Retiring after more than 40 years, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck has evolved with the department he leads
LOS ANGELES - Chief Charlie Beck stood before police officers seated in the roll call room at Rampart station, recalling a time when he sat in those chairs.
As a rookie cop more than four decades ago, he patrolled those same streets, later returning to the station to enact reforms following a scandal that made the name Rampart synonymous with corruption.
Now, he was on a farewell tour, due to retire June 27 after nearly nine years as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.
He still had his field notebook from his first day at the station and retained vivid memories of the crusty old guy who worked the front desk for generations, he told the officers.
Years later, he sent two of his children there for their first patrol assignments, he said, choking up and pausing. By then, Rampart had become a good place to learn the department's new, improved methods of policing.
"I wanted them to learn the right way - the technical and emotional aspects of being a cop," said Beck, who turns 65 on his retirement day.
With his gravelly voice and trademark mustache, Beck is every inch the law enforcement elder statesman who himself was the son of a high-ranking LAPD officer. He maintains a trace of old school LAPD brashness, yet is known
