A ‘people-oriented’ manager who says he’d enhance LAPD’s de-escalation training
Arcos, 57, moved to L.A. from Texas with his mother and four younger siblings when he was 10. The family eventually settled in Atwater Village, then a working-class, mostly minority community where young men faced pressure to join gangs. His mother struggled financially, sometimes relying on food stamps.
Later, as a sergeant at the station that polices his old neighborhood, Arcos ran into childhood friends who had been arrested by his colleagues.
“My story is very similar to many of the kids in underserved communities,” Arcos said. “That gives me a connection and empathy to realize where people are when they’re at their most vulnerable and low.”
Scott Kroeber was the captain of the elite Metropolitan Division in 2005, when Arcos came in as a lieutenant charged with implementing changes recommended by top brass.
Kroeber remembers Arcos as a “people-oriented” manager who cared so much about his police officers that he would agonize over what degree of discipline to give them. As an outsider to Metro’s insular culture, Arcos did not force the changes down officers’ throats and gradually won them over.
“He’s that rare individual who strikes the happy medium — we need to go there, and let’s bring people along to do it willingly,” said Kroeber, who retired in 2013.
After his Metro assignment, Arcos made captain, serving as second-in-command at Olympic Division and then the officer in charge at 77th. Chief Charlie Beck promoted him quickly to commander. He worked at administrative services and Central Bureau before taking charge of Central in 2016 as a deputy chief.
At Central, which includes downtown and Northeast L.A., Arcos often manages large street demonstrations. The area is also the epicenter of L.A.’s worsening homelessness crisis.
As chief, Arcos said, he would enhance the department’s de-escalation training so officers make different choices in a situation where “you can shoot, but should you?”
“It’s time for another cultural shift,” Arcos said. “Our policies have to reflect the community’s values.”
Arcos is a third-generation Mexican American who understands some Spanish but does not speak it fluently.
At a time when “the Trump administration has declared war on our immigrant communities,” Arcos is a “once in a lifetime” leader who has “challenged the status quo and embraced modern, non-traditional policing,” City Councilman Gil Cedillo wrote in an endorsement letter to Garcetti, which was also signed by former council members Gloria Molina, Richard Alatorre, Mike Hernandez and Ed Reyes.
In 2006, while Arcos was a lieutenant in Metro, his daughter Chelsea killed two people in a drunk driving accident on the 5 Freeway. The LAPD launched an Internal Affairs investigation into an allegation that Arcos asked the probation department to alter a report in his daughter’s favor. The investigation eventually cleared Arcos, and he denies wrongdoing.
David Pokorny, the lead California Highway Patrol investigator in the case, said he has no proof that Arcos put pressure on the probation department. But in an interview with The Times last week, he called the Internal Affairs investigation a “massive coverup.” Pokorny, who is now retired, said investigators never interviewed him even though he was central to the case.
After Pokorny warned Chelsea Arcos’ attorney that the probation report was flawed, the attorney never presented it in court, Pokorny told The Times.
Chelsea Arcos was convicted of two counts of vehicular manslaughter, among other crimes, and sentenced to seven years in prison.
“I never tried to mitigate it, minimize it or excuse it,” Robert Arcos said of his daughter’s actions. “She got what she deserved.”
In 2015, after her release from prison, Chelsea Arcos pleaded no contest to driving under the influence in another incident and was sentenced to an alcohol treatment program and 60 days in jail.
Arcos and his wife have spoken at high schools about their daughter’s experience. At the LAPD, Arcos has warned police officers who have gotten DUIs about the consequences of drinking and driving.
“I never want anybody to experience this, as a parent, a sibling, a close friend, ever,” he said.