LAPD wants to be more than blue; wants to be transparent

The LAPD wants to be more than blue, it wants to be ''transparent''.

Yesterday the Department released an unprecedented summary of use of force incidents over the past few years, today they threw open the doors of their Granada Hills training facility to show the media in detail how '' Force Investigation Division'' operates after a shooting.

The idea is to build trust, something in short supply in some areas of LA, not a problem in others. They understand that there is frustration over how long it takes to investigate a shooting, over the fact that the Dept. essentially investigates itself (with oversight) .

Chief Charlie Beck has taken the lead in making sure people understand what his department does and how they do it, and letting the chips fall where they may in essence. Ideally, everyone, whether it's police or reporters, learn from the past, learn from their mistakes, and get better.

Of course cops ''mistakes'' can have deadly consequences, so the stakes are high. There will always be a core group that loves everything the police do, and a group that hates everything they do.

What Beck told me he's interested in is that group in the middle.