Governor Hasn’t Given Police Aid, Bradley Charges

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley criticized Gov. George Deukmejian on Wednesday for not giving financial aid to local police departments, although Bradley said he would not provide such assistance if elected governor.

The conflicting and confusing statements were made in a speech and press conference here as Bradley sought to blunt Republican Deukmejian’s attacks on him on the crime issue.

The Democratic gubernatorial nominee’s remarks came a day before the Deukmejian reelection campaign planned to launch an attack on Bradley, charging that the mayor has been an ineffective crime fighter. The fly-around offensive, scheduled to hit several California cities today, will star a cast including former Los Angeles police chief and now state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia), former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Robert Philibosian and local law enforcement leaders.

That trip will complement television commercials with the same message, already on the air, and Bradley clearly was aiming Wednesday to blunt the Deukmejian assault in his talk to a $100-a-plate fund-raising lunch.

Bradley homed in on Deukmejian’s claim that he has increased law enforcement financing.

“I would ask any city official, has he given your city--he hasn’t given my city--a dime to increase the police department?”

Deukmejian, Bradley said, has done “nothing to help with putting more police on the streets.”

State law enforcement fiscal increases, Bradley said, have gone for “corrections officers, state highway patrolmen, for the state police. They’re not out on the streets fighting crime.”

After the speech, Bradley was asked by reporters if he would increase direct economic aid to local government for more police in the event he defeats Deukmejian on Nov. 4.

“No, no,” replied the mayor.

Then why was he criticizing the governor for failing to provide such aid?

“I am criticizing the governor for claiming to be such a strong law-and-order supporter and doing nothing, in fact, that would entitle him to make such a claim,” Bradley said.

But, a reporter asked, “You wouldn’t provide such aid yourself?”

“I don’t think it is appropriate, I don’t think it is necessary,” Bradley said. “Cities are struggling along, funding their own police departments. But the governor ought not to take credit for what we are doing in our own cities.”

Asked to amplify that answer, Bradley said: “I’ve never proposed the governor increase financial assistance to law enforcement in our cities.”

Again the mayor was asked why, in that case, he was criticizing the governor.

“I am criticizing him not for his failure to do so but for the impression he seeks to give that he has done so much to increase funding. That’s just not so. He has done nothing in any city in this country to reduce the crime rate, to help us fight the the crime problem. And that’s the point I want to get across.

“So don’t claim you’re such a great law-and-order supporter when you’re not doing anything to help local police departments, mayors and city councils who are doing very good jobs in their own communities.”

In its flight around the state today, Deukmejian aides said, “Duke’s Flying Law Enforcement Squad” will make appearances in Sacramento, in front of Los Angeles police headquarters at Parker Center and in San Diego.

Previously, Deukmejian has charged that the number of sworn police officers has dropped during Bradley’s tenure as mayor. Bradley replied that the department, cut back in 1978 after passage of Proposition 13, now has about the same number of uniformed officers as when he became mayor--and more police officers out on the street.