Bernard Parks’ decision last spring to run for mayor of Los Angeles brought echoes of Tom Bradley.

Parks, like Bradley, rose up through the Police Department before entering public office. Parks rose to chief, was ousted and then reinvented himself on the Los Angeles City Council. But with four weeks to go before the March 8 primary, hopes are fading for those wanting to see him become L.A.’s second African-American mayor.

The campaign has been wracked by turnover and an inability to raise funds, and Parks has been unable to expand his support outside his South L.A. base, as Bradley was able to do 30 years ago.

“He’s got great credentials, he’s articulate, he’s got so much ability and he knows this city better than anybody running for mayor,” said L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a close friend. “But with all these ingredients, he’s been unable to gather any momentum, to put it all together.”

While there’s still time for his new grass-roots campaign to gel, Parks faces long odds against three better-financed opponents – including his nemesis, incumbent Mayor James Hahn. And his campaign is shadowed by the inescapable fact that his successor as police chief, William Bratton, is more popular than he ever was.

Parks is no stranger to adversity. He joined LAPD just six months before the 1965 Watts riots broke out and had to fend off the department’s notorious racism. “What he went through to move through the ranks had a defining impact on him,” said another friend, Carol Schatz, president of the Central City Association. “He just kept pushing and pushing and he wasn’t going to give up.”

‘By the book’

Early on, Parks stood out for his attention to detail, his thoroughness and his by-the-book approach to policing.

“He was the true definition of a professional cop,” said Stanley Haveriland, a Firestone tire dealer in the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw area and a longtime Parks friend and supporter. “You never went to ask him for any favors, because you knew he was by-the-book.”

That included coaching 9- and 10-year-olds in football. “He would not tolerate any nonsense from the kids. They played hard for him,” Haveriland said.

His wife, Bobbi, had three daughters before he met her; he raised them as his own. The two later had a son, Bernard Jr., who now serves as Parks’ chief spokesman.

“Bobbi has the same steely determination as her husband,” said L.A. City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski. “They have been of one mind in pursuit of his career.”

As a young precinct captain on L.A.’s Westside, Parks demonstrated an ability to reach out to local politicians. Yaroslavsky, then a neophyte councilman, first met him nearly 30 years ago.