Adrian Maher

Robert Blake only played a tough-guy cop on TV. An actual tough-guy cop may have a bit part in the investigation of the shooting death of Blake’s wife, Bonny Lee Bakley. This real-life Baretta is Culver City Police Chief Ted Cooke, who likes to help celebrities and local politicians pack......

Photo by Debra DiPaolo For years, Culver City Police Chief Ted Cooke has run his department with impunity, ignoring outside critics and keeping a tight lid on internal ones. But in one episode at least, a nearby city and a state agency are saying that Cooke’s department has gone too......

Photo by Slobodan Dimitrov Culver City Police Chief Ted Cooke was a boxer in his youth, and there’s still a lot of fight in him — especially when it comes to releasing public records from his department. Three times Cooke has waged campaigns opposing the release of the concealed-weapon permits......

In December 1996, the chief requested that promotional exams for the positions of captain, lieutenant and sergeant be changed to exclude grading an applicant's prepared oral presentation and rely solely on an oral interview with Cooke and the department's supervisors. The policy passed 4-1; Corlin cast the dissenting vote. Ever......

In the three years after he was captured on videotape kicking Rodney King and beating him with his baton, Los Angeles Police Department rookie officer Timothy Wind became one of the most unemployable cops in the country. He was suspended by Chief Daryl Gates, and despite two criminal trials where......

Police Chief Ted Cooke may rule Culver City with an iron hand, but to gun lovers around L.A. he's something of a soft touch. In recent years, even as the state Legislature and others have taken steps restricting access to firearms, Cooke personally issued hundreds of annual concealed-weapons permits, more......