Operations-South Bureau ... a not too rosy status report
Police Commission asks what can be done to curb the violence
September 10, 2002

(NOTE: After reading this article click here for 77th Division Follow-up Report - September 16th)

Chief of Police Martin Pomeroy, who stated he understands the time he'll hold this office is growing short, has asked the Commanding Officers of the four LAPD Bureaus to make presentations to the Board of Police Commissioners.

Chief Pomeroy said he's requested them to appear one at a time at concurrent weekly Commission meetings, so that as he prepares to leave Los Angeles, and return to retirement in Montana, the Board will have a current Status Report from each quadrant of the Department -- the South, Central, West and Valley Bureaus.

Deputy Chief Willie Pannell, Commanding Officer of Operations South Bureau, was asked to come to Parker Center first. Nattily dressed in a dark business suit, the tall easygoing Deputy Chief presented the Commission with his perspective on the state of his recently acquired command, which includes four LAPD Divisions -- Southeast, Southwest, 77th Street and Harbor Divisions. He didn't paint a pretty picture ... According to Deputy Chief Pannell, South Bureau accounts for 40 - 45% of all homicides city-wide, and about 50% of all aggravated assaults in the City.

Deputy Chief Willie L. Pannell

Perhaps 80% of the violent crimes in South Bureau involve the use of guns, and about 70% are gang related.

77th Street Division is in the worst shape, with around 80 homicides year to date, and conditions in Southeast Division are also bad.

Forces have been borrowed from other Divisions to try to augment the overworked patrol officers, and the Bureau has established its own Special Enforcement Unit (SEU), the designation for the groups of officers at LAPD who specialize in dealing with gangs.

The rate of homicides in 77th Street Division has slowed recently, reports Pannell, but surrounding areas have experienced an increase. He says this needs to be addressed.

South Bureau statistics show that over 1300 gang members have been arrested, and 1600 guns have been recovered so far this year, and while 77th Street and Southeast Divisions have the highest crime statistics they have the biggest arrest stats, too.

Harbor Division has experienced a recent spike in homicides, but these did not appear to be gang related. They were the result of domestic disputes.

The Chief said Narcotics officers were still playing catch-up, and were probably 40% behind last year. About 2500 narcotics arrests have been made by patrol officers, and only about 400 by narcotics officers.

Although there have been a lot of arrests made, many spend little or no time in jail. The short amount of time spent incarcerated is exacerbated by a reluctance of witnesses to appear in court.

Chief Pannell reported that he's been working with a variety of organizations in the community staging peace marches and other events, in an attempt to teach the residents to cooperate and participate with law enforcement (please see a list of some such events below). He said a number of community leaders had been helping, and he was grateful, but that he hoped for a stronger partnership with the schools.

The Neighborhood Prosecutor program is working very well in South Bureau, and there's a Probation officer in each of the four South Bureau stations, but Chief Pannell thinks there should also be a system of "Neighborhood Courts," so that it would be easier and quicker to bring justice to the community.

Non-profit organizations continue to play an important role, and the Chief wants to continue to work with them. They need to show the positive effect they are having so that they can be renewed for grants, and are motivated to participate.

At this point Commission President Rick Caruso interjected some comments. He said he was concerned that the "gang activity is getting completely out of hand." He asked if the Department is targeting their efforts against gangs, saying, "I don't hear what the strategy is," and he asked if there was a plan to go after the more senior members, the gangs' leaders. He said he felt that the best way to have an immediate effect on a group was to "cut off the head."

Chief Pannell responded that it was difficult to determine who the leaders were, and who was in charge of what in these gangs.

President Caruso said that while talking to the candidates for Chief recently the Board had asked them about this as well. He said Los Angeles was not alone with having to deal with serious gang problems. According to Caruso, there appear to be "best practices available out there" and he asked if the LAPD was going out to other cities like San Diego, Chicago, San Jose and Boston (to name a few) to investigate what was working in other police departments.

The Department should be looking into what was effective elsewhere, with an eye towards implementing similar strategies in Los Angeles.

He understood, for example, that Boston at one time seemed to have had an effective program, and had gone a full two years without anyone under 17 being killed in gang related incidents. Had LAPD looked at how this was done? Had it looked at other city's programs?

Chief Pomeroy responded to President Caruso that the Department was preparing a report that would describe the various gang programs now in place at LAPD. It could be expected within two weeks. Chief Pomeroy said it would compare how things were at the beginning of the year to what exists now.

In response to a question about whether gang truces were effective, Chief Pannell said they were, but that they also were hard to hold together. He is trying to work closely with a variety of groups on intervention, mentioning Ted Hayes prominently but saying there were "others" too, and reported they were trying to reestablish gang truces.

Commissioner Silvia Saucedo asked, "What kind of oversight do you give to the separate Divisions?" She said it must be possible, for example, to look at the FASTRAC statistics and determine where and when the most of crime was likely to occur, say on a given night shift, and then to relegate resources accordingly.

Pannell replied that his assistant was in constant contact with each of the Division Captains who served as the four Area Commanding Officers. They share resources as well as they can, responding to the biggest needs. But, he said, he's "locked in" with respect to staffing, and that the implementation of the 3/12 program hurt the Bureau's ability to respond quickly, to make immediate changes. Officers who'd already been on duty for three days on twelve hour shifts were not likely to be called back for a forth or fifth day. Not only might they be tired and ineffective, this could be dangerous, too.

Commissioner Saucedo said she was shocked when she recently paid a visit to one of the South Bureau stations (77th Street?) on a Friday night. She said in a six hour period there were six homicides, and the Division was not able to respond to them all.

According to Chief Pannell, who was not aware of which evening she was referring to, "staffing levels are inadequate at all times." In any case, it is difficult to foresee crime spikes. They deploy according to expectations as best they can.

Commissioner Rose Ochi commented that if she understood what Chief Pannell had reported 50% of the aggravated assaults in the City belonged to South Bureau.

Chief Pannell replied that South Bureau had the highest rate of domestic violence in the City, followed by Central Bureau. He'd met with Councilmember Jan Perry only the day before, to deal with programs that deal with this issue.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Here are some of the upcoming events:

FREE EVENT Sept. 14th (11 am) ...
77th Street Division's Community-Police Advisory Board is hosting a Community Meeting on Saturday, September 14, at the Van Meter Center, 606 E. 76th Street. Councilwoman Jan Perry has been invited. Your presence would greatly be appreciated. Updates and information concerning Community Relations and issues that need to be addressed and expressed by members of the Community. For more information contact Beverly Collins, 77th Street Division C-PAB Beverly278@aol.com 323 / 696-1235 or Officer Ted McHenry, 77th Street Division Community Relations at: 213 / 485-4285

"STOP THE KILLIN' CAMPAIGN" - peace marches, caravans, community meetings and the like ...
As a response to the sharp increase in murders in the City of Los Angeles, the "STOP THE KILLIN' CAMPAIGN" officially kicked off this year on March 29. Regular events are held, many coordinated by the CRDP (Central Recovery and Development Project - Ed Turley, Director - 323 / 231-5407). The next event is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 20th. (Visit the CRDP website: http://www.crdp-gang-intervention.org or click here to read about the Stop the Killin' Campaign.

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October is Domestic Violence Month. LA Community Policing will be featuring a series of articles and reports about domestic violence in coming weeks. We'll be listing a variety of events both here on the LACP.org website and on the LACP Calendar especially designed to point out the need for all Angelenos to pay attention to this very important issue, and about how it effects the quality of life in LA.

There are two such events already listed, both in October:

FREE EVENT Oct. 3rd (8 am - 4 pm) ...
The 5th Annual "Ending Violence Against Women Conference" - Cal State Northridge. A major free conference - people from all walks of life will come together to help create a world without violence against women, youth and children.

FREE EVENT Oct. 19th (10 am - 3 PM) ...
"Parenting, Youth and Families; raising a community" presented by United Communities to Stop Violence of which LA Community Policing is a partner (click to see the Raising a Community flyer) - Bravo High School, adjacent to County USC Medical Center.

Please see the LACP Calendar for details.