COMMUNITY PROFILES IS A WEEKLY SERIES THAT APPEARS EACH MONDAY AND DELVES INTO THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE, WORK AND PLAY IN SANTA MONICA. A watchful eye in times of change
By MICHAEL J. TITTINGER Daily Press Staff Writer
SMPD HDQTRS. — Seated in his fourth-floor office within the new Public Safety Building just off Main Street, Santa Monica Police Chief James T. Butts Jr. has a bird’s eye view of the Santa Monica Pier, the downtown district and a large swath of the city whose people he has been entrusted with protecting for the past 15 years.
As the city’s top cop, the 53-year-old Angelino has been a fixture in Santa Monica since taking the reins via Inglewood, serving as everything from the voice of reassurance during trying times to the face of authority and order in stretches of civic pride.
The nature of the job, as with any law enforcement post, can be both thankless and deeply rewarding, in turns, a circumstance that allows him the opportunity to seek answers and quell fears among his charges.
As another brilliant afternoon sunshine spilled in through the reinforced, plate-glass windows, a reflective chief went about his duties on Friday, even as his retirement in two weeks fast approaches. From his somewhat serene office perch, the police chief seems somewhat removed from the bustle and minutiae of the city beyond his windows, enabling him to keep his eyes on the bigger picture, “that bad things happen in this world,”but that overall, it’s hard to argue with a record that includes the city’s lowest crime rate in half a century.
Following a rapid rise through the ranks in Inglewood, Butts dug in when he came to Santa Monica. When he retires on Aug. 29 and takes over a newly-created position to head up security and law enforcement for each of Los Angeles’ four airports, including LAX, he will be the longest-serving police chief in the city’s history.
“I saw a community that cared,” Butts said of Santa Monica upon his arrival. “But one with great, overwhelming public safety needs that could be improved upon, a profile that could be improved upon. I thought that I could accomplish that.”
Only time can determine the legacy of Chief Butts, but a record that includes turning the tide of crime increases that occurred under each of his five predecessors should go a long way, not to mention cast a considerable shadow for which his successor will have to emerge.
Butts, who received his bachelor’s degree from California State University, Los Angeles, and his master’s degree at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, has served in law enforcement for 32 years; 34 if one takes into account his civil service duties. He has three grown children with his wife, who he lives with in Ladeira Heights.
On Friday, the chief went on the record with the Daily Press to discuss everything from his deep respect for his father to thwarting gang violence, from a love of muscle cars to shooting hoops in the city’s parks.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR UPBRINGING.
“My parents met in Portland, Ore. My father was in the Air Force, and when he completed his service, they migrated to Los Angeles to raise a family. My father was born and raised in North Carolina back in the ’30s, and that was a very different place than Los Angeles in the ’50s, when I was born. That was by design. He didn’t want to raise a family in an area that was so oppressive to civil rights. Most everybody in East Arcadia County, the biggest aspiration anybody could have would be to go to a nearby city and work in the salt mines, either that or you would be a sharecropper with the hope that one day you would have your own farm. Of all his brothers and sisters, I think there were 10, he was the only one to go to college, and then he joined the service because his intent was to leave the South.
“In the Air Force, his M.O.S. (Military Occupation Specialty) was electronics and communications, and when he left the Air Force he obtained a degree in electronics engineering and he went to work for Rockwell International, which later became North American Aviation. He worked on the guidance system for the X-15, which was the first plane to breach that barrier between the stratosphere and outer space. I used to take the photographs and the information about that aircraft to show-and-tell after school. As you can tell, I was very proud of my father. He was a very smart man.”
WHY DID YOU WANT TO BECOME A POLICE OFFICER?
“I actually went to college with the intent of becoming an attorney. I was pursuing a degree in business administration and I was playing basketball as well. I received a stipend for playing on the basketball team that I used to buy a car, because my academics were taken care of as well, and when I had to have knee surgery and had to pay for my car, I took a position as a community service officer in the city of Inglewood in 1972, as a non-hazardous police duty position, like a police cadet here nowadays. When I turned 20 and a half, they offered me a position as a police officer, and I took it to save up money for law school. One thing turned into another and it was time for me to take a promotional exam. The first exam that I took I received an outside oral in the 90s and a written score in the 80s, which was very exceptional for this exam, but the inside score they gave me was ‘mediocre,’ but I still finished fourth and there were six vacancies for sergeant. They hired just three sergeants and said there were budgetary problems and didn’t promote me. There had never been a black sergeant in Inglewood at that time. The next year, I took the exam again and I got an 89 on the written and another score in the 90s, and the inside components had been removed because of abuses. I was promoted to sergeant, and two and half years later to lieutenant, and two and a half years later to captain, and four years after that to deputy chief of police. After a year and half as deputy chief, I competed and was appointed chief of police here in Santa Monica. So after a little sticking point in the beginning...”
DID THE OBSTACLES PUT BEFORE YOU MAKE YOU MORE MOTIVATED?
“I always was motivated, whether there were obstacles or not. I’m a very driven person. It was whatever came in the course of business. I never give up.”
When did you begin to see yourself in a more administrative role?
“Along the way, actually, I’ve had a very diverse police career. I’ve worked robbery/homicide, narcotics, metro, 12 years in S.W.A.T., been a motor officer, worked in internal affairs. I started a transit safety program similar to what we instituted here in Santa Monica, only on a broader scale in Inglewood. I headed up narcotics and special operations in Inglewood and as lieutenant, ran a narcotics task force in 1986, where we arrested around 900 people over the summer for sale, use and possession of crack cocaine, dropped the crime rate about 19 percent for the last half of the year. I didn’t really become a sole administrator until I became a captain. I think of myself as more of a street police officer.”
Tell us about your upcoming job and the challenges you expect to face.
“It’s a new position — Deputy Executive Director of the Los Angeles airports. It was created as a result of a study that was done for law enforcement and security of the airports. They did a study on structure and they were looking at the totality of the organizational structure of the airports. It was to improve the command control of the law enforcement and protect the assets of the airport.
“I’m in command of all the policing, security and traffic control functions at the four airports — LAX, Ontario, Van Nuys, which is a general aviation airport, and Palmdale. In addition, the functional coordi-nation position responsible for the FBI, DEA, PSA, personnel that are assigned to the airport. I’m at top level security clearance for sensitive information from the federal government.”
That’s a pretty large assignment. How many people do you supervise?
“Twelve-hundred that are on my payroll, with a total of 4,000, including all the agencies that operate under the umbrella of the airport. Right now, we have a city that has about a 90,000-person bedroom population, with maybe 5 to 6 million tourist visitors a year, as opposed to the airport that handles 68 million passengers a year in a smaller footprint.”
Looking back on your 15 years here as chief, what are your proudest accomplishments?
“I’d say, first and foremost, the caliber of people and supervisors — the executives we’ve managed to develop in that time, that’s resulted in this strong collaboration we have with the community. The implementation of probably the most advanced information technology in a policing function of any department, at least here in California that we know of. The development of neighborhood policing as a vehicle to give people in neighborhoods direct contact with police executives in the department so that we can more rapidly respond to their concerns, not just about crime, but quality of life issues. Take those things together — the reduction in crime that’s occurred — 63 percent in the last 13 years — the lowest crime rate in the last 50 years, and we’re working on another 9 percent reduction in the year-to-date. I’m the only chief since we started keeping crime statistics in the mid-’50s that will finish his tenure with a net reduction in crime. Under my tenure, all of the increases from the past five chiefs have been eradicated.”
HOW HAS SANTA MONICA CHANGED IN THE PAST 15 YEARS?
“Property values have risen dramatically. The general fund has tripled, if not quadrupled. Santa Monica’s general population has become younger, it would appear. With the exception of what is going to be an ongoing concern — gang violence — crime does not make the top 10 in any surveys about issues that Santa Monicans have on their minds, and that’s a tribute to the police department.
“There’s something else that needs to be noted, during that same period of time that crime has fallen to record levels, citizen complaints have dropped by 60 percent. Police liability the first year that I came here was over $3 million paid out for police issues, and this past fiscal year our total for the police department was $2,288 — $1,900 of that was attributed to a tree that fell on a house, the other incidents were a $150 pay-out because we gave one set of property to the wrong prisoner, $75 to clean the carpet where print dust stained the carpet and another $100 for leaving a cell phone on the top of a cruiser and driving off and having it break. The point I’m making is, most of the police liability such as false arrests, it’s unheard of in a police department (not to have any claims). And we have some people who say ‘you control what complaints are taken, so that’s not a true barometer.’ The reality is, in a city as rich as Santa Monica, there’s no reluctance of an attorney to take any case that seems viable. We’re not even paying out nuisance money. I believe that validates the point in dropped complaints, because if someone doesn’t want to come in to make a complaint, they sure will contact an attorney.”
I’m sure you’ve hired a large number of officers over the years. What do you look for in an officer?
“I’ve hired over two-thirds of the people who work in the Santa Monica Police Department, including civilians, and that’s 450 people that work here. I look for people that are independent thinkers, that are articulate and have good analytical skills, but I’m also looking for those independent thinkers who care about people.”
WHAT THINGS WOULD YOU CHANGE ABOUT SANTA MONICA?
“I think everything about Santa Monica, including the challenges, has made me into the kind of person that I’ve grown into, but if there was any one thing I could change with the snap of my fingers it would be to eradicate the gang culture that is predominant among less than 100 people in the city.”
Is gang culture the biggest challenge facing the city and your successor?
“The biggest challenge, in terms of potential for violence would be the linkages and the interaction between Santa Monica gang members and the gangs that surround the city in a semi-circle because these members tend to antagonize those members out there. We spend a disproportionate amount of police time and resources, based upon population, to discourage people outside of Santa Monica. But when you look at it in terms of whole numbers of things that happened, the worst year in Santa Monica does-n’t touch a bad weekend in numerous jurisdictions in the city of Los Angeles. That’s just the reality. I’m glad that we take it to heart and so seriously in this community rather than become callous about the loss of life or any injury, but the reality is that bad things happen in this world. If you take it in the context of Los Angeles County, we do very well in protecting all of our children and all of our residents.”
How would you answer your critics in relation to gang violence?
“I would compare our record in control-ling gang-related activities to any city in the county. If you look in terms of whole numbers of people that are injured or killed, the numbers are dwarfed by our surrounding jurisdictions. So if the criticism is that we haven’t perfectly prevented something that’s a problem across the United States of America, I plead guilty. Any reasonable person would look at where we are in the context of our surrounding geography and there’s no comparison.”
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR SUC- CESSOR?
“Don’t be pressured into doing things that might seem expedient to quiet squeaky wheels at the cost of compromising the reputation of the department for doing things legally and ethically and morally.”
WHAT HAVE BEEN THE HIGH POINTS? LOW POINTS?
“The low point was definitely (the death of SMPD officer) Rick Crocker, who was killed in Iraq. Because you work in a contained space, and rely on each other so much there’s such bonding within the organization. It’s like losing members of your own family when people pass, particularly when they’re young.
“The high points, there have been so many that I really couldn’t tell, because it’s just an excellent career.”
Was it a challenging position? Could it also be thankless?
“People tend to focus on what’s in front of them right now, and people perceive the police and the chief to be power and authority figures, and for the things that are intractable you tend to become the target of emotion. It can be thankless when people are frightened and they feel there’s no solution to the problem.”
DO YOU HAVE A PHILOSOPHY ON LIFE?
“There’s an operating philosophy involved in how people are treated. All people have great worth and everyone has a function within an organization or society.
All people should be appreciated and respected and treated with great dignity.”
ANYTHING PEOPLE DON’T KNOW ABOUT CHIEF BUTTS?
“I’ve been here 15 years, everybody knows everything there is to know about me.”
ANY QUIRKS OR HOBBIES? “I don’t have any quirks. I do love to fix up cars — classic, unique cars. I have seven. I’ve got a ’65 convertible Thunderbird, a ’91 convertible Mustang, a ’67 Mustang, a Jaguar Cabriolet. I pay more people to work on them now than I do myself.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 7, 2006. Read the original PDF.