How getting 'jacked up' by police helped shape the LAPD's chief watchdog

So that would be my number one item, would be recruitment and retention. The other is, I'm always going to say community engagement and community building. We need to do a better job. We need to improve our image.

LAT: Y ou've heard the criticism about the Police Commission being a lapdog or rubber-stamp body for the LAPD — what do you make of that? And how do you walk that fine line between working with the department to improve it where necessary, but also being responsive to community feedback or criticism?

Southers: That's fair. I'm one of those people that's trying to walk the walk on educating people. I have shared, to the extent that I can without compromising personnel issues, that every categorical use of force that we adjudicate every Tuesday is examined to the level of a homicide. We have officers' statements, suspect statements, witness statements, body-worn video, dashcam video, any buildings in the area — whether they're residences' or businesses' video — we look at drawings. We have videos slowed down, which is a criticism from our officers sometimes, because we're looking at incidents slowed down, where they don't get to slow down. All that to say with all that information, when we come back and say [a shooting is] in policy we can say without any reservation, it's in policy.

I'm in this position now because I grew up … getting stopped by the police for nothing other than walking down the street. And I'm not the stereotype. With all due respect, I had some great parents — I wouldn't be where I am right now if it wasn't for them — both educated. Me and my brother went to Ivy League schools and came out with no debt because my parents did the right thing. They knew what they were doing. Nobody in my family has ever been in jail. None of my friends, who were all black, nobody in their families, ever been in jail. All my friends' parents were married. So I killed that stereotype that people have out there about us.

But I say all that to say I still got jacked up. And then finally after it happened enough, I was complaining to my dad one day, and he said, 'Well, you can't change the castle from outside the moat.' So here I am. I feel like now I'm inside the castle. Now I can affect policy. Now I can affect officers. Now I can say, 'You know that officer definitely shouldn't be here.'

I started a registry at USC. It was originally called the LEWIS Registry and now it's called the Police Misconduct Registry, where we started documenting officers who have been fired across the country, because my opinion is once they've been fired — and you know what it takes to fire an officer — they shouldn't get hired by someone else. I feel that, felt that way then, I feel that way now. So when I hear the criticisms from people out there — who think I don't know, all of a sudden I'm not Black — I just take it and move on. If they only knew how much we care and how much we can affect what's happening here. I think they probably say it anyway because they have to.

LAT: Obviously one of the most monumental tasks before you right now is the search for a new chief. Can you talk about where you see it going? How has the job of chief of police of LAPD changed?

Southers: I can say without any reservation: I'm part of a group of people that this is going to be the most important professional decision I'm gonna make in my life. We're gonna select the chief of police for the Los Angeles Police Department. And for at least a five-year period, that's going affect 3.8 million people for part of a generation. So I and my fellow commissioners take that very seriously.

I'll say the same thing that I've said [to] people who've asked me so far: [we're searching for] nothing short of the best person in this country. And if that person's in this building, that'll play out. I did the same thing for a search a little over a year ago at USC; I think when I brought [Department of Public Safety Chief] Lauretta Hill to USC, I think I got the best person in America; brought her from Dallas.

LAT: When you consider Chief Michel Moore's tenure or his legacy, where do you think he's gonna fit into the pantheon of LAPD chiefs?

Southers: There were a couple of chiefs throughout the years that you're always going to remember for something. Daryl Gates will always be remember for, if nothing else, LAPD invented SWAT when he was here. That's a biggie. I mean there's a number of things he did, but that's a biggie.

When Bratton came in, the consent decree that changed the department … Bratton changed the department. I think Chief Moore is gonna be remembered in the same sentence with Gates and Bratton, because he had two monumental shifts — most chiefs will never have any — but he had two. He had the death of George Floyd, which in my opinion changed policing across this country, and he had a pandemic. And those factors alone, to still be standing when it's done; regardless of what people say — about what he should do, what he didn't do, about how he did it — he was still standing.