Last cop in the building, don't forget to turn out the lights
| Wednesday, Oct 28 2009 10:08 AM
Last Updated Wednesday, Oct 28 2009 10:08 AM
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Some people will look at Bill Rector's upcoming wardrobe change, from police blue to beach floral, and gripe about one of two things.
(1) This "3 at 50" retirement deal is eventually going to bankrupt cities and counties across the state of California, because it creates an unsustainable financial liability. If Rector, the robust but retiring 49-year-old Bakersfield police chief, makes it merely to the age of 70, he'll collect roughly $3 million without wearing a pair of closed-toed shoes ever again in his life. Not every pubic safety officer will retire with that kind of parting gift, but quite a few will hit seven figures, cumulatively speaking, before they reach their seventh decade.
And, (2) Why didn't I go into law enforcement?
I mutter about those things, too, but I also wonder:
Who's going to be left to mind the store?
Sure, I understand that younger cops are coming up through the ranks every day, and I have no doubt that most are capable and motivated by all the right things.
But at what point does the Bakersfield Police Department look around the room and wonder where all the institutional memory has gone? It helps to be able to tap the wisdom and experience of a few graybeards no matter what the enterprise, and that surely applies to police work. Each of the neighborhoods of a city has its own character, its own history, its own mentality, and experienced cops have a feel for it all. They use it.
Before Rector, who retires in January after five years at the helm of the city's 363-officer department, his immediate predecessors, Eric Matlock, Steve Brummer and Bob Patterson, each in turn spent about five years as chief. You've got to go all the way back to Robert O. (Bob) Price to find a chief of any significant tenure: 15 years (1973-1988). And Price didn't just ride off in his RV once they handed him his gold watch: He served as mayor of Bakersfield, and just this year helped coordinate a group of retiree volunteers to help the BPD compensate for the loss of office staff caused by the recession.
It's tough to see young police chiefs and other top-level brass move on when they still have so many good years left, but keeping them around too long has its disadvantages, too.
Chief Horace V. Grayson, who served for 20 years (1946-1966), ruled the city like a potentate, thanks in part to the files he kept on Bakersfield City Council members and many others. According to a 1971 Grand Jury investigation, subordinates claimed Grayson could pick up the phone and get almost anything he wanted from compromised council members.
Grayson's successor had issues of his own: The anti-organized crime group LEIU, or Law Enforcement Intelligence Units, expelled the BPD from its membership rolls in 1971 over alleged corruption on the watch of Jack Towle (1966-1973). The ensuing Grand Jury investigation revealed a cozy relationship with organized gambling and prostitution, but Towle -- who suffered a fatal heart attack while still in office -- called it all "malicious gossip" and the jury inexplicably declined to indict. None of it ever became public. LEIU didn't readmit the BPD for more than 30 years, when Matlock was chief.
Cops today are a different breed -- more closely scrutinized, yes, but also healthier, more athletic, better educated, better supported by technology and firepower, and of course, better paid. If anything, they're better equipped to keep working into their 60s than the police of three or four decades ago.
But "3 at 50" is the way it is, and the way it'll stay for a generation of cops to come, even if the arrangement were rescinded tomorrow.
Enjoy your retirement, Chief Rector. You too, Assistant Police Chief Bryan Lynn. At your ages, you're still young enough to enjoy things your predecessors of generations past could not. Maybe you can build a mountain cabin, or play a couple years of pro football.
E-mail Robert Price at rprice@bakersfield.com.
