Mayor Eric Garcetti, facing one of the toughest decisions of his career, is being urged to consider a Latino to replace Police Chief Charlie Beck, who is retiring.

Garcetti press secretary Alex Comisar told me in an email that the "police chief selection process is underway. The Personnel Department posted its position advertisement on March 1, marking the beginning of the open application period. Once that phase ends, the Police Commission will review the applications and ultimately give Mayor Garcetti a shortlist for his consideration."

Alan Clayton, a redistricting expert who works to increase Latino representation, had told me of the effort to persuade Garcetti to add a Latino to the list of potential chiefs.

He showed me a list of Latino police executives around the country he said deserve consideration. Santa Monica City Councilman Tony Vazquez and Estefania Zavala, a UCLA public policy student and a Santa Monica city government intern, put the list together.

"This shows we have a very strong pool of extremely qualified candidates and we have never had a Latino chief of police," Clayton told me. "Los Angeles has extremely few Latino department heads and this would be an excellent chance to reach out to the Latino community and demonstrate there are employment opportunities in the city of Los Angeles."

Here's the list. More details on each police executive are available on the Internet. Councilman Vazquez and Zavala deserve a lot of credit for assembling the names and putting them out for public discussion.

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Al Venegas, deputy chief, Santa Monica Police Department.

Anthony Trevino, assistant chief, San Antonio Police Department.

Robert N. Arcos, deputy chief, Los Angeles Police Department.

Carlos Rojas, chief, Bay Area Rapid Transit District police.

Art Acevedo, chief, Houston Police Department.

David Reynoso, chief, El Monte Police Department.

Eddie Romero, officer, Bergen County Sheriff's Office, New Jersey.

Edgardo (Eddie) Garcia, chief, San Jose Police Department.

George Gascón, district attorney and former police chief San Francisco, former Los Angeles Police Department assistant chief.

Hector Sainez , assistant chief, San Francisco Police Department.

Hector Velez assistant chief, Prince George's County, Maryland, police.

Jackie Gomez-Whiteley, program director at the California Police Chiefs Executive Leadership Institute

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, sheriff, Bexar County, Texas.

Jerry Gutierrez, assistant sheriff, Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

Juan J. Perez, director, Miami-Dade Police Department.

Kelly Martinez, assistant sheriff, San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

Kevin Navarro, first deputy superintendent, Chicago Police Department

Lisa G.Rosales, chief, Glendora Police Department.

Lupe Valdez, sheriff, Dallas County, Texas.

Martha Montalvo, executive assistant chief at Houston Police Department

Phillip L. Sanchez, chief, Pasadena Police Department.

Raul Quezada, chief, Anaheim Police Department.

Robert Luna, chief, Long Beach Police Department.

Roberto L. Hylton, senior law enforcement advisor for the Federal
Emergency Management Agency and former Prince George's County police chief.

Ruby Flores, commander, Los Angeles Police Department Hollenbeck Division.

Sergio Diaz, Riverside police chief, formerly Los Angeles Police Department operations chief.
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Tina Nieto, chief of police, city of Marina, formerly commanding officer of Los Angeles Police Department's West Los Angeles area.

Ed Gonzalez, sheriff of Harris County, Texas.