LAPD RESPONDS FASTER GREATER USE OF LIGHTS, SIRENS SHAVES TIME - SAFELY, SO FAR.

Byline: Jason Kandel Staff Writer

Five months after the LAPD ordered officers to use lights and sirens for most emergency calls, response times have plummeted from 11 to seven minutes in the San Fernando Valley and even lower in some parts of the city, records show.

The change in procedure has meant a fivefold increase in the number of times police turn on their lights and sirens when responding to 911 calls - from an average of about 500 a month in the Valley to 2,529 in the most recent one-month period, according to Los Angeles Police Department records.

Police recorded a 7.1-minute median response time in the Valley Bureau - which historically records the slowest response times in Los Angeles because of its greater distances - compared with the citywide median of 6.7 minutes.

Before police changed their designation of emergency calls in May, response times were more than 11 minutes in the Valley and 10 minutes citywide. About half of the city's 441 square miles are in the Valley, which has 39 percent of the 7,300 miles of streets in Los Angeles.

``I'm pleased with it,'' said LAPD Deputy Chief Ronald Bergmann, who heads the Valley Bureau.

``We have reduced our response time to emergency calls a large amount. Most of the Valley now is about seven minutes. We are getting to the emergency calls faster, with a minimum of traffic accidents, which is what everybody was worried about.''

In the most recent statistics available - for Sept. 19 to Oct. 16 - the fastest median response time was 4.9 minutes, recorded during the morning watch, midnight to 8 a.m., in the Hollywood Division.

The slowest time was 9.5 minutes in the Northeast Division during the night watch - 4 p.m. to midnight, usually the busiest of the department's three shifts.

The fastest Valley response was from the Van Nuys Division, recording a median time of 6.3 minutes during the 8 a.m.-4 p.m. day watch. The slowest response in the Valley was 8.3 minutes, recorded during the day watch in the Foothill Division.

Fears that collisions would increase - when police were more frequently exceeding the speed limit and running red lights - have been groundless so far, officials said. Officers recall only one crash involving a police car in the Valley since the policy change.

``Our number of traffic collisions has not increased,'' said Capt. James Miller, who heads the Van Nuys Division. ``What we've found is that officers are becoming more accustomed to driving with their lights and sirens on, so they actually drive more cautiously.''

Still, many critics are reluctant to sign off on the program.

``Five months is far too short a time to draw any final conclusions,'' said Gerald Silver, president of the Homeowners of Encino.

``It is, though, moving in the right direction. We know response time is down. But I think it would be prudent for the LAPD to carefully track before-and-after traffic accidents, property damage and fatalities.''

Previously, emergency calls were dispatched on a two-tier system: Code 2-high calls did not get a lights-and-siren response, and officers had to obey all the traffic laws. The designation was for situations considered not routine, but not flat-out emergencies.

In life-threatening emergencies, serious public hazards and reports of violent crimes in progress, a Code 3 response brought lights, siren and exemption from traffic laws.

The LAPD has eliminated the Code 2-high designation. Dispatchers now usually call for Code 3 response in situations that would have been labeled Code 2-high. A few of them are downgraded to Code 2, defined as ``urgent.''

``It should have gone in years ago,'' Councilman Dennis Zine, a retired LAPD sergeant, said about Code 2-high. ``This is something that many departments have done years and years ago. We're Johnny-come-lately to this.''

Jason Kandel, [phone]

jason.kandel(at)dailynews.com

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SOURCE: Los Angeles Police Department

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