LAPD Ranks Swell

Los Angeles: The Los Angeles Police Department graduated a class of 37 new officers today at the Elysian Park Police Academy.  The ceremony follows one day after Mayor Villaraigosa and Police Chief William Bratton announced success in recruiting and hiring goals.

The city is on track to hire more police officers this fiscal year than any other year since the middle of the 1990s, when nearly 700 officers were hired.  Last fiscal year, the goal was to hire 720 officers, but the actual number reached 603.  With attrition, the net gain last fiscal year was 117 more officers, resulting an average sworn strength of 9,225 officers.

Recruiting efforts this fiscal year have put LAPD ahead of its projected hiring goal of 650 officers.  By the end of June, the Department expects to hire 730 officers to end the fiscal year.  Sworn strength rose this year above 9,500 for the first time since November 1999.

Hiring projections estimate the LAPD to reach a 10,000-officer high in the year 2009.

For the coming fiscal year, the LAPD is projecting to hire 780 new officers, to be trained in 13 academy classes of 60 officers.  A new class will begin every four weeks.

A number of recruitment and testing dates have been scheduled at local community and California State college campuses.  Dates and locations can be found at JoinLAPD.com.

Anyone interested in applying to be an LAPD officer can call 866-444-LAPD.

Comments

[Happy Cop]

These numbers are cooked.

They are adding in the officers that are currently enrolled in the DROP program. These officers are all retiring in a few months/years.

The other issue is how many officers are actually being deployed in field enforcement positions, i.e. patrol?

On any given day, patrol cops from one side of the city (West LA) are being sent to neighboring divisions (Southwest) to handle 911 calls.

You don't know how embarassing it is to explain to a citizen that called 911 and hour ago that there weren't any patrol units available in their neighborhood and that you had to drive from the other side of the city, approximately 15-20 miles away.

That's one of the many reasons why cops don't live in this city. We know how unsafe it really is.

You can hire all the cops you want, but as long as useless units (PSB, IA, AD, IG, CRID, FID, EES) keep expanding, and patrol keeps shrinking, it won't make a difference.

[Call Counter]

ASSUMING that all 37 make it through probation, and that all get assigned to patrol, that will put less than one additional car on the street per bureau.

Factoring in days off, vacation, TO, etc., it takes about 10 ofcrs to staff an A-car 24/7.

I concur with "Happy Cop," that there are plenty of pogues and other "specialized" cops that could be out on the street - literally TOMORROW - if they would choose to get them out there catching crooks and responding to the non-stop Code-2 and Code-3 calls.

[Dis and Dat]

I totally agree with what Happy Cop said about the reality of how many patrol officers are actually providing service to the citizens on any given day. There are still WAY too many officers who are doing clerical work inside an office instead of earning their pay by handling 911 calls and protecting the tax-paying citizens. I wonder how many taxpayers know that we have officers who don't even wear a uniform who do go-fer jobs like delivering documents from one City building to another (yes, I mean those who work the Discovery Unit at PSB). It's a damn shame.... Chief Bratton, if you are really sincere about serving the community, then cut the deadwood and put the sworn officers back on the street where they belong.

[DLH]

That's a sad commentary if there are not enough cops to handle 911 calls in the city. What's the difference if a 100 cops graduate from the academy and another 100 leave the department.

[THE.CASTLE]

I hear you knocking Happy Cop. The second division in the city on a night not to long ago, deployed 6 officers on morning watch. They can't even set up a perimeter! Some of these speacial units are needed, but right now we are short handed. Our PM watch is working O/T almost every night on the weekends, don't get me wrong, we appreciate the paychecks, but it's because our morning watch is so short, they can't pick up the calls that come out when we are supposed to be relieved. With all this "year of the gang" b.s., and the valley outta control, the real issue, is'nt being addressed, and we are going to be the ones to pay for it, the patrol cops. In the short 7 years I have had the opportunity to work, gangs havent changed. It has changed in the valley, thats for sure, and because it's the valley, now people care. I'd like to say to send all those "slaps" that work inside, back out to patrol, but then they havent done anything for years, so they are'nt gonna be much help. But when it all comes down to it. POLITICS....and the backbone of this dept, is always on the bottom. We always get shit on....do the most with less right....oh, and ofcourse, write some tickets...

[In the know...]

Much of this manpower shortage could be alleviated if the LAPD would beef up their Reserve program, but their last Reserve Academy that started after a year long search only had 7 recruits.

I along with 8 others who were going through the LAPD Reserve process was DQ'd for a very petty non-issue in the psych interview. This was after soaring through every step of the application with flying colors. All 8 of us who were DQ'd went together to another agency and made it through the process with no problems whatsoever, with the exception of two, who rightfully should have been DQ'd.

When asked in my psych interview why I was DQ'd by the LAPD, the psychologist responded to my answer by saying that it was a very stupid and petty reason to DQ someone, but wasn't surprised one bit.

Their were 45 Reserve recruits in my class, with two other Reserve classes with 40+ each going on at the same time. We now proudly wear the uniform of this other well known and respected agency and we work in some very tough neighborhoods. We bring a wide variety of life & professional experience as well as maturity to the table and both the department and community benefit.

We are able to work a shift when a full timer wants the day off, so everyone wins...except the LAPD. The important thing to keep in mind is that all of us applied to the LAPD first and would all be wearing LAPD Blue today if not for the petty nature of some and the apathy of our situation by another individual who knew about it in the LAPD.

We are just 8 out of how many other good candidates who were DQ'd? The problem with manpower within the LAPD is not the lack of applicants, it's what happens to them once they enter the funnel of the whole application process that is run by the civilians in the personnel department, most of whom, I'm sure don't even like cops.

Our situation is well known by the powers that be within the LAPD and we were all told that there was nothing they could do because the personnel department calls the shots. I also have to say that none of us felt that one individual in the LAPD who knew of our situations and had every reason to challenge the personnel dep't on our DQ's, could have cared less and only wanted to do their two year stint in LAPD Personnel and promote out without ruffling any feathers.

The psychologists protect themselves by claiming that everything to do with psych is highly confidential, so nobody can review the psych file to see if the DQ is bogus.

It's amazing to me that this situation has been allowed to exist and the people who suffer are the citizens of LA who are now paying more in trash collection fees so the city can afford to hire more police officers....most of whom will get DQ'd

[JB]

The Department has a whole DIVISION called Audit Division, a consent decree division, a risk management division, and a BUREAU for professional standards. The classifications of each these places gives you a clue to enormous resources (ie manpower) used to staff these assignments. I would guess over 1000 officers are assigned to these divisions. Is there a reason we cant do more with less at these divisions? The Department will sacrifice officer safety and public welfare (basic police service)to police the police. Once again we are so concerned with politics and "risk management issues" we have lost our way. Let's get back to basics; staff the basic cars, get the pogues out of their cushy chairs and into a black and white. Real police work, no more officers pushing papers and conducting frivolous investigations.

[L.A. Resident]

Happy COP said,
You can hire all the cops you want, but as long as useless units (PSB, IA, AD, IG, CRID, FID, EES) keep expanding, and patrol keeps shrinking, it won't make a difference.

******

Happy Cop,

What are
(PSB, IA, AD, IG, CRID, FID, EES)

units the non-cop is not going to understand this lingo

LA resident

[Edgar Friendly]

And for those of you who think that The Castle means there were 6 patrol cars with a total of 12 officers - no, what that means is there are 3 - count 'em, 3 - whole patrol cars to handle an area of some 200-300,000 people. Hhhhmmm, something wrong with 1 patrol car for about 100,000 citizens, wouldn't you say? And on some nights, yes there are lots of officers deployed, but they are assigned to "specialized" units - Z cars, FB units, etc. Nice idea, but these units are not available to handle calls, which means that you are back to your 3 patrol cars handling all the calls for service - many of the non-priority calls take hours to get handled, if they get handled at all....

[Jim Reed]

The posts are correct. There are too few street cops to handle the call load.

When I came out of the academy back in the dark ages (over 30 years ago), Wilshire Division would run all 9 Basic A Cars on each of the three basic watches. On Mid PM's we deployed 14 to 16 X cars every night of the week. This was back when the total department only had 6900 officers total.

Makes one wonder where all the patrol officers have gone now that the department is over 9000.

When I left Wilshire in 1982, the mid PMs deployment had shrunk to about 4 or 5 X cars per each night.

Someone needs to take a hard look at the deployment. More police officers on the job but fewer in the field handling calls for service. Hint, too many inside clerical jobs?????

[Detective]

All very true. Detectives face the same crunch. A case load unheard of. Yet so many specialized units.

Patrol, there is none. It is simple, Get the building officers, including very young P-2s and P-3's, and put them to work. Fill those spots with Civilians, who have an expertise.

And P3's, teach officers how to do follow-ups, not just write reports. Better an arrest report then a PIR. Remember writing reports in the car, To many officers in the station for hours...

[Jim Reed]

I still write my investigations in the car so as to be available for hot shots and back ups. Too easy to go to the station to do them on the computer and then kill another hour doing nothing. That was not how I was taught back in the dark ages.

The public is entitled to more and better protection. Unfortunately, new P1's are taught the lazy way to do things. If I have a good lead on a body, I will always follow up on it even if the suspect is not located. Better info for the detectives for a later follow up.

[Dragnet]

Each of you raise some very interesting points, so I wanted to provide you with some deployment numbers to help you arrive at a conclusion. Like Jim Reed wrote, there did seem to be more cars in the field during the early 1980s, but we were working 8 hours shifts and each division did not have its own Gang Detail, formerly CRASH.
Also 20 years ago the city was not as populated as it is now. According to the Deployment Numbers as of April 1, 2007, there were 206 supervisors/detectives assigned to IAG and 77 supervisors/officers/detectives assigned to Audit Div and Risk Management Division. There are approximately 4,400 Police Officer I, II and III assigned to patrol City wide. This does not include detectives or supervisors.