Councilman Bernard Parks (Photo by Francis Taylor)
As Chief of Police, Parks created the Cold Case Unit which investigated unsolved cases that led to the arrest of the suspect called the ‘Grim Sleeper.’
By Yussuf J. Simmonds, Sentinel Managing Editor,
Francis Taylor, Sentinel Contributing Writer,
Joy Childs, Sentinel Contributing Writer
Councilman Bernard Parks has had a long and illustrious career as an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and he is the first African American to come from the ranks to become LAPD’s Chief of Police (1997-2002). And though he is not officially a member of the department, as a city councilman he still has some supervisory jurisdiction over the department especially as chairman of the city’s budget committee–he handled their “check book.”
Now with the capture of a suspect in the so-called Grim Sleeper case, Parks’ tenure as Chief of LAPD is headline news once again. The Cold Case Unit that investigated and captured Lonnie D. Franklin as the suspect in the murder of ten Black women and one Black man, thus far, was created by Chief Bernard Parks. The unit’s mission was to investigate the department’s growing backlog of major crimes, utilizing forensic technology that had advanced enough to give those cases a fresh look.
According to Parks, “The way the Cold Case Unit (CCU) came about was, historically in the city of LA, the way that homicides are handled–if it’s a single homicide–is by the divisions that work on them for a period of time and if they can’t solve it, their workload still continues. They then shift those (unsolved cases) to Robbery/Homicide that is required to look through them and see if they could do anything with them. Over time, they go on a shelf, until we find a lead, but they are never cleared. Homicides are never cleared until we find a suspect.
“In 2001, we found that we had a mounting number of cases just sitting on the shelf; we knew that we had some technology changes: the ballistics had now become computerized, fingerprints were computerized and DNA was just coming on the horizon,” Parks explained. Then he went on, “We thought that if you had the ability to go back with new eyes, new investigators, new technology and start concentrating on old cases to see if you can bring them to a conclusion. And that’s how that unit (CCU) got started.”
At a press conference announcing the arrest, Parks joined Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Commissioner John Mack, the current LAPD chief, Charlie Beck and a host of city, county and state officials who had assisted in bringing the 25-year old case to an arrest. In addition, many of the victims’ family members were present, along with the only known survivor who had escaped from the suspect. The killings began around 1985–before Parks became chief–and continued to 1988, and stopped. They resumed in 2002, hence the term, the Grim Sleeper. However, it was not until early 2000s that the LAPD found that all the murders had been committed by a single perpetrator and realized that there was a serial killer loose in the community.
Since Franklin’s arrest, Parks seemed to return to police officer mode. He had previously arranged for billboards to dot the landscape with pictures of the victims, offering a reward of $500,000. Now in partnership with Clear Channel Outdoor, a new billboard sign has announced the arrest of the Grim Sleeper Serial Killer suspect on a digital billboard along the 91 Freeway. Many in the community have rejoiced with the capture of the suspect but others have complained that there was not much to rejoice: it took quarter of a century and the deaths of 10 Black women and one Black man. What’s there to celebrate.
But the DNA method used, resulting from Parks’ insight to create the CCU, is a milestone in police science and criminology. The relentless investigation of the CCU coupled with the use of DNA familial searching and partial genetic matches have changed forever the criminal investigative science landscape going forward.
Parks called it, “The greatest revolution in police work is DNA because unlike fingerprints … when you touch something, you have to identify the person, and with ballistics, you have to have a gun … you can’t be in a room and not leave DNA evidence. And there were some legal challenges but the attorney general was very helpful in getting past those challenges.
Even though Parks had been off the force for several years, he still worked closely with the LAPD to keep the case on the public’s mind via the aforementioned billboards and the reward money. He also said, “I’ve never been prouder of a group of men as those who worked in this unit to bring this suspect to justice.”
