Taking the Reins at LAPD
Opinion about a Daily News Article

August 24, 2005

A recent Daily News article "Taking the Reins at LAPD" (Aug 22, 2005 on the front page and page 8) was written by Alex Norman, a professor emeritus at UCLA. He studied the LAPD and now consults in the Community Policing Training Program at the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public at the California State University, Los Angeles at http://www.patbrowninstitute.org/cops/materials.html

On the site, check out the left side, under Programs: "Community Policing Training".

In the newspaper article Prof. Norman was quoted as saying: "that (community policing) will be a challenge because lowering crime statistics has been more of a goal of late than face to face community mixing."

Unless the Commission can convince the Chief to get his officers out of the cars, onto the streets and interacting with the people, "... there's not much that one can expect with community policing," he said.

I tend to agree with him that the LAPD does put more emphasis on lowering crime statistics than face to face community mixing especially by getting out of their cars, onto the streets and interacting with the people.

The SLO program and the bicycle teams are some good examples of "getting out onto the streets and interacting with the people" but it is unlikely that the officers will be getting out of their cars in the near future until the LAPD gets more of them.

Hopefully the new Police Commission will not just give "lip service" to community policing, but put pressure on the Mayor and the City Council to come up with funds for more officers.

Check with you later,
Anonymous