LAPD launches criminal probe of racist leak at request of Martinez, De León, Cedillo
LOS ANGELES, March 31 (KABC) — The Los Angeles Police Department is looking into a racist statement made to a Los Angeles radio station by the police chief, who suggested that people were “taking over” the city and suggesting that the LAPD was involved in a conspiracy to control L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti said the criminal probe was requested by the mayor.
Chief Charlie Beck apologized on Sunday for his statement last month on KCBS that said, “Los Angeles is just a city you can take over,” according to The Los Angeles Times.
The Times reported that Beck issued the apology after he was invited to discuss the case of a group of black men who died after being arrested by police in the summer of 2013.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he was “pleased” that the City of Los Angeles police chief has apologized for an “out-of-control” comment.
“I am going to take it down, because I wanted him to own what he said,” Garcetti said on “KABC’s This Week.”
Garcetti said he appreciated the apology and added that there are different versions of what happened, including the version told to him by Beck.
“I know he did apologize for that, and I was happy to take it down,” Garcetti said.
But the mayor expressed concern about the issue, saying he doesn’t want to go down as a racist.
“I don’t want to go down as a racist who says we don’t want you to play basketball, you want to play baseball,” Garcetti told host Jeff Glor. “The truth is, we want everybody playing baseball, and we want everybody playing basketball.”
Beck made the statement on a private radio show he hosted on KCBS two months after Ferguson, Missouri, demonstrators protesting the deaths of Michael Brown and other unarmed black men and women.
A week later, Beck apologized for his remarks after a city audit chief in Los Angeles said the chief didn’t make the comments because of an incident in which two police officers were involved in a confrontation with an African-American motorist on a street, the Times reported that Beck said he wasn’t aware of.
Beck denied he knew anything about a