Panel Named to Review Police Chief Candidates

The Los Angeles Police Commission on Wednesday announced that it has drawn upon an ethnically diverse group of community and business leaders to serve on a committee that will review candidates for the vacant chief of police job and recommend to the commission a list of at least six top contenders.

“We are deeply grateful to the members of this committee who are volunteering their time to help the Police Commission identify the most qualified candidates for the chief of police,” said Commission President Raymond C. Fisher. “They bring an informed, independent and diverse point of view to this very important process.”

The committee’s 10 members are: Los Angeles Sheriff Sherman Block; Miguel Contreras, head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO; R. Thomas Decker, executive vice president of Bank of America; Genethia Hudley Hayes, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles; Sky Johnson, director of policy and public affairs at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center; Elwood Lui, attorney and former associate justice of the California Court of Appeal; Veronica Simmons McBeth, assistant presiding judge of the Los Angeles Municipal Court; Tammy Membreno, executive director of Barrio Action Youth and Family Center; Andrea Sheridan Ordin, attorney and former president of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn.; and Cynthia Telles, UCLA professor and president of the Commission on the Status of Women.

The application deadline for those interested in the chief’s job is today. As of late Tuesday eight people had applied for the position, an official said.

The committee is scheduled to meet June 20 to review the applicants and refer at least six candidates to the Police Commission to be interviewed. The commission will then narrow the list to three candidates, in order of preference, to the mayor, who will then select the next chief. The mayor’s selection must be approved by the City Council.