by Art Marroquin

Daily Breeze Newspaper

June 7, 2010


Los Angeles International Airport's police department lacks the necessary equipment and recognition from state and local authorities to properly handle 911 calls placed from terminals, airport Police Chief George Centeno acknowledged Monday.

Responding to a complaint from the union representing airport police officers, Centeno told the City Council's Public Safety Committee that emergency calls at LAX are therefore routed to the Los Angeles Police Department's dispatch center.

"If I had my own department, and it was as important as one of your facilities as LAX is, just that facility alone warrants you being as efficient and effective and being able to coordinate with whatever jurisdictions are showing up," Los Angeles City Councilman Tony Cardenas told Centeno.

Miscommunication, "I think, is not acceptable if I were the head of a department," Cardenas said.

Although the airport police department's dispatchers have received proper training over the last several years to deal with emergency calls, LAX has not spent any money to significantly upgrade its 911 phone system, Centeno said.

Additionally, LAX has not sought out recognition as a so-called public safety access point from the county and state 911 coordinators so that emergency calls could be handled by the airport police - a separate police force charged with securing the facility - rather than the LAPD.

"Up to this point, it has not been looked at or reviewed, but certainly we will look into that now," Centeno said.

The council committee directed airport police and the LAPD to report back in July on any progress in developing a separate 911 communications system at LAX.

The issue was brought to the City Council's attention last month, when the head of the airport police union said a team of LAPD officers stationed near Marina del Rey responded to a 911 call that shots were fired inside a terminal last November.

Airport police officers were not aware of any incident until they saw an LAPD helicopter and cruisers responding to the call, which was ultimately unfounded, said Marshall McClain, president of the Los Angeles Airport Peace Officers Association.

"There's a breakdown somewhere," McClain said. "And we want to fix that."

LAPD Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger said he's been working with airport police to improve communication between the two agencies. Airport police officers have been alerted each of the 13 times that the LAPD has been called to LAX since March, he said.

"As much as I recognize that there may have been situations where we could have dropped the ball, there has been an enormous amount of work between now and in November 2009 where we have re-calibrated the manner in which we respond to calls for service," Paysinger said.

However, just two weeks ago airport police were not notified of a 911 call placed inside the Tom Bradley International Terminal, where a passenger reported an assault with a deadly weapon. The call was directed to the LAPD, which dispatched a dozen officers and one supervisor, McClain said.

By the time LAPD officers from the Pacific Division arrived, the suspect was already handcuffed by airport police.

"Had it not been for one of our officers being flagged down, we would have had no idea what was going on," McClain said. "These are not isolated incidents."