Mayor Hopefuls Focus on Crime, Race

Los Angeles mayoral candidates squabbled over crime and race Monday as plans to expand the city police force dominated campaigning by incumbent James K. Hahn and his top challengers.

As a Hahn campaign advisor questioned the crime-fighting records of candidates Bernard C. Parks and Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor signed a resolution to use money owed to the city by the state to hire 278 police officers.

“It’s not everything I would have wanted, but it’s certainly better than nothing,” said Hahn, who lost his fight last week for City Council approval of a ballot measure to ask voters to raise the city’s sales tax to pay for 1,200 new police officers.

An aide to Villaraigosa, a councilman who backed the hiring plan approved Monday by Hahn, dismissed the mayor’s ceremony as “a publicity stunt,” noting that Hahn had previously dismissed the plan as inadequate. “Once again, Jim Hahn is jumping on the caboose as the train leaves the station,” said Villaraigosa campaign manager Ace Smith.

The back-and-forth came the day before Hahn is expected to launch his television ad campaign. Media buyers for Hahn’s competitors said the mayor planned to begin airing his first ads today. His campaign declined to comment. Only Bob Hertzberg, a Sherman Oaks lawyer and former Assembly speaker, has run TV ads so far.

The tussling also illustrated the prominent role the Los Angeles Police Department is playing in the March 8 election, particularly after an officer’s fatal shooting of a 13-year-old African American boy in South Los Angeles last week.

Hahn plans to appear today before the city Police Commission to urge adoption of new rules on when officers can shoot at moving vehicles, then attend two community meetings in South Los Angeles to discuss Devin Brown’s death.

When Devin was shot, police said, he was backing a stolen Toyota Camry into a patrol car after he had led the officers on a brief chase. The boy’s death outraged many African Americans, who accused police of not valuing the lives of young black men.

Meanwhile, Hahn defended himself Monday against a charge by Parks that he ran a “racist campaign” against Villaraigosa in the 2001 mayoral runoff.

“It’s easy to try to play the race card and to try to go there, but the facts just aren’t there,” Hahn said after appearing with other South Los Angeles elected officials outside a Leimert Park gun dealership that they are trying to shut down.

Parks’ accusation stems from Hahn’s 2001 television ad showing a crack cocaine pipe being held to a flame and grainy images of Villaraigosa. The ad said Villaraigosa had sought White House intervention to free convicted drug trafficker Carlos Vignali, whose father had given money to Villaraigosa’s campaign.

On Monday, Hahn called Villaraigosa’s letter to the White House “shocking.” He also criticized Hertzberg for writing a similar letter on Vignali’s behalf to President Clinton in 2000.

“If Bob Hertzberg had been my opponent, I would have run the same ad,” Hahn said.

Hahn also said it was “amazing” that Parks argued that Villaraigosa’s letter urging an early release for Vignali was “for a very innocent purpose.”

“Four hundred kilos of cocaine were involved in this -- over 800 pounds of cocaine, so this isn’t a small street dealer we’re talking about,” Hahn said. “This is a very serious drug bust. We’re not talking about a letter of recommendation to get into college.”

Smith, Villaraigosa’s campaign manager, said “the only shocking thing” was that Hahn “seems to want to revisit the same sleazy tactics.” And Hertzberg strategist John Shallman called Hahn “an equal opportunity slanderer” engaging in “gutter politics.”

Hahn’s campaign manager, Julie Wong, took aim at Villaraigosa and Parks on Monday in public memos. One of them took issue with a Parks campaign movie trailer that says crime was cut nearly in half when Parks was the city’s police chief. She said crime was on the rise when Parks left the job.

Parks called the attack meaningless, saying his accomplishments were well-documented. “I think the mayor is drowning, and he’s looking for a life raft,” Parks said.

Parks did oversee one of the largest declines in crime in decades, but violent crime began going back up halfway through his five-year term.

The statistics he used for his campaign commercial were from a comparison of crimes from 1997 to 2000 to the previous four years. That comparison does not take into account the last year of Parks’ tenure as chief, when crime began to rise.

As for Hertzberg, he took issue with Hahn’s police hiring record in an interview on KPCC-FM radio. Hahn promised 1,000 new police officers and “had plenty of money” to pay to hire them but fell far short, he said. “He chose to spend that money on other places rather than pay for more police,” he said.

Times staff writers Jessica Garrison and Patrick McGreevy contributed to this report.