Iron Mike Needs to Forge a New Image as Part of LAPD’s Brass

A snapshot of LAPD Deputy Chief Mike Hillman has been making the rounds among brass at Parker Center. In the photograph, taken at the demonstrations on the evening of the Academy Awards, Hillman has a bullhorn in one hand and a citizen’s neck in the other.

I thought it must be a police recruiting photo, but I decided not to jump to conclusions.

Hillman got a two-level promotion from Chief William J. Bratton in December, so he must have the right stuff. But you don’t often see deputy chiefs running around like street cops, so Hillman kind of drew attention to himself, you might say.

Maybe he was demonstrating a new maneuver for line officers when he clamped down on the guy in the photo. It’s also possible Hillman thought the young man was attending the Academy Awards, and he was fitting him for a tuxedo. “Neck, 16 1/2.”

Or maybe the guy rushed him and Hillman was just defending himself. It’s hard to say exactly what was going on. But that photo, which appeared on the indymedia.org Web site, was not the full extent of Hillman’s Oscars night activity.

Regina Clemente, who is counting the days to graduation from Occidental College, was one of the demonstrators. She and her boyfriend were with a group that was trying to move from one permitted demonstration area to another when a police car raced up and Hillman bolted out.

“He launched out of that car so fast, I don’t think the car even stopped,” said Clemente’s boyfriend, Eric Kessler.

Clemente, 22, said she was shocked to see him charging at her. She said she hadn’t done anything to single herself out, and wasn’t even waving a sign, but Hillman picked her up and dumped her to the ground.

“I scraped my arms against a wall on the way down and hit my head on the pavement,” she said.

Clemente was bleeding from both arms, and paramedics treated her at the scene. They checked for head injuries, but determined that she was not seriously hurt.

Oddly enough, I had been at a demonstration in downtown Los Angeles two days before the Oscars, and guess who walked up to me.

Iron Mike.

“What’s your name?” he asked, but it was polite enough. He didn’t grab my neck or anything, although there’s no telling what I’m in for now. He didn’t answer my call on Thursday, and his superiors passed me over to Internal Affairs.

After his busy night in Hollywood, Hillman told Internal Affairs he’d been involved in a use-of-force incident. Internal Affairs Cmdr. Jim McMurray says that’s routine, and not an admission of inappropriate conduct.

By Hillman’s account, a helicopter unit reported “a breakaway group” from a legal demonstration area at Sunset and Orange, “running full-tilt” toward Highland and De Longpre.

Hillman raced to the scene, where “the mob was right on the street, right at him,” McMurray says. Hillman wasn’t singling out any individual, but “made an effort to get the group to stop.”

Clemente ended up kissing the pavement, and thanks be to God, Hillman succeeded in keeping demonstrators away from Highland. There’s no way to calculate the tragic consequences had they waved signs at movie stars arriving for the Oscars.

Clemente insists she wasn’t running, and isn’t sure why Hillman needed to swoop in as if she were Regina bin Laden.

“The physical harm was not that great,” she says. “But clearly it was excessive force, and if he did it to me when I wasn’t all that threatening, I’m worried about what might happen to other people.”

And what about the message it sends to the rank-and-file when a deputy chief is the guy leading the charge?

As for the photo of the neck-grabbing incident, Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell said you can’t really make any conclusions if you don’t know the context.

That’s true. And let’s be honest: Not everyone in a protest line is a saint. There was some scuffling that night, and 12 people were arrested.

Maybe Bratton, who might have stirred up the troops when he complained about having to waste manpower on pesky demonstrators, ought to make it crystal-clear what kind of conduct is unacceptable.

He might also want to sit down with Hillman and say, look, Iron Mike, it’s great that you want to be on the street

with your troops. But you’re a general now, and there’s a reason Tommy Franks is not running around the desert, personally confronting Iraqi soldiers.

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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at [email protected].