L.A. Police Chief William Bratton to Address “Policing Terrorism” in McCloskey Speaker Series Talk
Aspen, CO, August 9, 2007 –– In its final installment of the 2007 McCloskey Summer Speaker Series, the Aspen Institute will feature a lecture by William J. Bratton, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), which is the third largest police department in the US. Formerly the chief executive of both the LAPD and the NYPD, Chief Bratton will speak about his experiences fighting crime. The event will take place from 6:30 to 7:30 PM on Thursday, August 23, 2007 at the Paepcke Auditorium on the Institute’s Aspen Meadows campus in Aspen, CO. The series is made possible by a gift from the McCloskey Family Charitable Foundation and are on sale through the Aspen Music Festival Box Offices. As a full-capacity audience is expected for this program, early ticket purchasing is encouraged. Doors will open 45 minutes prior to the start of the lecture.
Chief Bratton holds a BS Degree in Law Enforcement from Boston State College/University of Massachusetts. He is a graduate of the FBI National Executive Institute and was a senior executive fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He currently serves as the elected president of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF).
A US Army Vietnam veteran, Chief Bratton began his policing career in 1970 as a police officer with the Boston Police Department, rising to Superintendent of Police, the department’s highest sworn rank, in just 10 years. In the 1980s, Chief Bratton headed two other police agencies, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Police and the Massachusetts Metropolitan District Commission Police.
Appointed Chief of the LAPD in October 2002, Chief Bratton oversees the third largest police department in the United States, managing 9,500 sworn officers, 3,000 civilian employees, and an annual budget of more than one billion dollars. After directing a major re-engineering and reform effort, he is now driving initiatives in LA aimed at utilizing real-time information to further reduce crime, target gang violence, and mitigate the threat posed by terrorism. After four years in office, crime in LA has been reduced to historically low levels, with Part I crimes down 25% and homicides down 27%.
The only person ever to serve as chief executive of both the LAPD and the NYPD, Chief Bratton established an international reputation for reengineering police departments and fighting crime in the 1990s. As Chief of the New York City Transit Police, Boston Police Commissioner, then New York City Police Commissioner, he revitalized morale and cut crime in all three posts, achieving the largest crime declines in New York City’s history. He led the development of CompStat, the internationally acclaimed command accountability metric system that uses computer-mapping technology and timely crime analysis to target emerging crime patterns and coordinate police response. From 1996 on, Chief Bratton worked in the private sector, where he formed his own private consulting company, The Bratton Group, L.L.C., working on four continents, including extensive consulting in South America. He also consulted with the Kroll Associates’ monitoring team overseeing the implementation of the Federal Consent Decree with the LAPD.
Currently, Chief Bratton is a frequent lecturer, writer, and commentator. His critically acclaimed autobiography, Turnaround, was published by Random House in 1998. Among his many honors and awards, Chief Bratton holds the Schroeder Brothers Medal, which is the Boston Police Department’s highest award for valor.
Tickets can be purchased by calling the Aspen Music Festival Box Office at 970-925-9042. Other box office locations include Aspen Gondola Office, Harris Hall, and Wheeler Opera House. This is the final installment of the Institute’s McCloskey Summer Speaker Series. For more information on the Series and other events open to the public, please contact Cristal Logan at 970-544-7929 or cristal.logan@aspeninstitute.org, call the information hotline at 970-544-7970, or visit the Institute’s website at www.aspeninstitute.org/communityevents.
The Aspen Institute, founded in 1950, is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue. Through seminars, policy programs, conferences and leadership development initiatives, the Institute and its international partners seek to promote nonpartisan inquiry and an appreciation for timeless values. The Institute is headquartered in Washington, DC, and has campuses in Aspen, Colorado, and on the Wye River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Its international network includes partner Aspen Institutes in Berlin, Rome, Lyon, Tokyo, New Delhi, and Bucharest, and leadership programs in Africa, Central America and India.
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