EDITORIAL MUSICAL COPS MOVING OFFICERS AROUND WON'T MAKE UP FOR THE SHORTAGE IN THE LAPD'S RANKS.THE city's decision to temporarily relocate 20 tough Metro Division police officers to fight gang violence in the Northeast Valley is a welcome step but doesn't go anywhere near far enough to meet the community's needs. The same is true of plans to investigate Pacoima-area gangs in hopes of seeking a court injunction that will bar these hoodlums from associating together. That will take six months or longer to implement. The recent escalation es·ca·late v. es·ca·lat·ed, es·ca·lat·ing, es·ca·lates v.tr. To increase, enlarge, or intensify: escalated the hostilities in the Persian Gulf. v.intr. of gang violence in the Valley and other parts of the city demands far more vigorous efforts than the city has put together both in terms of intervention and law enforcement. City officials have been painfully slow to respond and their response is painfully inadequate. Besieged be·siege tr.v. be·sieged, be·sieg·ing, be·sieg·es 1. To surround with hostile forces. 2. To crowd around; hem in. 3. by those who care more about protecting the rights of gangsters than of law-abiding people, the Los Angeles Police Department "LAPD" and "L.A.P.D." redirect here. For other uses, see LAPD (disambiguation).  This article or section is written like an . can offer no more than a Band-Aid response to the escalating violence. Shuffling a few street-savvy cops around from hot spot to hot spot is like pulling your finger from one hole in a dam to plug up another. The real problem is that the LAPD 1. LAPD - Link Access Procedure on the D channel. 2. LAPD - Los Angeles Police Department. doesn't have enough officers to go around and as each day passes, more and more patrol officers are being pulled off the streets to become watchdogs on the few who are actually putting their lives on the line fighting crime. Crime will continue to rise even as the department chokes on more and more paperwork needed to fulfill the demands of so-called reformers. Already, crime is up 8 percent Valleywide, and 10 percent throughout the city. Yet the heightened demand for officers has been met by a diminished supply, with the LAPD unable to recruit new cops or retain old ones. A nationwide recruiting effort has flopped, and now the LAPD stands 1,000 officers short of its goal of 10,000. A new study from the University of Southern California The U.S. News & World Report ranked USC 27th among all universities in the United States in its 2008 ranking of "America's Best Colleges", also designating it as one of the "most selective universities" for admitting 8,634 of the almost 34,000 who applied for freshman admission and the University of California, Los Angeles UCLA comprises the College of Letters and Science (the primary undergraduate college), seven professional schools, and five professional Health Science schools. Since 2001, UCLA has enrolled over 33,000 total students, and that number is steadily rising. , shows that morale in the department is so low that 57 percent of LAPD officers would take jobs elsewhere if they could. Who can blame them? The climate of hysteria hysteria (hĭstĕr`ēə), in psychology, a disorder commonly known today as conversion disorder, in which a psychological conflict is converted into a bodily disturbance. that has consumed the department has turned every petty complaint into a capital investigation. In the past year, the number of complaints investigated within the department has doubled. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the USC-UCLA study, 80 percent of LAPD officers fear getting punished for an honest mistake. And the imminent arrival of a federal monitor from Janet Reno's Justice Department will further damage morale and undermine the authority of officers to do their jobs. The Northeast Valley, which has seen five gang attacks in the past two weeks, is merely the place where the LAPD's weaknesses are now most evident. But as crime continues to grow and the size of the force continues to shrink, the trouble will spread. The LAPD has problems that no amount of officer-shuffling or injunctions will repair. Controlling crime in Los Angeles Crime in Los Angeles has been a major problem in Southern California and concern for Angeleno residents since the early 20th Century. Crime has steadily decreased since the 1990's but since 2006, crime has increased. first requires regaining control of the LAPD - and that demands leadership. |
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