EDITORIAL REACTIVE POLICING LAPD STRATEGY SHIFTS CRIME FROM PLACE TO PLACE.

THE good news is the Los Angeles Police Department is bolstering its efforts to stop speeders and drunk drivers from endangering residents of the San Fernando Valley.

The bad news is it took five dead Valley residents in two days to make it happen.

That's how the LAPD operates under Chief William Bratton. It reacts to crises after they happen, rather than preventing them ahead of time. And that's probably all L.A. residents can hope for.

The LAPD is so badly understaffed that there aren't enough cops to be everywhere they're needed. So Bratton chases the statistics. If there's a rash of gang violence in one neighborhood, they saturate it with cops; if there's a high number of car accidents in another, they step up the traffic patrols.

All of which is fine and good, but in a department without enough cops to meet its basic needs, shifting officers from one area necessarily means leaving other areas uncovered.

So when the department concentrated on gang activity in South Los Angeles, gang activity - and gang violence - shot up in the Valley. Now, after much carnage on Valley streets, Bratton's beefing up patrols, but at whose expense, and for how long?

Until city leaders rationalize the way they spend money and invest the savings in more cops, crime in Los Angeles will never be brought under control, it will just keep getting displaced.