Police Panel Seeks Publicity Firm to Bolster Image

It’s not just movie stars who seem to need their own PR agents in Los Angeles. Now it’s the Los Angeles Police Commission.

Commission President Rick Caruso is seeking a public relations firm to represent the five-member board, which has been criticized for its purported complacency.

Caruso said he hopes to find a firm that would take the job for free or for a relatively small fee as a community service.

The goal is to enhance the image of the board that oversees the Los Angeles Police Department, said Joe Gunn, the board’s executive director.

As a result of factors including the Rampart corruption scandal, “the department as a whole has been beaten up,� Caruso said. “There is a lack of confidence about what the department is doing.�

As a result, he said, the commission needs a public relations company to help frame its priorities in a way to promote understanding. The effort might also help dispel misconceptions about the board’s role relative to that of the police chief. “I don’t see that the public . . . clearly understands we are independent from the department,� Caruso said.

In coming months, the board may contemplate one of its most significant actions to date. It has the power to approve another five-year contract for Police Chief Bernard C. Parks if he applies for a second term.

Critics have previously alleged that the board is nothing more than “a rubber stamp for the chief, frankly� Gunn said. He said that image is outdated.

Caruso said he has talked to representatives from companies who could be potential candidates, but declined to identify them and said no decision has been reached.

The commission would have to act on any contract, he said. Caruso did not say how much the board would be willing to spend if no one were willing to do the work for free.

This would not be the first time the Police Commission has engaged a firm to help with public relations, Gunn said. In the mid-1990s, Sagon-Phior Group was engaged on a pro bono basis.

The commission faces several challenges, including overcoming the department’s difficulties in recruiting and retaining new officers, implementing a federal consent decree, and patching up a rift between Chief Parks and the officers union, which has hired its own publicist in recent months.