Notes from the August 7, 2024 Police Commission Weekly Meeting

•Commissioner Ordin requested as a future agenda item a status report on all investigations pertaining to the May Day incident at MacArthur Park.

•The Department's goal for crime reduction for the year 2007 remains 5%, as confirmed by Chief Bratton.

•The Chief reported the second recruit class for fiscal year 2007-2008 has 51 recruits, with the ethnic breakdown of 2% African American, 51% Hispanic, 8% Asian, 4% Filipino, and 35% Caucasian.  12% are female and 88% are male. 

•There are currently a total of 398 recruits in the Academy.  On August 17, 2007, 60 recruits will graduate.

•The Department hiring goal for fiscal year 2007-2008 is 780 recruits.  The Department hired 731 recruits in fiscal year 2006-2007 and 545 recruits in fiscal year 2005-2006.

•At the August 14, 2024 Police Commission weekly meeting, the Department will make a presentation on deployment, including a section featuring deployment in the San Fernando Valley.  Chief Bratton stated that, if the Valley were viewed separately from the rest of Los Angeles, it would rank #11 on the list of the nation's biggest cities.  Furthermore, it would rank #2 on the list of the nation's safest big cities.  The Valley, which is similar in size to Chicago and has far less police officers, is actually safer than Chicago. 

•The Executive Director reported that negotiations with IBM for the in-car video cameras are still in progress. 

•The Executive Director reported that a representative from the City Attorney's office will make a presentation on the Safer Cities Initiative at the August 14, 2024 Police Commission weekly meeting.

•The Department's report, relative to approving a $480,000 grant award entitled, "Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act (JJCPA) Program," for the period of July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2008, was approved.

•The Department's report, and the Inspector General's report, relative to the Complaint, Form 1.28, Investigations Audit-Phase II, Third Quarter, Fiscal Year 2006/2007, in accordance with the Annual Audit Plan, was approved.

•The Department's report, and the Inspector General's report, relative to the Ethics Enforcement Section Quarterly Report, First Quarter 2007, in accordance with the Annual Audit Plan, was approved.

Comments

[LB]

Smoke and mirrors. The valley is understaffed and response times are up. Some divisions will assign a Z-car to stop the clock on hot calls.

I'll just tell citizens after showing up 2-3 hours later(or sometimes not at all) that they live in the second safest city in the US.

The Dept has over 9,500 officers. Yet the Division where I work has only 6-8 officers on duty past 2am.

In car videos??? We can't even get the new MDC's to access the internet so we can access Dept resources in the field to save a trip to the station. We can't type reports on it either. And where is the touch screen and keyboard light? How about the liability factor there?

And what about our radios? The batteries keep falling off or disconnecting, and our radios shut off. We are forced to use pocket knives to try to fix the battery connections in the field.

My apologies for the long rant. We are out here doing our best with the little we have.

It's no wonder a lot of officers try to get out of uniform patrol.