911 CELL CALLS TO SWITCH FROM CHP TO LAPD IN `06.

Byline: - Dan Laidman

In the not-too-distant future, the Los Angeles Police Department could receive an additional 500,000 calls per year.

The LAPD is preparing for a flood of new emergency calls expected to pour in as local law enforcement agencies begin fielding 911 calls placed on cellular phones, communications that currently go through the California Highway Patrol.

The LAPD will start taking cellular 911 calls in January, officials told the Board of Police Commissioners on Tuesday, and will slowly phase it in throughout the city. The department plans to implement the new plan slowly because it remains unclear how many new staff members will be required to handle the calls and at what cost.

``Our understanding is that no other jurisdiction that's taken over 911 has had to add any staff, but none of them are as large as we are,'' said Peter DiCarlo, police administrator in the department's Information and Communications Services Bureau. ``We're the largest in the state, one of the largest in the nation, so we just don't know what to expect.''

The CHP is shifting responsibility for the calls to local agencies at the behest of the Federal Communications Commission. Such a transfer poses unique challenges for Los Angeles because of the city's massive size, its many freeways, and its many borders with other jurisdictions, DiCarlo said.

To avoid impacting existing police services, the LAPD will start taking 911 cell calls in early 2006 only in the city's Central Division and add other areas slowly.