William J. Bratton, who helped turn around police departments in New York City and Los Angeles, is turning his attention to international crime fighting.
Bratton, 61, announced this week that he would resign as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department to become the CEO of Altegrity Security Consulting, a newly created subsidiary of Altegrity Inc.
Altegrity will be working in what Bratton called “post-conflict nations,” such as Iraq and Afghanistan, helping create systems of justice.
Bratton was hired by his friend Michael J. Cherkasky, the CEO of Altegrity Inc. and the former CEO of Kroll, Inc., an investigations and security firm that is now a unit of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc.
Bratton had done work for Kroll in the early 2000s when he had his own security firm.
“When (Cherkasky) approached me with this opportunity, my first thought was that it would be exciting at this point in my professional career to be with a company at the forefront of national and international security,” Bratton told the Los Angeles Daily News.
Bratton came to Los Angeles in 2002, taking over a department in turmoil.
A series of scandals involving officers in the anti-gang unit had weakened department morale and led to the imposition of federal oversight in 2001.
Cherkasky served as the monitor of a federal consent degree between the department and the U.S. government, evaluating the department’s progress on a wide variety of reforms.
Before he became chief, Bratton was a member of the monitoring team.
As chief, Bratton initiated a series of changes, shaking up department leadership and introducing strike forces that targeted high-crime areas. He also initiated new methods of tracking crime trends.
Crime dropped in Los Angeles and morale in the police force went up. The consent decree was officially terminated earlier this month.
A native of Massachusetts and a Vietnam era veteran, Bratton held a variety of high-profile police positions in Boston before becoming chief of police of the New York City Transit Authority in 1990.
He went back to Boston in 1991 to serve as chief of police and later police commissioner.
In 1994, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani named Bratton that city’s police commissioner.
As he would later in Los Angeles, Bratton introduced new methods of tracking crime. He also benefitted from an increase in the size of the police force that had begun before his arrival.
Crime dropped and New York began to acquire a reputation for being safe, rather than dangerous. However, Bratton resigned in 1996 to take a job in private security.
At the time, there were reports of tension between Giuliani and Bratton, the mayor said to be jealous of the credit the police commissioner was receiving for improving the quality of life in New York.
Bratton is married to Rikki Kleiman, a lawyer who serves as a host of programs on truTV, the cable network formerly known as Court TV.
He’ll leave his job in Los Angeles on Oct. 31 and relocate to New York City.
Bratton told the New York Daily News that he would consider becoming New York City Police Commissioner should that position become available.
“Oh sure. I’m only 61. That’s a possibility down the line,” he said.
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