For all the bashing that Vera Katz has taken, somebody ought
to give the mayor some credit:
She had the courage last week to appoint a white man to
be this city's police chief.
Don't flip back to the cover of this newspaper to see whether
you are reading the Aryan Nation Gazette. Our point
is not that a black person shouldn't be the police chief
of this city. It's that Katz deserves praise for hiring
the best-qualified candidate, rather than taking the politically
comfortable route.
There is little doubt as to the marked differences in experience
between the two top finalists for the job, Mark Kroeker
and Ronald Monroe. Kroeker, who is white, has been a cop
for 32 years and was, until his retirement in 1997, a deputy
chief of the Los Angeles police department. Hailed as politically
savvy, articulate and an expert at community relations,
Kroeker, 55, was considered by many different factions in
L.A. to be the brightest star of that embattled police force.
Among other accomplishments, he brought peace to the San
Fernando Valley during the riots following the Rodney King
verdict.
Ronald Monroe, who is black, is one of three assistant
police chiefs in Washington, D.C. Monroe, 44, is well-respected
in the nation's capital, but his responsibilities in the
District of Columbia, which were largely budgetary, show
a level of experience and accomplishment far short of Kroeker's.
Monroe, Kroeker and a third candidate, who eventually dropped
out, were the finalists whose names were forwarded to Katz
last month by an 18-member selection committee. In other
cities and with other mayors, the race card would have been
played. (This is particularly true with the position of
police chief, given that black people are both disproportionately
arrested for crimes and victims of crimes themselves.) In
1997, many thought Kroeker was hugely qualified to become
the new police chief in Los Angeles; instead, he came in
second to fellow L.A. deputy chief Bernard Parks, who is
black.
Prominent members of Portland's black community have not
protested Kroeker's appointment. In some respects, Charles
Moose made this possible. Moose was Katz's first police
chief, at 39 the youngest ever to be appointed to that job
and the first African American as well. By breaking the
color barrier with Moose, who had worked at the bureau for
18 years, Katz burnished her reputation as one who would
hire the best candidate available, regardless of color.
While Moose's record was eventually a mixed one--his support
for community policing and his personal integrity were undercut
by his volatility--there was little question at the time
that Moose deserved the nod.
In his own way, Kroeker offers Portland a level of diversity
that has nothing to do with pigment. He's an outsider (the
first the bureau has hired as chief in 25 years), a born-again
Christian and someone whose first choice of profession was
not police work, but to be a music conductor.
Portland's homogeneity has long been one of the few drawbacks
to this great city. Our growing ethnic diversity is a welcome
development, and it's only natural that political decisions
will reflect our differences. But it's possible to serve
the city's various constituencies without straining against
the yoke of racial politics.
Vera Katz took a good step in that direction last week.
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Willamette Week | originally
published December 15,
1999
|
