February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
But Timoney is nevertheless coming under fire because he is being viewed as an outsider.
“There is resentment from some quarters against both me and Bill Bratton because we’re from the east coast,” Timoney told the Echo.
“There’s also anti-Irish sentiment because I’m now the odds-on favorite,” he said.
Timoney, former police chief in Philadelphia and number two to Bratton when Bratton was police commissioner for New York, was in Los Angeles last week for a series of meetings with L.A. Mayor James Hahn.
Hahn is expected to decide within days between Timoney, Bratton and a third contender, Art Lopez, from California.
Timoney came under direct fire in the Los Angeles Times last week from author and former LAPD detective Joseph Wambaugh.
Wambaugh, who has written bestsellers including The Choirboys and the Onion Field, wrote that Timoney, “rumored to be the favorite,” had “bolted from the NYPD after not receiving a promotion,” was “a man who loves the spotlight only slightly less than Bratton” and had once referred to “America’s mayor,” Rudolph Giuliani, as a “screw-up.”
Wambaugh added that “Irish-born Timoney likes to say that his ‘immigrant understanding’ would serve him in L.A.”
He added that at a time when LAPD morale was nearing meltdown, the selection of Bratton or Timoney would announce to the rank and file–especially Latinos who make up one-third of the department and nearly half of the city–that no matter how educated, experienced and talented they are, no matter how long they’ve waited, it is not yet their time.
“If Timoney is selected (L.A. does love celebrity), it will be the final insult,” Wambaugh stated.
“Imagine the glee when Timoney pushes that Celtic kisser at the cameras, sneers toward City Hall and announces that Hizzoner the mayor is just another ‘screw-up,'” he concluded.