Political Sabotage may not be the answer for all in understanding social crime and violence or police use of force to control it, but it does provide a focus and single source toward that goal. Want to know about Ruby Ridge and Randy Weaver, Rodney King and a truer story about the fiasco at Waco, Texas? Did law enforcement do it right? Maybe, but maybe not.
These questions are also answered: What facts and experience create the subtleties for "the mystique of police culture?" Is a true unprofessional "code of silence" part of it? Is that culture a closed club for those wearing the badge of the Los Angeles Police Department? Is its "culture" and its use of police force in the attempt to control crime and violence responsible for the LAPD's downfall? Does diversity and affirmative action exist as co-conspirators in that downfall? Or will it all remain as the unknown result of the influence and impact of the emotional and ideological attitudes found in our American society and its sometimes politicized, attorney dominated, and unjust justice system?
What part did political sabotage play in orchestrating what academic isolation and a supporting media label "the ineffective administration of a corrupt LAPD?" And what led that leadership through a moderate level of hesitation and silence to a federal consent decree and various "commission investigations," and to every activist and media embellished blame, to forgo the effort to retain the best parts of what had once made the LAPD the most innovative, respected, effective and efficient police organization in America?
These questions have truthful and experienced answers. But the overall question is yet to be answered: Will the American citizen ever truly understand enough to make a difference?
About the Author: Richard Melville Holbrook was born in 1937 on the family farm ten miles outside North Platte, Nebraska. He soon moved with his parents to Brentwood, a community on the west side of Los Angeles, California.
After graduating from San Fernando High School in a San Fernando Valley suburb of Los Angeles, he spent four years in the Strategic Air Command of the United States Air Force, educated and assigned as a Medical Service Specialist, trained as a medical and surgical emergency room technician, spending an additional two years in obstetrics assisting with deliveries, and formally trained in the care and treatment of premature infants.
At the age of 23, and as all new police recruits were required to undergo at that time, he passed the more stringent background, mental and physical tests and was hired by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), retiring as a Lieutenant II after a 30-year career that saw him working in six of LAPD's 18 field divisions. For eight years he was assigned to divisional vice units and Administrative Vice Division in citywide organized crime enforcement. An additional four years of his career were spent in charge of the Specialized Instruction and Coordination Unit at the Police Academy. Other assignments included Community Relations, Internal Affairs, Planning and Research, and Scientific Investigation divisions.
In addition to Bachelor of Public Management and Master of Public Administration degrees from Pepperdine University, the author is a graduate of advanced law enforcement courses such as Special Weapons and Tactics, and Costing Police Services.
During ten years of his career, he taught management and supervision, decision making, and was an instructor for policy and law in the use of force. After retiring from the LAPD, he held corporate investigative and management positions in private security, ending his career as the General Manager of Operations for Southern California in a worldwide security firm with over 3,000 security officers and their supervisors under his management responsibility, deployed in over 23 private security services contracts.
He is now retired and lives in Weatherford, Texas, with his wife, Debbie, while daughters Stephanie and Lisa still reside in Los Angeles, California.
