Tony Lee, a 26-year veteran of the Beverly Hills Police Department (BHPD), has been appointed chief of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation.
Lee is currently serving as the interim Ventura police chief and was previously the chief of police at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“It’s exciting to be joining a terrific team with a newly elected District Attorney,” Lee told the Courier of his new role. “Getting the call to join his team was really exhilarating for me, personally.”
During his time at the BHPD, Lee ascended within the department to become captain. According to LA District Attorney Nathan Hochman, Lee’s time in Beverly Hills was instrumental in preparing him for his upcoming work with the District Attorney’s office.
“I think his experience with BHPD was one of the instructive parts of his career that led him to this role,” Hochman told the Courier. “Rising through the ranks of what I consider to be one of the elite local police departments in the country and learning how to do all the roles law enforcement has to do, including investigations, dealing with public elected leaders … was a great training ground.”
Lee also credits his two-and-a-half decades with BHPD with readying him for the job, specifically his time at the department’s Detective Bureau.
“Being the captain of investigations … was probably the most exciting,” he said. “[It was an] incredible group of talented detectives that I was very fortunate and blessed to be around. I would say that those were probably some of the most memorable years that I’ve had in my career.”
In his search for the next chief of LADA’s Bureau of Investigations, Hochman said he was seeking an individual with deep experience, outstanding character and intrinsic leadership qualities.
“We were looking for someone who had the highest levels of integrity, honesty, hard work and was really a leader,” he said. “Someone that people would want to follow, who not only had great ideas, but would lead by example. Lee’s career has been marked by excellence, really shooting for high goals and building an esprit de corps amongst the people he’s led … the people here he’s leading, it’s a very skilled group, and having someone with his background in every different facet of law enforcement was what we were looking for. And then you combine it with the fact that he’s a real stand-up guy.”
Lee will be sworn in to his new position at LADA in June. According to Hochman, the office has six priority areas—residential burglaries, organized retail crime, fentanyl poisonings, hate crimes, homeless crime and human trafficking—and Lee will dive into them even as he becomes acclimated to the job.
“He will not only focus on the priority areas but also have to get to know all the other stuff that the Bureau does,” Hochman said. “He’s the kind of person that’s going to shake everybody’s hand [and] get to know each and every member of the Bureau of Investigations while becoming an integral part of my team.”
Lee said that he is also interested in looking at recruitment and staffing, and ensuring that resources are in place for the areas on which Hochman wants to focus.
“There are recruitment challenges with every [police department], so I want to see where we’re at with that, and where we need to shift some of the resources for some areas that might be very important to the district attorney,” Lee said. “I’m looking forward to that.”
Even as he transitions to his new position, Lee still feels deeply connected to his former colleagues in Beverly Hills.
“They’re like an extended family to me,” he said. “I know just about every single one of them over there, except for the new rosters that were hired after I left. But for all the folks that are there, I’m just so proud of them. They’ve really elevated themselves, and they’re in very influential positions now. To see that, it’s just really gratifying …. just seeing them really grow in that police department and serving such an incredible community. I can’t tell you, that’s very satisfying for me.”
