Charlie Beck | |
---|---|
Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department | |
Interim | |
In office December 2, 2019 –April 15, 2020 | |
Mayor | Lori Lightfoot |
Preceded by | Eddie T. Johnson |
Succeeded by | David Brown |
Chief of Police of Los Angeles | |
In office November 17,2009 –June 27,2018 | |
Mayor | Antonio Villaraigosa Eric Garcetti |
Preceded by | Michael Downing (Interim) |
Succeeded by | Michel Moore |
Personal details | |
Born | Charles Lloyd Beck June 27,1953 [1] Long Beach,California,U.S. [1] |
Nickname | "Charlie" |
Police career | |
Department | Chicago Police Department Los Angeles Police Department |
Service years | Chicago P.D.:December 2019-April 2020 Los Angeles P.D.:March 1977 – June 2018 (41 years) |
Rank | Acting Superintendent of the Chicago P.D.:12/2019 Chief of L.A.P.D. (56th):11/2009 Deputy Chief:8/2006 Commander:4/2005 Captain:7/1999 Lieutenant:4/1993 Sergeant:6/1984 Sworn in as a Police Officer:3/1977 Sworn in as a Reserve Police Officer:1975 |
Charles Lloyd Beck (born June 27,1953) [2] is a retired American police officer,formerly serving as the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and subsequently as the Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department. [3] A veteran of the department with over four decades as an officer,he is known for commanding and rehabilitating the Rampart Division after the Rampart scandal;and for technology enhancements during his time as Chief of Detectives. [4] He agreed to be interim Superintendent of Police in Chicago in late 2019 while the city searches nationwide for a replacement for retiring Eddie Johnson. [5] Beck took the helm of the Chicago Police Department on December 2,2019,after Johnson was fired. On April 15,2020,Beck stepped down and was replaced by former Dallas Police Department Chief David Brown,who had been nominated by Lightfoot to serve as permanent Superintendent. [6] [7] After his retirement he rejoined the Reserve Corps as a Reserve Police Officer and is assigned to the Office Of The Chief Of Police. [8] [9]
Beck is a native of Long Beach,California. He attended Mayfair High School in Lakewood,California,and then the California State University,Long Beach where he received a B.A. in occupational studies-vocational arts. [1] His father,George,was also an LAPD policeman,retiring at the rank of deputy chief in 1980. [1] [4]
Beck was appointed to the Los Angeles Police Department in March 1977 after serving two years with the Los Angeles Police Reserve Corps. As a patrol officer, his assignments included both the Rampart and Hollywood divisions. [1] After promotion to sergeant in June 1984, Beck worked in the Department's C.R.A.S.H. program under then-chief, Daryl Gates, in the 1980s and early 1990s. [10] Beck worked in the Department's Internal Affairs division as a sergeant and a lieutenant. [1] He was promoted to lieutenant in April 1993 and to captain in July 1999 (following that promotion he was initially assigned to Southeast Division, followed by terms as the Commanding Officer of Juvenile Division, Central Area and finally Rampart Area), and then commander in April 2005. In August 2006, he achieved the rank of deputy chief, the same rank that his father, a retired Los Angeles police officer, had attained. Upon that promotion, he assumed command of Operations-South Bureau. Beck went on to become Chief of Detectives, and implemented a number changes to the Detective Bureau, particularly in the use of technology (for which the Detective Bureau has overall responsibility for the entire LAPD). Beck was appointed Chief of Police in November 2009. [1] According to the Los Angeles Times , Beck was paid a salary of $297,000 in 2011. [11]
During the 2013 manhunt of Christopher Dorner, eight Los Angeles police officers fired 103 rounds at two innocent women who were delivering newspapers; one woman, a 71-year-old, was shot twice in the back, and the other woman was injured by broken glass. Even though a commission found that the eight officers violated department policy, none were suspended or fired; Beck chose to allow the shooting officers to return to duty after undergoing additional training. [12] In a settlement, the two women shot by police received $4.2 million from the City of Los Angeles; Beck described the shooting "a tragic misinterpretation" by police working under "incredible tension." [13]
On April 17, 2015, California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced a statewide program of anti-bias training for law enforcement officers. Beck said removing built-in bias among officers "is not something you get inoculated against once in your life and that’s it. This takes constant retraining, constant discussion." [14] Beck and Harris had established a close working relationship. LAPD spokesman Josh Rubenstein stated that "Beck assigned a security detail for US Senator Kamala Harris shortly before she was sworn into office in 2017, based on a threat assessment he believed to be credible." [15]
On January 19, 2018, Beck announced his retirement later that year. [16] On June 4 of that year, Mayor Garcetti announced that Michel Moore would succeed him on June 27. [17]
On November 8, 2019, Chicago's mayor, Lori Lightfoot appointed Beck as the city's interim superintendent, to commence upon the retirement of incumbent Eddie Johnson. [5] Lightfoot praised Beck and said he "stood firmly on the side of immigrant rights in the face of opposition related to Los Angeles' status as a Sanctuary City, and its choices related to non-cooperation with federal immigration officials." [18] Chicago will conduct a nationwide search for the permanent Superintendent. Beck declined a permanent position, and agreed to hold the Office for a few months. [5] On April 2, 2020, Beck was replaced by former Dallas Police Department Chief David Brown as Superintendent. [6]
Beck is known to be an avid motocross enthusiast, winning several awards in the sport, and is the current[ when? ] Police and Fire Motocross national champion. [10] His sister, Megan, was a detective. His wife, Cindy, was a narcotics dog handler. Two of his children, Brandi and Martin, are LAPD officers. His daughter Megan is a Deputy Sheriff for LASD. [19] [20]
In 2016, Beck made a cameo appearance on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills when he ran into Erika Jayne and her husband Thomas Girardi while having lunch. [21]
In 2018, Beck appeared in a cameo role as Police Chief in the music video When the Seasons Change by Five Finger Death Punch.
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,832 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-largest municipal police department in the United States, after the New York City Police Department and the Chicago Police Department.
Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh Jr. is an American writer known for his fictional and nonfictional accounts of police work in the United States. Many of his novels are set in Los Angeles and its surroundings and feature Los Angeles police officers as protagonists. He won three Edgar Awards, and was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.
The Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) was a specialized gang intelligence unit of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) tasked with combating gang-related crime between 1979 and 2000. The unit was established in the South Central district of Los Angeles, California, United States, to combat rising gang violence during the period. Each of the LAPD's 18 divisions had a CRASH unit assigned to it, whose primary goal was to suppress gang-related crimes in the city, which came about primarily from the increase in illegal drug trade.
The Rampart scandal was a police corruption scandal which unfolded in Los Angeles, California, United States, during the late 1990s and early 2000s. The scandal concerned widespread criminal activity within the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) anti-gang unit of the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division. More than 70 police officers were initially implicated in various forms of misconduct, including unprovoked shootings and beatings, planting of false evidence, stealing and dealing narcotics, bank robbery, perjury and cover-ups thereof.
The Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) serves communities to the west of Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) including Silver Lake, Echo Park, Pico-Union and Westlake, all together designated as the Rampart patrol area. Its name is derived from Rampart Boulevard, one of the principal thoroughfares in its patrol area. The original station opened in 1966, located at 2710 West Temple Street. In 2008, the staff moved southeast to a newer facility located at 1401 West 6th Street. With 164,961 residents occupying a 5.4-square-mile (14 km2) area, Rampart is one of Los Angeles's most densely populated communities.
Ray Lopez is an American former police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the central figure in the LAPD Rampart scandal. An officer with the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) task force, Pérez was involved in numerous crimes and corruption, notably the shooting and framing of Javier Ovando, in addition to the theft and resale of at least $800,000 of cocaine from LAPD evidence lockers.
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was formed in 1869, and has since become the third-largest law enforcement agency in the United States. They have been involved in various events in history, such as the Black Dahlia murder, the Watts riots, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the North Hollywood shootout, the murder trial of O. J. Simpson, and the Rampart scandal.
The 2007 MacArthur Park rallies were two May Day rallies demanding amnesty for undocumented immigrants which occurred on May 1, 2007, at MacArthur Park, in Los Angeles.
Brian S. Bentley is an author and a former Los Angeles Police Department officer. His first book, One Time: The Story of a South Central Los Angeles Police Officer, Bentley graphically depicts his involvement in suspect beatings and describes in detail the gratification he and his partners received from their actions. Bentley says some officers are addicted to violence and can't stop on their own. One Time lets readers see first hand how police brutality is accepted and encouraged in law enforcement. "One Time" is an urban slang term for "the Police."
Frank Lyga is an American former police officer of the Los Angeles Police Department, who shot and killed officer Kevin Gaines. The resulting LAPD investigation of Kevin Gaines helped lead to the Rampart Scandal.
David O'Neal Brown is an American police officer who served as the Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department from 2020 to 2023. He was the chief of the Dallas Police Department from 2010 to 2016. He has received praised by some for his reforms designed to reduce violent confrontations between police officers and the community and increase the department's accountability and transparency. He has also been criticized by the local police union for the methods of implementation of some of his policies.
Christopher Jordan Dorner was a former officer of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) who, beginning on February 3, 2013, committed a series of killings against the LAPD in Orange County, Los Angeles County, Riverside County and San Bernardino County in the U.S. state of California. The victims were law enforcement officers and the daughter of a retired police captain. Dorner killed four people and wounded three others. On February 12, Dorner killed himself after a shootout with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department deputies in the San Bernardino Mountains.
The Gangster Squad, later known as the OrganizedCrime Intelligence Division (OCID), was a special unit of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) formed in 1946 to keep the East Coast Mafia and organized crime elements out of Los Angeles, California.
James McDonnell is an American law enforcement officer. On October 4, 2024, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass nominated McDonnell to be the 59th Los Angeles Police Department's Chief of Police and will take the position upon confirmation of the Los Angeles City Council. He is the former sheriff and head of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the largest in the US, having been elected as L.A. County's 32nd sheriff on November 4, 2014, defeating former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka. He replaced interim sheriff John Scott on December 1, 2014. Scott replaced former sheriff Lee Baca. Previously, McDonnell served as the Chief of Police in Long Beach, California and before that in the Los Angeles Police Department. McDonnell was defeated in 2018 by Alex Villanueva.
Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old African-American man, died from multiple gunshot wounds after being shot by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers in Florence, Los Angeles, California on August 11, 2014. In the weeks and months that followed, Ford's shooting triggered multiple demonstrations and a lawsuit by Ford's family claiming $75 million in damages.
The killing of Charley Leundeu Keunang, a 43-year-old Cameroonian national, occurred in Los Angeles, California, on March 1, 2015. He was shot by three Los Angeles Police Department officers.
Eddie T. Johnson is an American retired police officer for the Chicago Police Department. He served as the 62nd Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department from March 2016 until December 2019.
Michel Rey Moore is a retired American law enforcement officer who served as the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) from 2018 until 2024.