EDITORIAL FLASHLIGHT FUTILITY FEEL-GOOD LAPD POLICY DOES NOTHING TO MAKE LOS ANGELES SAFER.

IN Los Angeles, we trust cops to protect us from the most hardened of criminals. We trust them with the safety of our children. We trust them to patrol our streets and uphold our laws.

But apparently we can't trust them with a full-size flashlight.

That seems to be the message from the Police Commission, which has acceded to Chief William Bratton's request to buy lightweight flashlights - at a cost of $500,000 - for all Los Angeles Police Department officers. The move, opposed by the union representing LAPD cops, comes in the wake of the televised flashlight-beating of car-theft suspect Stanley Miller.

The change in flashlight policy is only another step in a long series of ``reforms'' to take away cops' ability to subdue violent suspects. The commission imposed a moratorium on chokeholds back in the 1980s. So cops started using their batons, but in the 1990s, after the Rodney King fiasco, the LAPD severely restricted its officers' ability to use them.

Now, when faced with an unruly suspect, a cop has neither the chokehold, the baton nor even a hefty flashlight, which leaves him or her with what means of self-defense?

The gun.

This is supposed to reduce the use of excessive force?

And in a city with a Police Department as woefully short-handed as the LAPD, does it make sense to spend a half-million dollars buying 10,000 new flashlights, rather than hiring five new cops or providing better training so officers do a better job of dealing with difficult situations?

Leaving police officers outnumbered and inadequately outfitted is no way to make the city - or the brave men and women protecting it - any safer.