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Los Angeles Police Department

The Los Angeles Police Department (usually known as the LAPD) is the police department of the City of Los Angeles, California. It is one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the world with over 9,000 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of 467 square miles (1209 km²) with a population of around 3.4 million. LAPD has had a rich and controversial history, including incidents of brutality and corruption. The agency's exploits have been heavily fictionalized in Hollywood movies and television shows.

For decades, the department has suffered from chronic underfunding. In comparison to most large cities, it has one of the lowest ratios of police personnel to population served; the current chief, William J. Bratton, has made enlarging the force one of his top priorities.

As a result, Los Angeles residents subscribe heavily to private security services, which in turn are a far more common sight on the streets of Los Angeles than in any other city in California.

1 LAPD in the media
2 See also
3 References
4 External link

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 , he 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.

During WW I the force became involved with federal offenses and much of the force was organized into a special Home Guard. Postwar 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 anti-corruption and reforming mandate. 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 institued a "Red Squad" to attack Communists and their offices.

With the replacement of Mayor Frank L. Shaw the city gained a reformist mayor in 1938 with 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 the war, 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 Jan. 15, 1947, murder of Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia.

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 interm chief until 1950, when William H. Parker was chosen in tight competition with Thad Brown.

Parker served until his death in 1966, the longest period in office of any Chief. Fortunately for the LAPD Parker was an excellent leader, he reorganized the LAPD structurally but also in the demands he made of his force for 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 SWAT (1972); he retired in 1978.

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 G. King related rioting in April and May and the damaging Christopher Commission Report, and was replaced by Willie L. Williams , the fiftieth chief, the first black 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 corruption scandal. In 2002, William Bratton replaced Parks.

LAPD in the media

See also

References

  • Miles Corwin; The Killing Season ; Simon and Schuster; ISBN 068480235X; (hardback, 1997)
  • Miles Corwin; Homicide Special: A Year With the LAPD's Elite Detective Unit; Henry Holt and Co. ISBN 0-8050-6798-1; (hardback, 2003)
  • Daryl F. Gates; Chief: My Life in the LAPD; Bantam; ISBN 0-553-56205-3; (hardback, 1992; paperback 1993)
  • Police Capt. Art Sjoquist; History of the Los Angeles Police Department; Los Angeles Police Revolver and Athletic Club, (hardback, 1984)
  • Charles Stoker; Thicker'n Thieves; Sutter and Co., (hardback, 1951)
  • Joseph Wambaugh; The Onion Field; Delacorte Press; (hardback, 1973)
  • Jack Webb; The Badge: The Inside Story of One of America's Great Police Departments; Prentice-Hall; (hardback, 1958)

External link

  • Official web site http://www.lapdonline.org/




Last updated: 02-16-2005 08:09:24
Last updated: 05-03-2005 17:50:55