A Los Angeles city councilman called Friday for a re-examination of Police Chief Charlie Beck’s strategies for addressing last year’s crime spike, which include transferring patrol officers to a centralized Metropolitan Division.
The current strategy of moving 200 officers to the Metro division, essentially doubling it, “doesn’t appear to have made a big impact,” and there are questions about whether the practice could deplete patrol resources, Englander said earlier this week.
Los Angeles Police Department officials have said the expanded Metro division team can be “flexibly deployed to rapidly respond to crime spikes.”
The proposed hearing was prompted by a request by the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents sworn, rank-and-file LAPD officers.
In a letter dated Wednesday, LAPPL President Craig Lally blasted Beck and linked the chief’s policies to the increase in crime.
Lally wrote that “the steady escalation of crime in our community has gone unchecked for far too long.”
“Chief Beck has told you and the residents of Los Angeles that there is nothing to worry about. He’s not telling the truth,” Lally wrote. “Every day our patrol officers hit the streets understaffed. We have too few officers covering larger and larger portions of the city. This leaves many neighborhoods unprotected.”
Los Angeles last year saw an overall 12.6 percent rise in crime, ending a 12-year trend of declines, according to the LAPD. Violent crimes were up 20.2 percent in 2015, compared with the previous year, while property crimes increased by 10.7 percent.
“This is a very disturbing trend,” Englander said in a statement. “While many of the factors that influence crime rates are out of the direct control of the LAPD, it is critical to understand how the department is deploying the resources.”
Englander’s motion also would invite police union officials and representatives of the Los Angeles Command Officer’s Association to offer “their own analysis” and ideas for tackling the crime spike during the hearing.
Englander told City News Service that officers have complained that they are “being run thin right now.”
“We have just as many officers right now in the police department as we did when we had the lowest crime a couple years ago and yet the crime is spiking,” he said. “The economy has improved, yet the crime is spiking.
“I certainly have a lot of questions … as we start going into next year’s budget,” which will include discussions about “how we’re going to deploy our limited resources toward law enforcement to make a better impact,” he said.
Englander also said that while he believes deployment practices, initiatives and day-to-day department practices should be left up to Beck, elected members of the City Council have a responsibility to ask questions about them.
LAPD officials blame the crime spike on the possible effects of Proposition 47, which reduced penalties for some offenses even though treatment services have yet to be made available.
Changes in the way aggravated assaults are reported, more domestic violence victims coming forward and the rise in homelessness could also have contributed to the higher crime rates, according to the LAPD.
LAPD officials said they have implemented “proven strategies” to fight crime more effectively, which include the expansion of the Metro division and the doubling of zones served by city’s gang prevention and intervention programs.
Such measures “have not only reduced the much higher crime rates of past years but have shown positive results in the last quarter of 2015 and the initial weeks of this year,” according to a recently issued LAPD statement.
Department officials have also noted the crime rate is still 21 percent lower than a decade ago, with about one-third fewer homicides than a peak of 1,094 murders in 1992.
Relations between the chief and the union were strained when Beck called last week for charges to be filed against LAPD Officer Clifford Proctor for the May 5 shooting death in Venice of an unarmed homeless man named Brendon Glenn.
“I don’t do this lightly and in the vast majority of the time, as you well know, I stand up for you, regardless of public opinion,” the chief told officers in a video. “But in this case, I had to call it like I saw it. I had to do the right thing.”
Police union officials accused the chief of flagging in the face of political and public pressure. Jamie McBridge, an LAPPL director, said that by making public his recommendation to charge Proctor, Beck engaged in “nothing short of political grandstanding” to curry favor with department critics.
Officers, he said, have “lost any and all confidence” in his ability to lead the LAPD.
“He would be delusional to believe otherwise,” McBride said in a statement last week.
— City News Service