CAPTURING THE MOMENT POLICE PHOTOS DOCUMENT L.A.'S GRITTY HISTORY OF CRIME-FIGHTING.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Reality TV shows like ``Cops'' never had shots quite like these: infamous murderers like Charles Manson and famous crime scenes like the ``Black Dahlia'' murder caught in the lenses of police photographers.

Welcome to one of the most bizarre - and surprisingly artistic - photographic exhibits ever: ``To Protect and Serve: The LAPD Archives - 100 Years of Photography,'' which starts a citywide tour Monday in Van Nuys.

Created from long-forgotten - and in many cases badly decomposing - negatives, the photographs were salvaged by Los Angeles Police Department reserve Officer Merrick Morton and turned into a powerful pictorial display.

``I think there is something immediate and gripping about crime scenes,'' said Carolyn Kozo Cole, curator of 2.5 million photographs at the Los Angeles city library. ``Life is chancy and I think crime scenes show us we are vulnerable at any moment.

``I think that knowing a photograph is a true crime-scene photograph has so much more power to it than watching a film of a crime, or terror, because we know it's real. We don't see it as a photograph, we look into it and see it as real.''

The century's worth of LAPD crime scene photographic negatives were forgotten amid a mountain of boxes at the Los Angeles Records Center until Morton took an interest in the film-noir-like images.

Fire Department officials thought so little of the negatives they recommended destruction of the silver nitrate images, dating from 1925 to 1955, because of the potential fire hazard.

But Morton, an Echo Park Fototeka gallery co-owner, got approval from Chief Bernard C. Parks last summer to save the 400,000 negatives taken by photographers in the LAPD's Scientific Investigation Division.

``This is a treasure chest of materials that came very close to being destroyed,'' Parks said. ``I decided we had the opportunity to show the community some really first-time views of some significant historical photos. The general population has never seen most of these photographs.''

Morton and LAPD Sgt. John Thomas waded through 15,000 negatives and made prints of 200. The photographs depict the seamy history of Los Angeles, and have attracted national attention and buyers.

The subjects include President John F. Kennedy at Los Angeles International Airport, former Chief William Parker on the set of ``Dragnet'' with actor Jack Webb,'' the burned-out Tap City Beer brewery after the 1965 Watts Riots and the 1963 picture of the famous ``Onion Field'' attack that left an LAPD officer dead.

The most popular photograph is a 1955 homicide showing a man's body next to a tire underneath a bridge over the Los Angeles River.

``From an artistic standpoint, you look at it and it's pretty powerful,'' Thomas said. ``That has been the most popular and most in demand.''

A 1929 photograph shows detectives popping out of a bootlegging tunnel.

``As an escape route, bootleggers had dug an underground tunnel to get away from the police,'' Thomas said. ``It's a very interesting photo and gives insight into what Prohibition in the city of L.A. must have been like.''

In a more graphic 1933 photo, two mobsters lie slumped over plates of food at a restaurant table with bullet holes in their necks and heads.

``To Protect and Serve: The LAPD Archives - 100 Years of Photography'' exhibition starts a citywide tour Monday at the Los Angeles Police Federal Credit Union, 16150 Sherman Way in Van Nuys. It then will be featured at each of the department's 18 community police stations, including the Devonshire Division on Jan. 7, Van Nuys Division on Jan. 14, Foothill Division on Jan. 21 and North Hollywood Division on Jan. 28.

Those wanting to purchase prints may contact the gallery at [phone]. Part of the proceeds will go toward preserving the negatives.

The interest in the photographs, which are fetching as much as $300 each for prints, stems from the fascination with real-life crimes investigated by a department made famous worldwide on TV and in movies.

Morton, a reserve officer for 15 years, held an exhibit of the photos at his gallery in September that drew thousands of people. He is a still photographer who takes pictures of stars on film sets for publicity purposes.

The exhibit grew out of his desire to produce a show of LAPD photos. He scoured the Los Angeles Police Historical Society's holdings but they were mostly public relations shots - not the gritty black-and-white crime scene images he wanted.

He remembers being told ``hell will freeze over'' before he would gain access to them. So Morton contacted Thomas, an aide to Parks and a member of the historical society who created the 2001 calendar depicting 114 years of service by African-American LAPD officers.

Thomas said Parks liked the idea and gave them to the go-ahead. But the Fire Department wanted the negatives destroyed because of the fire danger.

``The chemicals in the film had apparently started to break down,'' said Todd Gaydowski, a management analyst at the city Records Center. ``It was kind of forming a sticky secretion on the negatives. The Fire Department sent someone out to test it and they determined it was highly flammable.''

Morton met with city officials who agreed to move the negatives a climate-controlled archival facility in Van Nuys.

Throughout the summer, Morton; his wife, Robin Blackman; Thomas and Los Angeles County Museum of Art Associate Curator of Photography Tim Wride went through the negatives to locate the diamonds in the rough.

``The artistic part to me is certain photographers had a certain eye,'' Morton said. ``You can be taught to be proficient in the use of a camera, but you can't be taught an eye for it. Certain images have a certain artistic look.''

In the next few years, city officials hope volunteers will go through the rest of the 400,000 negatives to find the rest of the gems.

``The ones they selected for display seemed to have that film noir characteristic,'' Gaydowski said. ``It looked like an old detective movie. It was the outfits and uniforms that showed a different time period in Los Angeles history.''

LAPD PHOTO ARCHIVES

``To Protect and Serve: The LAPD Archives - 100 Years of Photography'' exhibition starts a citywide tour Monday at the Los Angeles Police Federal Credit Union, 16150 Sherman Way, Van Nuys. It then will be featured at each of the department's 18 community police stations, including the Devonshire Division on Jan. 7, Van Nuys Division on Jan. 14, Foothill Division on Jan. 21 and North Hollywood Division on Jan. 28.

Those wanting to purchase prints may contact the gallery at [phone]. Part of the proceeds will go toward preserving the negatives.

CAPTION(S):

6 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Sgt. John Thomas looks through archived LAPD crime-scene photos he and reserve Officer Rick Morton culled for exhibition.

(2) Sgt. John Thomas stands in front of a display of the LAPD's historical crime photos at its Parker Center headquarters.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer

(3) This 1970 photo from the LAPD archives shows members of the infamous Charles Manson Family in court for an arraignment.

(4) LAPD detectives emerge from an escape tunnel made by alcohol bootleggers in this photo taken in 1929, the height of Prohibition.

(5) Unkempt and slight of build, murder mastermind Charles Manson still wears an air of menace in these LAPD photos taken in 1969.

(6 -- ran in Bulldog edition only) President John F. Kennedy greets LAPD officers at Los Angeles International Airport in this 1962 photo, part of the department's exhibit of archived images.