William J. Bratton
Encyclopedia : W : WI : WIL : William J. Bratton
William J. 'Bill' Bratton is currently the 54th chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and was formerly New York City Police Commissioner.
Bratton is a native of Boston, Massachusetts. He served in the Military Police Corps of the United States Army during the Vietnam War, returning to Boston in 1970 to start a police career in the Boston Police Department. Rising to the rank of lieutenant, Bratton became involved in several progressive police organizations and was named as the youngest ever Executive Superintendent of the Boston Police, the department's second highest post. He was dismissed as executive superintendent after he told a journalist that his goal was to be the Police Commissioner. He was reassigned to the position of Inspector of Bureaus, a sinecure which was responsible for liaison with minority and gay groups. He was later brought back into police headquarters to handle labor relations and 911 related issues.
Between 1983 and 1986 Bratton was Chief of Police for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, following which he became Superintendent of Boston's Metropolitan District Commission Police. In 1990, he was appointed Chief of Police of the New York City Transit Police. Bratton was Superintendent in Chief of the Boston Police Department from 1991 until 1993, when he became that city's 34th Police Commissioner. He holds the Department's highest award for valor.
In 1994, William Bratton was appointed the 38th Commissioner of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. He had success in this position, and introduced the CompStat system of tracking crimes, which proved successful in reducing crime in New York City and is still used to this day, but left the job in 1996 after alleged personal conflict with Giuliani.
In 1998, Random House published his memoir TURNAROUND: How America's Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic. It was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Bratton then worked as a private consultant until his appointment by Mayor of Los Angeles James Hahn as the LAPD's 54th Chief of Police in October 2002. Bratton's predecessor, Bernard Parks, and many others have criticized Bratton for allowing drug users to join the LAPD.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
He holds a Bachelor of Science in Law Enforcement from the University of Massachusetts and was a research fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Bratton is married to attorney and Court TV analyst Rikki Klieman.
External link
|- style="text-align: center;" |- style="text-align: center;" |- style="text-align: center;"
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.