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Los Angeles Police Department

Encyclopedia : L : LO : LOS : Los Angeles Police Department

Parker Center-LAPD's Headquarters
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Parker Center-LAPD's Headquarters

"LAPD" redirects here. For , see .
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is the police department of the City of Los Angeles, California. With over 9,000 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of 473 square miles with a population of nearly 4 million people, it is the third largest law enforcement agency in the United States (trailing behind the New York Police Department and Chicago Police Department). The LAPD has had a rich history, including occasional incidents of brutality and corruption. The agency is famous world wide and has been heavily fictionalized in numerous movies and television shows.

It has been said that the department has suffered from chronic underfunding; that in comparison to most large cities, it has one of the lowest ratios of police personnel to population served and thus 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.") Yet the LAPD's own web site shows five of the ten largest cities in the United States with lower officer to resident ratios in their [LAPD news release of January, 2006]. Notably, the largest city in the United States (New York) has a 33% lower crime rate with a 14% lower ratio.

Contents

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.[link]

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. 



Headquarters

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Headquarters








"To Protect and to Serve"

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"To Protect and to Serve"








LAPD Academy

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LAPD Academy






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 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[link]. 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 [link].




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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 African-American officer 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 in which two bank robbers armed with automatic rifles and wearing body armor shot twelve responding officers and seven bystanders. 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 feature real LAPD officers and what they do.


Mayor Hahn replaced Airport Police Officers with LAPD Officers in the LAX terminals, stating the public feels much safer when they first enter Los Angeles and see a Los Angeles Police Officer. On May 17, 2005, Los Angeles voters rejected a plan that would merge LAPD and Los Angeles Airport Police. The argument against this proposal is that Los Angeles Airport Police officers have had extensive training at Airport Security. And LAPD would have to be trained in this new function. LAPD officers are still assigned to terminals in the LAX airport.  


In 2006, the LAPD announced relocations of two LAPD stations, including the headquarters (to replace Parker Center), and Hollenbeck Community Police Station. Hollenbeck Community Police Station is the oldest of all LAPD stations and is being replaced because back then (1950s), police stations were not open to the public. Thus, the new Hollenbeck station will be open to the public.


Also in 2006, the LAPD announced the groundbreaking for two new Community Police Stations.  The groundbreaking for the 20th station, Mid-City Community Police Station, was on May 4, 2006.  Groundbreaking for the 21st station, Northwest Community Police Station, was on May 11, 2006.


The Northwest Community Policy Station will be formed from parts of the existing West Valley Area and Devonshire Area in the Operations-Valley Bureau.


In 2006, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proposed raising trash fees to hire about 1,000 LAPD officers in five years.



LAPD organization




Presently, the Los Angeles Police Department is organized as follows:





Central Patrol Division Building

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Central Patrol Division Building









Note:  The Mission Area 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.


Note:  The Real-Time Analysis & Critical Response Division began operations in March 2006;  It is comprised of the Emergency Operations Section, which includes the Department Operations Center Unit, Department Operations Support Unit and the Incident Command Post Unit; Detective Support Section and the Crime Analysis Section.



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. [link]


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]





LAPD in the media













NOTE 1 In order to trick Viva La Bam star Bam Margera on MTV's Punk'd, Ashton Kutcher received special permission from the LAPD to use the real LAPD SWAT team [link].








  • The Offspring released the song "L.A.P.D." on their 1992 album Ignition. The lyrics referred to the ongoing scandals of brutality within the department.



LAPD Chiefs of Police



Name 
 Term


Jacob T. Gerkins 
 December 18, 1876-December 26, 1877


Emil Harris 
 December 27, 1877-December 5, 1878 


Henry King 
 December 5, 1878-December 11, 1880 


George E. Gard 
 December 12, 1880-December 10, 1881 


Henry King 
 December 11, 1881-June 30, 1883


Thomas J. Cuddy 
 July 1, 1883-January 1, 1885 


Edward McCarthy 
 January 2, 1885-May 12, 1885 


John Horner 
 May 13, 1885-December 22, 1885 


James W. Davis 
 December 22, 1885-December 8, 1886 


John K. Skinner 
 December 13, 1886-August 29, 1887 


P.M. Darcy 
 September 5, 1887-January 22, 1888 


Thomas J. Cuddy 
 January 23, 1888-September 4, 1888 


L.G. Loomis 
 September 5, 1888-Sept. 30, 1888


Hubert H. Benedict 
 October 1, 1888-January 1, 1889 


Terrence Cooney 
 January 1, 1889-April 1, 1889 


James E. Burns 
 April 1, 1889-July 17, 1889 


John M. Glass 
 July 17, 1889-January 1, 1900 


Charles Elton 
 1900-1904


William A. Hammell 
 1904-1905


Walter H. Auble 
 1905-1906


Edward Kern 
 1906-1909


Thomas Broadhead 
 1909


Edward F. Dishman 
 1909-1910


Alexander Galloway 
 1910-1911


Charles E. Sebastian 
 1911-1915


Clarence E. Snively 
 1915-1916


John L. Butler 
 1916-1919


George K. Home 
 1919-1920


Alexander W. Murray 
 1920


Lyle Pendegast 
 1920-1921


Charles A. Jones 
 1921-1922


James W. Everington 
 1922


Louis D. Oaks 
 1922-1923


August Vollmer 
 1923-1924


R. Lee Heath 
 1924-1926


James E. Davis 
 1926-1929


Roy E. Steckel 
 1929-1933


James E. Davis 
 1933-1938


D. A. Davidson 
 1938-1939


Arthur C. Hohmann 
 1939-1941


Clemence B. Horrall 
 1941-1949


William A. Worton 
 1949-1950


William H. Parker 
 1950-1966


Thad F. Brown 
 1966-1967


Thomas Reddin 
 1967-1969


Roger E. Murdock 
 1969


Edward M. Davis 
 August 29, 1969-January 16, 1978 [link]


Robert F. Rock 
 January 16, 1978-March 28, 1978 


Daryl F. Gates 
 March 28, 1978-June 27, 1992 


Willie L. Williams 
 June 30, 1992-May 17, 1997 


Bayan Lewis 
 May 18, 1997-August 12, 1997 


Bernard C. Parks 
 August 12, 1997-May 4, 2002 [link]


Martin H. Pomeroy 
 May 7, 2002-October 26, 2002 [link]


William J. Bratton 
 October 27, 2002 -present [link]




See also



References



External links



















 





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