LAPD's
Message from the Chief of Police
June 2008

Greetings from the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department.  The following is the monthly update.  We hope you find the information useful. You are encouraged to continue to visit our website at www.LAPDonline.org.

( LACP EDITOR'S NOTE: Past monthly messages are available directly through the link we've provided below. )

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CHIEF'S MESSAGE

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Future Growth

Growth is the name of the game in so many aspects of life: personal growth, financial growth, and industry growth.  It's no different for the City of Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Police Department.  In this month's message, I want to focus on the growth we are experiencing and take a look at what we have planned for the future.   

The City of Los Angeles is growing.  There are currently dozens of projects in various stages of development and redevelopment throughout all of Los Angeles. The City's Community Redevelopment Agency is bracing for continued population growth and is planning for housing and mixed-use developments to accommodate the needs of a city with an increasing population density.  

Many of the projects are in already popular areas like Downtown, Universal City, and Hollywood.  In Downtown, L.A. LIVE, the mega complex that already includes Staples Center and the Nokia Theatre, will provide Los Angeles' residents, commuters, and tourists with a world-class sports and entertainment destination.  The 4 million square-foot L.A. LIVE mixed-use development sits on 27 acres which covers more than 6 city blocks.  Besides entertainment venues, the millions expected to visit L.A. LIVE each year will also experience restaurants, cafes, cinemas, bowling lanes, music clubs and a cultural museum.  L.A. LIVE will attract the Convention business the City has been aggressively seeking by adding a convention headquarters hotel, the 54-story Ritz-Carlton hotel and residence tower.  As the destination complex grows the downtown population will increase, as will traffic and the potential for crime.  It will be the responsibility of the LAPD to ensure the public safety for all of these important initiatives.

To that end, it is more important now than ever that our Department grow to surpass 10,000 for the first time in LAPD history.  Our hiring plan is to grow the Department by 1,000 officers by fiscal year 2010.  So far, we are on track.  We have reached nearly 600 of the 1,000 hires with our May 23rd academy class.

Even during these difficult budget times, Mayor Villaraigosa and the Los Angeles City Council remained steadfast in their commitment to public safety and the Department's hiring goals.  Just recently, the City Council unanimously approved the Department's hiring plan, including an increase in City trash collection fees in order to meet the hiring goals.

Where to assign the new officers brings me to my next topic.  Several new stations are perhaps the most visible example of the Department's current growth.  While City budget issues have postponed the opening of the new Topanga and Olympic Area stations until January 2009, our other construction projects are moving along as planned.  The official opening of our Valley Bureau took place in May.  Rampart is scheduled for move-in sometime in July.  At the end of 2008, Harbor Area staff should be moving in to their new station, with Hollenbeck staff following suit in early 2009.  During the first half of 2009, we will also see the openings of the Metro Detention Center and the Emergency Operations Center /Department Operations Center/Fire Dispatch, followed by the biggest one of all: the grand opening of the new downtown Police Administration Building, scheduled for November.

After a much-needed approval from City Council, our proposed in-car video cameras are at last going to be a reality.  Over the next 5 months, we will be installing these systems in approximately 300 patrol cars in Harbor, Southeast, Southwest, and 77th Areas, as well as South Traffic Division.  A typical system will include 2 cameras, one forward facing, and one facing the back seat.  Each will be equipped with a microphone, as well as the system's supporting infrastructure, including the memory storage unit and various cable connections, all located in the car.  Officers will also have a mobile microphone that can be carried on the Sam Browne and activated by hand to record any interaction away from the vehicle.  At end of watch, audio and video that have been recorded and are stored in the system's memory can then be uploaded wirelessly to the station and processed accordingly.  
This is a big move for our Department, a major sign of growth, and it was not without tremendous effort to get this done.  My thanks to everybody involved, including the Information and Communications Services, Administrative and Technical Services and TEAMS II Development Bureaus, as well as Office of Operations and the Information Technology Agency.  I would especially like to commend the Board of Police Commissioners and Chief Information Officer Tim Riley for their leadership on this very important project.  My stated goal on this initiative is to have all 1700 black & whites equipped with a system in the next 3 years.  It's a necessity for your safety, for our best practices, and for Consent Decree compliance.

Also essential to your security and ability to perform your job are effective and reliable communication tools.  In the works after much anticipation is the installation of 3500 mobile radios. Emergency Command Control Communications Systems Division has worked vigorously to install over a third of the radios, freeing up more ASTROs for use.  Additionally, thanks to funding we received from Mayor Villaraigosa's office, we were able to proceed with Phase I of the Department's communications hardware overhaul and replacement of the ASTRO ROVERs.  For far too long, we have struggled with an antiquated radio system and, finally, the Department was able to purchase 863 new handheld radios, which will be allocated to Northeast and 77th Divisions.  Each officer will be assigned their own handheld radio while they are stationed at those divisions.  Securing of Phase II funding for the remaining 9,300 radios is in the works.  This acquisition will allow us to assign a personal radio to each officer.

Last March, at the Ahmanson Recruit Training Center, we kicked off a pilot program for what is considered to be the first-ever National Counter-Terrorism Academy.  The program, which will run through the end of July, is designed to bring world-class counter-terrorism training to nearly 60 people who represent 25 agencies throughout California and Nevada, including the Los Angeles Fire Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  The Academy teaches that cops have the potential to actively prevent acts of terrorism rather than just responding to them.  Classes train officers to recognize signs of terror-related activity and to properly share and analyze intelligence with the cooperation of federal authorities.  In Los Angeles, officers are out in our communities every day, gathering critical information and fighting crime. With the proper training, we can apply our skills to the fight against terrorism as well.  As leaders in law enforcement, we must continue to grow in this regard and share what we have learned with others.  

That is precisely what we are in the process of doing.  For example, Commander Joan McNamara of our Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau has devised a method of reporting tips that is currently being examined as a model for use nationally.  She revised the investigative report that we use for crimes and added a section for describing in detail any kind of potential terrorist-related activity.  These Suspicious Activity Reports, or SARs, could pave the way to ensuring that tips about potential terrorist activity, are passed from beat cops to federal security officials in Washington.  Currently, the nation lacks a standardized system to ensure such information is shared, despite the fact that local police are best positioned to spot suspicious activities.  By making a few adjustments to regular crime reports, this problem could be solved cheaply, easily and effectively.  Commander McNamara is to be credited with her desire to create a potential solution to a highly pressing issue.  This is growth and leadership in action.

The image of the professional organization that is the LAPD is one we cherish and protect.  People know the LAPD badge, the motto and our black and whites.  Up until recently, our eyes in the sky, our police helicopters, have been painted grey and blue.  Unless you knew they were ours, they weren't instantly recognizable as LAPD airships.  That has begun to change thanks to a group of Air Support Division officers who wanted change the paint scheme of Department helicopters to mirror the iconic black and white patrol vehicles we have used historically.  The change was a great idea, and the first two black and white helicopters debuted in February 2008 at the Annual Helicopter Association International Convention in Houston, Texas.  They were well received by thousands of convention attendees.  Last March, we unveiled these two helicopters to the local media, also with positive results.  The LAPD “brand” is a powerful image, very recognizable and effective for the work we do.  

Despite the City's current budget crisis, we need to see this as a time of great opportunity.  Nothing should stand in the way of our growth, as the examples in this message have referenced.  As an organization and as individual police professionals, we should always seek every opportunity to lead the way in creating, establishing, and adopting best practices for our profession.  That has been and will continue to be the hallmark of the LAPD – Second to None.

WILLIAM J. BRATTON
Chief of Police

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To see previous messages (there's one each month) just click on this link: