MAYOR ORDERS PROBE OF FALL IN LAPD ARRESTS.

Byline: Rick Orlov and Jaxon Van Derbeken Daily News Staff Writers

In his latest criticism of the LAPD, Mayor Richard Riordan ordered an investigation of a reported drop in arrests - calling the decline disturbing in the face of beefed up resources.

The request to Police Commission President Deirdre Hill for the inquiry is the latest in a series of dissatisfactions expressed by Riordan regarding the management of the department under Chief Willie L. Williams.

In an interview, Riordan said he wasn't personally questioning Williams, but rather reacting to "this information coming out."

However, police officials charged the mayor reacted to the numbers reported in the Los Angeles Times - stating arrests have dropped from 290,000 to 189,000 in the past five years - without considering the quality of the arrests. They said the Los Angeles Police Department has become more selective in making arrests.

"When you look at our highest period of our arrests, back in 1989 and earlier, we were doing a couple things then that raised the ire of the community," Assistant Chief Bayan Lewis said.

"Remember we had the Hammer? We would do that monthly, which were citywide task forces that would stop anybody who looked like a gang member and make an arrest. Then we started mini-Hammers, we were making a large number of arrests that were really of questionable value, the majority of them were never filed."

In response to the mayor's comments, Williams issued a statement saying the LAPD is as aggressive as police forces in other major cities.

Earlier in the day, Williams said the department acknowledged after the Rodney King beating by officers that some police might back away from encounters out of fear of being sued or disciplined.

"We tried to find ways to give our people better tools and training to deal with aggressive behavior," Williams said.

But, Williams said the primary reason for the decline in arrests is better tactics.

He said the LAPD holds itself to higher arrest standards today, saying it is no longer so concerned "about the number of tickets you write."

"Another thing is we don't assume that someone with baggy pants and a short haircut . . . that they are subject to random police investigation."

But, Riordan, who ran for office on a tough law-and-order platform, said in an interview the public expects police to make arrests for a wide variety of crimes.

"They're not doing a lot of the simple arrests that people complain about - panhandlers, vagrants, people that dump things in neighborhoods," Riordan said, citing examples of classes of crimes he believes aren't being pursued enough.

Riordan's letter expressed frustration that the decline in arrest numbers coincides with efforts to beef up the department.

"Today we have the largest force of sworn officers than ever in the history of the department, buttressed by over $15 million in private-sector funds to computerize the department so that officers can have the tools of the '90s to fight the criminals of the '90s."

Riordan long has made clear his dissatisfaction with the management of the LAPD under Williams, and allowed the commission to try to reprimand him last year over allegations he lied about taking a free room in Las Vegas. The City Council overturned the reprimand, but the relationship between the chief and mayor has never eased.

Hill issued a statement, in which she agreed to the investigation.

"We, in the public need to understand the true significance of these statistics," Hill said.

Riordan said in his letter that he wants the inquiry to evaluate the significance of the statistics, and for it to be completed within 60 days.

"These are questions to which the residents of Los Angeles deserve to have meaningful answers," Riordan said.

Williams acknowledged ongoing disagreements with Riordan, but said the two continue to work together.

"The mayor and I have never not talked," Williams said. "I, as chief of police, would never allow a situation to occur where I didn't have access to the mayor. We probably get along 1,000 percent better than the most conservative reporting has said.