Months ago, we congratulated Bill Bratton on his six-year run as chief of police and wished him well. We hate to rain on his parade as he leaves town with four years remaining on a five-year commitment, but we were taken aback by his comments earlier this week as reported by the highly reputable blog, LA Observed.

An excerpt:

It's fine for the Chief to look back with pride at his tenure. But going way back to the days of Chief Parker and Gates with the rhetoric he used in the Los Angeles magazine interview is uncalled for and, frankly, a cheap shot. Chief Bratton has done some great things for LAPD, as did his predecessors. To completely discount the positives of the Parker and Gates eras is an uncalled-for slap at those officers who worked hard for those chiefs and respected them. Since he didn’t mention it, let us point out that the current command staff selected by Chief Bratton were, for the most part, trained and mentored by Chief Gates. Many of us were around during the “bad, old LAPD culture” and we served the people of Los Angeles with pride and honor, regardless of who the chief was.

We hope Chief Bratton sticks to the high road on the way of out of town, as we wish him the best in his new career and retirement from city policing.