We’re No. 1 Again, Gates Tells Police in His Year-End Message

The Los Angeles Police Department has regained its status as the best in the world, Chief Daryl F. Gates declared Tuesday in a year-end message to the rank and file.

“We’re back on top, and you’ve done it,” Gates said in a 51-minute videotape distributed to each station house to be played at officer roll-calls beginning Tuesday night.

The chief made no effort to explain when or for what reason the Police Department might have lost its self-proclaimed status as the world’s best municipal police force. However, the department in recent years has been beset by several scandals--including disclosures that detectives assigned to the since-disbanded Public Disorder Intelligence Division spied on hundreds of law-abiding citizens.

In his message, Gates said that the Police Department’s performance during the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles did much to restore the image of the force and that the department continued “on a roll” through 1985.

Repeatedly using terms such as “tremendous” and “outstanding,” Gates singled out nearly every major unit in the department for “magnificent” actions in 1985.

The city’s overall crime rate, he pointed out, dropped slightly for the third consecutive year.

Gates seemed particularly pleased with the department’s anti-narcotics efforts. This year, those efforts resulted in the confiscation of 14 tons of marijuana, 1 tons of cocaine, 1 1/2 tons of methamphetamines, 35 pounds of heroin, 1,379 firearms and $12 million in cash, he said.

“The Los Angeles Police Department is way, way out in front in the war on drugs,” Gates said.

At the same time, he conceded that illegal drugs remain pervasive in Los Angeles and warned officers not to use them.

“You better get out of it if you’re a Los Angeles police officer, because we’re going to find out who you are and we’re going to get rid of you,” Gates said.

Gates also repeated an earlier promise to “obliterate” street gang violence. The Police Department has not been as successful in dealing with the gangs as it had hoped to be, so new anti-gang strategies are being considered, he said.

“We can’t have little bands of bandits controlling parts of this city; we simply can’t have it,” Gates said.

Among other goals in 1986, the Police Department plans to continue hiring minority and women officers, Gates said. In 1985, the number of blacks in the 7,000-officer department grew from 697 to 788, Latinos increased from about 1,000 to 1,084 and the number of women officers climbed from 468 to 528.