Portland's new police chief says quality of life and new opportunities led him to accept the job leading the city's police force.

Capt. James Craig, who has spent the past 28 years with the Los Angeles Police Department, says a major reason he is leaving one of the largest and best paid departments in the country is traffic.

"The traffic is madness out here, especially on the west side," he said in a telephone interview.

City Manager Joe Gray today announced that he chose Craig to lead Portland's police force.

Craig spent the last four years commanding 370 officers in the southwest Los Angeles district, a 12-square mile area with 180,000 people.

Craig will take over a department with 160 sworn officers covering Portland, a city of 65,000 people.

If confirmed by the City Council next month, Craig will become the city's first African-American police chief.

Craig said leading the Portland department offers him challenges he didn't experience working in Los Angeles and a quality of life that offsets the cut in pay he will take. A typical commander in Los Angeles makes more than $150,000 per year, and the Portland chief's position was advertised with a salary range of $78,000 to $104,000.

"Certainly I'm not driven by salary. I'm driven by my passion for public service and really making a difference," he said. He noted that Los Angeles' cost of living - particularly for real estate - is also much higher.

"Doing my research, Portland seems like a great place: quality of life, lots of opportunity and a beautiful place," he said. "As I started getting more into the process and doing my research, I actually became more excited."

Asked whether Portland might be too slow for a officer whose district includes 10,000 documented gang members, Craig said the work is just different.

"I have worked some very demanding and challenging assignments in my 28 years here," he said. "I've also worked assignments that weren't just about significant violent crime. I know there are challenges in Portland, certainly to a much lower scale than there are here. Addressing some of those quality of life issues will be important and challenging and a different kind of challenging and will take all the members of the department and the community, all the stakeholders."

"With Portland, gang culture is not what it is in many other parts of the country. It's still an issue that needs to be addressed and sooner rather than later," Craig said. "What happened in L.A. many years ago is people dismissed the notion, saying these are unruly kids that are mischievous and now it's a major problem. And you certainly can't at this juncture eradicate the gang culture in L.A. You just can't. It's too vast. You just try to minimize the violence."

Craig said working in a larger department means he hasn't been exposed to some aspects of being a chief executive for a smaller department. In Los Angeles, an entire division handles the department budget and supervisory officers have little exposure to that.

His division had a budget of $42 million compared to the Portland police budget of $12 million, he said.

10:59 a.m.

PORTLAND -- City Manager Joe Gray has chosen a Los Angeles police captain to serve as the city's new police chief, according to city officials.

Gray selected Capt. James Craig, who spent the last four years commanding 370 officers in the southwest Los Angeles district, a 12-square mile area with 180,000 people.

Craig will take over a department authorized for 160 sworn officers covering Portland, a city of 65,000 people.

Craig becomes the first African-American police chief in Portland's history.
Craig is a 28-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department. He is originally from Detroit. He started his police career there, in the 10th precinct on the city's West side, where he grew up and where years earlier his father dealt with riots as a reserve officer.

He moved to Los Angeles in 1981 and early on was assigned as the lead community liaison in the Watts section of the city.

Craig developed a reputation as an officer and a leader devoted to the principles of community policing, according to his biography on the Los Angeles Police Department web site.

He started a program that enlisted community members in helping to stem the widespread open sale of cocaine in Watts and later launched the first youth athletic program in the city's Pacific area, an area that included well-to-do homes owned by people in the film industry and troubled apartment buildings wracked by drug crime and gangs.

His community-policing efforts led to his presentation Friday with the Guardian of the 10th District Award by Los Angeles City Councilor Herb Wesson. The award recognized his impact on the Southwest section of the city, from organizing sporting events between community members and officers to a reduction in gang violence to efforts with neighborhood groups to clean up areas of the city.

Craig will replace former Chief Tim Burton, who served between 2005 and 2008. Deputy Chief Joseph Loughlin has been running the department as interim chief since Burton retired and left to lead the police department in Odessa, Texas.

Loughlin had been a finalist for the position but withdrew last month.

According to the Los Angeles Police Department web site, Craig worked staff and investigative assignments in the Office of Chief of Police, Employee Relations Section, Office of Operations, and Internal Affairs Division. In 1996, he became a lieutenant where he started as a watch commander at 77th Street Area and eventually was made adjutant officer to the chief.

He was promoted to captain in 2002.

In April 2005, he was upgraded to Captain II and assigned to Juvenile Division where he exercised line command over investigations of Child Abuse, Sexually Exploited Children and oversight of the Department's youth programs. In June 2005, he was upgraded to Captain III and returned to Southwest as the Area Commanding Officer.

The web site says Craig was awarded the first Police Presidential Scholarship and he attended West Coast University, completing a Bachelors of Science in Business Management in 1995. In 1998, he completed the 193rd Session of the FBI National Academy, which trains police executives.

Gray's selection is subject to council approval.

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Capt. James Craig