Key oversight officials leave as LAPD searches for chief

LOS ANGELES — In the market for senior police officials, Los Angeles is hiring.

As of this week, the city faces an unprecedented three vacancies in key LAPD leadership and oversight positions: chief, inspector general and executive director of the Board of Police Commissioners.

The current inspector general, Mark Smith, was named Monday as an independent monitor to oversee police reforms in Portland, Oregon. Another top oversight official, Richard Tefank, who served as executive director for the Board of Police Commissioners for nearly two decades, retired at the end of last month.

The department is already without a permanent police chief after Michel Moore unexpectedly announced his retirement in January after 5 1/2 years as chief. Last month, the Police Commission appointed Assistant Chief Dominic Choi to take over on an interim basis. A Northern California headhunting firm was hired last month conduct a nationwide search for the city's next top cop, a process that is expected to last through August.

The all-civilian Police Commission, which functions much like a board of directors for the department, will now be tasked with picking replacements for Tefank and Smith — while also selecting three police chief candidates for Mayor Karen Bass to consider.

The simultaneous openings mark a crossroads for civilian oversight in the city, where the commission has an opportunity "to place its stamp on the department going forward," said Gerald "Gerry" Chaleff, a past commission president.

"That's never happened before," said Chaleff, who helped negotiate the sweeping 2000 federal agreement imposed on the LAPD, largely because of the Rampart corruption scandal, in which gang officers planted false evidence, stole narcotics and shot people without justification.

If approved for his new role in Portland, Smith will work to settle a decade-old review by the U.S. Department of Justice, which previously accused the city's police of engaging in a pattern of excessive force during arrests of people with mental illness.

It's unclear who will take over for Smith until a permanent replacement is named.

Tefank's temporary replacement is Django Sibley, an assistant inspector general who oversees all investigations of serious police uses of force and has built a reputation as an effective behind-the-scenes operator since joining the office in 2004.

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