roger and David; two sisters, Catherine Walker and Christine Nutt; three children, Willie III and the twins Eric and Lisa; and five grandchildren.
As his time in Los Angeles came to an end, Mr. Williams reflected on his tenure there in an interview with The Los Angeles Times.
“Politics has greatly intruded, for the right or the wrong reasons, into the day-to-day management activities of the Los Angeles Police Department,” said Mr. Williams, whom The Times described as “sometimes contemplative, sometimes bitter.”
He spoke about the fractiousness that characterized much of his time in Los Angeles. “Let me tell you something,” he said. “When you’re a chief of police, when you’re a leader, you have to do what you think is right.”
He added: “Willie Williams would not be able to look in the mirror, look at his family, look at his children, look at his friends and neighbors, look at people in this department if I just packed up my bags and went away when someone says: ‘Chief, we don’t like what you’re doing. Get out of town.’ I didn’t walk into Los Angeles to be tossed out of town, and I wasn’t going to be tossed out without expressing my concerns.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/29/u...of-2-police-forces-in-turmoil-dies-at-72.html
Willie L. Williams, Head of 2 Police Forces in Turmoil, Dies at 72
By BRUCE WEBER APRIL 28, 2016
Willie L. Williams in 1995 as the first black police chief in Los Angeles. He was also the first such leader in Philadelphia. Credit Nick Ut/Associated Press
Willie L. Williams, the first African-American to lead the police forces in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, cities in which hostilities between the police and black citizens had recently flared into violence, died on Tuesday at his home in Fayetteville, Ga. He was 72.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his sister-in-law Patricia Odoms.
Mr. Williams was a 28-year veteran of the Philadelphia force when he was named commissioner in 1988, three years after a house owned by a black militant group known as Move was bombed by the police, resulting in 11 deaths and leaving the neighborhood in ruins. The police force there had been known for corruption scandals and a history of brutality.
Mr. Williams’s tenure of three and a half years in Philadelphia was marked by relative peace. Embracing the concept of community policing, he was credited with hiring and promoting more women and minority group members and with restructuring the police department to add mini-stations and foot patrols.
A man of measured temperament, he was held in general esteem in Philadelphia neighborhoods where there was history of mutual disrespect among residents and the police. But he was lured away to Los Angeles — at more than twice his Philadelphia salary — in April 1992.
There, he replaced the combative chief Daryl F. Gates, who had presided over what many considered an arrogant, physically aggressive force that had been hostile to minority neighborhoods. In March 1991, Los Angeles officers were videotaped beating a motorist, Rodney G. King, as they arrested him and two passengers after a high-speed chase. Four of the officers were charged by the state with assault and use of excessive force under color of authority.
Mr. Williams was named the new chief the next spring, just as the trial was being held. Less than two weeks later, before he officially assumed his new post, the four officers were acquitted on just about all counts. (On one excessive-force count against one officer, the jury was hung.) The city erupted in six days of racial violence, and Mr. Gates and his force were widely criticized as being ineffective in their response.
Mr. Williams managed to calm the antagonism between the city, especially its black residents, and its police force. (It helped that in a subsequent trial in federal court, two officers in the King case were convicted of violating Mr. King’s civil rights, and they served time in prison.)
Mr. Williams addressed sexual harassment and discrimination on the force (he named the first female commander in department history), and was an advocate for reforms in police training and discipline laid out by a 1991 commission appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley after the King episode.
But over all, Mr. Williams had a rocky time of it in Los Angeles. Brought in as the anti-Gates, he was held in suspicion by many Gates loyalists in the department, who distrusted him as an outsider and, as some have charged, because he was black; many thought he was insufficiently supportive of the department during the investigation of the 1994 murders of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman and the subsequent trial of O. J. Simpson.
Mr. Williams also ran afoul of some Los Angeles business and political leaders, who found his management of the department slack. And he was frustrated by what he saw as the competing agendas of the City Council; the city’s Police Commission, a citizens’ board that oversees the department; and the mayor, Richard Riordan, who succeeded Mr. Bradley in 1993 and who clashed with Mr. Williams on expansion of the police force, among other issues.
Two years into Mr. Wiliams’s tenure, his leadership came under harsh criticism, which was exacerbated when a retired deputy chief raised questions about rumors of unethical actions. The Police Commission began an investigation into allegations that Mr. Williams and his family had used city cars, drivers and cellphones for private purposes and that he had improperly accepted free rooms at casino hotels in Las Vegas.
He denied any wrongdoing, but the commission members reprimanded him, saying he had been dishonest when he was asked if he had received free rooms at Caesars Palace. He left office in 1997 after serving a five-year term and was replaced by Bernard C. Parks.
Willie Lawrence Williams Jr. was born in Philadelphia on Oct. 1, 1943, the oldest of seven children of Willie Sr., who worked in a meatpacking plant, and the former Helen Stansbery. He attended local public schools and earned an associate degree in business administration from the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science. He joined the Philadelphia police force when he was 20.
He married Evelina Edwards, Ms. Odoms’s sister, in 1966. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his mother; two brothers, Roger and David; two sisters, Catherine Walker and Christine Nutt; three children, Willie III and the twins Eric and Lisa; and five grandchildren.
As his time in Los Angeles came to an end, Mr. Williams reflected on his tenure there in an interview with The Los Angeles Times.
“Politics has greatly intruded, for the right or the wrong reasons, into the day-to-day management activities of the Los Angeles Police Department,” said Mr. Williams, whom The Times described as “sometimes contemplative, sometimes bitter.”
He spoke about the fractiousness that characterized much of his time in Los Angeles. “Let me tell you something,” he said. “When you’re a chief of police, when you’re a leader, you have to do what you think is right.”
He added: “Willie Williams would not be able to look in the mirror, look at his family, look at his children, look at his friends and neighbors, look at people in this department if I just packed up my bags and went away when someone says: ‘Chief, we don’t like what you’re doing. Get out of town.’ I didn’t walk into Los Angeles to be tossed out of town, and I wasn’t going to be tossed out without expressing my concerns.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/29/u...of-2-police-forces-in-turmoil-dies-at-72.html
