James G. Fisk, 91; Made Mark in LAPD With Outreach Effort

James G. Fisk, a former deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department who was also the first former officer to serve on the city Police Commission, has died. He was 91.

Fisk died March 12 at his Hollywood Hills home, according to his son Steve.

Best known during his police career for increasing the effectiveness of the LAPD’s community relations program, he also had the dubious honor of making the highest scores on two Civil Service examinations for chief only to have the Police Commission pass him over for the job both times.

Although the City Council generally favored those appointed instead of Fisk, former Councilman Ed Edelman said Saturday that he “thought it was a mistake” Fisk was not chosen.

“He brought to the department a great sensitivity to community relations,” Edelman told The Times. “The other candidates were good, but I thought he had some skills the city really needed.”

Fisk was born in Winkelman, Ariz., where his Presbyterian missionary father was working with an Indian tribe. The family moved to Los Angeles when Fisk was a child, and he grew up in Highland Park. He graduated from Occidental College and earned a master’s degree in business at UCLA.

He joined the LAPD in 1940, going through the Police Academy in the class that included future Chief Ed Davis and future Mayor Tom Bradley. Fisk quickly rose through the ranks.

Within four years, he was promoted to sergeant, and four years after that, he made lieutenant. By 1952 he was a captain.

His son, also a former Los Angeles police officer, said Fisk’s career stalled in the mid-1950s after he made the highest score on the exam for deputy chief but was deemed too young for the post.

Fisk’s next promotion came after the Watts riots in 1965, when then-Chief William H. Parker appointed him coordinator of community relations with the rank of inspector.

In that role, Fisk set a template for outreach programs in other cities. Under his leadership, community relations went from a 20-man operation to one that included 120 officers.

As chief, Davis would credit Fisk’s opening of channels to minority community leaders with helping the city remain calm after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn.

After Parker’s death in 1966, Fisk had made the highest score on the Civil Service exam, but the Police Commission chose Tom Reddin for the post, a decision supported by Mayor Sam Yorty.

Reddin held the job just two years before resigning to become an anchor at KTLA-TV Channel 5. With the top post open again, Fisk took the exam once more. He again made the highest score and was again passed over, this time for Davis.

After 30 years on the force, Fisk retired in 1970. An editorial in The Times applauded improvements between the department and minority communities, saying “much of the credit belongs to James G. Fisk.”

In 1973, Bradley named Fisk to the Police Commission, on which he served until 1981. As a commissioner, he was willing to take a hard look at the department when necessary, said Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who was a member of the commission at the same time and is now on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“He defended [the LAPD] when he thought it was right and took action when he thought it was wrong,” Reinhardt said Saturday. “He was very fair and well respected and objective.”

One of the most controversial cases during Fisk’s commission tenure was the 1979 shooting death of Eulia Love, a 39-year-old black woman.

Two officers had been dispatched to her South-Central Los Angeles home after she refused to pay a $22.09 gas bill and allegedly threatened a gas company representative who had gone to collect. Love, who was reported to have been holding a knife when officers arrived, died in a hail of gunfire in her frontyard.

During a commission hearing on the incident, Fisk and Police Chief Daryl F. Gates got into a heated debate. Fisk accused Gates of carrying on a “charade in public contrary to his private position” that the killing was a “bad shooting,” which meant that it didn’t follow department guidelines.

The chief, Fisk added, “doesn’t believe this is a defensible shooting.”

Gates hotly denied the allegation and accused the commission of distorting his private comments.

Fisk would later call the Love case “one of the most difficult ever reviewed by the commission.”

The panel concluded that the two officers who shot Love violated department policy. The critical finding led to a steady stream of charges and countercharges on the commission’s authority and Gates’ leadership.

“Some people on the department thought Fisk had sold out by merely being on the commission at all,” Reinhardt said. “But he really hadn’t. He was an advocate for police in that he wanted to see the officers treated fairly.”

After leaving the commission, Fisk returned to the teaching at UCLA that he had begun after leaving the force. Part of the curriculum of the community relations course, his son said, involved the exercise of discretion by police in the field.

In addition to Steve, Fisk is survived by another son, John, and four grandchildren. A memorial service will be held today at 2 p.m. at Hollywood Presbyterian Church, 1760 N. Gower St., Los Angeles.