The
Los Angeles Police
Department (LAPD) is the
police department of the City of Los Angeles,
California. It is one of the largest
law enforcement agencies in the United
States, with over 9,000 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of
1209 kmē (467 square mi) with a population of nearly 4 million people. The
LAPD has had a rich and controversial history, including
incidents of
brutality and corruption. The agency's exploits have been heavily
fictionalized in numerous movies and television shows.
For decades, the department has suffered from chronic underfunding. In
comparison to most large cities, it has one of the lowest ratios of police
personnel to population served; the current chief, William J. Bratton, has
made enlarging the force one of his top priorities. (Bratton has been quoted
as saying, "You give me 4000 more officers and I'll give you the safest city
in the world.")
As a result, Los Angeles
residents subscribe heavily to private security services, which in turn are a
far more common sight in Los Angeles than in most other cities.
History
The first specific Los Angeles police force was founded in 1853 as the Los
Angeles Rangers, a volunteer force that assisted the existing County forces.
The Rangers were soon succeeded by the Los Angeles City Guards, another
volunteer group. Neither force was particularly efficient and Los Angeles
became known for its violence, gambling and "vice".
The first paid force was not created until 1869 when a force of six officers
under City Marshal William C. Warren were hired. Warren was shot by one of his
officers in 1876 and, to replace him, the newly created Board of Police
commissioners selected Jacob T. Gerkins. Gerkins was replaced within a year by
saloon owner Emil Harris, the second of fifteen police chiefs from 1876-89.
The first chief to remain in office for any time was John M. Glass; appointed
in 1889, he served for eleven years and was a driving force for increased
professionalism in the force. By 1900 there were 70 officers, one for every
1,500 people; in 1903, with the start of the Civil Service, this force was
increased to 200, although training was not introduced until 1916. The rapid
turnover of chiefs was renewed in the 1900s as the office became increasingly
politicized; from 1900 to 1923 there were sixteen different chiefs. The
longest-lasting was Charles E. Sebastian, who served from 1911-1915 before
going on to become mayor.
In 1910 the department promoted the first sworn female
police officer with
full powers in the United States, Alice Stebbins-Wells. Georgia Ann Robinson
became the first African-American female police officer in the country in
1916.[1]
During World War I the force became involved with federal offenses, and much
of the force was organized into a special Home Guard. In the postwar period,
the department became highly corrupt along with much of the city government;
this state lasted until the late 1930s. Two police chiefs
did work within a
mandate for anti-corruption and reform. August Vollmer laid the ground for
future improvements but served for only a single year. James E. Davis served
from 1926-1931 and from 1933-1939. In his first term he fired almost a fifth
of the force for bad conduct, and instituted extended firearms training and
also the dragnet system. In his second term Davis instituted a "Red Squad" to
attack Communists and their offices.
With the replacement of Mayor Frank L. Shaw in 1938, the city gained a
reformist mayor in Fletcher Bowron. He forced dozens of city commissioners
out, as well as more than 45 LAPD officers. Bowron also appointed the first
African American and the first woman to the Police Commission. The modernizer
Arthur C. Hohmann was made chief in 1939 and resigned in 1941 after the
notorious strike at the North American Aviation plant in Inglewood, in which
he refused to use the LAPD as strikebreakers.
During World War II, under Police Chief
Clemence B. Horrall, the force was
heavily depleted by the demands of the armed forces; new recruits were given
only six weeks training (twelve was normal). Despite the attempts to maintain
numbers the police could do little to control the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots. War
Emergency personnel were given a "WE" designation with their badge numbers to
distinguish them from other officers.
Among the department's more notorious cases of the Horrall years was the
January 15, 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia.
Horrall and Assistant Chief
Joe Reed resigned in 1949 under threat of a grand jury investigation related
to the Brenda Allen scandal. One of Horrall and Reed's more enduring actions
was to approve a radio show about the LAPD titled Dragnet.
Horrall was replaced by a retired
Marine Corps general, William A. Worton, who acted
as interim chief until 1950, when
William H. Parker
was chosen in tight
competition with Thad Brown. Parker advocated police professionalism and
autonomy from civilian administration, especially as concerns internal
affairs. The Bloody Christmas scandal in 1951 led to calls for civilian
accountability and an end to police brutality.
Parker served until his death in 1966 from a heart attack, the longest period
in office of any Chief. Fortunately for the LAPD, Parker was an excellent
leader, reorganizing the LAPD structurally but also making demands of his
force in areas of honesty and discipline. The motto "To Protect and to Serve"
was introduced in 1955. During this period the LAPD set the standards of
professionalism echoed in the contemporaneous TV series Dragnet and Adam-12.
The most serious challenge in this period was the 1965 Watts riots.
Parker was succeeded by Thad Brown as acting chief in 1966, followed by Thomas
Reddin in 1967. Following an interim term by Chief Roger E. Murdock, the
outspoken Edward M. Davis became chief in 1969; despite his occasional lapses,
he introduced a number of modern programs aimed at community policing as well
as the SWAT unit (1972); he retired in 1978.
During the term of Chief Davis, the LAPD became notorious for its policy of
routinely using chokeholds for any reason or for no reason at all during
arrests, Terry stops, and even traffic stops. The holds were often applied
until the suspect passed out. By the time the policy was halted in May 1982 by
the Police Commission, 15 people had died. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked a
lawsuit seeking an injunction to halt the practice permanently, because Adolph
Lyons could not prove that there was a substantial and immediate likelihood
that he personally would be choked again. City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461
U.S. 95 (1983).
Under Davis, the LAPD and its vice squad were known for active policing
against gays. Zealous officers are purported to have dangled a youth over a
cliff to try to make him reveal names of a pedophile ring. On April 10, 1976,
over a hundred officers, with Davis present, raided a charitable "slave
auction" event and bragged to reporters that they had freed the slaves. Dozens
of men were detained on charges of violating an 1899 anti-slavery statute, but
the expensive raid was criticized by the city council and no one was
convicted.
The successor to Davis,
Daryl F. Gates, came into office just as Proposition
13 reduced the department's budget, cutting police numbers to less than 7,000
in seven years just as drug and gang crime reached unprecedented highs. To
combat the rising tide of gang-related violence, Gates introduced Operation
Hammer in 1987, which resulted in an unprecedented number of arrests, mostly
of African-American and Hispanic youths. Gates retired in 1992, just after the
Rodney King-related 1992 Los Angeles riots in April and May and the damaging
Christopher Commission Report, and was replaced by Willie L. Williams, the
fiftieth chief, the first black person to hold the office and the first
non-internal appointee for almost 40 years. In 1997 Williams was replaced by
Bernard Parks, during whose term the LAPD was rocked by the Rampart
Division/CRASH corruption scandal. In 1997 one of the biggest challenges for
the LAPD and LAPD SWAT was the North Hollywood
shootout. Two robbers robbed a
bank with AK-47s and shot twelve officers and seven bystanders, although none
of the wounded actually died. In 2002, William J. Bratton replaced Parks.
In 2005, the LAPD began showing action-packed mini-movies online and at movie
theaters to promote recruiting. The movies features real LAPD officers and
what they do.
LAPD organization
Presently, the
Los Angeles Police Department is divided into the Office of
the Chief, the Office of the Chief of Staff (First Assistant Chief), Office of
Operations (Assistant Chief), Office of Support Services (Assistant Chief),
Professional Standards Bureau (Deputy Chief), Consent Decree Bureau (Police
Administrator III), and the Criminal Intelligence/Counter Terrorism Bureau
(Police Administrator III). The Office of Operations is comprised of the
Director of the Office of Operations (Assistant Chief), Assistant to the
Director of the Office of Operations (Commander), the Chief Duty Officer
(Captain), Jail Division (Captain), COMPSTAT, Special Operations Bureau
(Deputy Chief), Detective Bureau (Deputy Chief), and four geographical bureaus
(Central, South, Valley and West) ,headed by Deputy Chiefs, divided into the
following patrol divisions:
| # |
Division |
| 01 |
Central |
| 02 |
Rampart |
| 03 |
Southwest |
| 04 |
Hollenbeck |
| 05 |
Harbor |
| 06 |
Hollywood |
| 07 |
Wilshire |
| 08 |
West Los Angeles |
| 09 |
Van Nuys |
| 10 |
West Valley |
|
| # |
Division |
| 11 |
Northeast |
| 12 |
77th Street |
| 13 |
Newton Street |
| 14 |
Pacific |
| 15 |
North Hollywood |
| 16 |
Foothill |
| 17 |
Devonshire |
| 18 |
Southeast |
| 19 |
Mission |
|
|
The Mission Division began operations in May 2005; the first new division
to be deployed in more than a quarter of a century. The division covers the
eastern half of the old Devonshire and the western half of the Foothill
Divisions in the San Fernando Valley.
Force composition
During the Parker-Davis-Gates period, the
LAPD was virtually 100% white,
and much of it lived outside of the city. Simi Valley, the Ventura County
suburb that later became infamous as the site of the state trial that
immediately preceded the 1992 Los Angeles riots, has long been home to a
particularly large concentration of LAPD officers, almost all of them white.
The Santa Clarita area and the South Bay beach cities are also popular
destinations. Hiring quotas began to change this during the 1980s, but it was
not until the Christopher Commission reforms that substantial numbers of
black, Hispanic, and Asian officers began to join the force. Minority officers
can be found in both rank-and-file and leadership positions in virtually all
precincts, and the LAPD is starting to reflect the general population. As of
2002, 16.5% of the LAPD is African American, 34.2% is Latino, and 6.9% is
Asian or Pacific Islander.
The LAPD hired the first female police officer in the United States in 1910.
Since then, women have been a small, but growing part of the force. In 2002,
women made up 18.9% of the force.
The ranks of the LAPD are as follows:
LAPD Ranks
Some of the rank insignia shown at the above website aren't correct. The
actual insignia are:
- Police Officer Class I & II: No insignia
- Police Officer Class III: Two silver chevrons
- Police Officer Class III+I (also known as Senior Lead Officer): Two
silver chevrons with a star underneath
- Police Detective Class I: Two silver chevrons with a diamond underneath
- Police Detective Class II: Three silver chevrons with a diamond
underneath
- Police Detective Class III: Three silver chevrons with a diamond and a
curved rocker bar underneath
- Police Sergeant Class I: Three silver chevrons
- Police Sergeant Class II: Three silver chevrons with a curved rocker bar
underneath
LAPD in the media
Books
The New Centurions,
Joseph Wambaugh, 1972
The Onion Field, 1973
Helter Skelter, 1974
Boot: An L.A.P.D. Officer's Rookie Year,
William C. Dunn, 1996
One Time: The Story of A South Central Los Angeles Police Officer,
Brian S.
Bentley, 1997
Novels
L.A. Confidential, 1990 (& 1997 motion picture)
White Jazz, 1993
Books by best-selling author Michael Connelly featuring Harry Bosch, the
"rebel" LAPD Officer
Motion pictures
Assault on Precinct 13, 1976
The Choirboys, 1977
Blue Thunder, 1983
The Terminator (and sequels), 1984
Cobra, 1986
Lethal Weapon (and sequels), 1987
Colors, 1988
Die Hard, 1988
Dragnet, 1987
Lionheart, 1990
Boyz N the Hood, 1991
Deep Cover, 1992
Menace II Society, 1993
Last Action Hero, 1993
Speed, 1994
Heat, 1995
LAPD: To Protect and Serve, 1995
L.A. Confidential, 1997
Rush Hour, 1998
Blue Streak, 1999
Training Day, 2001
Dark Blue, 2002
44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out, 2003
S.W.A.T., 2003
Wonderland, 2003
Collateral, 2004
Hostage, 2005
Constantine, 2005
Crash, 2005
Television programs
Dragnet, 1951-1959, 1966-1970, etc.
Adam-12, 1968-1975
Columbo, 1971-1978
Hunter, 1984-1991
Mathnet, 1987-1996
LAPD: Life On the Beat, 1995-1998
Boomtown, 2002-2003
Fastlane, 2002-2003
The Shield, 2002-present
The Closer, 2005-present
Wanted, 2005-present
Punk'd, 20051
References
