BY WELLFORD W. WILMS

In case you missed it, there’s a new chief in town.

Bill Bratton, former New York (and Boston) Police Commissioner, was sworn in publicly on Oct. 28 as Los Angeles’ 54th chief of police. When I met him at a crowded reception at the Police Academy, the first thing that caught my eye was a boom camera and lights making their way through the throng.

In a minute, Bratton was in front of me, smiling broadly and shaking hands, surrounded by a “60 Minutes” television crew that was chronicling his first week in office.

What a way to start your first week, I thought. And Bratton has a tall order. Crime is rising and budgets are tight. And after five years of Willie Williams’ well-meaning but meandering administration, and another five years of authoritarian rule under Bernard Parks, the LAPD (and Los Angeles) deserves a break. Bratton may be the man for the job.

We know a few things already — he is smart, direct and driven. He is media-savvy. He takes ideas from research and applies them. Bratton also inspires loyalty. At a party following his swearing-in, 60 well-wishers from Boston and New York spoke with genuine warmth about their time working for him.

Bratton now has to win on at least four fronts if he is to avoid becoming Los Angeles’ third one-term chief.

First, he will have to reduce the alarming rise in homicides. He is basing his strategy partly on former UCLA colleague James Q. Wilson’s notion of “broken windows” — going after minor blights like graffiti that are thought to usher in more serious crime. Another leg of his strategy is to enlist the active participation of residents in making the city safer.

Second, to reduce crime, he must win the allegiance of the LAPD’s rank-and-file and instill pride in a department that has been thoroughly depressed by a long string of disasters — the Rodney King beating, the riots of 1992, the O.J. Simpson trial, the shooting of Margaret Mitchell, a mentally ill, homeless woman, and the Rampart scandal.

Third, and much less visible to the public, Bratton will need the support of the union, not only to inspire its members, but also to help him win the political battles ahead.

To succeed, he must reverse a tradition of adversarial labor relations that has characterized the LAPD for a half-century. Parks infuriated the union when he called its directors “nine tired, old men.” They, in turn, labeled Parks as the “Ayatollah” and then convinced the mayor to sack him.

Fourth, and finally, Bratton will have to successfully navigate the racial politics that pervade the city. Los Angeles’ African-American leadership, who helped elect Mayor James Hahn, felt betrayed when he fired Parks. And the city’s Latino leadership, who felt it was time for a Latino chief, felt ignored.

This is only the surface of an already racially tense city. As Bratton redirects the LAPD toward aggressive crime reduction, officers once again will have to engage Los Angeles citizens. But for this engagement to succeed, Bratton will need broad public support.

Wilms is a professor in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, where he serves as faculty chair and faculty director of the Educational Leadership Program. Wilms and his colleagues have just completed a report called “To Protect and To Serve ... and To Listen,” the result of an eight-year federally funded study of the LAPD. They submitted a copy of the report to Bratton.