Bratton's Exit Poses a Major Challenge for LAPD

Chief William Bratton's announcement that he will leave the Los Angeles Police Department in the fall has surprised police and city leaders, who must replace a leader who bolstered a law enforcement agency reeling from the Rampart corruption scandal, the Los Angeles Times reports.

When Bratton returns to New York to lead a private security firm in the fall, he will leave a post he has held since 2002, when he began reshaping a department that operated under a consent decree.

According the to Times: "As he did during a short stint as head of the New York Police Department, Bratton implemented a crime-fighting strategy in Los Angeles built around an obsessive focus on crime data and a computer-mapping system that is used to identify specific areas of the city that require more policing."

Under Bratton's tenure, the department developed a publicly accessible interactive crime map that showed detailed crime data by neighborhood.

The Los Angeles Police Commission will recommend three finalists to the mayor, who will pick the new chief. Bratton was the longest serving chief since Daryl Gates, who retired in 1992.

Read the full story in the Los Angeles Times.