The LACP Question of the Week ... the community response

The following input is related to the article about the November 8th Community Policing Roundtable, and is the community response to the LACP Question of the Week ...

Please be sure to read the community comments below ... but, meantime:

"What question, comment or suggestion do you have for the Mayor and Chief?"

If you were not able to attend the recent Community Policing Roundtable discussion, or attended but didn't get to speak, this is your opportunity to ask a question or make a comment or suggestion to Mayor James Hahn and Chief William Bratton. We thought we'd give an opportunity for the community-at-large to participate in this dialogue.

Comments from the LACP community:

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Ron Pangaliman, Hollywood - Nov. 13

Police Chief Bratton,

I have just returned from the Hollywood Division Area Summit meeting that was conducted in the Hollywood Area. We discussed the homeless problem in Hollywood.

Attending the meeting were all of the SLOs' of our division. Also attending was the Commanding Officer, Captain Michael P. Downing and our Community Relations Officer, Officer Chantelle Barrett.

In attendance were 50 plus community people from the neighborhood.

We discussed Quality of Life, The Law, Reasons and solutions. We broke off into groups to discuss these points.

We also had presentations by the Vice Squad and also the Gang unit.

I came away from this summit still believing that the community has to become involved with the problems in their area. The police can only do so much.

By becoming involved then people can see all the work that the police have done and are doing on the homeless problem. Letting the homeless know that there are City, County and private organizations in place to address their problems. Whether their problems be health, shelter or food available for their needs.

Its time people quit critizicing our police officers and beome involved with them to address the problems that all areas have.

We are lucky in the Hollywood area to have a Captain Downing, Officer Barrett and SLOs' that care and communicate to the neighborhood community. I would like to extend an invitation to you to attend one of our community meetings and to see what is being done already to address the problems that the Hollywood Division is experiencing.

Thank you,

Mr. Ron Pangaliman
Hollywood

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Yolanda, Boyle Heights - Nov. 12

Dear Bill,

Has anything come out of the meeting we had at Resurrection [Church]? (see the article from 10/29/02 Commission / Chief meet in Hollenbeck)

What are they planning to do? I would like to make a couple suggestions:

1. Have point checks in Boyle Heights for drugs, car registrations and guns. On Fri. Sat. Sun.

2. Have one of our Assembly persons legislate removal of tattoo parlors. Mexican families make their children get tattoos at a young age to identify families and powers. Especially on their necks. Parents should be punished for doing this to young kids under 14 years of age.

3. Have check points outside the bars in the area.

4. Street vending in Boyle Heights is on the rise again. With Xmas coming the Gangs control this poor people. They must pay them a fee for a block or street they do vending. Just a couple things I know are going on.

Yolanda
Boyle Heights

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Anonymous - Nov. 12

The chief must realize graffiti and gang boldness are tied together.

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Corinne Simon-Duneau, El Sereno - Nov. 7

[talked to me just before the meeting]

Corinne commented:

"We need to make the officers accountable for results." She said she's aware that a component of the COMPSTAT system may be designed to do this.

(Corinne asked, tongue in cheek, "Is there's a version for politicians and government officials, too?")

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Frank Wada, Hollenbeck C-PAB, Lincoln Heights - Nov. 7

[asked me to bring up these topics before the meeting]

Frank asked LACP to covey the importance of getting the officers out on the streets. He said the gangs recruit by being on the streets, and so should the officers.

[please see the LACP "Adopt A Block" article]

Frank noted that footbeats are especially popular, especially in commercial districts, and stressed that one-on-one interaction was vitally important. There's no substitute for this.

Lastly, Frank noted that Neighborhood Watch was an excellent tool to bring people into the community policing system and said they could be promoted through both the Senior Lead Officer program and City Council Offices.

[Please see LACP article "Back to Basics - Neighborhood Watch"]

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Everett Littlefield, Northeast C-PAB, Silverlake - Nov. 7

[this email was sent to me before the meeting]

Dear Bill,

Below are a few suggestions to keep in mind for your meeting with Mayor Hahn and Chief Bratton:

Some of these suggestions are things we have talked about and that you were more than likely going to talk about anyway … that is if you are given the chance:

1. The LAPD in the past has been media driven which has not been too favorable. The perception needs to be made known that goals and successes of the LAPD are being met which gives the officers a sense of being on a winning team and the community in turn have more confidence and trust in them. LACP provides that information that has improved the perception of the LAPD.

2. There is a need for a Los Angeles City oversight commission of all the state, county city agencies, (both public and private) who are involved in the prevention and intervention of crime, especially for youth. There is a lot of undue duplication of efforts and no known criteria to measure any results. As much as building cooperation, partnerships, and coalitions between agencies is talked about as an ideal, there is still a lot of undue competition between the agencies that diminishes their efforts to get over-all results.

3. There is a need for a Los Angeles Youth Resource Directory to be on the Los Angeles city web page that lists all the local agencies both public and private interest groups that offer programs and services to the Los Angeles youth. There are now several general directories published by city agencies not targeting any one particular group that need to be consolidated into one directory, possibly one for youth and another for parents. These directories could be published in hard copy as well and be in every public library and school library.

4. A lot of the prevention and intervention programs for youth (16 of them) of the LAPD are promoted and funded but several of the programs are not functioning at some of the Divisions due to a lack of personnel to promote them. Several of these programs could very well be manned by civilian personnel and or volunteers which would relieve a lot officers from these programs and get them back out on patrol.

Have a good meeting!

Everett
Silverlake

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Bill Murray, Los Angeles Community Policing (LACP) - Nov. 7

Had I been asked to speak I might have talked about the mandate I have heard for accountability and monitoring by the community.

I'd have suggested that we need to better explain to both the officers and the residents that Community Policing is a philosophy, a mindset and a way of doing business ... not a program or even a set of programs. We need to provide training about what this means to every officer in the Department (I mentioned this to Chief Bratton privately, and he agreed wholeheartedly).

I believe we need to look at how to re-build the Community-Police Advisory Boards, and other programs, promoting the need and desire for real partnerships at almost all levels of the Department, and giving the community real jobs to do. Culturally, the LAPD needs to learn it's OK to ask for help and open its arms to the community. "If you build it, they will come …"

I'd have said we need to explore supporting the many volunteers who do community work for LAPD with modest funding for their programs as needed, relieving them of having to come out-of-pocket so often.

Bill