As Cameron talked tough in a Sunday interview about adopting a zero-tolerance approach to street crime, Sir Hugh Orde, the frontrunner for the job of Metropolitan Police commissioner, ridiculed the prime minister's decision to hire Bratton, saying there was no point in learning from the American experience.
Orde told The Independent on Sunday: "I am not sure I want to learn about gangs from an area of America that has 400 of them. It seems to me, if you've got 400 gangs, then you're not being very effective.
"If you look at the style of policing in the States, and their levels of violence, they are so fundamentally different from here".
The British police and the political establishment were engaged in a row, when police officers insisted that peace returned to the streets at their initiative, and not because Cameron and other politicians returned from their holidays to deal with the situation.
Cameron's statement that police was slow to react to the violence did not go down too well with police establishment.
Orde added: "What I suggested to the Home Secretary is a more sensible approach, maybe to look across far wider styles of policing; and, more usefully, at European styles – they, like us, are bound by the European Convention.
"My sense is, when we've done that, we will find the British model is probably the top. We will not get things right all the time. It's sad it takes an event like this to counter some of the more negative attacks on policing which is totally unjustified".
Senior police officers are reported to be furious at the political criticism of their handling of the disturbances, which broke out in Tottenham last Saturday and spread to several English towns and cities by Tuesday.
Sir Hugh, a former Northern Ireland chief constable, is seen as ahead in the race for the job of Metropolitan Police Commissioner after Sir Paul Stephenson quit over the phone-hacking scandal last month.
Announcing a "zero tolerance" approach to street crime, first popularised in the US, Cameron said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph: "We haven't talked the language of zero tolerance enough, but the message is getting through".
According to him, Britain has around 100,000 "deeply broken and troubled" families, and promised action to "strengthen families". Another senior officer who has criticised Bratton's appointment is Ian Hanson, chairman of the Greater Manchester Police Federation, who is against listening to "someone who lives 5,000 miles away".
During the special session of House of Commons last week to discuss the riots, the police were criticised for their tactics in dealing with the situation.
Tim Godwin, the Metropolitan Police's Acting Commissioner, said the police were "hurt" by claims they failed to do enough.
"No orders were ever given to hold back. The scale and spread of the violence and criminal behaviour was far greater than anyone could have imagined," he said